News — civil war

The origin of the second civil war was rooted in the previous conflict waged between 1989 and 1996 which saw former rebel leader Charles Taylor become president of the entire nation, following UN-monitored elections in 1997. The country remained at peace only two years before LURD began its military campaign. Most of LURD were Mandingo and Krahn fighters led by Sekou Conneh. Many of them had been part of the rebel group, United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), which had fought in the first Liberian civil war against Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) as well as the government of President Samuel Doe.

In September 2000, to weaken support for the rebels from the government of Guinea and Sierra Leone which was now also supporting LURD, Taylor persuaded anti-government dissidents in both nations to form the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). They along with some of his paramilitary supporters began insurgencies and thus expanded the conflict to three nations. His action drew condemnation and opposition from the UN as well as support for Guinea and Sierra Leone from Great Britain and the United States.

By early 2002, LURD troops had outmaneuvered Taylor’s forces and were only about twenty-seven miles from Monrovia, the capital. Under leaders Conneh and Thomas Nimely, LURD troops mounted successful raids that bypassed government strongholds, and in May, they staged a bold attack on Arthington, less than twelve miles from Monrovia.

By early 2003, a second rebel group called the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), backed by the government of Côte d’Ivoire, emerged in the south to challenge the Taylor government as well. By May 2003, Taylor controlled only about one-third of Liberia. With rebels closing in on Monrovia from all sides, President John Kufuor of Ghana, then chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), convened a peace conference in Accra to work out a negotiated agreement that would avoid further bloodshed in a four-year conflict that had already taken nearly three hundred thousand lives. When Taylor appeared initially reluctant to support the peace process, Leymah Gbowee formed an organization called “Women of Liberia Mass Action in Peace” which, after a silent protest outside the presidential palace, extracted a promise from the Liberian head of state to attend the peace conference in Accra.

By July, even as peace talks were taking place in Accra, LURD forces reached the outskirts of Monrovia and began a siege of the capital. In the subsequent shelling of the city, over one thousand civilians were killed and thousands more were made homeless. On July 29, LURD declared a ceasefire which allowed ECOWAS to send to battalions of mostly Nigerian troops to the capital as peacekeepers.  As it became increasingly apparent that his government would not survive the siege, on August 11, 2003, President Charles Taylor resigned and flew to exile in Nigeria. Three days later, two hundred American troops landed to support ECOWAS troops. On August 18, the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) announced the forming of the National Transition Government of Liberia with Gyude Bryant as president. The agreement also scheduled Liberia’s first post-civil war national election for 2005. In that election, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the twenty-fourth president of Liberia and the first woman to head an African nation. Sirleaf continues to hold the office of president, and over a decade after the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement was worked out, Liberia remains at peace.

The Third Congo Civil War—also known as Africa’s World War—was a five-year conflict that occurred primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Nine African countries eventually became involved in the war other than the DRC: Angola, Chad, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. The Third Congo Civil War became the deadliest conflict since World War II.  An estimated 5.4 million war-related deaths occurred and more than twice that number were displaced from their homes and sought asylum in neighborhood countries.

The Third Congo Civil War evolved out of Laurent-Desire Kabila’s victory over Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. Once Kabila became president of the DRC, his relations with previous allies like Rwanda and Uganda quickly deteriorated. In July 1998, Kabila ordered all officials and troops from Rwanda and Uganda to leave the country.  Instead on August 2, 1998, those troops began supporting rebels who were intent on overthrowing Kabila. Two days later, Rwandan troops flew directly from their nation to the DRC province of Bas-Congo (now Kongo Central) which the intention of joining other Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers and March on the capital of Kinshasa.  Their goal was to drive Kabila from power and replace him with leaders from the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RDC).

The Rwandan attempt to overthrow Kabila was prevented by the intervention of Angolan, Zimbabwean, and Namibian troops. The leaders of these nations, while not strong supporters of Kabila, nonetheless feared a precedent when foreign troops invaded another nation to overthrow its government.

Rwandan soldiers and the RCD withdrew to the eastern DRC and began a long campaign against the DRC Army and its new foreign allies.  In February 1999, a new rebel group called Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC) backed by Uganda formed in that nation.  They allied with the RDC and the Rwandan troops and invaded the eastern Congo in August 1999. At this point two rebel groups challenged the Kabila-led Congo government and five African nations had troops fighting in the county.  Three nations—Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia—supported the Congo government while Rwanda and Uganda opposed that government.

By the end of the summer of 1999, two rebel factions backed by the Rwandan and Ugandan Armies and their Hutu militias, controlled much of the eastern Congo. While the fighting was going on, cease-fire talks began in July 1999 in Lusaka, Zambia.  A cease-fire agreement was signed among the warring factions in August 1999 called the Lusaka Accord. None of the factions, however, keep their promises made at Lusaka and the fighting continued.

On January 16, 2001, DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila was assassinated by his bodyguard Rashidi Muzele in Kinshasa. Kabila’s son Joseph Kabila succeeded him as president of the DRC and began new negotiations with the warring factions to end the fighting. On April 2, 2003, the Pretoria Accord was finally ratified in Sun City, South Africa.  Within months Rwandan, Angolan, Namibian, Ugandan and Zimbabwean troops withdrew from the Congo.  Two months later on July 18, 2003 the war was over.

The Mozambican Civil War was a 15-year conflict that occurred between May 30, 1977 and October 4, 1992 in the southern African country of Mozambique.  Although ostensibly an internal civil war, the conflict was in fact a proxy war between the Soviet Union which backed the Mozambican government and the United States which supported the insurgents. The war occurred two years after Mozambique officially gained its independence from Portugal. The main belligerents were the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) led by President Samora Machel which controlled the central government and the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) led by André Matsangaissa. It was estimated that one million people died during a 15-year conflict in a country which in 1990 had a population of 14 million.

The background of the war goes back to 1976 when troops from white minority-controlled Rhodesia entered Mozambique to carry out operations against the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) which had bases in Mozambican territory. The Rhodesian troops freed André Matsangaissa, an ex-FRELIMO official who had been arrested and imprisoned.  Matsangaissa joined RENAMO which was formed in 1975 in opposition to FRELIMO and quickly rose to become its leader.  When Matsangaissa was killed in 1979 after an unsuccessful attack on a Mozambican regional Centre, Afonso Dhlakama became the new leader of RENAMO.

FRELIMO was strongest in the cities and major towns of Mozambique during much of the civil war while RENAMO operated mainly in the countryside.  It continued the fight against the Mozambique central government even after the white minority regime in Rhodesia was replaced by Robert Mugabe who renamed the country Zimbabwe. Mugabe and his government now supported FRELIMO but RENAMO gained the support of Kenya and South Africa.

RENAMO carried out raids on towns and occasionally smaller cities. To gain more troops it recruited civilians into its army—including child solders—after mass abductions.  RENAMO also had imposed a system it called Gamdira whereby villagers were required to produce food, transport goods and ammunition, and village women were forced to be sex slaves.

As the war continued both sides began using brutal tactics including land mines. RENAMO however attempted to stall the economy and destroy confidence in the central government by mining roads, schools, and health centers.

The war continued into the 1980s with FRELIMO losing most of Mozambique’s territory although keeping control in the urban areas.  FRELIMO got support and aid from the Soviet Union, France, and the United Kingdom while RENAMO got its aid from South Africa, Kenya, and covertly from the United States.

On October 19, 1986, President Samora Machel died when his plane crashed near South Africa’s border. It was unclear how and why the plane crashed or whether RENAMO or even South Africa was responsible. Joaquim Alberto Chissano succeeded Machel as president of the country where, because of the nine-year conflict, hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans were dying from famine which was caused by both FRELIMO and RENAMO.

By 1990 neither side seemed to be winning the war.  Developments outside Mozambique, however, would soon bring an end to the fighting.  By 1990 South Africa was moving toward a black majority-controlled nation and the Soviet Union had fallen. FRELIMO and RENAMO were losing their major supporters and arms suppliers.  In 1990, Mozambique adopted a new constitution that included multiparty elections. In 1992, a peace accord was signed in Rome, Italy which allowed UN peacekeepers to enter the country.  Their presence effectively ended the war. In 1994, the first free elections were held in the country. Despite FRELIMO winning the majority, a portion of the population voted for RENAMO candidates.  The political rivalry continues but the military conflict is over.

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, was a three-year bloody conflict with a death toll numbering more than one million people. Having commenced seven years after Nigeria gained independence from Britain, the war began with the secession of the southeastern region of the nation on May 30, 1967, when it declared itself the independent Republic of Biafra. The ensuing battles and well-publicized human suffering prompted international outrage and intervention.

Carved out of the west of Africa by Britain without regard for preexisting ethnic, cultural and linguistic divisions, Nigeria has often experienced an uncertain peace. Following decades of ethnic tension in colonial Nigeria, political instability reached a critical mass among independent Nigeria’s three dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa-Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the southwest, and Igbo in the southeast. On January 15, 1966, the Igbo launched a coup d’état under the command of Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi in an attempt to save the country from what Igbo leaders feared would be political disintegration.

Shortly after the successful coup, widespread suspicion of Igbo domination was aroused in the north among the Hausa-Fulani Muslims, many of whom opposed independence from Britain. Similar suspicions of the Igbo junta grew in the Yoruba west, prompting a joint Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani countercoup against the Igbo six months later. Countercoup leader General Yakubu Gowon took punitive measures against the Igbo. Further anger over the murder of prominent Hausa politicians led to the massacre of scattered Igbo populations in northern Hausa-Fulani regions. This persecution triggered the move by Igbo separatists to form their own nation of Biafra the following year.

Less than two months after Biafra declared its independence, diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis fell apart. On July 6, 1967, the federal government in Lagos launched a full-scale invasion into Biafra. Expecting a quick victory, the Nigerian army surrounded and buffeted Biafra with aerial and artillery bombardment that led to large scale losses among Biafran civilians. The Nigerian Navy also established a sea blockade that denied food, medical supplies and weapons, again impacting Biafran soldiers and civilians alike.

Despite the lack of resources and international support, Biafra stood firm refusing to surrender in the face of overwhelming Nigerian military superiority. The Nigerian Army however continued to slowly take territory, and on January 15, 1970, Biafra surrendered when its military commander General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu fled to Cote d’Ivoire.

During this civil war, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people died daily in Biafra from starvation as a result of the naval blockade. The international reaction to the military conflict helped define how the world now views and responds to similar crises.

The Second Sudanese Civil War was an intense 22-year conflict between the central government in Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).  The war started in southern Sudan but spread to other places including the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile region. Two million people died in this conflict but the war also led to the creation of South Sudan as an independent nation in 2011.

The terms of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, which ended the first Sudan Civil War, were violated several times. In 1978, President Gaafar Nimeiry wanted to take control of the newly-discovered oil fields located on the border region between north and south Sudan.  In 1983, President Nimeiry violated the agreement by imposing Sharia Law across the nation and abolishing the mostly Christian Southern Sudan Autonomous Region.  Most South Sudanese people and other people who were non-Muslim living in the north were now punished by Sharia Law.

In response, rebels from South Sudan formed the Southern Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang, to fight the central government in Khartoum.  As in the first war, child soldiers were recruited by both sides but were more frequently used by the SPLA.  In April 1985, a coup occurred.  Nimeri was ousted and the new government rescinded his 1983 decree and made other overtures designed to reconcile the north and south. In May 1986, the new Khartoum government led by Prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and the SPLA led by Col. John Garang met in negotiations for the first time. At the same time the SPLA and other Sudanese political parties met in Ethiopia where they fashioned the Koka Dam declaration which called for abolishing Islamic law and convening a constitutional conference for the entire nation.

In 1988, the SPLA and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a political party in Sudan, agreed on a peace plan which called for a cease fire and the abolition of military pacts with Egypt and Libya which had supplied the Khartoum government with weapons.  In February 1989, the Sadiq al-Mahdi government approved the peace plan but fighting continued into the 1990s with atrocities and human rights abuses occurring on both sides.

In July 2002, the Government of Sudan and the SPLM reached an agreement known as the Machakos Protocol, named after the town in Kenya where peace talks were held.  The talks continued into the following year and finally on January 9, 2005, the Government of Sudan and the SPLA signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the civil war.  The agreement also called for the creation of South Sudan in 2011, six years after the war ended.

The Second Ivorian Civil War was a five-month conflict in the west African country of the Ivory Coast (also known as Côte d’Ivoire) between 2010 and 2011. The main belligerents of the conflict were the military of the Ivory Coast, led by President Laurent Gbagbo who also recruited Liberian mercenaries and had as his allies the Young Patriots of Abidjan; and the Ivorian Popular Front. The opposition New Forces were led by Gbagbo political rival, Alassane Ouattara, who also recruited Liberian mercenaries and had militia support from Rally of the Republicans (RDR).  The United Nations (UN) maintained a small peace-keeping force in the country and France had special forces members there as well. Their presence was critical when France decided to support Ouattara.  An estimated three thousand soldiers, members of various security forces, and civilians were killed in the conflict in a nation of 24 million people.

The conflict was initiated by the disputed 2010 Ivorian presidential election. Presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner of the contest but President Gbagbo immediately disputed the results claiming that there was extensive voter fraud. The international community, which included the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), all supported Ouattara and urged Gbagbo to step down. He refused and his followers soon initiated violence initially in Abidjan, the nation’s largest city.

On March 17, 2011, about thirty people were killed by central government-initiated rocket attack on a pro-Ouattara suburb of Abidjan. In the following days between March 21 and March 26 more violence occurred when fifty-two people were killed in Abidjan by supporters of Gbagbo. On March 28, 2011, the New Forces launched a military offensive across the country to drive Gbagbo from power.  They quickly captured a number of small towns and cities around the nation and on March 30, they took the capital, Yamoussoukro.

The following day, March 31, heavy fighting occurred in Abidjan as pro-Ouattara forces advanced through the city. At that point United Nations peacekeepers took control of Abidjan airport after pro-Gbagbo forces abandoned it. The fighting continued with claims of massacres by both sides.  The largest occurred in the town of Duekoue where an estimated 1,000 civilians were killed by both pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces. Another massacre was reported on April 7, 2011 in the towns of Blolequin and Guiglo where an estimated 100 bodies were found.

The brief war took an abrupt turn on April 11, 2011 when pro-Ouattara forces captured Gbagbo and placed him, his wife, and 50 supporters under arrest.  The capture was assisted by French special forces who now were ordered by their government to openly support Ouattara. After Gbagbo’s arrest, the fighting ended and Ouattara was sworn in as the new president of the Ivory Coast.

Ethiopia may be on the brink of “a civil war”, according to experts who have spoken on the decision of the country’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, to order a military attack in response to hostile forces who attacked an army base in the north of the country on Wednesday.

The semi-autonomous northern state of Tigray, administered by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), is a tensed part of the country where the ruling party insists Addis Ababa has no compelling authority. The north of the country also holds the bulk of Ethiopia’s military installation, a situation that resulted from the 1998 war with northern neighbor Eritrea.

Speaking on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ahmed said TPLF had”crossed the red line” with the federal army “that has been protecting the people of Tigray for more than twenty years”. Ahmed also said Tigray now regards the Ethiopian army as “a foreign army”.

A statement from the Office of the Prime Minister also said the federal government had “maintained a policy of extreme patience and caution” in the face of “months of continued provocation and incite for violence by TPLF”. But now, the federal government is on the offensive, launching attacks on TPLF in certain areas.

These attacks are expected to continue on Thursday.

The BBC also reports electricity, telephone and internet services in Tigray have been cut. Ethiopia’s parliament has also proposed deliberating on a motion that seeks to characterize the TPLF as a terrorist organization.

But a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, Nic Cheeseman, warned that “Ethiopia could come apart at the seams” if the government engages the TPLF in open conflict. A few other ethnic groups in the country are currently pushing to secede from Africa’s second-most populous country.

Cheeseman added that what has emerged in the country “looks a lot like the start of civil war in Ethiopia”.

The Tigray ethnic group constitutes only about 5% of the country’s population but is probably the richest. Tigray is represented by TPLF, which used to be led by former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

The TPLF backed out of a governing coalition headed by the current prime minister over disagreements with Ahmed. These disagreements have since devolved into violent tensions.