Hundreds of miles of dirt road wind through rebel-held Liberian territory. passing abandoned religious missions. closed rubber plantations and mud-brick villages that are mostly deserted. Occasionally’ a human skull is propped on a stake along the roadside. Teenage fighters brandish assault rifles at checkpoints as if they’re playing war rather than living it. Older rebels strut the streets festooned with bandoleers of mismatched bullets and juju charms made of cow’s hair to protect them in battle. They wear the plunder of war–construction helmets, company security badges. track suits, stereo headphones, swimming goggles and other paraphernalia–like badges of honor. And the organization they represent, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, may soon be running the country.
After a new round of peace talks collapsed last week, rebels besieging the capital, Monrovia, pushed to within a mile of the presidential mansion. If they succeed in ousting President Samuel K. Doe, who came to power in a bloody 1980 coup, many Liberians will be relieved. In a decade of corrupt and authoritarian rule, Doe has led his country to economic ruin. But many ordinary Liberians are also worried about what may come next. “At this point it’s difficult to have much hope,” says Joyce Mends-Cole, a Liberian exile and Washington representative of the humanrights organization Africa Watch. “I don’t know how we can pick up the pieces.”
The rebel onslaught often appears to be little more than a free-for-all by wellarmed street gangs. Beyond a few crude rules like the one requiring people to have rebel passes to move about, there is little apparent protocol. Exaggerated salutes are often followed by bellows of laughter. Sometimes it seems as if the guerrillas are trying to see who can shout the loudest to decide who should be in charge. Some rebels are members of the so-called small-boy unit. “[Rebel leader] Charles Taylor came here and said we soldiers should man the place,” said 14-year-old Solomon Davis, posted at the Mid-Liberia Baptist Mission in the rural town of Tapeta. “We are the small, small soldiers.”
Taylor counts Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon among his political heroes, but beyond a professed faith in capitalism, his goals are vague. “He is less than what people say about him, but more than what they think of him,” says one enigmatic leaflet posted in rebel territory. His commitment to democracy, in the view of senior U.S. officials, is “questionable.”
Libyan connection: Taylor led the initial incursion into remote Nimba County on Christmas Eve last year with a core group of about 150 men. The original force was reportedly trained in Libya and Burkina Faso. (Taylor denies the Libya connection, but several of his fighters do not.) The foreign-trained guerrillas are now called special commandos and stand above the regular rank and file, who were recruited en route to Monrovia and now number several thousand. One rebel said the special commandos could be identified because they carried AK-47s with folding stocks. Rebels of importance also carry walkie-talkies, although many don’t seem to function.
The primary motivation for many rebels is simply revenge. “The reason for the war is tribalism–that’s all,” says Dahn F. Saiyee, a 29-year-old nurse at a rebel clinic in Tapeta. The vast majority of the rebels are from the Gio and Mano tribes, while most of Doe’s remaining soldiers are from his own tribe, the Krahn. Krahn soldiers slaughtered hundreds of Gio and Mano civilians following a 1985 coup attempt, and again during the current fighting. Now rebels are seeking out Krahn and also Mandingo people accused of backing Doe’s troops.
If the rebels do take power, they will rule a devastated country. Even if Taylor can somehow mend tribal rifts, Doe has left the country $1.7 billion in debt and poised to become one of the only countries ever to be expelled from the International Monetary Fund. Further damage to the economy can be measured in the number of different vehicles and other goods “requisitioned” by the rebels. Trucks have been taken from the Firestone rubber plantation, from mining and lumber companies and from health clinics. School buses are used to transport fighters. Markings on one red jeep indicate it was “contributed by” the Toronto Zoo. Petty corruption is as prevalent among rebels as among government soldiers. A brusque “what do you have for me?” is the primary demand at rebel checkpoints. Ordinary Liberians might well pose the same question–to the rebels.
