Timeline Liberia
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National Motto: The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here."
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A19)
1809 Mar 15, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, first president of Liberia, was born.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1816 A project to repatriate freed slaves from American was begun by the American Colonization Society. It was supported by Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster and James Monroe.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A19)
1821-1867 The American Colonization Society helped some 13,000 black Americans go to Liberia.
(SSFC, 2/1/04, p.M1)
1822 Feb 4, Free American Blacks settled in West Africa. The first group of colonists landed at Cape Mesurado and founded Monrovia, named in honor of President James Monroe. They named their colony Liberia.
(HNPD, 7/26/98)(MC, 2/4/02)(NG, Feb, 04)
1822-1904 Some 23,000 immigrants, mostly from the US, arrived in Liberia.
(NG, Feb, 04)
1824 Aug 15, Freed American slaves formed the country of Liberia.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1836 Isaac Wade Ross, Revolutionary war hero, died in Mississippi. His will stipulated that his slaves should be emancipated upon his death, but only if they agreed to go to Liberia. The 1st of almost 200 were finally set free in 1848. In 2004 Alan Huffman authored "Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today."
(SSFC, 2/1/04, p.M1)
1847 Jul 26, Liberia became the first African colony to become an independent state. A mutual agreement between the settlers and the society created the republic of Liberia. More than 10,000 free blacks had moved there. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the Virginia-born son of free blacks, was elected the first president of Liberia, an African nation that grew out of the efforts of the American Colonization Society. Roberts made a state visit to the United States in 1851. The American Colonization Society supported setting up a colony for freed slaves in Africa as an alternative to American integration. [see Aug 26]
(HNPD, 7/26/98)(HN, 7/26/98)
1847 Aug 26, Liberia was proclaimed an independent republic. Freed American slaves founded Liberia. They modeled their constitution after that of the US, copied the US flag, and named their capital Monrovia, after James Monroe, who financed early settlers. Over the decades 16,400 former slaves made the voyage. They assumed that the 16 native tribes were there to be exploited.
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1871 Mar 1, J. Milton Turner was named US minister to Liberia.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1878 Apr 21, Ship Azor left Charleston with 206 blacks for Liberia.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1895 Mar 18, Some 200 blacks left Savannah, Ga., for Liberia.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1926 Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. created the world's largest plantation at Harbel, Liberia, and rubber became the backbone of the economy. Firestone had signed a 99-year concession agreement with the Liberian government in the 1920s to grow and export rubber.
(AP, 7/1/03)(NG, Feb, 04)(AP, 10/30/09)
1936 Graham Green (1904-1991), English writer, authored “Journey Without Maps," a travel account about a 350-mile, 4-week walk through the interior of Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1935.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Burnt-Out_Case)(Econ, 9/4/10, p.90)
1943 William Tubman was elected president of Liberia. He promoted foreign investment and local participation in government.
(AP, 7/1/03)
1945-1971 William Tubman, president, began to address the inequalities between the Americo-Liberians and the native tribes.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1948 Jan 28, Charles Taylor, later president of Liberia (1997-2003), was born in Arthington, near Monrovia. His family descended from freed American slaves He was the third of 15 children of an Americo-Liberian father, Nelson Taylor. His mother, Zoe, was a Gola-woman.
(www.liberiapastandpresent.org/charles_taylor.htm)(AP, 7/14/09)
1971 Jul 13, William Tolbert (1913-1980), vice-president of Lebanon 1951, succeeded William Tubman as president and continued Tubman’s policies until his own death in 1980.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Tolbert,_Jr.)
1971-1980 William Tolbert Jr. succeeded Tubman and continued his policies.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1973 Oct 3, Sierra Leone’s President Stevens engineered the creation of the Mano River Union, an economic federation of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Guinea joined in 1980.
(http://tinyurl.com/58uymq)
1975 May 25, ECOWAS Treaty1 was signed. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was formed in Nigeria with 15 members that included: Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
(www.sec.ecowas.int/sitecedeao/english/achievements.htm)
1980 Apr 12, In Liberia Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe (1951-1990) of the Krahn tribe staged a coup. Doe, a high school dropout, and a few soldiers killed Pres. William Tolbert and fatally shot a dozen of his ministers. He was backed by the US and became one of Liberia’s most brutal dictators.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Doe)(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1980 May 9, In Florida 35 motorists were killed when a Liberian-flagged freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay. The freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a pier (support column) during a blinding thunderstorm, sending over 1200 feet (366m) of the bridge plummeting into Tampa Bay. The collision caused six cars, a truck, and a Greyhound bus to fall 150 feet (46 m) into the water.
(AP, 5/9/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_Bridge)
1980 Guinea joined the Mano River Union, an economic federation of Sierra Leone and Liberia created in 1973. Due to conflicts involving the countries the objectives of the Union could not be achieved. The union was reactivated in 2004.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mano_River_Union)
1980-1989 Samuel Doe held dictatorial power for 9 years. His reign was marked by personal enrichment, favoritism to his Krahn ethnic group, and the brutal liquidation of opponents.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1981 Jun 27, The African States members of the Organization of African Unity, meeting in Liberia, adopted a Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Article 5 specifically prohibited slavery. It became effective as of October 21, 1986.
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm)
1981-1985 The US gave $402 million in aid to Liberia.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)
1983 Charles Taylor fled Liberia after being accused of embezzling nearly US$1 million. He was later detained in the United States on a Liberian arrest warrant.
(AP, 7/14/09)
1984 In Liberia Samuel Doe allowed the return of political parties under pressure from the US.
(AP, 7/1/03)
1985 In Liberia national elections were held and Samuel Doe was elected president.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)(AP, 7/1/03)
1985 Charles Taylor escaped from a Plymouth County jail in Massachusetts while awaiting extradition to Liberia, where he was accused of embezzling money as an official in the dictatorship of Samuel Doe. He went to Libya received military training as a guest of Col. Moammar Khadafy. Taylor met Foday Sankoh, a corporal from Sierra Leone while training in Libya.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A10)(SFC, 12/13/00, p.B5)(AP, 12/16/02)
1989 Dec 24, Charles Taylor, a former cabinet minister under Samuel Doe, led a small group of fighters across the border from the Ivory Coast into Liberia. Within a few months he had looted and terrorized much of the countryside and reached the capital. Taylor led the NPFL or National Patriotic Front. The NPFL was composed mainly of the Mano and Gio tribes from northern Nimba County.
(SFC,4/16/96, p.A-9)(SFC,4/17/96,p.A-8)(SFC,1/30/97,p.A9)(SFC,7/19/97, p.A8)
1990 Jul 23, As rebel forces closed in on presidential palace, Liberian President Samuel K. Doe refused to leave until the civil war was decided. Charles Taylor tried to take Monrovia in this year. He had begun the war in Liberia from the Ivory Coast in 1989.
(AP, 7/23/97)(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-9)
1990 Jul 30, In Monrovia, Liberia, soldiers opened fire on worshippers in church over 600 Gios and Manos were killed.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/liberia/army.htm)
1990 Sep 9, Liberian dictator Pres. Samuel K. Doe was killed after being captured by rebels led by Prince Johnson. Doe was tortured by rivals and bled to death after an ear was cut off. The remains of Doe’s Krahn-dominated army composed the AFL or Armed Forces of Liberia.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)(AP, 9/9/00)(AP, 2/24/10)
1990 US Marines were sent to Liberia to rescue American citizens.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A16)
1990-2004 A 14-year civil war began in Liberia. 1.2 million people were forced flee their homes. 700,000 sought shelter in Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and other West African countries. 14 years of fighting left some 250,000 people dead.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.48)
1991 Alhaji Kromah, an ethnic Mandingo, set up ULIMO with a group of former government officials and army officers.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-11)
1991 RUF guerrillas including Sam Bockerie invaded Sierra Leone from Liberia. Charles Taylor formed the guerrillas in 1989.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A11)
1992 Oct 15, In Liberia Operation Octopus began when forces under Charles Taylor attacked positions of a West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG. Martina Johnson, the head of the heavy artillery unit for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, reportedly led the operation.
(AP, 9/18/14)
1992 Oct 31, It was announced that five American nuns in Liberia had been shot to death near the capital Monrovia; the killings were blamed on rebels loyal to Charles Taylor.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1992 ULIMO, The United Movement of Liberia arose as a guerilla force to stop cooperation between Sierra Leone’s rebel leader Foday Sankoh and Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1992 Charles Taylor again tried to take Monrovia.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1993 Jun 5, Liberian Charles Taylor's rebellion killed 550 fugitives.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1994 ULIMO split into two factions: ULIMO-K and ULIMO-J. ULIMO-K was composed of members of the Mandingo ethnic group. ULIMO-J was made up of ethnic Krahns led by Roosevelt Johnson.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1994 The Lofa Defense Force was set up under Francois Massaquoi to clear ULIMO-K out of Lofa County. It holds no significant territory.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-11)
1994 Charles Taylor enlisted Joshua Milton Blahyi, aka Gen’l. Butt Naked, into his force. After the fighting Gen’. Naked resumed his birth name and turned into an evangelical preacher.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1995 Aug 20, Liberian warlords agreed in Nigeria to end hostilities in six-year old civil war, which had killed 150,000 people. The Economic Community of West African States brokered a peace treaty between two warring movements.
(WSJ, 8/21/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)(AP, 7/1/03)
1995 Nov 14, In Liberia extra-judicial killings left 7 soldiers dead. In 2012 a US immigration judge ordered George Boley (62), the former leader of the Liberian Peace Council, out of the country in upstate New York citing "credible reports" that Boley authorized the executions of seven of his soldiers on this day.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
1996 Jan 1, Rebels massacred at least 50 civilians at a refugee camp west of Monrovia.
(WSJ, 1/5/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 7, Relief workers said 15,000 people have fled fighting in the northwest and have crowded into the city of Tubmanburg. Fighting between Ulimo rebels and West African peacemakers was continuing.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar, Johnson’s chief of staff, Armah Youlo, and a group of supporters deposed Johnson as leader of ULIMO-J.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-11)
1996 Apr 6, Fighting and looting began in Monrovia, Liberia, and a six year civil war resumed between rival ethnic groups. Supporters of Roosevelt Johnson faced off against the ruling council of state, which sacked Johnson as rural development minister and ordered his arrest for murder. Johnson accused Charles Taylor of violating the Abuja accord of August, which set up a transitional government.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-12)
1996 May 3, Roosevelt Johnson was sneaked out of Liberia to neighboring Freetown, Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1996 May, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, whose members are Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo, has spent huge resources in the peace process for Liberia.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 May 27, The military militias completed their withdrawal from Monrovia.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 11, A rusty Russian freighter carrying hundreds of Liberian refugees remained at sea after Ghana refused to let it dock.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 17, Health workers have dug up an additional 150 bodies, many of them headless, along the beach at Mamba Point. Exhumations started 2 weeks ago and about 500 bodies have been found and reburied. 1,500 bodies were exhumed from around the capital.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A9)(USAT, 6/27/96, p.10A)
1996 Sep 7, Emergency food from the World Food Program reached Tubmanburg, Liberia, where half the 35,000 population suffered from extreme hunger.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Ivory Coast was flooded with 350,000 Liberian refugees, who have fled across the border since Charles Taylor began the war from the Ivory Coast six years ago.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-9)
1997 Jan 31, The deadline for some 14,000 rebels to hand in their weapons.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A9)
1997 May 30, Elections were set for this date.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 3, Reinforcements from a peace-keeping force in Liberia was sent in to help Nigerian troops against the insurrectionist troops of Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 22, In Liberia results from the election showed Charles Taylor in the lead with about 75 of the vote.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 2, Charles Taylor was sworn in as president of Liberia.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 8, In Liberia some 200,000 refugees from Sierra Leone had spilled over from escalating violence.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 4, Samuel Dokie, an opposition politician, was found slain in Bong County with his wife and bodyguard. He had been reported missing after being arrested by security men in Pres. Taylor’s stronghold of Gbarnga.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.B5)
1998 Sep 19, Fighting in Monrovia left at least 33 dead as the government tried to arrest Roosevelt Johnson, former rebel leader. The next day he was accused of plotting against Pres. Taylor and fled to the US Embassy.
(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A14)
1998 Sep 25, In Liberia the US transported Roosevelt Johnson out of the country to Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 9/26/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep, Clashes between the Krahn under Roosevelt Johnson and state forces in Monrovia left 300 dead and created 4,000 new refugees.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Apr, Violence occurred in Voinjama and left a number of people dead.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Jun 8, Pres. Charles Taylor announced that the ECOMAG intervention force would leave for good on July 26 marking the end of the 7-year civil war.
(SFC, 6/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Aug 11, In Liberia 6 European relief workers were kidnapped in Kolahun by insurgents based in Guinea.
(SFC, 8/13/99, p.D2)
1999 Aug 13, In Liberia 7 abducted aid workers were freed and some 90 other UN and foreign workers fled into Guinea to avoid fighting.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.C1)
1999 Aug 20, It was reported that tens thousands of refugees from Sierra Leone had fled to northern Liberia and that many were robbed and killed by retreating rebels.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.D3)
1999 Aug, Violence occurred in Kolahun and left a number of people dead.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec, Sam Bockerie fell out with RUF leader Foday Sankoh over diamonds and fled to Liberia with several hundred loyalists.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A11)
1999 Britain and the US threatened to suspend aid after Liberia was accused of supporting militants in neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2000 Mar 15, In Liberia the government closed 2 leading independent radio stations saying they posed a security risk.
(SFC, 3/16/00, p.A15)
2000 Apr 16, The winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize included: Alexander Peal (55), for environmental work and founding a national park in Liberia.
(SFC, 4/17/00, p.A2)
2000 Jul 31, US and British diplomats accused the Pres. Charles Taylor of Liberia and Pres. Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso of trading arms for diamonds and aiding the rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A8)
2000 Aug 19, Four journalists for British TV were charged with espionage while filming for a 3-part documentary about Liberia, Mauritania, Mali and Angola.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 25, Liberia freed the 4 arrested TV journalists.
(SFC, 8/26/00, p.A9)
2000 Oct-Feb, Slovak brokers were involved in a plan to ship Mi24 helicopter gunships from Kyrgyzstan to Liberia. One was shipped and another was confiscated by Slovak customs agents.
(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A15)
2000 Dec, It was reported that Robert Taylor, brother of Pres. Charles Taylor, headed the Forestry Development Authority and allowed Oriental Timber of Hong Kong to wipe out entire forests.
(SFC, 12/13/00, p.B5)
2000 Dec 20, A UN panel linked Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor to illegal diamond smuggling and arms trafficking with the rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.C6)
2000 Liberian forces launched an offensive against rebels in the country's north.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2000 A shipping concern in Virginia, LISCR, helped Pres. Taylor procure weapons in violation of the UN arms embargo. The Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry began managing Liberia’s shipping regitry this year.
(WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A1)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)
2000 A loose coalition named "Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy" (LURD) began fighting against Charles Taylor. Covert support included the US.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A19)
2001 Jan 19, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor said that he has ended support of the RUF in Sierra Leone and would submit to int’l. scrutiny of his finances.
(SFC, 1/20/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 7, The UN Security Council imposed an embargo on Liberia’s trade in weapons and diamonds in an effort to halt arms to rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.A13)
2001 Mar 20, Liberia ordered its security forces to seal its border with Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.A14)
2001 May 4, The UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Liberia for failing to sever ties with rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D2)
2001 May 23, Pres. Bush banned the import of rough diamonds from Liberia in an effort to deprive rebels in Sierra Leone of a source of funds.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C3)
2001 Nov 2, It was reported that Ibrahim Bah, a Libyan-trained former Senegalese rebel, lived in Burkina Faso and selected diamond dealers to handle deals in Liberia between rebels from Sierra Leone and the al Qaeda network.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.A8)
2001 Nov, In Liberia government forces started a new offensive against rebels.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2002 Jan, More than 50,000 Liberia and Sierra Leone refugees fled fighting.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2002 Feb 7, Rebel forces, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, attacked Klay Junction 25 miles north of Monrovia.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A3)
2002 Feb 19, Rebels were repelled at Heindi and Bong Mines, 20 miles northeast of Monrovia, as some 15,000 civilians fled.
(SFC, 2/21/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 25, Police shut down the independent Analyst newspaper and arrested Tiawan Gongloe, a leading human rights lawyer.
(SFC, 4/26/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 29, Pres. Taylor suspended all political activity. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, leader of the opposition Unity Party, returned to Liberia to gear up for elections.
(SFC, 4/30/02, p.A13)
2002 May 9, Many civilians were reported killed as rebels attacked Gbarnga, the stronghold of Pres. Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A16)
2002 May 13, Rebels attacked Arthington and threatened to move on Monrovia unless Pres. Charles Taylor is arrested and tried.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A14)
2002 May 16, Liberian forces claimed to have stopped the rebel offensive to have killed 100 in the process.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A20)
2002 May 20, Liberia rejected a cease-fire appeal by neighboring West African nations and ordered its forces to look for a missing British priest and 60-blind Liberian civilians last seen May 13.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A16)
2002 Jun 8, Liberian troops recaptured a northern town believed to have been used by insurgents as a transit point for supplies and rebels fighters based in neighboring Guinea.
(AP, 6/8/02)
2002 Jun 20, Liberian rebels attacked a refugee camp near the border with Sierra Leone, seizing five nurses and sending thousands fleeing as they battled government troops. Four people died in the fighting.
(AP, 6/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, Refugees in flight from Liberia's war surged to 200,000, and those reaching safety in neighboring Guinea spoke of worsening atrocities by President Charles Taylor's forces: looting, raping, burning and killing trapped villagers. Jubilant government troops strutted through heavily looted Tubmanburg after driving away rebel forces who had controlled it for close to three months.
(AP, 7/20/02)(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 26, Liberian attackers crossed into eastern Sierra Leone and abducted 18 villagers, in the second such raid in just over a week.
(AP, 7/26/02)
2002 Sep 1, In Liberia rebel forces shelled the northern town of Voinjama in a push to recapture their former stronghold from government forces.
(AP, 9/1/02)
2002 Sep 14, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor lifted the state of emergency he imposed eight months ago, declaring that the rebel insurrection against his government had been all but crushed.
(AP, 9/14/02)
2002 Sep 21, In Liberia government forces and rebels battled for at least three northern and northwestern towns in a new outbreak of fighting near the border with Guinea.
(AP, 9/21/02)
2002 Dec 7, In Liberia civilians were killed in a government offensive on a rebel-held town. Their deaths were blamed on crossfire.
(AP, 12/9/02)
2002 Dec 13, In northwest Liberia an overcrowded boat capsized, killing at least 48 people and leaving more than 100 others missing.
(AP, 12/16/02)
2003 Jan 11, It was reported that former combatants from Liberia and Sierra Leone were pouring into Ivory Coast to fight with the rebels.
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.A8)
2003 Feb 1, In Liberia fighting between government and rebel forces raged within 60 miles of Monrovia.
(AP, 2/1/03)
2003 Mar 3, A Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor on charges including murder, rape, sexual slavery, conscripting child soldiers and terrorizing civilians for his support of rebels during Sierra Leone civil war. The Indictment was unsealed on June 4, 2003, during Taylor's first overseas trip since his indictment.
(AP, 7/14/09)
2003 May 6, The Liberian government announced that Sam Bockerie (39), a guerrilla RUF leader, was killed in a shootout with Liberian soldiers.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jun 4, A UN-backed war crimes court indicted Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor, accusing him of "the greatest responsibility" in the vicious 10-year civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 6/4/03)
2003 Jun 5, In Liberia deputy ministers Isaac Nuhan Vaye and John Winpoe Yormie were arrested about the same time that Pres. Taylor announced that a coup plot had been uncovered. Vaye and Yormie were later reported killed.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A12)
2003 Jun 9, As rebels bore down on the capital of Liberia, French helicopters rescued more than 500 Americans, Europeans and other foreigners.
(AP, 6/9/04)
2003 Jun 17, Liberia's President Charles Taylor pledged to yield power as part of a cease-fire with rebels, but his government quickly hedged on the resignation.
(AP, 6/17/03)
2003 Jun 20, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor renounced his peace pledge to cede power and announced that he will serve to the January 2004 end of his term — and might run again.
(AP, 6/20/03)
2003 Jun 23, The main rebel group in Liberia said it was pulling out of peace talks and accused the top peace mediator of allowing Pres. Taylor to renege on a promise to step down. Swiss authorities ordered a freeze on any bank accounts of Pres. Charles Taylor, so war crimes prosecutors can search for possible illegal diamond profits linked to West Africa's conflicts.
(AP, 6/23/03)
2003 Jun 26, In Monrovia, Liberia, 3 days of rocket and mortar fire left at least 200 civilians dead.
(SFC, 6/27/03, p.A17)
2003 Jun 28, West African leaders promised to deploy a peace force of at least 5,000 troops to warring Liberia after a cease-fire has been reached, and said France had offered soldiers and logistical support.
(AP, 6/28/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US military commander in Europe was ordered to begin planning for possible American intervention in Liberia.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 4, Liberia's President Charles Taylor, under US pressure to quit, said he had agreed to step down. A senior Nigerian official said Taylor had accepted an offer of asylum.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 6, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor announced that he would leave the country and accept refuge in Nigeria.
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 8, US military experts arrived in Liberia to assess the need for help in the local civil war.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Liberia rebels advanced deeper into the war-ravaged capital, trading mortar, grenade and machine-gun fire with government troops.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Liberia mortar shells hit the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in the Monrovia, injuring at least three people. Fighting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia left over 600 dead.
(AP, 7/21/03)(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 24, In Monrovia, Liberia, the bloodiest mortar attack in days killed at least 12 men, women and children.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 25, Pres. Bush ordered a naval amphibious force from the Mediterranean to position itself off the coast of Liberia.
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 26, In Liberia a mortar attack into a church harboring thousands of refugees, killed at least 15 and wounded about 55 others.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 28, In Liberia rebels captured the second-largest city of Buchanan, depriving embattled President Charles Taylor of his last significant port outside the besieged capital.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 29, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor's forces launched what they called a major counterattack on the key port of Buchanan, battling to take back Liberia's second-largest city a day after it fell to insurgents.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Aug 1, In Monrovia, Liberia, shelling erupted after a one-day lull, killing at least 9 people. Top West African officials flew into the capital to press the country's president to cede power after peacekeepers arrive, but Charles Taylor kept them waiting by reportedly heading to a southern war zone. Taylor actually flew to Libya to gather arms and ammunition.
(AP, 8/1/03)(SFC, 8/8/03, p.A10)
2003 Aug 1, The UN Security Council approved sending a multinational force to Liberia.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor agreed to cede power on Aug. 11.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 4, West African forces arrived in Liberia to oversee the departure of President Charles Taylor.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2003 Aug 7, In Liberia Charles Taylor picked Vice Pres. Moses Blah (56) as his successor. West African peacekeepers entered Liberia's rebel-besieged capital.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2003 Aug 7, Bangladesh and Namibia pledged more than 6,000 troops for a UN peace-keeping force to replace multinational soldiers now deploying in war-torn Liberia.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 10, Liberian President Charles Taylor delivered a farewell address to a nation bloodied by 14 years of war.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2003 Aug 11, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor shook hands with his designated successor as his long-promised resignation ceremony started in Monrovia. A UN official later reported that Taylor took $3 million with him, that had been donated for disarming and demobilizing thousands of armed combatants. Taylor flew into exile in Nigeria following his resignation.
(AP, 8/11/03)(SFC, 9/6/03, p.A3)(AP, 7/14/09)
2003 Aug 12, Liberia's leading rebel movement agreed to lift its siege of the capital and vital port within two days, allowing food to flow to hundreds of thousands of hungry people.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2003 Aug 14, Dozens of American troops landed at Liberia's main airport, increasing the U.S. presence to boost West African peacekeepers, as rebels began withdrawing from Monrovia. A "quick reaction" force of 150 combat troops were sent to back up Nigerian peacekeepers.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 15, Tens of thousands Liberian civilians, desperate for food, broke through barricades on Monrovia's front-line bridges, reuniting the capital after 10 weeks of rebel siege.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2003 Aug 18, In Accra, Ghana, Liberia's government and rebels signed a peace accord to end 14 years of vicious war with plans for elections in 2 years.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 21, Liberia's rebels and government chose Gyude Bryant, a gentle-mannered businessman, to lead a transition administration.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 24, A 150-strong US Marine force ended an 11-day deployment and headed back to warships off the coast of Monrovia, Liberia.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Oct 1, In Liberia West African forces traded their camouflage helmets Wednesday for the blue ones of the UN. Hours later clashes flared between rebels and loyalist forces in Monrovia, leaving three civilians dead.
(Reuters, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 14, In Liberia businessman Gyude Bryant was sworn in as leader of the post-war government, taking up a 2-year term.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Nov 7, The first UN peace missions to Liberia's rebel-held far east found deserted towns emptied of all but looting insurgents, and terrorized civilians under rebel grip or lying rotting, dead, in the bush.
(AP, 11/8/03)
2003 Nov 10, The US State Dept. distanced itself from a congressional push to capture toppled Liberian leader Charles Taylor in Nigeria via a $2 million reward.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A9)
2003 Nov 25, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo said he will surrender ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor to face a war crimes trial if Liberia asks.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Dec 4, Interpol put ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor on its most-wanted list, issuing a "red notice" calling for his arrest on war crimes charges in Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 7, In Liberia government troops launched U.N.-sponsored disarmament.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 10, In Liberia rampages by ex-government fighters left at least nine people dead in Monrovia. All but one of the deaths came in fighting between U.N. troops and the ex-militiamen.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 15, The UN said it was suspending for a month a disarmament campaign in war-battered Liberia so it can improve a camp for former combatants.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 22, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to maintain sanctions on Liberia including an arms embargo and a ban on importing diamonds from the west African nation.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 The UN imposed a ban in Liberia on trade in logs due to uncontrolled and environmentally devastating logging.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.92)
2004 Jan 6, In Liberia the LURD and MODEL rebel groups demanded the resignation of Gyude Bryant, interim government head.
(Econ, 1/31/04, p.48)
2004 Jan 20, Asha Keita-Conneh, the wife of the leader of Liberia's most powerful rebel movement announced she was taking charge, backed by dozens of guerrilla commanders in ousting a husband whose ambitions she said were endangering the nation's hard-won peace.
(AP, 1/20/04)
2004 Feb 6, International donors pledged $520 million to start the long process of turning Liberia from a failed war-ravaged state into a democracy with a thriving economy.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 May 24, In Liberia an American citizen working with a U.S. military assessment team was killed in his hotel room in the capital Monrovia.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 Jul 23, President Bush froze the assets of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, his family and top aides and accused them of undermining the country's transition to democracy.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Oct 1, The United Nations launched a massive voluntary repatriation program to return an estimated 340,000 Liberian refugees still scattered across West Africa.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 29, In Liberia mobs brandishing machetes, sticks and Kalashnikov rifles rampaged through Monrovia, prompting interim head of state Gyude Bryant to order an immediate daylight curfew to stem the rare Muslim-Christian violence. A UN armored vehicle trying to disperse a crowd inadvertently crushed three people to death.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2004 Oct 30, Liberians ventured back onto the streets of Monrovia during a temporary lifting of a round-the-clock curfew imposed after at least 7 people were killed in religious riots.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2004 Nov 3, Liberia's three former warring factions jointly announced they had disarmed and disbanded their forces, marking a milestone in a quest for peace in this battered West African nation after nearly 15 years of war.
(AP, 11/4/04)
2004 Dec 21, The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to maintain economic sanctions against Liberia but promised to review a ban on diamond sales in three months and a ban on timber exports in six months.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2005 Oct 11, Liberia held presidential elections. 22 candidates included an international soccer star, two former warlords and a Harvard-educated woman. Election officials using battery-powered lanterns counted ballots through the night from the country's first postwar polls. Ex-soccer star George Weah led 21 rivals.
(AP, 10/11/05)(Reuters, 10/11/05)(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 12, Officials said former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and soccer star George Weah emerged as early front-runners in Liberia's first post-war elections.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 13, Soccer star George Weah took an early lead as results trickled in from Liberia's first post-war elections, but he seemed likely to face a run-off with former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 19, Libya sent to prison for 18 months a blogger who criticized the government on the Internet. A Tripoli court convicted Abdel Raziq al-Mansuri of illegal possession of a handgun and sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment. A rights group said that after detaining al-Mansuri, Libyan security officials searched his home and "found an old pistol that belonged to his father."
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 8, Liberia held runoff elections.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 10, In Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former finance minister and Harvard graduate, edged closer to becoming Africa's first elected female leader, while her soccer star opponent alleged fraud in the presidential runoff. With 80% of votes counted, Johnson-Sirleaf had 58% and her opponent, George Weah, had 42%.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 23, Officials declared Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf the winner of Liberia's first postwar balloting, making her Africa's first elected female president.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Dec 1, A UN Security Council committee called on all governments to freeze the assets and travel of two individuals linked to international gunrunner Victor Bout over past arms sales to Liberia. The council added Syrian-born accountant Richard Ammar Chichakli of Texas and Ukrainian-born businessman Valeriy Naydo, with an address in the United Arab Emirates, to its list of people whose assets and travel are to be frozen around the world.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 8, Firestone, a multinational rubber manufacturing giant known for its automobile tires, has come under fire from human rights and environmental groups for its alleged use of child labor and slave-like working conditions at a plantation in Liberia.
(http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/123600/1/)
2005 Dec 16, Liberian electoral authorities dismissed international soccer star George Weah's claims that fraud had robbed him of victory in a presidential run-off vote last month, but his party vowed to appeal.
(Reuters, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 21, George Weah, the loser of Liberia's first postwar presidential elections, dropped his legal challenge of the results, saying he would accept the outcome in the interest of national reconciliation.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 21, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to maintain diamond and timber sanctions against Liberia but said it will lift the embargoes when the country's new government ends illicit trade in its valuable resources.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 P.W. Singer authored “Children at War," a detailed analysis of the use of child soldiers around the world, including Liberia and Sierra Leone.
(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.C3)
2006 Jan 6, Liberia's President-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf agreed to pay out benefits and pensions to widows of soldiers killed in a civil war after they blocked roads in the capital Monrovia in protest.
(Reuters, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 16, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf pledged a "fundamental break" with Liberia's violent past as she was sworn in as president, carving her name into history as Africa's first elected female head of state.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Feb 1, Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf fired top officials appointed by a transitional administration to help run the Finance Ministry, a perceived center of corruption.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2006 Feb 8, In Libya the leaders of Sudan and Chad signed a peace agreement to end increasing tension over Sudan's Darfur region, pledging to normalize diplomatic relations and deny refuge to each other's rebel groups. A communique issued by Sudan, Chad and Libya, as well as Burkino Faso, Congo and the Central African Republic, whose leaders attended the talks, said a committee of African countries overseen by Libya would monitor the implementation of the deal.
(AP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 20, Liberia's president inaugurated a truth commission to investigate crimes and human rights abuses committed in the war-battered country over the last quarter century.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Mar 14, In Italy 2 local trains collided head-on outside a station near Milan, killing at least two people.
(AP, 3/14/06)
2006 Mar 17, Liberia said it has asked Nigeria to hand over former Pres. Charles Taylor, who is living there in exile and wanted on war crimes charges for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 21, President Bush welcomed Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the White House, calling Africa's first democratically elected female head of state "a pioneer."
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 28, Officials said former Liberian President Charles Taylor disappeared from his Nigerian haven, days after his hosts agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal for the murder, rape and maiming of more than a half-million Africans. Taylor was arrested trying to cross the border into Cameroon. He then was flown back to Liberia.
(AP, 3/28/06)(AP, 3/29/06)
2006 Mar 29, Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, accused of war crimes, was flown to Sierra Leone after he was captured in northern Nigeria.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2006 Apr 4, Charles Taylor appeared in a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone with 11 counts of crimes against humanity and other violations of int’l. law.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.46)
2006 Apr 24, The annual Goldman Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. The winners included Craig Williams (58) for helping to persuade Congress to order the Defense Dept. to consider alternatives to incinerating chemical weapons; Tarcisio Feitosa (35) of Brazil for his campaign against rampant logging; Olya Melen (26) of Ukraine for her suits forcing the government to scale back a large canal project impacting wetlands; Yu Xiaogang (35) of China for his reports on damages caused by new dams; Silas Siakor (36) of Liberia for his documentation showing how logging was used to fund civil war; and Anne Kajir of Papua New Guinea for her work to get reimbursements from logging companies to peasants.
(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.B7)
2006 May 8, A report said UN peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors, threatening efforts to rebuild a nation wrecked by war.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 21, In Liberia tens of thousands of children marched against hunger, adding their voices to a global event to tackle food shortages that many in the war-battered west African nation have felt firsthand.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 Jun 1, Swedish lawmakers approved a law that makes it possible for the Scandinavian country to imprison former Liberian President Charles Taylor if a UN-backed tribunal convicts him of war crimes.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 5, Liberia, the first African country led by a democratically elected woman, began recruiting women into its new postwar army.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 13, The UN Security Council eased a ban on weapons sales to Liberia so it could arm newly trained security forces. The US proposed lifting a UN embargo on Liberian timber exports.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 15, Britain promised to hold Liberia's Charles Taylor in jail if he is convicted of war crimes, paving the way for Liberia's former president to be tried in The Hague.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 20, A senior UN official marked World Refugee Day by welcoming home 125 Liberians from Sierra Leone where they lived for years seeking haven from Liberia's civil war. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was taken to a Dutch prison to await a UN war crimes trial for the killing, rape or mutilation of hundreds of thousands in West Africa.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 22, Liberia's truth commission formally began work to document atrocities committed during nearly a quarter-century of conflict including the country's 14-year civil war (1990-2004), which left some 250,000 dead.
(AP, 6/23/06)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.48)
2006 Jul 24, Liberia began training the first soldiers of a post-war army that officials hope will grow into a small but effective force to take over peacekeeping from UN troops.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 26, Power was restored to parts of Liberia's dilapidated capital Monrovia for the first time in 15 years, another step in the country's emergence from more than a decade of civil war.
(AP, 7/26/06)
2006 Aug 30, Nigerian officials and the UN refugee agency appealed to some 6,000 recalcitrant Liberian refugees to go back home, warning that time and hospitality were fast running out for them.
(AFP, 8/30/06)
2006 Oct 8, Liberia’s presidency said ECOWAS leaders, who met in Nigeria on Oct 6, had agreed for an extension of the term of office of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo by 12 months, paving the way for presidential and general elections there.
(AP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 10, Liberia's truth commission began taking public testimony.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Dec 6, The US indicted Charles McArthur Emmanuel (29), son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with committing torture in Liberia. This was the Justice Department's first case under a 12-year-old anti-torture law. The indictment came the day before Emmanuel, He currently in federal custody was scheduled to be sentenced on the passport fraud charges in Miami.
(Reuters, 12/6/06)
2006 Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia’s finance minister, called on foreign creditors to forgive the country’s $3.7 billion external debt.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.48)
2006 Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel company, negotiated a deal with Liberia’s government to restart operations at the mine in Nimba County with a new investment of $1.5 billion. The company said it would create some 3,500 jobs.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.38)
2007 Jan 18, India prepared to send 125 of its crack policewomen to Liberia to act as UN peacekeepers, the first time the world body has deployed an all-female unit.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 30, The first all-female UN peacekeeping unit, made up of 103 women from India, arrived in Liberia to help the West African nation recover from 14 years of on-and-off civil war.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 13, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US plans to cancel $391 million in outstanding debt owed by Liberia, and she urged others to help the struggling West African nation.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Apr 27, The UN Security Council lifted its embargo on Liberia's diamond exports, saying the west African nation has made progress in certifying the origin of its rough diamonds. A multi-day strike at the Firestone Rubber plantation in Liberia turned violent as police clashed with striking workers, leaving at least six people wounded.
(AFP, 4/27/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 May 1, Liberia relaunched its diamond trade after the UN lifted an embargo, hoping the revival of the industry will fund reconstruction rather than lead to more bloodshed.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Jun 4, Charles Taylor boycotted the start of his Liberia war-crimes trial at the Hague.
(WSJ, 6/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 20, Officials said Liberia's former House speaker and an ex-military commander have been charged with treason for their involvement in an alleged coup plot.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 28, The Liberian government said it had lifted a six-year moratorium on the diamond trade, put in place after former President Charles Taylor was accused of using "blood diamonds" to fuel civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 7/28/07)
2007 Aug 7, ECOWAS said the last refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone in Nigeria have been allowed to settle and they will have access to work, education and health on the same terms as Nigerians, West African regional bloc.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 25, It was reported that Liberia had some 2,511 ships registered under its flag, the world’s 2nd largest fleet after Panama, which had 7,357. The population was reported to be 3.3 million, with two-thirds of the people living on less than a dollar a day. Since 2000 the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, a Virginia-based company, managed the registry.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.44)
2007 Nov 2, A UN helicopter crashed on a routine flight in northern Liberia, killing two crew members and leaving a third missing.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 20, Israel signed an agreement with Liberia to extract diamonds from the African nation, seven months after sanctions barring Liberia from exporting the gems were lifted.
(AFP, 11/20/07)
2007 Dec 5, Liberia cleared its debt arrears with the World Bank, paving the way for new development lending and debt cancellation that will help the West African country rebuild after years of civil war.
(Reuters, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 7, Gyude Bryant, a former president of Liberia (2003-2005), was arrested for violating the conditions of his bail while on trial on charges of embezzling $1.3 million in government funds.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2008 Jan 20, Joshua Milton Blahyi (37), one of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked for charging into battle wearing only boots, spoke of his role under Charles Taylor in the civil war. He returned last week to confess his role in terrorizing the nation, saying he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Feb 21, President George W. Bush promised US support for Liberia in its recovery from a crippling civil war as he visited the close U.S. ally on the last stop of a five-nation tour of Africa.
(AP, 2/21/08)
2008 Feb 28, Liberia's Health Minister Walter Gwanigale said health services are chronically understaffed with only 51 native doctors in the west African nation.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2008 Jun 1, In Liberia at least eight people suffocated at an overcrowded stadium during a soccer match between Liberia and Gambia.
(www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/02/2263028.htm)
2008 Aug 18, US and Liberian officials said US Peace Corps volunteers will return to Liberia for the first time since civil war broke out in this West African nation nearly two decades ago.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Florida the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty by a US court in Miami of torture in the first prosecution under a 14-year-old law that allows citizens to be prosecuted for such crimes committed abroad. Charles Taylor Jr. was arrested at Miami International Airport in 2006 and pleaded guilty to a charge of lying about his father's identity on a passport application.
(Reuters, 10/30/08)
2009 Jan 9, In Miami Charles Taylor Jr. (31), the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was sentenced to 97 years in prison for mutilations and executions carried out in Liberia, in the first US prosecution for torture committed abroad.
(Reuters, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 23, Officials said Liberia's worst caterpillar plague in three decades has spread to neighboring Guinea after swarms of the crop-eating insects devastated more than 45 towns.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 25, Liberia’s Ministry of Agriculture said it has set up a command post and called on international experts to help fight an invasion by millions of crop-devouring caterpillars that are eating their way across the country with dire economic consequences.
(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Mar 12, Liberia’s agriculture ministry said the country has been hit by a 2nd invasion of crop-destroying caterpillars. Over a hundred villages have so far been affected by the plague.
(AFP, 3/12/09)
2009 May 29, The nonbinding New York Declaration, an agreement between the signatory flag states which condemns acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels and seafarers, was originally tabled by The Bahamas, the Republic of Liberia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Republic of Panama, four nations that account for more than half of global shipping.
(www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/13476.html)
2009 Jul 2, Liberia's truth and reconciliation commission recommended that ex-President Charles Taylor and seven other former warlords be prosecuted for crimes against humanity for their alleged roles in the West African country's civil war.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 6, Liberia's truth and reconciliation commission recommended barring President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and dozens of other high-profile figures from public office for 30 years for supporting armed groups in the country's civil wars.
(AP, 7/7/09)
2009 Jul 16, In Phoenix, Arizona, 4 boys, all Liberian refugees (9-14) lured a Liberian girl (8) to a storage shed and raped her. Charges against one of the boys, aged 8, were dropped on Dec 16 after a judge ruled the boy was not competent to stand trial.
(SFC, 8/10/09, p.A4)(SFC, 12/17/09, p.A12)
2009 Aug 13, In Liberia US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the country’s post-war transition to democracy and threw support behind President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has faced calls to resign because she helped fund a warlord.
(AFP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 24, An American UN peacekeeper under investigation for sexual exploitation and abuse of minors in Liberia was found dead in his house in Monrovia. Sources said it appeared that the American, a civilian in the Liberia mission, known as UNMIL, had committed suicide due to the investigations.
(Reuters, 8/26/09)
2009 Sep 2, Liberia's Defense Minister Brownie Samukai said police had arrested six Pakistani men earlier in the week who tried to enter Liberia on fake US passports with possible intent to carry out terrorism.
(AP, 9/3/09)
2009 Sep 16, Liberia's parliament approved a new law to crack down on narco trafficking amid concerns that druglords want to turn the west African nation into a transit point.
(AFP, 9/16/09)
2009 Oct 28, In Afghanistan Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and police uniforms stormed a guest house used by UN staff in the heart of Kabul. 11 people were killed, including 5 UN staff, 3 attackers, 2 security guards and an Afghan civilian. Liberian election worker Yah Lydia Wonyene (47) was one of the five UN staffers killed. It was the biggest in a series of attacks intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election. The assault included rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's main luxury hotel. Two NATO members were killed in bomb blasts in the south, including one American.
(AP, 10/28/09)(AP, 10/29/09)(AP, 11/22/09)
2009 Oct 29, The US rubber company Firestone said in a statement that it has conducted its own extensive testing of discharge water in Liberia and found it was not harmful to human health. The Liberian government has said a three-month investigation found high levels of orthophosphate being released into the water.
(AP, 10/30/09)
2009 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, authored “This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President."
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.84)
2010 Feb 26, In Liberia religious clashes in the northern county of Lofa killed four people. The violence erupted in the town of Vionjama after the body of a child "with body parts extracted" was found near a mosque. Witnesses said rioters had burned down the Catholic, Baptist and Episcopal churches in the area.
(Reuters, 2/27/10)
2010 May 28, Konstantin Yaroshenko (41) was arrested in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, by US agents for alleged drug smuggling, and then extradited to New York. On July 21 the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the US of "kidnapping" the Russian pilot.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 30, Liberia's government, still recovering from a 14-year civil war and previous decades of poverty and illiteracy, said it will now require all children to get birth certificates, a document most of them lack.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Aug 5, In the Netherlands Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn't know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself. Campbell said that she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, intending he use them for charity.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Sep 22, Liberia's election commission said that Prince Johnson's National Union for Democratic Progress met the requirements for next year's poll. Johnson is best known for the torture and slaying of ousted president Samuel K. Doe in 1990. A videotape of the event shows Johnson drinking beer as he ordered his men to cut off Doe's ears.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Dec, Transparency Int’l., a Berlin-based lobby group, ranked Liberia as the most corrupt country in the world.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.54)
2010 Liberia under Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won a colossal write-down of debts under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.52)
2010 The US provided Liberia almost $230 million in aid this year.
(Eon, 11/19/11, p.51)
2011 Mar 11, In the Netherlands the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, once among West Africa's most powerful figures, ended with judges expected to take months to reach a verdict on whether he can be linked to murders and amputations during Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Apr 19, Forty one Ivorians were arrested by United Nations forces as they attempted to cross the border into Liberia with cars, guns and ammunition shortly after the capture of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.
(AFP, 6/21/12)
2011 Aug 23, Liberia's first constitutional referendum in 25 years was marred by error after the National Election Commission said it had distributed defective ballot papers. It failed to achieve the required two-thirds of votes cast in a poll in which only 34 percent of registered voters showed up and many ballots were invalid.
(AP, 8/23/11)(AFP, 9/1/11)
2011 Sep 10, Leaders of Ivory Coast and Liberia were joined by counterparts from West Africa for talks on security along the border between their two countries after a bloody post-poll crisis. Presidents Alassane Ouattara and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf were joined by Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, John Atta Mills of Ghana and Nigerian summit host Goodluck Jonathan, under the aegis of regional bloc ECOWAS.
(AFP, 9/10/11)
2011 Sep 13, In Liberia 11 people were killed after an ambulance crashed into a crowd in Vonzula, who had been waiting all day to see a visiting presidential candidate.
(AP, 9/14/11)
2011 Sep 17, Ivory Coast's defense minister said armed men from Liberia have killed at least 15 people in attacks on villages along the border over the last two days.
(AP, 9/17/11)
2011 Oct 7, The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Tawakkul Karman (32) of Yemen. She shared the prize with Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, as the Nobel committee gave a nod to the Arab Spring.
(AP, 10/7/11)
2011 Oct 11, Liberia held presidential elections. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (72), recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, faced 15 opposition candidates including soccer star George Weah. Sirleaf took 44% of the vote, with Tubman, a former diplomat, at 31%. Turnout was 71.4%. With 31% voting for her challenger, Sirleaf would need No. 3 Prince Johnson's endorsement to win the upcoming runoff.
(AP, 10/11/11)(AP, 10/13/11)(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 15, A group of Liberian opposition parties said they are pulling out after a recent presidential poll and threatened to refuse the results over allegations that the electoral commission are skewing the outcome in favor of the president.
(AP, 10/15/11)
2011 Oct 17, The offices of a Liberian radio station were set ablaze, in the wake of an arson attack on the ruling party headquarters and opposition discontent over poll results.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 18, Liberian ex-warlord Prince Johnson, who came third in the presidential polls, announced he would back Nobel peace laureate and incumbent president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a run-off election.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 19, Liberia’s ex-warlord Prince Johnson, who came third in presidential polls, demanded 30 percent of Liberia's government from incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in exchange for his valuable support. Johnson reiterated concerns that a win by the Congress for Democratic Change's Tubman would lead to the implementation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, which could see him tried for war crimes.
(AFP, 10/19/11)
2011 Nov 4, Liberia’s Winston Tubman said he and his running mate, soccer star George Weah, will boycott the Nov 8 runoff because they are not convinced the process will be fair.
(AP, 11/5/11)
2011 Nov 7, In Liberia violence broke out at the headquarters of the main opposition party and at least one person was killed, less than 24 hours before a presidential runoff vote that is being viewed as a test of the country's fragile peace after a devastating civil war.
(AP, 11/7/11)
2011 Nov 8, In Liberia Africa's first elected female president headed toward easy re-election with her sole opponent boycotting a runoff, and ignoring entreaties from the United States and the UN to participate in what observers said was a free and fair vote. Sirleaf won 90.8% of votes cast and Tubman 9%. Only 37.4% of 1.8 million registered voters cast their ballots.
(AP, 11/8/11)(AFP, 11/11/11)
2011 Nov 11, Liberia's opposition leader Winston Tubman said he was willing to work with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf after disputed polls left the war-scarred nation more divided than ever.
(AFP, 11/11/11)
2011 Dec 8, Liberia and Senegal pledged to reform their laws so that women can confer citizenship on their children. They were among at least 30 countries that let only fathers pass their citizenship to children from marriages with a foreigner.
(AP, 12/8/11)
2012 Jan 28, Liberia arrested some 70 people near its southeastern border with Ivory Coast for their alleged involvement in plans to destabilize the neighboring country.
(AFP, 1/31/12)
2012 Feb 6, A US immigration judge ordered George Boley (62), the former leader of the Liberian Peace Council, out of the country in upstate New York, the first-ever removal under a 2008 law to combat the use of child soldiers. The judge cited "credible reports" that Boley authorized the executions of seven of his soldiers on November 14, 1995.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Apr 19, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued a decree exempting schools, hospitals, the national broadcaster and power company from paying customs duties on fuel.
(AFP, 4/19/12)
2012 Apr 26, In the Netherlands an international court convicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor (64) of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting notoriously brutal rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in return for "blood diamonds." Taylor became the first head of state convicted by an international court since the post-World War II Nuremberg military tribunal.
(AP, 4/26/12)
2012 May 30, In the Netherlands international judges sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison for atrocities in Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
(AP, 5/30/12)(SFC, 5/31/12, p.A2)
2012 Jun 6, Human Rights Watch said armed groups in Liberia, who supported Ivory Coast's former president, have killed at least 40 civilians in cross-border raids into Ivory Coast since July and are recruiting children as young as 14 into their ranks.
(AP, 6/6/12)
2012 Jun 21, A court in eastern Liberia ruled to extradite 41 Ivorians, arrested April 19, 2011, to their home country to stand trial for their role in Ivory Coast's 2011 post-election conflict.
(AFP, 6/21/12)
2012 Jun 23, Liberia extradited 41 Ivory Coast nationals for their role in last year's bloody post-electoral violence in the neighboring West African nation.
(AFP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jul 23, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf signed the Table Mountain Declaration, a pledge drawn up by global media rights bodies to boost press freedom and stop the criminal prosecution of journalists. the declaration was adopted by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in Cape Town, South Africa in 2007. She became only the second African leader after Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, to sign the declaration.
(AFP, 7/23/12)
2012 Jul 25, Liberia's government welcomed the lifting of UN sanctions against 17 Liberians who were part of former warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor's regime.
(AFP, 7/25/12)
2012 Aug 21, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf suspended 46 government officials, including her son, for failing to declare their assets.
(AFP, 8/21/12)
2012 Sep 4, Global Witness said international logging companies are skirting the rules and have used a loophole in Liberian law which has granted them access to as much as one-quarter of Liberia's landmass. Private use permits, now covering 40 percent of the country's forests, were being used by major companies to cut trees on their own property.
(AP, 9/4/12)
2012 Oct 3, In Liberia more than 60 inmates broke out of a maximum security prison in the southeastern city of Zwedru.
(AP, 10/4/12)
2012 Nov 10, In Liberia a few hundred people representing the Christian and Muslim faiths and civil society organizations gathered in Monrovia to launch a campaign to press the government to ban same-sex marriage.
(AP, 11/10/12)
2013 Feb 11, In Liberia a plane carrying senior officials from Guinea crashed near Liberia's largest airport, killing 11 people including Guinea's army chief of staff Gen. Souleymane Kelefa Diallo.
(AP, 2/11/13)(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Mar 26, UN officials in Liberia said they've temporarily halted the repatriation of tens of thousands of refugees from Ivory Coast because of continued unrest near the border between the two countries.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Apr 1, In Liberia Moses Blah, the man who served as president for two months after Charles Taylor stepped down, died in Monrovia.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 15, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Francis Korkpor (61) will be the country's new chief justice.
(AP, 4/15/13)
2013 Apr 24, In Liberia at least three were killed and more than 10 feared trapped under the rubble of a building that was gutted by fire and came down in the Waterside commercial district of Monrovia.
(AP, 4/25/13)
2013 May 10, Newspapers in Liberia printed black front pages after a government official was accused of threatening journalists. The director of the presidential security service reportedly told a journalist: "Be careful, because you have your pens and we have our guns."
(AP, 5/10/13)
2013 Aug 21, In Liberia Rodney Sieh, managing director of Frontpage Africa, was taken into custody following a Supreme Court ruling that the paper should pay US $1.6 million (1.2 million euros) for libelling former agriculture minister J. Chris Toe. The court ordered that the paper be closed down until the damages are paid in full. On Nov 20 Sieh said all charges against him have been dropped.
(AFP, 8/27/13)(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Sep 26, Charles Taylor lost his appeal against a war crimes conviction at The Hague. Judges confirmed a 50-year jail term against the former Liberian president for encouraging rebels in Sierra Leone to mutilate, rape and murder victims in a decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 9/26/13)
2013 Oct 10, Britain confirmed that Liberia's former president and warlord Charles Taylor is to serve out his 50-year prison sentence for war crimes in a British jail.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Nov 11, Liberian officials said their Drug Enforcement Agency has arrested the head of the presidential motorcade over the weekend for allegedly using an official vehicle to smuggle 297 kg (654 pounds) of marijuana into Liberia from neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 In Liberia Katie Meyler, an American woman, founded the More Than Me Academy at West Point in Monrovia. It was the first of 18 schools that the US charity opened in the the country. The charity founded the school specifically to empower and educate local girls to save them from prostitution and sexual coercion. In 2018 the US investigative site ProPublica described how girls were systematically raped at the West Point school.
(AFP, 10/16/18)(AP, 4/21/19)
2013 - 2015 The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone killed more than 11,000 people.
(Econ, 4/18/20, p.13)
2014 Mar 24, Guinea announced that samples taken from three suspected cases of Ebola, which led to two deaths in Conakry, had tested negative for the virus. Health workers said the outbreak from the Ebola virus, which has killed at least 59 people in Guinea, may have spread to Liberia.
(AFP, 3/24/14)(SFC, 3/25/14, p.A2)
2014 Apr 3, Liberia said it was dealing with its first suspected Ebola case thought to be unconnected to the epidemic raging in Guinea and to have originated separately within its borders. The fruit bat, thought to be the host of the highly contagious Ebola virus, is a delicacy in the region straddling Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and experts suspect huntsmen may be the source of the outbreak.
(AFP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 4, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone geared up to tackle killer haemorrhagic fevers including Ebola, which has claimed 86 lives in Guinea. Mali claimed 3 suspect cases; Liberia claimed 14; Sierra Leone claimed several more.
(AFP, 4/4/14)
2014 Apr 8, WHO officials said more than 100 people have died in an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, with as many as 175 people infected. This included 151 suspected and confirmed cases of the disease in guinea, where 98 people have died, and 10 deaths in Liberia.
(AP, 4/8/14)
2014 Apr 23, The WHO said 147 people have died from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, including 136 in Guinea and 11 in Liberia.
(SFC, 4/24/14, p.A2)
2014 May 15, Heavily armed fighters, believed to have come from Liberia, seized a border village in western Ivory Coast. They crossed the Cavally River, which forms the boundary between the two West African neighbors, and attacked the village of Fetai.
(Reuters, 5/16/14)
2014 Jun 17, A Liberian a health official said 7 people believed to have the Ebola virus have died in recent days in the first deaths reported in Monrovia since the outbreak began. 16 people were now believed to have died from the virus in the West African country.
(AP, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 17, A Liberian judge sentenced 13 men to life in prison for "mercenary activity" in neighboring Ivory Coast in 2011-2012.
(AP, 6/18/14)
2014 Jun 18, The World Health Organization said an Ebola outbreak continues to spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the death toll in the outbreak has risen to more than 330.
(AP, 6/18/14)
2014 Jun 23, The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the latest figures show 567 cases of Ebola with 350 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The virus has no cure and causes internal bleeding and organ failure, spreading through contact with infected people.
(AP, 6/23/14)
2014 Jul 4, Liberia's security forces fired shots in the air to break up a protest at an ArcelorMittal SA iron ore plant northeast of Monrovia.
(AP, 7/4/14)
2014 Jul 8, The World Health Organization (WHO) said fifty new cases of Ebola and 25 deaths have been reported in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since July 3.
(Reuters, 7/8/14)
2014 Jul 11, The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 44 new cases of Ebola including 21 deaths. 539 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone have been attributed to the outbreak.
(AP, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 22, In Sierra Leone Sheik Umar Khan (39), the head doctor fighting the deadly tropical virus Ebola, was reported to have caught the disease. Across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, 632 people have died from the illness according to the latest WHO report.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 25, The World Health Organization the death toll in West Africa's Ebola outbreak has risen to 660, with the number of cases surpassing 1,000. In Guinea fatalities reached 314, with 127 in Liberia and 219 in Sierra Leone.
(AFP, 7/25/14)
2014 Jul 26, Dr. Samuel Brisbane, a top Liberian health official, died. He had fallen ill while treating Ebola patients at the country's largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia.
(AP, 7/28/14)
2014 Jul 27, Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Sirleaf Johnson closed all but three border crossings, restricted public gatherings and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak.
(SFC, 7/29/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 31, The World Health Organization said the deaths of 57 more people from Ebola in west Africa have pushed the overall fatality toll from the epidemic to 729, including 339 in Guinea, 156 in Liberia and 233 in Sierra Leone.
(AFP, 7/31/14)
2014 Aug 1, The leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone agreed to a $100 million emergency action plan to beef the response to Ebola.
(AFP, 8/2/14)
2014 Aug 4, The World Bank said that it would provide up to $200 million to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to help the west African nations contain the deadly outbreak.
(AP, 8/4/14)
2014 Aug 5, Liberian officials said relatives of Ebola victims have defied government orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak of the virus that has killed 887 people.
(Reuters, 8/5/14)
2014 Aug 6, Liberian Pres. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf announced emergency measures that will, for 90 days, allow her government to curtail civil rights by imposing quarantines on badly affected communities to contain the Ebola epidemic.
(Reuters, 8/7/14)
2014 Aug 7, In Sierra Leone police and soldiers blockaded rural areas hit by the deadly Ebola virus, after neighboring Liberia declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst-ever outbreak of the disease, which has killed 932 people.
(Reuters, 8/7/14)
2014 Aug 9, Guinea announced the closure of its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola.
(Reuters, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 12, In Liberia Fatu Sherrif (12) died overnight of Ebola in the village of Ballajah. She had been shunned and locked away with her mother's body for a week after most residents fled to the forest to escape an outbreak of the virus. In Liberia alone, some 599 cases have been diagnosed with 323 deaths.
(AFP, 8/12/14)
2014 Aug 14, The UN health agency said the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola in four decades had now climbed to 1,069 in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The WHO said the scale of the Ebola epidemic has been vastly underestimated and that "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the killer disease.
(AFP, 8/15/14)
2014 Aug 16, In Liberia residents in Monrovia’s in the West Point slum raided a quarantine center for suspected Ebola patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses. Up to 30 patients were staying at the center and many of them fled at the time of the raid.
(AP, 8/17/14)
2014 Aug 19, Liberia’s health ministry said all the patients who fled a medical center on Aug 16 are now being screened at a hospital in Monrovia and those who tested positive are being treated. Officials also said three health workers being treated with the last known doses of ZMapp were showing signs of recovery.
(AP, 8/19/14)
2014 Aug 20, Liberian security forces sealed off the West Point area, a seaside slum in Monrovia, in the latest effort to stop the spread of Ebola, setting off protests by angry residents.
(AP, 8/20/14)
2014 Aug 22, Ivory Coast closed its land borders with Ebola-affected West African neighbors Guinea and Liberia in an attempt to prevent the world's deadliest outbreak of the virus from spreading onto its territory.
(Reuters, 8/23/14)
2014 Aug 24, In Liberia Dr. Abraham Borbo, one of three Africans to receive the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp, died. Only six people in the world are known to have received ZMapp. The small supply is now said to be exhausted and it is expected to be months before more can be produced by its US maker.
(AP, 8/25/14)
2014 Aug 30, Liberia’s government lifted quarantine measures in the seaside district of West Point in Monrovia, which had been designed to contain the spread of the Ebola virus. Officials announced plans to build five new Ebola treatment centers each with capacity for 100 beds.
(Reuters, 8/31/14)
2014 Sep 1, Liberia's president ordered most civil servants to stay home another month in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Scores of healthcare workers at the country’s main hospital in Monrovia went on strike over unpaid wages.
(AP, 9/1/14)(AFP, 9/1/14)
2014 Sep 13, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf sacked 10 senior officials because they failed to heed a warning to return from overseas travel to help the government's fight against an Ebola epidemic.
(Reuters, 9/14/14)
2014 Sep 16, The United States announced it will send 3,000 troops to help tackle the Ebola outbreak as part of a ramped-up plan, including a major deployment in Liberia, the country where the epidemic is spiraling fastest out of control.
(Reuters, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 21, West Africa intensified its response to the deadly Ebola epidemic, with Sierra Leone uncovering scores of dead bodies during a 72-hour shutdown and Liberia announcing 1,000 hospital beds.
(AFP, 9/21/14)
2014 Sep 27, Liberia's chief medical officer, Bernice Dahn, placed herself under quarantine for 21 days after her office assistant died of Ebola.
(AP, 9/27/14)
2014 Oct 6, Liberia's Justice Minister Christiana Tah stepped down, saying President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf blocked her investigation into fraud allegations against the country's National Security Agency (NSA), which is headed by the president's son.
(Reuters, 10/7/14)
2014 Oct 10, Liberian lawmakers rejected a proposal the grant Pres. Sirleaf the power to further restrict movement and public gatherings and to confiscate property in the fight against Ebola as the WHO raised the death toll to 4,033 confirmed deaths, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
(SFC, 10/11/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 14, The Liberian government threatened to fire doctors and nurses who are on strike demanding danger money to care for Ebola patients in the country worst hit by the epidemic.
(AFP, 10/14/14)
2014 Oct 20, China was reported to have donated $6 million to help stave off food shortages in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries worst affected by the Ebola virus.
(AP, 10/20/14)
2014 Oct 23, Liberia’s state radio said dozens of people quarantined for Ebola monitoring in Jenewonda were threatening to break out of isolation because they have no food.
(AP, 10/23/14)
2014 Oct 24, China's president pledged to provide $81 million in aid to help fight Ebola in the three West African countries at the heart of the crisis.
(AP, 10/24/14)
2014 Oct 30, The World Bank said it was immediately providing $100 million to support the deployment of more health workers to Ebola-stricken West Africa.
(AFP, 10/30/14)
2014 Nov 8, The African Union, African Development Bank and regional business leaders meeting in in Ethiopia announced a crisis fund to help areas hit by the Ebola outbreak.
(AFP, 11/9/14)
2014 Nov 10, Swiss authorities arrested Alieu Kosiah (b.1975) in connection with accusations that he was involved in mass killings in parts of Liberia's Lofa County from 1993 to 1995. His trial opened on Dec. 3, 2020.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alieu_Kosiah)
2014 Nov 13, Liberia's Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said she is lifting a state of emergency imposed to control an Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the country but added that the move does not mean the outbreak is over.
(AP, 11/13/14)
2014 Nov 14, Senegal partially reopened air and sea borders with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, countries worst hit by the Ebola virus.
(AFP, 11/15/14)
2014 Nov 15, In Liberia about 160 Chinese health workers arrived, where they are due to staff a new $41 million Ebola clinic that, unlike most other foreign interventions, is being built and fully run by Chinese personnel.
(Reuters, 11/16/14)
2014 Nov 25, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf toured a new Chinese-built 100-bed treatment center for Ebola just outside Monrovia. It was exptected to begin receiving patientws nexdt week.
(AP, 11/25/14)
2014 Dec 20, In Liberia health workers manned polling stations across the country as voters cast their ballots in a twice-delayed Senate election.
(AP, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 20, The World Health Organization said the death toll from Ebola in Guinea (1,550), Liberia (3,346) and Sierra Leone (2,477), the three worst-affected countries in West Africa, has risen to 7,373 among 19,031 cases known to date there.
(Reuters, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 23, In Liberia a fourth member of the UN mission was hospitalized after testing positive for the virus. Liberia topped the number of Ebola deaths in the world with 3,376 fatalities, but has seen a clear decrease of new transmissions in the past month.
(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 29, Liberian health officials reported dozens of new Ebola cases near the border with Sierra Leone, marking a setback amid recent improvements. Forty-nine cases were reported in in western Grand Cape Mount County between December 1 and 25.
(AP, 12/29/14)
2015 Jan 2, The World Health Organization said deaths last year from Ebola had reached 7,989 with 2,827 from Sierra Leone, 3,423 from Liberia and 1,739 from Guinea.
(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 23, The World Health Organization (WHO) said Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have recorded falling numbers of new Ebola cases for four successive weeks.
(SFC, 1/24/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 24, The United Nations said Liberia was dealing with just five remaining cases of Ebola, in the clearest sign yet that the country is nearing the end of the outbreak.
(AFP, 1/24/15)
2015 Jan 26, Liberia said that there are currently only five confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire country — a dramatic turnaround in the West African nation where the virus has taken its deadliest toll.
(AP, 1/26/15)
2015 Feb 2, In Liberia large-scale human testing of two potential Ebola vaccines got under way in Monrovia, part of a global effort to prevent a repeat of the epidemic that has now claimed nearly 9,000 lives in West Africa.
(AP, 2/2/15)
2015 Feb 11, Liberia's Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf vowed that the country would get to zero Ebola cases soon as the US military announced it will be withdrawing most of its troops who have spent the last several months helping to battle the disease.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 20, Liberia's Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced the end of a midnight to 6 am curfew that was imposed to help stem the spread of the Ebola epidemic.
(AFP, 2/23/15)
2015 Feb 26, In Liberia the United States staged a military ceremony to end its five-month Ebola mission, with the west African nation in recovery from the worst-ever outbreak of the virus.
(AFP, 2/26/15)
2015 Mar 5, Liberia discharged its last confirmed Ebola patient, as it reported for the first time in nine months it had gone a full week without any new infections.
(AFP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 12, The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the Ebola outbreak has killed over 10,000 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 3/13/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 20, Liberian officials said a patient has tested positive for Ebola in Monrovia, deflating hopes that the nation had beaten the disease.
(SFC, 3/21/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 27, In Liberia woman, who last week became the country's first Ebola patient in more than a month, died. Two new suspected cases were also reported identified.
(AFP, 3/28/15)
2015 Apr 17, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the three West African countries hit hardest by the Ebola epidemic, called for an $8 billion "Marshall Plan" to help rebuild their economies and boost prevention efforts at a meeting with heads of the World Bank, IMF, and UN. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced a new $650 million in funds for the three countries, in addition to $1 billion committed last year to fight the outbreak.
(AFP, 4/17/15)
2015 Apr 18, In Liberia 700 Ebola workers took to the streets of Monrovia for a second day to demand promised hazard pay.
(AFP, 4/18/15)
2015 May 9, The UN World Health Organization (WHO) declared Liberia Ebola-free, hailing the "monumental" achievement in the west African country where the virus has killed more than 4,700 people.
(AFP, 5/9/15)
2015 May 26, In southeastern Liberia protesters with machetes broke into Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) palm oil plantation in Sinoe County, looting equipment and workers' property. Police later charged 23 people over riots.
(AFP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 30, Liberian authorities quarantined an area where the corpse of a boy (14) was found with Ebola. The WHO had declared Liberia Ebola free on May 9.
(SFC, 7/1/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 1, Liberian authorities confirmed a 2nd case of Ebola in the same town where the disease was recently detected in the corpse of a teenager.
(SFC, 7/2/15, p.A5)
2015 Jul 12, In Liberia a second person died from Ebola in the latest resurgence of the deadly disease in the West African nation. The woman in her early 20s was linked to the 17-year-old boy who died on June 28.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Aug 4, Liberian state radio said 14 men from Sierra Leone illegally mining for gold fell victim to a landslide last week. They were trapped under rubble and were presumed dead.
(AP, 8/4/15)
2015 Sep 3, The WHO announced that Liberia, recently ravaged by Ebola, was free of the virus, 42 days after the last confirmed case passed a second negative test.
(AFP, 9/3/15)
2015 Sep 30, In northern Liberia authorities imposed a curfew in Ganta town after violent protests following a wave of suspected ritual killings.
(Reuters, 10/1/15)
2015 Nov 20, In Liberia a new case of Ebola emerged in a setback for the country declared free of the disease on September 3.
(Reuters, 11/20/15)
2015 Nov 23, In Liberia a teenager (15) died in the first such death since the country was officially declared free of the virus in September. His parents had also tested positive for the virus and were under observation in the capital Monrovia.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 In Liberia George Werner was made education minister. He soon removed 1,892 dead or retired teachers from the government’s payroll. In September, 2016, he launched Partnership Schools for Liberia, a pilot program based on charter schools in America and academies in England.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.42)
2016 Jan 14, The World Health organization (WHO) said the two-year Ebola epidemic that killed 11,000 and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country given the all-clear.
(AFP, 1/14/16)
2016 Feb 29, Liberian police fired teargas and threw stones at a crowd gathered near a court in Monrovia to demand the release of a political activist charged with sedition.
(Reuters, 2/29/16)
2016 Mar 31, In Liberia a woman (30) died of Ebola, months after the West African nation was declared free of the virus. Officials later said there were strong indications the woman came from Guinea when the border was closed.
(Reuters, 4/1/16)(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 3, Liberian health officials said a second case of Ebola has been confirmed months after the country had been declared free from transmissions. The son (5) of a woman who died March 31 from Ebola was taken to a treatment center in Monrovia.
(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 8, Liberia said it plans to outsource the oversight of its entire primary education sector to USD-based Bridge International Academies, a for-profit company linked to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
(SFC, 4/9/16, p.A4)
2016 May 25, Liberia's Information Minister Eugene Nagbe said the Chairman of the ruling Unity Party Varney Sherman, parliamentary speaker Alex Tyler former junior mining minister Ernest Jones all face charges, along with London-based Sable Mining in a massive corruption scandal.
(AFP, 5/25/16)
2016 Jun 9, Liberia said it was free of Ebola, meaning there are now no known cases in west Africa of the tropical virus that has left more than 11,300 people dead in the region since late 2013.
(AFP, 6/9/16)
2016 Jun 27, First Lady Michelle Obama landed in Liberia with her daughters and mother for an overseas trip promoting education for girls. The trip includes stops in Morocco and Spain.
(SFC, 6/28/16, p.A2)
2017 Apr 28, United Nations officials said at least 11 people have died from a mysterious illness in Liberia, and tests have been negative for the Ebola virus. Those who fell sick this week all had attended a relative's funeral.
(AP, 4/28/17)
2017 Oct 10, Liberia held presidential elections. 2.18 million registered voters chose from a crowded field of 20 presidential candidates. Voters will also elect 73 seats in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives.
(AFP, 10/10/17)
2017 Oct 12, Liberia’s National Election Commission data showed former international soccer star George Weah ahead in 11 of 15 counties. Fewer than 30 percent of the votes have been counted in the majority of counties.
(AP, 10/13/17)
2017 Nov 6, Liberia's Supreme Court halted the presidential election runoff, which had been scheduled for Nov. 7, until the National Elections Commission investigates allegations of irregularities and fraud in the first round.
(AP, 11/6/17)
2017 Dec 19, In South Africa convicted Dutch arms dealer Guus Kouwenhoven (75), who supplied arms that fuelled Liberia's bloody civil war, was released by a South African court on bail of $78,000.
(AP, 12/19/17)
2017 Dec 26, Liberia held elections in a delayed run-off vote for the country's presidency. Former int’l footballer George Weah (51) and Vice-President Joseph Boakai joined voters in casting their ballots as they went head-to-head for the top office. George Weah easily beat Vice President Joseph Boakai gaining 61.5 percent of the ballot against 38.5 percent for his rival and winning in 14 of Liberia's 15 counties.
(AFP, 12/26/17)(AFP, 12/29/17)
2017 Liberia stood as the world’s fourth poorest country.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.42)
2017 Liberia’s population was about 4 million.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.51)
2018 Jan 13, Liberia’s ruling Unity Party expelled the country's outgoing president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is accused by party leaders of meddling in last year's presidential elections in which its candidate suffered a bruising defeat.
(Reuters, 1/14/18)
2018 Jan 16, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf rejected her expulsion from the governing party as illegal, saying she will appeal the decision.
(AP, 1/16/18)
2018 Jan 22, In Liberia former football star George Weah was sworn in as president.
(AFP, 1/22/18)
2018 Sep 18, Liberia's Information Minister Eugene Nagbe said several shipments of freshly printed Liberian dollars ordered from abroad by the central bank have been unaccounted for since they passed through the country's main ports in November 2017 and August this year. The government sought US help in investigating the whereabouts of the cash, equivalent to nearly five percent of Liberia's GDP.
(Reuters, 9/21/18)
2018 Oct, CEO Katie Meyler (37) started her leave of absence after ProPublica reported that former staffer Macintosh Johnson had sexually assaulted students at a More Than Me branch in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Meyler resigned six months later. Johnson had AIDS and died in jail in 2016 while awaiting trial.
(AP, 4/21/19)
2018 Dec 24, Journalists in Liberia sounded the alarm on press freedom after two ministers mounted an attack on a paper that ran an article about alleged top-level corruption.
(AFP, 12/24/18)
2019 Feb 9, In northeastern Liberia a gold mine collapsed. Five bodies were recovered on Feb. 13 and 40 people remained trapped.
(AP, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 28, In Liberia two senior figures at the Central Bank, one of whom is the son of former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, were arrested following a probe into reports of missing banknotes.
(AFP, 3/1/19)
2019 Mar 1, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu met with Liberian Pres. George Weah in Jerusalem. Netanyahu has made strengthening ties with Africa a foreign policy priority.
(AFP, 3/1/19)
2019 Apr 29, Alfred Brownell was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for exposing alleged abuse by palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia and helping to prevent it from converting about 20 square miles (about 50 square km) of forest that is home to elephants, pygmy hippopotamuses and chimpanzees. He was forced to flee Liberia in 2016 after the government threatened to arrest him for his activism.
(AP, 4/29/19)
2019 Jun 7, Thousands of Liberians took to the streets of Monrovia to protest against the corruption and economic decline that many blame on their once hugely popular president, former football star George Weah.
(Reuters, 6/7/19)
2019 Sep 18, In Liberia a fire overnight at a Quranic school outside Monrovia killed at least 27 people. Many of the dead were thought to be children.
(AP, 9/18/19)
2019 Dec 6, A multi-million pound prosecution by Scotland Yard's war crimes unit against Agnes Reeves-Taylor (54), a former wife of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, collapsed after her lawyers won a bid to have the case discontinued.
(The Telegraph, 12/6/19)
2020 Mar 6, Liberia suspended the licenses of all fuel importers, including France's Total, to conduct performance reviews after some of the companies overdrew from reserves in state-run facilities, leading to gasoline shortages.
(Reuters, 3/6/20)
2020 Mar 12, A Finnish court jailed in a custody hearing Gibril Ealoghima Massaquoi (50), a Sierra Leone man suspected of committing serious war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1999 through 2003 during Liberia's bloody second civil war. Massaquoi has lived in Finland for more than 10 years.
(AP, 3/12/20)
2020 Mar 16, Benin, Liberia, Somalia and Tanzania became the latest African countries to report cases of coronavirus.
(Reuters, 3/16/20)
2020 Apr 11, A coronavirus lockdown in Liberia's capital Monrovia got off to a chaotic start, as some police officers used truncheons against residents who had ventured out into the streets to buy food and withdraw money. Liberia has so far confirmed at least 48 cases of the coronavirus, including five deaths.
(Reuters, 4/12/20)
2020 Apr 12, In Pennsylvania Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, a former lietenant for Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, died in Philadelphia of COVID-19 complications.
(SFC, 4/15/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 28, The US extradited Alexander Mentol Zinnah (56), a member of former Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor's security forces, back to Liberia from Minnesota.
(https://tinyurl.com/y8yxddwt) (SFC, 4/30/20, p.A3)
2020 May 5, In western Liberia two miners died in a mine collapse in Grand Cape Mount County. Around 50 people were reported missing following the incident.
(Reuters, 5/5/20)
2020 Jul 9, The WHO said former Liberian pres. Ellen Johnson and former New Zealand PM Helen Clark will lead a new panel to give an assessment of the global response to the coronavirus pandemic.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A7)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Liberia
End of file.
Return to home
National Motto: The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here."
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A19)
1809 Mar 15, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, first president of Liberia, was born.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1816 A project to repatriate freed slaves from American was begun by the American Colonization Society. It was supported by Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster and James Monroe.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A19)
1821-1867 The American Colonization Society helped some 13,000 black Americans go to Liberia.
(SSFC, 2/1/04, p.M1)
1822 Feb 4, Free American Blacks settled in West Africa. The first group of colonists landed at Cape Mesurado and founded Monrovia, named in honor of President James Monroe. They named their colony Liberia.
(HNPD, 7/26/98)(MC, 2/4/02)(NG, Feb, 04)
1822-1904 Some 23,000 immigrants, mostly from the US, arrived in Liberia.
(NG, Feb, 04)
1824 Aug 15, Freed American slaves formed the country of Liberia.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1836 Isaac Wade Ross, Revolutionary war hero, died in Mississippi. His will stipulated that his slaves should be emancipated upon his death, but only if they agreed to go to Liberia. The 1st of almost 200 were finally set free in 1848. In 2004 Alan Huffman authored "Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today."
(SSFC, 2/1/04, p.M1)
1847 Jul 26, Liberia became the first African colony to become an independent state. A mutual agreement between the settlers and the society created the republic of Liberia. More than 10,000 free blacks had moved there. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the Virginia-born son of free blacks, was elected the first president of Liberia, an African nation that grew out of the efforts of the American Colonization Society. Roberts made a state visit to the United States in 1851. The American Colonization Society supported setting up a colony for freed slaves in Africa as an alternative to American integration. [see Aug 26]
(HNPD, 7/26/98)(HN, 7/26/98)
1847 Aug 26, Liberia was proclaimed an independent republic. Freed American slaves founded Liberia. They modeled their constitution after that of the US, copied the US flag, and named their capital Monrovia, after James Monroe, who financed early settlers. Over the decades 16,400 former slaves made the voyage. They assumed that the 16 native tribes were there to be exploited.
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1871 Mar 1, J. Milton Turner was named US minister to Liberia.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1878 Apr 21, Ship Azor left Charleston with 206 blacks for Liberia.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1895 Mar 18, Some 200 blacks left Savannah, Ga., for Liberia.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1926 Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. created the world's largest plantation at Harbel, Liberia, and rubber became the backbone of the economy. Firestone had signed a 99-year concession agreement with the Liberian government in the 1920s to grow and export rubber.
(AP, 7/1/03)(NG, Feb, 04)(AP, 10/30/09)
1936 Graham Green (1904-1991), English writer, authored “Journey Without Maps," a travel account about a 350-mile, 4-week walk through the interior of Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1935.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Burnt-Out_Case)(Econ, 9/4/10, p.90)
1943 William Tubman was elected president of Liberia. He promoted foreign investment and local participation in government.
(AP, 7/1/03)
1945-1971 William Tubman, president, began to address the inequalities between the Americo-Liberians and the native tribes.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1948 Jan 28, Charles Taylor, later president of Liberia (1997-2003), was born in Arthington, near Monrovia. His family descended from freed American slaves He was the third of 15 children of an Americo-Liberian father, Nelson Taylor. His mother, Zoe, was a Gola-woman.
(www.liberiapastandpresent.org/charles_taylor.htm)(AP, 7/14/09)
1971 Jul 13, William Tolbert (1913-1980), vice-president of Lebanon 1951, succeeded William Tubman as president and continued Tubman’s policies until his own death in 1980.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Tolbert,_Jr.)
1971-1980 William Tolbert Jr. succeeded Tubman and continued his policies.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1973 Oct 3, Sierra Leone’s President Stevens engineered the creation of the Mano River Union, an economic federation of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Guinea joined in 1980.
(http://tinyurl.com/58uymq)
1975 May 25, ECOWAS Treaty1 was signed. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was formed in Nigeria with 15 members that included: Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
(www.sec.ecowas.int/sitecedeao/english/achievements.htm)
1980 Apr 12, In Liberia Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe (1951-1990) of the Krahn tribe staged a coup. Doe, a high school dropout, and a few soldiers killed Pres. William Tolbert and fatally shot a dozen of his ministers. He was backed by the US and became one of Liberia’s most brutal dictators.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Doe)(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1980 May 9, In Florida 35 motorists were killed when a Liberian-flagged freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay. The freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a pier (support column) during a blinding thunderstorm, sending over 1200 feet (366m) of the bridge plummeting into Tampa Bay. The collision caused six cars, a truck, and a Greyhound bus to fall 150 feet (46 m) into the water.
(AP, 5/9/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_Bridge)
1980 Guinea joined the Mano River Union, an economic federation of Sierra Leone and Liberia created in 1973. Due to conflicts involving the countries the objectives of the Union could not be achieved. The union was reactivated in 2004.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mano_River_Union)
1980-1989 Samuel Doe held dictatorial power for 9 years. His reign was marked by personal enrichment, favoritism to his Krahn ethnic group, and the brutal liquidation of opponents.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1981 Jun 27, The African States members of the Organization of African Unity, meeting in Liberia, adopted a Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Article 5 specifically prohibited slavery. It became effective as of October 21, 1986.
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm)
1981-1985 The US gave $402 million in aid to Liberia.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)
1983 Charles Taylor fled Liberia after being accused of embezzling nearly US$1 million. He was later detained in the United States on a Liberian arrest warrant.
(AP, 7/14/09)
1984 In Liberia Samuel Doe allowed the return of political parties under pressure from the US.
(AP, 7/1/03)
1985 In Liberia national elections were held and Samuel Doe was elected president.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)(AP, 7/1/03)
1985 Charles Taylor escaped from a Plymouth County jail in Massachusetts while awaiting extradition to Liberia, where he was accused of embezzling money as an official in the dictatorship of Samuel Doe. He went to Libya received military training as a guest of Col. Moammar Khadafy. Taylor met Foday Sankoh, a corporal from Sierra Leone while training in Libya.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A10)(SFC, 12/13/00, p.B5)(AP, 12/16/02)
1989 Dec 24, Charles Taylor, a former cabinet minister under Samuel Doe, led a small group of fighters across the border from the Ivory Coast into Liberia. Within a few months he had looted and terrorized much of the countryside and reached the capital. Taylor led the NPFL or National Patriotic Front. The NPFL was composed mainly of the Mano and Gio tribes from northern Nimba County.
(SFC,4/16/96, p.A-9)(SFC,4/17/96,p.A-8)(SFC,1/30/97,p.A9)(SFC,7/19/97, p.A8)
1990 Jul 23, As rebel forces closed in on presidential palace, Liberian President Samuel K. Doe refused to leave until the civil war was decided. Charles Taylor tried to take Monrovia in this year. He had begun the war in Liberia from the Ivory Coast in 1989.
(AP, 7/23/97)(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-9)
1990 Jul 30, In Monrovia, Liberia, soldiers opened fire on worshippers in church over 600 Gios and Manos were killed.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/liberia/army.htm)
1990 Sep 9, Liberian dictator Pres. Samuel K. Doe was killed after being captured by rebels led by Prince Johnson. Doe was tortured by rivals and bled to death after an ear was cut off. The remains of Doe’s Krahn-dominated army composed the AFL or Armed Forces of Liberia.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)(AP, 9/9/00)(AP, 2/24/10)
1990 US Marines were sent to Liberia to rescue American citizens.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A16)
1990-2004 A 14-year civil war began in Liberia. 1.2 million people were forced flee their homes. 700,000 sought shelter in Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and other West African countries. 14 years of fighting left some 250,000 people dead.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.48)
1991 Alhaji Kromah, an ethnic Mandingo, set up ULIMO with a group of former government officials and army officers.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-11)
1991 RUF guerrillas including Sam Bockerie invaded Sierra Leone from Liberia. Charles Taylor formed the guerrillas in 1989.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A11)
1992 Oct 15, In Liberia Operation Octopus began when forces under Charles Taylor attacked positions of a West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG. Martina Johnson, the head of the heavy artillery unit for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, reportedly led the operation.
(AP, 9/18/14)
1992 Oct 31, It was announced that five American nuns in Liberia had been shot to death near the capital Monrovia; the killings were blamed on rebels loyal to Charles Taylor.
(AP, 10/31/97)
1992 ULIMO, The United Movement of Liberia arose as a guerilla force to stop cooperation between Sierra Leone’s rebel leader Foday Sankoh and Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1992 Charles Taylor again tried to take Monrovia.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1993 Jun 5, Liberian Charles Taylor's rebellion killed 550 fugitives.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1994 ULIMO split into two factions: ULIMO-K and ULIMO-J. ULIMO-K was composed of members of the Mandingo ethnic group. ULIMO-J was made up of ethnic Krahns led by Roosevelt Johnson.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1994 The Lofa Defense Force was set up under Francois Massaquoi to clear ULIMO-K out of Lofa County. It holds no significant territory.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-11)
1994 Charles Taylor enlisted Joshua Milton Blahyi, aka Gen’l. Butt Naked, into his force. After the fighting Gen’. Naked resumed his birth name and turned into an evangelical preacher.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1995 Aug 20, Liberian warlords agreed in Nigeria to end hostilities in six-year old civil war, which had killed 150,000 people. The Economic Community of West African States brokered a peace treaty between two warring movements.
(WSJ, 8/21/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)(AP, 7/1/03)
1995 Nov 14, In Liberia extra-judicial killings left 7 soldiers dead. In 2012 a US immigration judge ordered George Boley (62), the former leader of the Liberian Peace Council, out of the country in upstate New York citing "credible reports" that Boley authorized the executions of seven of his soldiers on this day.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
1996 Jan 1, Rebels massacred at least 50 civilians at a refugee camp west of Monrovia.
(WSJ, 1/5/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 7, Relief workers said 15,000 people have fled fighting in the northwest and have crowded into the city of Tubmanburg. Fighting between Ulimo rebels and West African peacemakers was continuing.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar, Johnson’s chief of staff, Armah Youlo, and a group of supporters deposed Johnson as leader of ULIMO-J.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-11)
1996 Apr 6, Fighting and looting began in Monrovia, Liberia, and a six year civil war resumed between rival ethnic groups. Supporters of Roosevelt Johnson faced off against the ruling council of state, which sacked Johnson as rural development minister and ordered his arrest for murder. Johnson accused Charles Taylor of violating the Abuja accord of August, which set up a transitional government.
(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-12)
1996 May 3, Roosevelt Johnson was sneaked out of Liberia to neighboring Freetown, Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1996 May, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, whose members are Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo, has spent huge resources in the peace process for Liberia.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 May 27, The military militias completed their withdrawal from Monrovia.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun 11, A rusty Russian freighter carrying hundreds of Liberian refugees remained at sea after Ghana refused to let it dock.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Jun 17, Health workers have dug up an additional 150 bodies, many of them headless, along the beach at Mamba Point. Exhumations started 2 weeks ago and about 500 bodies have been found and reburied. 1,500 bodies were exhumed from around the capital.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A9)(USAT, 6/27/96, p.10A)
1996 Sep 7, Emergency food from the World Food Program reached Tubmanburg, Liberia, where half the 35,000 population suffered from extreme hunger.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A11)
1996 Ivory Coast was flooded with 350,000 Liberian refugees, who have fled across the border since Charles Taylor began the war from the Ivory Coast six years ago.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-9)
1997 Jan 31, The deadline for some 14,000 rebels to hand in their weapons.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A9)
1997 May 30, Elections were set for this date.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 3, Reinforcements from a peace-keeping force in Liberia was sent in to help Nigerian troops against the insurrectionist troops of Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 15, In Liberia pres. candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (58), a banker and UN official, led a women’s solidarity march. She had recently emerged as the leading rival of warlord Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A9)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 22, In Liberia results from the election showed Charles Taylor in the lead with about 75 of the vote.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 2, Charles Taylor was sworn in as president of Liberia.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 8, In Liberia some 200,000 refugees from Sierra Leone had spilled over from escalating violence.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 4, Samuel Dokie, an opposition politician, was found slain in Bong County with his wife and bodyguard. He had been reported missing after being arrested by security men in Pres. Taylor’s stronghold of Gbarnga.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.B5)
1998 Sep 19, Fighting in Monrovia left at least 33 dead as the government tried to arrest Roosevelt Johnson, former rebel leader. The next day he was accused of plotting against Pres. Taylor and fled to the US Embassy.
(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A14)
1998 Sep 25, In Liberia the US transported Roosevelt Johnson out of the country to Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 9/26/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep, Clashes between the Krahn under Roosevelt Johnson and state forces in Monrovia left 300 dead and created 4,000 new refugees.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Apr, Violence occurred in Voinjama and left a number of people dead.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Jun 8, Pres. Charles Taylor announced that the ECOMAG intervention force would leave for good on July 26 marking the end of the 7-year civil war.
(SFC, 6/9/99, p.C4)
1999 Aug 11, In Liberia 6 European relief workers were kidnapped in Kolahun by insurgents based in Guinea.
(SFC, 8/13/99, p.D2)
1999 Aug 13, In Liberia 7 abducted aid workers were freed and some 90 other UN and foreign workers fled into Guinea to avoid fighting.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.C1)
1999 Aug 20, It was reported that tens thousands of refugees from Sierra Leone had fled to northern Liberia and that many were robbed and killed by retreating rebels.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.D3)
1999 Aug, Violence occurred in Kolahun and left a number of people dead.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec, Sam Bockerie fell out with RUF leader Foday Sankoh over diamonds and fled to Liberia with several hundred loyalists.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A11)
1999 Britain and the US threatened to suspend aid after Liberia was accused of supporting militants in neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2000 Mar 15, In Liberia the government closed 2 leading independent radio stations saying they posed a security risk.
(SFC, 3/16/00, p.A15)
2000 Apr 16, The winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize included: Alexander Peal (55), for environmental work and founding a national park in Liberia.
(SFC, 4/17/00, p.A2)
2000 Jul 31, US and British diplomats accused the Pres. Charles Taylor of Liberia and Pres. Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso of trading arms for diamonds and aiding the rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A8)
2000 Aug 19, Four journalists for British TV were charged with espionage while filming for a 3-part documentary about Liberia, Mauritania, Mali and Angola.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 25, Liberia freed the 4 arrested TV journalists.
(SFC, 8/26/00, p.A9)
2000 Oct-Feb, Slovak brokers were involved in a plan to ship Mi24 helicopter gunships from Kyrgyzstan to Liberia. One was shipped and another was confiscated by Slovak customs agents.
(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A15)
2000 Dec, It was reported that Robert Taylor, brother of Pres. Charles Taylor, headed the Forestry Development Authority and allowed Oriental Timber of Hong Kong to wipe out entire forests.
(SFC, 12/13/00, p.B5)
2000 Dec 20, A UN panel linked Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor to illegal diamond smuggling and arms trafficking with the rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.C6)
2000 Liberian forces launched an offensive against rebels in the country's north.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2000 A shipping concern in Virginia, LISCR, helped Pres. Taylor procure weapons in violation of the UN arms embargo. The Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry began managing Liberia’s shipping regitry this year.
(WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A1)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)
2000 A loose coalition named "Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy" (LURD) began fighting against Charles Taylor. Covert support included the US.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A19)
2001 Jan 19, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor said that he has ended support of the RUF in Sierra Leone and would submit to int’l. scrutiny of his finances.
(SFC, 1/20/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 7, The UN Security Council imposed an embargo on Liberia’s trade in weapons and diamonds in an effort to halt arms to rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.A13)
2001 Mar 20, Liberia ordered its security forces to seal its border with Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.A14)
2001 May 4, The UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Liberia for failing to sever ties with rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D2)
2001 May 23, Pres. Bush banned the import of rough diamonds from Liberia in an effort to deprive rebels in Sierra Leone of a source of funds.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C3)
2001 Nov 2, It was reported that Ibrahim Bah, a Libyan-trained former Senegalese rebel, lived in Burkina Faso and selected diamond dealers to handle deals in Liberia between rebels from Sierra Leone and the al Qaeda network.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.A8)
2001 Nov, In Liberia government forces started a new offensive against rebels.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2002 Jan, More than 50,000 Liberia and Sierra Leone refugees fled fighting.
(AP, 7/1/03)
2002 Feb 7, Rebel forces, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, attacked Klay Junction 25 miles north of Monrovia.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A3)
2002 Feb 19, Rebels were repelled at Heindi and Bong Mines, 20 miles northeast of Monrovia, as some 15,000 civilians fled.
(SFC, 2/21/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 25, Police shut down the independent Analyst newspaper and arrested Tiawan Gongloe, a leading human rights lawyer.
(SFC, 4/26/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 29, Pres. Taylor suspended all political activity. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, leader of the opposition Unity Party, returned to Liberia to gear up for elections.
(SFC, 4/30/02, p.A13)
2002 May 9, Many civilians were reported killed as rebels attacked Gbarnga, the stronghold of Pres. Charles Taylor.
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A16)
2002 May 13, Rebels attacked Arthington and threatened to move on Monrovia unless Pres. Charles Taylor is arrested and tried.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A14)
2002 May 16, Liberian forces claimed to have stopped the rebel offensive to have killed 100 in the process.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A20)
2002 May 20, Liberia rejected a cease-fire appeal by neighboring West African nations and ordered its forces to look for a missing British priest and 60-blind Liberian civilians last seen May 13.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A16)
2002 Jun 8, Liberian troops recaptured a northern town believed to have been used by insurgents as a transit point for supplies and rebels fighters based in neighboring Guinea.
(AP, 6/8/02)
2002 Jun 20, Liberian rebels attacked a refugee camp near the border with Sierra Leone, seizing five nurses and sending thousands fleeing as they battled government troops. Four people died in the fighting.
(AP, 6/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, Refugees in flight from Liberia's war surged to 200,000, and those reaching safety in neighboring Guinea spoke of worsening atrocities by President Charles Taylor's forces: looting, raping, burning and killing trapped villagers. Jubilant government troops strutted through heavily looted Tubmanburg after driving away rebel forces who had controlled it for close to three months.
(AP, 7/20/02)(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 26, Liberian attackers crossed into eastern Sierra Leone and abducted 18 villagers, in the second such raid in just over a week.
(AP, 7/26/02)
2002 Sep 1, In Liberia rebel forces shelled the northern town of Voinjama in a push to recapture their former stronghold from government forces.
(AP, 9/1/02)
2002 Sep 14, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor lifted the state of emergency he imposed eight months ago, declaring that the rebel insurrection against his government had been all but crushed.
(AP, 9/14/02)
2002 Sep 21, In Liberia government forces and rebels battled for at least three northern and northwestern towns in a new outbreak of fighting near the border with Guinea.
(AP, 9/21/02)
2002 Dec 7, In Liberia civilians were killed in a government offensive on a rebel-held town. Their deaths were blamed on crossfire.
(AP, 12/9/02)
2002 Dec 13, In northwest Liberia an overcrowded boat capsized, killing at least 48 people and leaving more than 100 others missing.
(AP, 12/16/02)
2003 Jan 11, It was reported that former combatants from Liberia and Sierra Leone were pouring into Ivory Coast to fight with the rebels.
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.A8)
2003 Feb 1, In Liberia fighting between government and rebel forces raged within 60 miles of Monrovia.
(AP, 2/1/03)
2003 Mar 3, A Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor on charges including murder, rape, sexual slavery, conscripting child soldiers and terrorizing civilians for his support of rebels during Sierra Leone civil war. The Indictment was unsealed on June 4, 2003, during Taylor's first overseas trip since his indictment.
(AP, 7/14/09)
2003 May 6, The Liberian government announced that Sam Bockerie (39), a guerrilla RUF leader, was killed in a shootout with Liberian soldiers.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jun 4, A UN-backed war crimes court indicted Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor, accusing him of "the greatest responsibility" in the vicious 10-year civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 6/4/03)
2003 Jun 5, In Liberia deputy ministers Isaac Nuhan Vaye and John Winpoe Yormie were arrested about the same time that Pres. Taylor announced that a coup plot had been uncovered. Vaye and Yormie were later reported killed.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A12)
2003 Jun 9, As rebels bore down on the capital of Liberia, French helicopters rescued more than 500 Americans, Europeans and other foreigners.
(AP, 6/9/04)
2003 Jun 17, Liberia's President Charles Taylor pledged to yield power as part of a cease-fire with rebels, but his government quickly hedged on the resignation.
(AP, 6/17/03)
2003 Jun 20, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor renounced his peace pledge to cede power and announced that he will serve to the January 2004 end of his term — and might run again.
(AP, 6/20/03)
2003 Jun 23, The main rebel group in Liberia said it was pulling out of peace talks and accused the top peace mediator of allowing Pres. Taylor to renege on a promise to step down. Swiss authorities ordered a freeze on any bank accounts of Pres. Charles Taylor, so war crimes prosecutors can search for possible illegal diamond profits linked to West Africa's conflicts.
(AP, 6/23/03)
2003 Jun 26, In Monrovia, Liberia, 3 days of rocket and mortar fire left at least 200 civilians dead.
(SFC, 6/27/03, p.A17)
2003 Jun 28, West African leaders promised to deploy a peace force of at least 5,000 troops to warring Liberia after a cease-fire has been reached, and said France had offered soldiers and logistical support.
(AP, 6/28/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US military commander in Europe was ordered to begin planning for possible American intervention in Liberia.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 4, Liberia's President Charles Taylor, under US pressure to quit, said he had agreed to step down. A senior Nigerian official said Taylor had accepted an offer of asylum.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 6, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor announced that he would leave the country and accept refuge in Nigeria.
(SFC, 7/7/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 8, US military experts arrived in Liberia to assess the need for help in the local civil war.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Liberia rebels advanced deeper into the war-ravaged capital, trading mortar, grenade and machine-gun fire with government troops.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 21, In Liberia mortar shells hit the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in the Monrovia, injuring at least three people. Fighting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia left over 600 dead.
(AP, 7/21/03)(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 24, In Monrovia, Liberia, the bloodiest mortar attack in days killed at least 12 men, women and children.
(AP, 7/25/03)
2003 Jul 25, Pres. Bush ordered a naval amphibious force from the Mediterranean to position itself off the coast of Liberia.
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 26, In Liberia a mortar attack into a church harboring thousands of refugees, killed at least 15 and wounded about 55 others.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Jul 28, In Liberia rebels captured the second-largest city of Buchanan, depriving embattled President Charles Taylor of his last significant port outside the besieged capital.
(AP, 7/28/03)
2003 Jul 29, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor's forces launched what they called a major counterattack on the key port of Buchanan, battling to take back Liberia's second-largest city a day after it fell to insurgents.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Aug 1, In Monrovia, Liberia, shelling erupted after a one-day lull, killing at least 9 people. Top West African officials flew into the capital to press the country's president to cede power after peacekeepers arrive, but Charles Taylor kept them waiting by reportedly heading to a southern war zone. Taylor actually flew to Libya to gather arms and ammunition.
(AP, 8/1/03)(SFC, 8/8/03, p.A10)
2003 Aug 1, The UN Security Council approved sending a multinational force to Liberia.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor agreed to cede power on Aug. 11.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 4, West African forces arrived in Liberia to oversee the departure of President Charles Taylor.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2003 Aug 7, In Liberia Charles Taylor picked Vice Pres. Moses Blah (56) as his successor. West African peacekeepers entered Liberia's rebel-besieged capital.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2003 Aug 7, Bangladesh and Namibia pledged more than 6,000 troops for a UN peace-keeping force to replace multinational soldiers now deploying in war-torn Liberia.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 10, Liberian President Charles Taylor delivered a farewell address to a nation bloodied by 14 years of war.
(AP, 8/11/04)
2003 Aug 11, In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor shook hands with his designated successor as his long-promised resignation ceremony started in Monrovia. A UN official later reported that Taylor took $3 million with him, that had been donated for disarming and demobilizing thousands of armed combatants. Taylor flew into exile in Nigeria following his resignation.
(AP, 8/11/03)(SFC, 9/6/03, p.A3)(AP, 7/14/09)
2003 Aug 12, Liberia's leading rebel movement agreed to lift its siege of the capital and vital port within two days, allowing food to flow to hundreds of thousands of hungry people.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2003 Aug 14, Dozens of American troops landed at Liberia's main airport, increasing the U.S. presence to boost West African peacekeepers, as rebels began withdrawing from Monrovia. A "quick reaction" force of 150 combat troops were sent to back up Nigerian peacekeepers.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 15, Tens of thousands Liberian civilians, desperate for food, broke through barricades on Monrovia's front-line bridges, reuniting the capital after 10 weeks of rebel siege.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2003 Aug 18, In Accra, Ghana, Liberia's government and rebels signed a peace accord to end 14 years of vicious war with plans for elections in 2 years.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 21, Liberia's rebels and government chose Gyude Bryant, a gentle-mannered businessman, to lead a transition administration.
(AP, 8/21/03)
2003 Aug 24, A 150-strong US Marine force ended an 11-day deployment and headed back to warships off the coast of Monrovia, Liberia.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Oct 1, In Liberia West African forces traded their camouflage helmets Wednesday for the blue ones of the UN. Hours later clashes flared between rebels and loyalist forces in Monrovia, leaving three civilians dead.
(Reuters, 10/1/03)
2003 Oct 14, In Liberia businessman Gyude Bryant was sworn in as leader of the post-war government, taking up a 2-year term.
(AP, 10/14/03)
2003 Nov 7, The first UN peace missions to Liberia's rebel-held far east found deserted towns emptied of all but looting insurgents, and terrorized civilians under rebel grip or lying rotting, dead, in the bush.
(AP, 11/8/03)
2003 Nov 10, The US State Dept. distanced itself from a congressional push to capture toppled Liberian leader Charles Taylor in Nigeria via a $2 million reward.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A9)
2003 Nov 25, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo said he will surrender ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor to face a war crimes trial if Liberia asks.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Dec 4, Interpol put ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor on its most-wanted list, issuing a "red notice" calling for his arrest on war crimes charges in Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 12/4/03)
2003 Dec 7, In Liberia government troops launched U.N.-sponsored disarmament.
(AP, 12/7/03)
2003 Dec 10, In Liberia rampages by ex-government fighters left at least nine people dead in Monrovia. All but one of the deaths came in fighting between U.N. troops and the ex-militiamen.
(AP, 12/10/03)
2003 Dec 15, The UN said it was suspending for a month a disarmament campaign in war-battered Liberia so it can improve a camp for former combatants.
(AP, 12/15/03)
2003 Dec 22, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to maintain sanctions on Liberia including an arms embargo and a ban on importing diamonds from the west African nation.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 The UN imposed a ban in Liberia on trade in logs due to uncontrolled and environmentally devastating logging.
(Econ, 3/8/08, p.92)
2004 Jan 6, In Liberia the LURD and MODEL rebel groups demanded the resignation of Gyude Bryant, interim government head.
(Econ, 1/31/04, p.48)
2004 Jan 20, Asha Keita-Conneh, the wife of the leader of Liberia's most powerful rebel movement announced she was taking charge, backed by dozens of guerrilla commanders in ousting a husband whose ambitions she said were endangering the nation's hard-won peace.
(AP, 1/20/04)
2004 Feb 6, International donors pledged $520 million to start the long process of turning Liberia from a failed war-ravaged state into a democracy with a thriving economy.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 May 24, In Liberia an American citizen working with a U.S. military assessment team was killed in his hotel room in the capital Monrovia.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 Jul 23, President Bush froze the assets of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, his family and top aides and accused them of undermining the country's transition to democracy.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Oct 1, The United Nations launched a massive voluntary repatriation program to return an estimated 340,000 Liberian refugees still scattered across West Africa.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 29, In Liberia mobs brandishing machetes, sticks and Kalashnikov rifles rampaged through Monrovia, prompting interim head of state Gyude Bryant to order an immediate daylight curfew to stem the rare Muslim-Christian violence. A UN armored vehicle trying to disperse a crowd inadvertently crushed three people to death.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2004 Oct 30, Liberians ventured back onto the streets of Monrovia during a temporary lifting of a round-the-clock curfew imposed after at least 7 people were killed in religious riots.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2004 Nov 3, Liberia's three former warring factions jointly announced they had disarmed and disbanded their forces, marking a milestone in a quest for peace in this battered West African nation after nearly 15 years of war.
(AP, 11/4/04)
2004 Dec 21, The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to maintain economic sanctions against Liberia but promised to review a ban on diamond sales in three months and a ban on timber exports in six months.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2005 Oct 11, Liberia held presidential elections. 22 candidates included an international soccer star, two former warlords and a Harvard-educated woman. Election officials using battery-powered lanterns counted ballots through the night from the country's first postwar polls. Ex-soccer star George Weah led 21 rivals.
(AP, 10/11/05)(Reuters, 10/11/05)(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 12, Officials said former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and soccer star George Weah emerged as early front-runners in Liberia's first post-war elections.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 13, Soccer star George Weah took an early lead as results trickled in from Liberia's first post-war elections, but he seemed likely to face a run-off with former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 19, Libya sent to prison for 18 months a blogger who criticized the government on the Internet. A Tripoli court convicted Abdel Raziq al-Mansuri of illegal possession of a handgun and sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment. A rights group said that after detaining al-Mansuri, Libyan security officials searched his home and "found an old pistol that belonged to his father."
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 8, Liberia held runoff elections.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 10, In Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former finance minister and Harvard graduate, edged closer to becoming Africa's first elected female leader, while her soccer star opponent alleged fraud in the presidential runoff. With 80% of votes counted, Johnson-Sirleaf had 58% and her opponent, George Weah, had 42%.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 23, Officials declared Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf the winner of Liberia's first postwar balloting, making her Africa's first elected female president.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Dec 1, A UN Security Council committee called on all governments to freeze the assets and travel of two individuals linked to international gunrunner Victor Bout over past arms sales to Liberia. The council added Syrian-born accountant Richard Ammar Chichakli of Texas and Ukrainian-born businessman Valeriy Naydo, with an address in the United Arab Emirates, to its list of people whose assets and travel are to be frozen around the world.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 8, Firestone, a multinational rubber manufacturing giant known for its automobile tires, has come under fire from human rights and environmental groups for its alleged use of child labor and slave-like working conditions at a plantation in Liberia.
(http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/123600/1/)
2005 Dec 16, Liberian electoral authorities dismissed international soccer star George Weah's claims that fraud had robbed him of victory in a presidential run-off vote last month, but his party vowed to appeal.
(Reuters, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 21, George Weah, the loser of Liberia's first postwar presidential elections, dropped his legal challenge of the results, saying he would accept the outcome in the interest of national reconciliation.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 21, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to maintain diamond and timber sanctions against Liberia but said it will lift the embargoes when the country's new government ends illicit trade in its valuable resources.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 P.W. Singer authored “Children at War," a detailed analysis of the use of child soldiers around the world, including Liberia and Sierra Leone.
(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.C3)
2006 Jan 6, Liberia's President-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf agreed to pay out benefits and pensions to widows of soldiers killed in a civil war after they blocked roads in the capital Monrovia in protest.
(Reuters, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 16, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf pledged a "fundamental break" with Liberia's violent past as she was sworn in as president, carving her name into history as Africa's first elected female head of state.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Feb 1, Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf fired top officials appointed by a transitional administration to help run the Finance Ministry, a perceived center of corruption.
(AP, 2/2/06)
2006 Feb 8, In Libya the leaders of Sudan and Chad signed a peace agreement to end increasing tension over Sudan's Darfur region, pledging to normalize diplomatic relations and deny refuge to each other's rebel groups. A communique issued by Sudan, Chad and Libya, as well as Burkino Faso, Congo and the Central African Republic, whose leaders attended the talks, said a committee of African countries overseen by Libya would monitor the implementation of the deal.
(AP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 20, Liberia's president inaugurated a truth commission to investigate crimes and human rights abuses committed in the war-battered country over the last quarter century.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Mar 14, In Italy 2 local trains collided head-on outside a station near Milan, killing at least two people.
(AP, 3/14/06)
2006 Mar 17, Liberia said it has asked Nigeria to hand over former Pres. Charles Taylor, who is living there in exile and wanted on war crimes charges for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/17/06)
2006 Mar 21, President Bush welcomed Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the White House, calling Africa's first democratically elected female head of state "a pioneer."
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 28, Officials said former Liberian President Charles Taylor disappeared from his Nigerian haven, days after his hosts agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal for the murder, rape and maiming of more than a half-million Africans. Taylor was arrested trying to cross the border into Cameroon. He then was flown back to Liberia.
(AP, 3/28/06)(AP, 3/29/06)
2006 Mar 29, Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, accused of war crimes, was flown to Sierra Leone after he was captured in northern Nigeria.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2006 Apr 4, Charles Taylor appeared in a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone with 11 counts of crimes against humanity and other violations of int’l. law.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.46)
2006 Apr 24, The annual Goldman Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. The winners included Craig Williams (58) for helping to persuade Congress to order the Defense Dept. to consider alternatives to incinerating chemical weapons; Tarcisio Feitosa (35) of Brazil for his campaign against rampant logging; Olya Melen (26) of Ukraine for her suits forcing the government to scale back a large canal project impacting wetlands; Yu Xiaogang (35) of China for his reports on damages caused by new dams; Silas Siakor (36) of Liberia for his documentation showing how logging was used to fund civil war; and Anne Kajir of Papua New Guinea for her work to get reimbursements from logging companies to peasants.
(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.B7)
2006 May 8, A report said UN peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors, threatening efforts to rebuild a nation wrecked by war.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 21, In Liberia tens of thousands of children marched against hunger, adding their voices to a global event to tackle food shortages that many in the war-battered west African nation have felt firsthand.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 Jun 1, Swedish lawmakers approved a law that makes it possible for the Scandinavian country to imprison former Liberian President Charles Taylor if a UN-backed tribunal convicts him of war crimes.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 5, Liberia, the first African country led by a democratically elected woman, began recruiting women into its new postwar army.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 13, The UN Security Council eased a ban on weapons sales to Liberia so it could arm newly trained security forces. The US proposed lifting a UN embargo on Liberian timber exports.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 15, Britain promised to hold Liberia's Charles Taylor in jail if he is convicted of war crimes, paving the way for Liberia's former president to be tried in The Hague.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 20, A senior UN official marked World Refugee Day by welcoming home 125 Liberians from Sierra Leone where they lived for years seeking haven from Liberia's civil war. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was taken to a Dutch prison to await a UN war crimes trial for the killing, rape or mutilation of hundreds of thousands in West Africa.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 22, Liberia's truth commission formally began work to document atrocities committed during nearly a quarter-century of conflict including the country's 14-year civil war (1990-2004), which left some 250,000 dead.
(AP, 6/23/06)(Econ, 12/16/06, p.48)
2006 Jul 24, Liberia began training the first soldiers of a post-war army that officials hope will grow into a small but effective force to take over peacekeeping from UN troops.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 26, Power was restored to parts of Liberia's dilapidated capital Monrovia for the first time in 15 years, another step in the country's emergence from more than a decade of civil war.
(AP, 7/26/06)
2006 Aug 30, Nigerian officials and the UN refugee agency appealed to some 6,000 recalcitrant Liberian refugees to go back home, warning that time and hospitality were fast running out for them.
(AFP, 8/30/06)
2006 Oct 8, Liberia’s presidency said ECOWAS leaders, who met in Nigeria on Oct 6, had agreed for an extension of the term of office of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo by 12 months, paving the way for presidential and general elections there.
(AP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 10, Liberia's truth commission began taking public testimony.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Dec 6, The US indicted Charles McArthur Emmanuel (29), son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with committing torture in Liberia. This was the Justice Department's first case under a 12-year-old anti-torture law. The indictment came the day before Emmanuel, He currently in federal custody was scheduled to be sentenced on the passport fraud charges in Miami.
(Reuters, 12/6/06)
2006 Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia’s finance minister, called on foreign creditors to forgive the country’s $3.7 billion external debt.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.48)
2006 Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel company, negotiated a deal with Liberia’s government to restart operations at the mine in Nimba County with a new investment of $1.5 billion. The company said it would create some 3,500 jobs.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.38)
2007 Jan 18, India prepared to send 125 of its crack policewomen to Liberia to act as UN peacekeepers, the first time the world body has deployed an all-female unit.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 30, The first all-female UN peacekeeping unit, made up of 103 women from India, arrived in Liberia to help the West African nation recover from 14 years of on-and-off civil war.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 13, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US plans to cancel $391 million in outstanding debt owed by Liberia, and she urged others to help the struggling West African nation.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Apr 27, The UN Security Council lifted its embargo on Liberia's diamond exports, saying the west African nation has made progress in certifying the origin of its rough diamonds. A multi-day strike at the Firestone Rubber plantation in Liberia turned violent as police clashed with striking workers, leaving at least six people wounded.
(AFP, 4/27/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 May 1, Liberia relaunched its diamond trade after the UN lifted an embargo, hoping the revival of the industry will fund reconstruction rather than lead to more bloodshed.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Jun 4, Charles Taylor boycotted the start of his Liberia war-crimes trial at the Hague.
(WSJ, 6/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 20, Officials said Liberia's former House speaker and an ex-military commander have been charged with treason for their involvement in an alleged coup plot.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 28, The Liberian government said it had lifted a six-year moratorium on the diamond trade, put in place after former President Charles Taylor was accused of using "blood diamonds" to fuel civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 7/28/07)
2007 Aug 7, ECOWAS said the last refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone in Nigeria have been allowed to settle and they will have access to work, education and health on the same terms as Nigerians, West African regional bloc.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 25, It was reported that Liberia had some 2,511 ships registered under its flag, the world’s 2nd largest fleet after Panama, which had 7,357. The population was reported to be 3.3 million, with two-thirds of the people living on less than a dollar a day. Since 2000 the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, a Virginia-based company, managed the registry.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.44)
2007 Nov 2, A UN helicopter crashed on a routine flight in northern Liberia, killing two crew members and leaving a third missing.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 20, Israel signed an agreement with Liberia to extract diamonds from the African nation, seven months after sanctions barring Liberia from exporting the gems were lifted.
(AFP, 11/20/07)
2007 Dec 5, Liberia cleared its debt arrears with the World Bank, paving the way for new development lending and debt cancellation that will help the West African country rebuild after years of civil war.
(Reuters, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 7, Gyude Bryant, a former president of Liberia (2003-2005), was arrested for violating the conditions of his bail while on trial on charges of embezzling $1.3 million in government funds.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2008 Jan 20, Joshua Milton Blahyi (37), one of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked for charging into battle wearing only boots, spoke of his role under Charles Taylor in the civil war. He returned last week to confess his role in terrorizing the nation, saying he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Feb 21, President George W. Bush promised US support for Liberia in its recovery from a crippling civil war as he visited the close U.S. ally on the last stop of a five-nation tour of Africa.
(AP, 2/21/08)
2008 Feb 28, Liberia's Health Minister Walter Gwanigale said health services are chronically understaffed with only 51 native doctors in the west African nation.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2008 Jun 1, In Liberia at least eight people suffocated at an overcrowded stadium during a soccer match between Liberia and Gambia.
(www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/02/2263028.htm)
2008 Aug 18, US and Liberian officials said US Peace Corps volunteers will return to Liberia for the first time since civil war broke out in this West African nation nearly two decades ago.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Florida the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty by a US court in Miami of torture in the first prosecution under a 14-year-old law that allows citizens to be prosecuted for such crimes committed abroad. Charles Taylor Jr. was arrested at Miami International Airport in 2006 and pleaded guilty to a charge of lying about his father's identity on a passport application.
(Reuters, 10/30/08)
2009 Jan 9, In Miami Charles Taylor Jr. (31), the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was sentenced to 97 years in prison for mutilations and executions carried out in Liberia, in the first US prosecution for torture committed abroad.
(Reuters, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 23, Officials said Liberia's worst caterpillar plague in three decades has spread to neighboring Guinea after swarms of the crop-eating insects devastated more than 45 towns.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 25, Liberia’s Ministry of Agriculture said it has set up a command post and called on international experts to help fight an invasion by millions of crop-devouring caterpillars that are eating their way across the country with dire economic consequences.
(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Mar 12, Liberia’s agriculture ministry said the country has been hit by a 2nd invasion of crop-destroying caterpillars. Over a hundred villages have so far been affected by the plague.
(AFP, 3/12/09)
2009 May 29, The nonbinding New York Declaration, an agreement between the signatory flag states which condemns acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels and seafarers, was originally tabled by The Bahamas, the Republic of Liberia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Republic of Panama, four nations that account for more than half of global shipping.
(www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/13476.html)
2009 Jul 2, Liberia's truth and reconciliation commission recommended that ex-President Charles Taylor and seven other former warlords be prosecuted for crimes against humanity for their alleged roles in the West African country's civil war.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 6, Liberia's truth and reconciliation commission recommended barring President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and dozens of other high-profile figures from public office for 30 years for supporting armed groups in the country's civil wars.
(AP, 7/7/09)
2009 Jul 16, In Phoenix, Arizona, 4 boys, all Liberian refugees (9-14) lured a Liberian girl (8) to a storage shed and raped her. Charges against one of the boys, aged 8, were dropped on Dec 16 after a judge ruled the boy was not competent to stand trial.
(SFC, 8/10/09, p.A4)(SFC, 12/17/09, p.A12)
2009 Aug 13, In Liberia US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the country’s post-war transition to democracy and threw support behind President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has faced calls to resign because she helped fund a warlord.
(AFP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 24, An American UN peacekeeper under investigation for sexual exploitation and abuse of minors in Liberia was found dead in his house in Monrovia. Sources said it appeared that the American, a civilian in the Liberia mission, known as UNMIL, had committed suicide due to the investigations.
(Reuters, 8/26/09)
2009 Sep 2, Liberia's Defense Minister Brownie Samukai said police had arrested six Pakistani men earlier in the week who tried to enter Liberia on fake US passports with possible intent to carry out terrorism.
(AP, 9/3/09)
2009 Sep 16, Liberia's parliament approved a new law to crack down on narco trafficking amid concerns that druglords want to turn the west African nation into a transit point.
(AFP, 9/16/09)
2009 Oct 28, In Afghanistan Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and police uniforms stormed a guest house used by UN staff in the heart of Kabul. 11 people were killed, including 5 UN staff, 3 attackers, 2 security guards and an Afghan civilian. Liberian election worker Yah Lydia Wonyene (47) was one of the five UN staffers killed. It was the biggest in a series of attacks intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election. The assault included rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's main luxury hotel. Two NATO members were killed in bomb blasts in the south, including one American.
(AP, 10/28/09)(AP, 10/29/09)(AP, 11/22/09)
2009 Oct 29, The US rubber company Firestone said in a statement that it has conducted its own extensive testing of discharge water in Liberia and found it was not harmful to human health. The Liberian government has said a three-month investigation found high levels of orthophosphate being released into the water.
(AP, 10/30/09)
2009 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, authored “This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President."
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.84)
2010 Feb 26, In Liberia religious clashes in the northern county of Lofa killed four people. The violence erupted in the town of Vionjama after the body of a child "with body parts extracted" was found near a mosque. Witnesses said rioters had burned down the Catholic, Baptist and Episcopal churches in the area.
(Reuters, 2/27/10)
2010 May 28, Konstantin Yaroshenko (41) was arrested in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, by US agents for alleged drug smuggling, and then extradited to New York. On July 21 the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the US of "kidnapping" the Russian pilot.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 30, Liberia's government, still recovering from a 14-year civil war and previous decades of poverty and illiteracy, said it will now require all children to get birth certificates, a document most of them lack.
(AP, 7/30/10)
2010 Aug 5, In the Netherlands Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn't know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself. Campbell said that she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, intending he use them for charity.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Sep 22, Liberia's election commission said that Prince Johnson's National Union for Democratic Progress met the requirements for next year's poll. Johnson is best known for the torture and slaying of ousted president Samuel K. Doe in 1990. A videotape of the event shows Johnson drinking beer as he ordered his men to cut off Doe's ears.
(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Dec, Transparency Int’l., a Berlin-based lobby group, ranked Liberia as the most corrupt country in the world.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.54)
2010 Liberia under Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won a colossal write-down of debts under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.52)
2010 The US provided Liberia almost $230 million in aid this year.
(Eon, 11/19/11, p.51)
2011 Mar 11, In the Netherlands the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, once among West Africa's most powerful figures, ended with judges expected to take months to reach a verdict on whether he can be linked to murders and amputations during Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Apr 19, Forty one Ivorians were arrested by United Nations forces as they attempted to cross the border into Liberia with cars, guns and ammunition shortly after the capture of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.
(AFP, 6/21/12)
2011 Aug 23, Liberia's first constitutional referendum in 25 years was marred by error after the National Election Commission said it had distributed defective ballot papers. It failed to achieve the required two-thirds of votes cast in a poll in which only 34 percent of registered voters showed up and many ballots were invalid.
(AP, 8/23/11)(AFP, 9/1/11)
2011 Sep 10, Leaders of Ivory Coast and Liberia were joined by counterparts from West Africa for talks on security along the border between their two countries after a bloody post-poll crisis. Presidents Alassane Ouattara and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf were joined by Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, John Atta Mills of Ghana and Nigerian summit host Goodluck Jonathan, under the aegis of regional bloc ECOWAS.
(AFP, 9/10/11)
2011 Sep 13, In Liberia 11 people were killed after an ambulance crashed into a crowd in Vonzula, who had been waiting all day to see a visiting presidential candidate.
(AP, 9/14/11)
2011 Sep 17, Ivory Coast's defense minister said armed men from Liberia have killed at least 15 people in attacks on villages along the border over the last two days.
(AP, 9/17/11)
2011 Oct 7, The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Tawakkul Karman (32) of Yemen. She shared the prize with Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, as the Nobel committee gave a nod to the Arab Spring.
(AP, 10/7/11)
2011 Oct 11, Liberia held presidential elections. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (72), recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, faced 15 opposition candidates including soccer star George Weah. Sirleaf took 44% of the vote, with Tubman, a former diplomat, at 31%. Turnout was 71.4%. With 31% voting for her challenger, Sirleaf would need No. 3 Prince Johnson's endorsement to win the upcoming runoff.
(AP, 10/11/11)(AP, 10/13/11)(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 15, A group of Liberian opposition parties said they are pulling out after a recent presidential poll and threatened to refuse the results over allegations that the electoral commission are skewing the outcome in favor of the president.
(AP, 10/15/11)
2011 Oct 17, The offices of a Liberian radio station were set ablaze, in the wake of an arson attack on the ruling party headquarters and opposition discontent over poll results.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 18, Liberian ex-warlord Prince Johnson, who came third in the presidential polls, announced he would back Nobel peace laureate and incumbent president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a run-off election.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 19, Liberia’s ex-warlord Prince Johnson, who came third in presidential polls, demanded 30 percent of Liberia's government from incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in exchange for his valuable support. Johnson reiterated concerns that a win by the Congress for Democratic Change's Tubman would lead to the implementation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, which could see him tried for war crimes.
(AFP, 10/19/11)
2011 Nov 4, Liberia’s Winston Tubman said he and his running mate, soccer star George Weah, will boycott the Nov 8 runoff because they are not convinced the process will be fair.
(AP, 11/5/11)
2011 Nov 7, In Liberia violence broke out at the headquarters of the main opposition party and at least one person was killed, less than 24 hours before a presidential runoff vote that is being viewed as a test of the country's fragile peace after a devastating civil war.
(AP, 11/7/11)
2011 Nov 8, In Liberia Africa's first elected female president headed toward easy re-election with her sole opponent boycotting a runoff, and ignoring entreaties from the United States and the UN to participate in what observers said was a free and fair vote. Sirleaf won 90.8% of votes cast and Tubman 9%. Only 37.4% of 1.8 million registered voters cast their ballots.
(AP, 11/8/11)(AFP, 11/11/11)
2011 Nov 11, Liberia's opposition leader Winston Tubman said he was willing to work with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf after disputed polls left the war-scarred nation more divided than ever.
(AFP, 11/11/11)
2011 Dec 8, Liberia and Senegal pledged to reform their laws so that women can confer citizenship on their children. They were among at least 30 countries that let only fathers pass their citizenship to children from marriages with a foreigner.
(AP, 12/8/11)
2012 Jan 28, Liberia arrested some 70 people near its southeastern border with Ivory Coast for their alleged involvement in plans to destabilize the neighboring country.
(AFP, 1/31/12)
2012 Feb 6, A US immigration judge ordered George Boley (62), the former leader of the Liberian Peace Council, out of the country in upstate New York, the first-ever removal under a 2008 law to combat the use of child soldiers. The judge cited "credible reports" that Boley authorized the executions of seven of his soldiers on November 14, 1995.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Apr 19, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued a decree exempting schools, hospitals, the national broadcaster and power company from paying customs duties on fuel.
(AFP, 4/19/12)
2012 Apr 26, In the Netherlands an international court convicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor (64) of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting notoriously brutal rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in return for "blood diamonds." Taylor became the first head of state convicted by an international court since the post-World War II Nuremberg military tribunal.
(AP, 4/26/12)
2012 May 30, In the Netherlands international judges sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison for atrocities in Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
(AP, 5/30/12)(SFC, 5/31/12, p.A2)
2012 Jun 6, Human Rights Watch said armed groups in Liberia, who supported Ivory Coast's former president, have killed at least 40 civilians in cross-border raids into Ivory Coast since July and are recruiting children as young as 14 into their ranks.
(AP, 6/6/12)
2012 Jun 21, A court in eastern Liberia ruled to extradite 41 Ivorians, arrested April 19, 2011, to their home country to stand trial for their role in Ivory Coast's 2011 post-election conflict.
(AFP, 6/21/12)
2012 Jun 23, Liberia extradited 41 Ivory Coast nationals for their role in last year's bloody post-electoral violence in the neighboring West African nation.
(AFP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jul 23, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf signed the Table Mountain Declaration, a pledge drawn up by global media rights bodies to boost press freedom and stop the criminal prosecution of journalists. the declaration was adopted by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in Cape Town, South Africa in 2007. She became only the second African leader after Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, to sign the declaration.
(AFP, 7/23/12)
2012 Jul 25, Liberia's government welcomed the lifting of UN sanctions against 17 Liberians who were part of former warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor's regime.
(AFP, 7/25/12)
2012 Aug 21, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf suspended 46 government officials, including her son, for failing to declare their assets.
(AFP, 8/21/12)
2012 Sep 4, Global Witness said international logging companies are skirting the rules and have used a loophole in Liberian law which has granted them access to as much as one-quarter of Liberia's landmass. Private use permits, now covering 40 percent of the country's forests, were being used by major companies to cut trees on their own property.
(AP, 9/4/12)
2012 Oct 3, In Liberia more than 60 inmates broke out of a maximum security prison in the southeastern city of Zwedru.
(AP, 10/4/12)
2012 Nov 10, In Liberia a few hundred people representing the Christian and Muslim faiths and civil society organizations gathered in Monrovia to launch a campaign to press the government to ban same-sex marriage.
(AP, 11/10/12)
2013 Feb 11, In Liberia a plane carrying senior officials from Guinea crashed near Liberia's largest airport, killing 11 people including Guinea's army chief of staff Gen. Souleymane Kelefa Diallo.
(AP, 2/11/13)(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Mar 26, UN officials in Liberia said they've temporarily halted the repatriation of tens of thousands of refugees from Ivory Coast because of continued unrest near the border between the two countries.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Apr 1, In Liberia Moses Blah, the man who served as president for two months after Charles Taylor stepped down, died in Monrovia.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 15, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Francis Korkpor (61) will be the country's new chief justice.
(AP, 4/15/13)
2013 Apr 24, In Liberia at least three were killed and more than 10 feared trapped under the rubble of a building that was gutted by fire and came down in the Waterside commercial district of Monrovia.
(AP, 4/25/13)
2013 May 10, Newspapers in Liberia printed black front pages after a government official was accused of threatening journalists. The director of the presidential security service reportedly told a journalist: "Be careful, because you have your pens and we have our guns."
(AP, 5/10/13)
2013 Aug 21, In Liberia Rodney Sieh, managing director of Frontpage Africa, was taken into custody following a Supreme Court ruling that the paper should pay US $1.6 million (1.2 million euros) for libelling former agriculture minister J. Chris Toe. The court ordered that the paper be closed down until the damages are paid in full. On Nov 20 Sieh said all charges against him have been dropped.
(AFP, 8/27/13)(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Sep 26, Charles Taylor lost his appeal against a war crimes conviction at The Hague. Judges confirmed a 50-year jail term against the former Liberian president for encouraging rebels in Sierra Leone to mutilate, rape and murder victims in a decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 9/26/13)
2013 Oct 10, Britain confirmed that Liberia's former president and warlord Charles Taylor is to serve out his 50-year prison sentence for war crimes in a British jail.
(AFP, 10/10/13)
2013 Nov 11, Liberian officials said their Drug Enforcement Agency has arrested the head of the presidential motorcade over the weekend for allegedly using an official vehicle to smuggle 297 kg (654 pounds) of marijuana into Liberia from neighboring Sierra Leone.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 In Liberia Katie Meyler, an American woman, founded the More Than Me Academy at West Point in Monrovia. It was the first of 18 schools that the US charity opened in the the country. The charity founded the school specifically to empower and educate local girls to save them from prostitution and sexual coercion. In 2018 the US investigative site ProPublica described how girls were systematically raped at the West Point school.
(AFP, 10/16/18)(AP, 4/21/19)
2013 - 2015 The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone killed more than 11,000 people.
(Econ, 4/18/20, p.13)
2014 Mar 24, Guinea announced that samples taken from three suspected cases of Ebola, which led to two deaths in Conakry, had tested negative for the virus. Health workers said the outbreak from the Ebola virus, which has killed at least 59 people in Guinea, may have spread to Liberia.
(AFP, 3/24/14)(SFC, 3/25/14, p.A2)
2014 Apr 3, Liberia said it was dealing with its first suspected Ebola case thought to be unconnected to the epidemic raging in Guinea and to have originated separately within its borders. The fruit bat, thought to be the host of the highly contagious Ebola virus, is a delicacy in the region straddling Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and experts suspect huntsmen may be the source of the outbreak.
(AFP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 4, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone geared up to tackle killer haemorrhagic fevers including Ebola, which has claimed 86 lives in Guinea. Mali claimed 3 suspect cases; Liberia claimed 14; Sierra Leone claimed several more.
(AFP, 4/4/14)
2014 Apr 8, WHO officials said more than 100 people have died in an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, with as many as 175 people infected. This included 151 suspected and confirmed cases of the disease in guinea, where 98 people have died, and 10 deaths in Liberia.
(AP, 4/8/14)
2014 Apr 23, The WHO said 147 people have died from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, including 136 in Guinea and 11 in Liberia.
(SFC, 4/24/14, p.A2)
2014 May 15, Heavily armed fighters, believed to have come from Liberia, seized a border village in western Ivory Coast. They crossed the Cavally River, which forms the boundary between the two West African neighbors, and attacked the village of Fetai.
(Reuters, 5/16/14)
2014 Jun 17, A Liberian a health official said 7 people believed to have the Ebola virus have died in recent days in the first deaths reported in Monrovia since the outbreak began. 16 people were now believed to have died from the virus in the West African country.
(AP, 6/17/14)
2014 Jun 17, A Liberian judge sentenced 13 men to life in prison for "mercenary activity" in neighboring Ivory Coast in 2011-2012.
(AP, 6/18/14)
2014 Jun 18, The World Health Organization said an Ebola outbreak continues to spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the death toll in the outbreak has risen to more than 330.
(AP, 6/18/14)
2014 Jun 23, The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the latest figures show 567 cases of Ebola with 350 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The virus has no cure and causes internal bleeding and organ failure, spreading through contact with infected people.
(AP, 6/23/14)
2014 Jul 4, Liberia's security forces fired shots in the air to break up a protest at an ArcelorMittal SA iron ore plant northeast of Monrovia.
(AP, 7/4/14)
2014 Jul 8, The World Health Organization (WHO) said fifty new cases of Ebola and 25 deaths have been reported in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since July 3.
(Reuters, 7/8/14)
2014 Jul 11, The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 44 new cases of Ebola including 21 deaths. 539 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone have been attributed to the outbreak.
(AP, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 22, In Sierra Leone Sheik Umar Khan (39), the head doctor fighting the deadly tropical virus Ebola, was reported to have caught the disease. Across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, 632 people have died from the illness according to the latest WHO report.
(Reuters, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 25, The World Health Organization the death toll in West Africa's Ebola outbreak has risen to 660, with the number of cases surpassing 1,000. In Guinea fatalities reached 314, with 127 in Liberia and 219 in Sierra Leone.
(AFP, 7/25/14)
2014 Jul 26, Dr. Samuel Brisbane, a top Liberian health official, died. He had fallen ill while treating Ebola patients at the country's largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia.
(AP, 7/28/14)
2014 Jul 27, Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Sirleaf Johnson closed all but three border crossings, restricted public gatherings and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak.
(SFC, 7/29/14, p.A2)
2014 Jul 31, The World Health Organization said the deaths of 57 more people from Ebola in west Africa have pushed the overall fatality toll from the epidemic to 729, including 339 in Guinea, 156 in Liberia and 233 in Sierra Leone.
(AFP, 7/31/14)
2014 Aug 1, The leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone agreed to a $100 million emergency action plan to beef the response to Ebola.
(AFP, 8/2/14)
2014 Aug 4, The World Bank said that it would provide up to $200 million to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to help the west African nations contain the deadly outbreak.
(AP, 8/4/14)
2014 Aug 5, Liberian officials said relatives of Ebola victims have defied government orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak of the virus that has killed 887 people.
(Reuters, 8/5/14)
2014 Aug 6, Liberian Pres. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf announced emergency measures that will, for 90 days, allow her government to curtail civil rights by imposing quarantines on badly affected communities to contain the Ebola epidemic.
(Reuters, 8/7/14)
2014 Aug 7, In Sierra Leone police and soldiers blockaded rural areas hit by the deadly Ebola virus, after neighboring Liberia declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst-ever outbreak of the disease, which has killed 932 people.
(Reuters, 8/7/14)
2014 Aug 9, Guinea announced the closure of its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola.
(Reuters, 8/9/14)
2014 Aug 12, In Liberia Fatu Sherrif (12) died overnight of Ebola in the village of Ballajah. She had been shunned and locked away with her mother's body for a week after most residents fled to the forest to escape an outbreak of the virus. In Liberia alone, some 599 cases have been diagnosed with 323 deaths.
(AFP, 8/12/14)
2014 Aug 14, The UN health agency said the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola in four decades had now climbed to 1,069 in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The WHO said the scale of the Ebola epidemic has been vastly underestimated and that "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the killer disease.
(AFP, 8/15/14)
2014 Aug 16, In Liberia residents in Monrovia’s in the West Point slum raided a quarantine center for suspected Ebola patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses. Up to 30 patients were staying at the center and many of them fled at the time of the raid.
(AP, 8/17/14)
2014 Aug 19, Liberia’s health ministry said all the patients who fled a medical center on Aug 16 are now being screened at a hospital in Monrovia and those who tested positive are being treated. Officials also said three health workers being treated with the last known doses of ZMapp were showing signs of recovery.
(AP, 8/19/14)
2014 Aug 20, Liberian security forces sealed off the West Point area, a seaside slum in Monrovia, in the latest effort to stop the spread of Ebola, setting off protests by angry residents.
(AP, 8/20/14)
2014 Aug 22, Ivory Coast closed its land borders with Ebola-affected West African neighbors Guinea and Liberia in an attempt to prevent the world's deadliest outbreak of the virus from spreading onto its territory.
(Reuters, 8/23/14)
2014 Aug 24, In Liberia Dr. Abraham Borbo, one of three Africans to receive the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp, died. Only six people in the world are known to have received ZMapp. The small supply is now said to be exhausted and it is expected to be months before more can be produced by its US maker.
(AP, 8/25/14)
2014 Aug 30, Liberia’s government lifted quarantine measures in the seaside district of West Point in Monrovia, which had been designed to contain the spread of the Ebola virus. Officials announced plans to build five new Ebola treatment centers each with capacity for 100 beds.
(Reuters, 8/31/14)
2014 Sep 1, Liberia's president ordered most civil servants to stay home another month in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Scores of healthcare workers at the country’s main hospital in Monrovia went on strike over unpaid wages.
(AP, 9/1/14)(AFP, 9/1/14)
2014 Sep 13, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf sacked 10 senior officials because they failed to heed a warning to return from overseas travel to help the government's fight against an Ebola epidemic.
(Reuters, 9/14/14)
2014 Sep 16, The United States announced it will send 3,000 troops to help tackle the Ebola outbreak as part of a ramped-up plan, including a major deployment in Liberia, the country where the epidemic is spiraling fastest out of control.
(Reuters, 9/16/14)
2014 Sep 21, West Africa intensified its response to the deadly Ebola epidemic, with Sierra Leone uncovering scores of dead bodies during a 72-hour shutdown and Liberia announcing 1,000 hospital beds.
(AFP, 9/21/14)
2014 Sep 27, Liberia's chief medical officer, Bernice Dahn, placed herself under quarantine for 21 days after her office assistant died of Ebola.
(AP, 9/27/14)
2014 Oct 6, Liberia's Justice Minister Christiana Tah stepped down, saying President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf blocked her investigation into fraud allegations against the country's National Security Agency (NSA), which is headed by the president's son.
(Reuters, 10/7/14)
2014 Oct 10, Liberian lawmakers rejected a proposal the grant Pres. Sirleaf the power to further restrict movement and public gatherings and to confiscate property in the fight against Ebola as the WHO raised the death toll to 4,033 confirmed deaths, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
(SFC, 10/11/14, p.A2)
2014 Oct 14, The Liberian government threatened to fire doctors and nurses who are on strike demanding danger money to care for Ebola patients in the country worst hit by the epidemic.
(AFP, 10/14/14)
2014 Oct 20, China was reported to have donated $6 million to help stave off food shortages in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries worst affected by the Ebola virus.
(AP, 10/20/14)
2014 Oct 23, Liberia’s state radio said dozens of people quarantined for Ebola monitoring in Jenewonda were threatening to break out of isolation because they have no food.
(AP, 10/23/14)
2014 Oct 24, China's president pledged to provide $81 million in aid to help fight Ebola in the three West African countries at the heart of the crisis.
(AP, 10/24/14)
2014 Oct 30, The World Bank said it was immediately providing $100 million to support the deployment of more health workers to Ebola-stricken West Africa.
(AFP, 10/30/14)
2014 Nov 8, The African Union, African Development Bank and regional business leaders meeting in in Ethiopia announced a crisis fund to help areas hit by the Ebola outbreak.
(AFP, 11/9/14)
2014 Nov 10, Swiss authorities arrested Alieu Kosiah (b.1975) in connection with accusations that he was involved in mass killings in parts of Liberia's Lofa County from 1993 to 1995. His trial opened on Dec. 3, 2020.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alieu_Kosiah)
2014 Nov 13, Liberia's Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said she is lifting a state of emergency imposed to control an Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the country but added that the move does not mean the outbreak is over.
(AP, 11/13/14)
2014 Nov 14, Senegal partially reopened air and sea borders with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, countries worst hit by the Ebola virus.
(AFP, 11/15/14)
2014 Nov 15, In Liberia about 160 Chinese health workers arrived, where they are due to staff a new $41 million Ebola clinic that, unlike most other foreign interventions, is being built and fully run by Chinese personnel.
(Reuters, 11/16/14)
2014 Nov 25, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf toured a new Chinese-built 100-bed treatment center for Ebola just outside Monrovia. It was exptected to begin receiving patientws nexdt week.
(AP, 11/25/14)
2014 Dec 20, In Liberia health workers manned polling stations across the country as voters cast their ballots in a twice-delayed Senate election.
(AP, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 20, The World Health Organization said the death toll from Ebola in Guinea (1,550), Liberia (3,346) and Sierra Leone (2,477), the three worst-affected countries in West Africa, has risen to 7,373 among 19,031 cases known to date there.
(Reuters, 12/20/14)
2014 Dec 23, In Liberia a fourth member of the UN mission was hospitalized after testing positive for the virus. Liberia topped the number of Ebola deaths in the world with 3,376 fatalities, but has seen a clear decrease of new transmissions in the past month.
(AFP, 12/24/14)
2014 Dec 29, Liberian health officials reported dozens of new Ebola cases near the border with Sierra Leone, marking a setback amid recent improvements. Forty-nine cases were reported in in western Grand Cape Mount County between December 1 and 25.
(AP, 12/29/14)
2015 Jan 2, The World Health Organization said deaths last year from Ebola had reached 7,989 with 2,827 from Sierra Leone, 3,423 from Liberia and 1,739 from Guinea.
(SFC, 1/3/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 23, The World Health Organization (WHO) said Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have recorded falling numbers of new Ebola cases for four successive weeks.
(SFC, 1/24/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 24, The United Nations said Liberia was dealing with just five remaining cases of Ebola, in the clearest sign yet that the country is nearing the end of the outbreak.
(AFP, 1/24/15)
2015 Jan 26, Liberia said that there are currently only five confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire country — a dramatic turnaround in the West African nation where the virus has taken its deadliest toll.
(AP, 1/26/15)
2015 Feb 2, In Liberia large-scale human testing of two potential Ebola vaccines got under way in Monrovia, part of a global effort to prevent a repeat of the epidemic that has now claimed nearly 9,000 lives in West Africa.
(AP, 2/2/15)
2015 Feb 11, Liberia's Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf vowed that the country would get to zero Ebola cases soon as the US military announced it will be withdrawing most of its troops who have spent the last several months helping to battle the disease.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 20, Liberia's Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced the end of a midnight to 6 am curfew that was imposed to help stem the spread of the Ebola epidemic.
(AFP, 2/23/15)
2015 Feb 26, In Liberia the United States staged a military ceremony to end its five-month Ebola mission, with the west African nation in recovery from the worst-ever outbreak of the virus.
(AFP, 2/26/15)
2015 Mar 5, Liberia discharged its last confirmed Ebola patient, as it reported for the first time in nine months it had gone a full week without any new infections.
(AFP, 3/5/15)
2015 Mar 12, The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the Ebola outbreak has killed over 10,000 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 3/13/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 20, Liberian officials said a patient has tested positive for Ebola in Monrovia, deflating hopes that the nation had beaten the disease.
(SFC, 3/21/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 27, In Liberia woman, who last week became the country's first Ebola patient in more than a month, died. Two new suspected cases were also reported identified.
(AFP, 3/28/15)
2015 Apr 17, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the three West African countries hit hardest by the Ebola epidemic, called for an $8 billion "Marshall Plan" to help rebuild their economies and boost prevention efforts at a meeting with heads of the World Bank, IMF, and UN. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced a new $650 million in funds for the three countries, in addition to $1 billion committed last year to fight the outbreak.
(AFP, 4/17/15)
2015 Apr 18, In Liberia 700 Ebola workers took to the streets of Monrovia for a second day to demand promised hazard pay.
(AFP, 4/18/15)
2015 May 9, The UN World Health Organization (WHO) declared Liberia Ebola-free, hailing the "monumental" achievement in the west African country where the virus has killed more than 4,700 people.
(AFP, 5/9/15)
2015 May 26, In southeastern Liberia protesters with machetes broke into Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) palm oil plantation in Sinoe County, looting equipment and workers' property. Police later charged 23 people over riots.
(AFP, 6/2/15)
2015 Jun 30, Liberian authorities quarantined an area where the corpse of a boy (14) was found with Ebola. The WHO had declared Liberia Ebola free on May 9.
(SFC, 7/1/15, p.A2)
2015 Jul 1, Liberian authorities confirmed a 2nd case of Ebola in the same town where the disease was recently detected in the corpse of a teenager.
(SFC, 7/2/15, p.A5)
2015 Jul 12, In Liberia a second person died from Ebola in the latest resurgence of the deadly disease in the West African nation. The woman in her early 20s was linked to the 17-year-old boy who died on June 28.
(AP, 7/15/15)
2015 Aug 4, Liberian state radio said 14 men from Sierra Leone illegally mining for gold fell victim to a landslide last week. They were trapped under rubble and were presumed dead.
(AP, 8/4/15)
2015 Sep 3, The WHO announced that Liberia, recently ravaged by Ebola, was free of the virus, 42 days after the last confirmed case passed a second negative test.
(AFP, 9/3/15)
2015 Sep 30, In northern Liberia authorities imposed a curfew in Ganta town after violent protests following a wave of suspected ritual killings.
(Reuters, 10/1/15)
2015 Nov 20, In Liberia a new case of Ebola emerged in a setback for the country declared free of the disease on September 3.
(Reuters, 11/20/15)
2015 Nov 23, In Liberia a teenager (15) died in the first such death since the country was officially declared free of the virus in September. His parents had also tested positive for the virus and were under observation in the capital Monrovia.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 In Liberia George Werner was made education minister. He soon removed 1,892 dead or retired teachers from the government’s payroll. In September, 2016, he launched Partnership Schools for Liberia, a pilot program based on charter schools in America and academies in England.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.42)
2016 Jan 14, The World Health organization (WHO) said the two-year Ebola epidemic that killed 11,000 and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country given the all-clear.
(AFP, 1/14/16)
2016 Feb 29, Liberian police fired teargas and threw stones at a crowd gathered near a court in Monrovia to demand the release of a political activist charged with sedition.
(Reuters, 2/29/16)
2016 Mar 31, In Liberia a woman (30) died of Ebola, months after the West African nation was declared free of the virus. Officials later said there were strong indications the woman came from Guinea when the border was closed.
(Reuters, 4/1/16)(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 3, Liberian health officials said a second case of Ebola has been confirmed months after the country had been declared free from transmissions. The son (5) of a woman who died March 31 from Ebola was taken to a treatment center in Monrovia.
(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 8, Liberia said it plans to outsource the oversight of its entire primary education sector to USD-based Bridge International Academies, a for-profit company linked to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
(SFC, 4/9/16, p.A4)
2016 May 25, Liberia's Information Minister Eugene Nagbe said the Chairman of the ruling Unity Party Varney Sherman, parliamentary speaker Alex Tyler former junior mining minister Ernest Jones all face charges, along with London-based Sable Mining in a massive corruption scandal.
(AFP, 5/25/16)
2016 Jun 9, Liberia said it was free of Ebola, meaning there are now no known cases in west Africa of the tropical virus that has left more than 11,300 people dead in the region since late 2013.
(AFP, 6/9/16)
2016 Jun 27, First Lady Michelle Obama landed in Liberia with her daughters and mother for an overseas trip promoting education for girls. The trip includes stops in Morocco and Spain.
(SFC, 6/28/16, p.A2)
2017 Apr 28, United Nations officials said at least 11 people have died from a mysterious illness in Liberia, and tests have been negative for the Ebola virus. Those who fell sick this week all had attended a relative's funeral.
(AP, 4/28/17)
2017 Oct 10, Liberia held presidential elections. 2.18 million registered voters chose from a crowded field of 20 presidential candidates. Voters will also elect 73 seats in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives.
(AFP, 10/10/17)
2017 Oct 12, Liberia’s National Election Commission data showed former international soccer star George Weah ahead in 11 of 15 counties. Fewer than 30 percent of the votes have been counted in the majority of counties.
(AP, 10/13/17)
2017 Nov 6, Liberia's Supreme Court halted the presidential election runoff, which had been scheduled for Nov. 7, until the National Elections Commission investigates allegations of irregularities and fraud in the first round.
(AP, 11/6/17)
2017 Dec 19, In South Africa convicted Dutch arms dealer Guus Kouwenhoven (75), who supplied arms that fuelled Liberia's bloody civil war, was released by a South African court on bail of $78,000.
(AP, 12/19/17)
2017 Dec 26, Liberia held elections in a delayed run-off vote for the country's presidency. Former int’l footballer George Weah (51) and Vice-President Joseph Boakai joined voters in casting their ballots as they went head-to-head for the top office. George Weah easily beat Vice President Joseph Boakai gaining 61.5 percent of the ballot against 38.5 percent for his rival and winning in 14 of Liberia's 15 counties.
(AFP, 12/26/17)(AFP, 12/29/17)
2017 Liberia stood as the world’s fourth poorest country.
(Econ, 2/25/17, p.42)
2017 Liberia’s population was about 4 million.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.51)
2018 Jan 13, Liberia’s ruling Unity Party expelled the country's outgoing president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is accused by party leaders of meddling in last year's presidential elections in which its candidate suffered a bruising defeat.
(Reuters, 1/14/18)
2018 Jan 16, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf rejected her expulsion from the governing party as illegal, saying she will appeal the decision.
(AP, 1/16/18)
2018 Jan 22, In Liberia former football star George Weah was sworn in as president.
(AFP, 1/22/18)
2018 Sep 18, Liberia's Information Minister Eugene Nagbe said several shipments of freshly printed Liberian dollars ordered from abroad by the central bank have been unaccounted for since they passed through the country's main ports in November 2017 and August this year. The government sought US help in investigating the whereabouts of the cash, equivalent to nearly five percent of Liberia's GDP.
(Reuters, 9/21/18)
2018 Oct, CEO Katie Meyler (37) started her leave of absence after ProPublica reported that former staffer Macintosh Johnson had sexually assaulted students at a More Than Me branch in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Meyler resigned six months later. Johnson had AIDS and died in jail in 2016 while awaiting trial.
(AP, 4/21/19)
2018 Dec 24, Journalists in Liberia sounded the alarm on press freedom after two ministers mounted an attack on a paper that ran an article about alleged top-level corruption.
(AFP, 12/24/18)
2019 Feb 9, In northeastern Liberia a gold mine collapsed. Five bodies were recovered on Feb. 13 and 40 people remained trapped.
(AP, 2/13/19)
2019 Feb 28, In Liberia two senior figures at the Central Bank, one of whom is the son of former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, were arrested following a probe into reports of missing banknotes.
(AFP, 3/1/19)
2019 Mar 1, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu met with Liberian Pres. George Weah in Jerusalem. Netanyahu has made strengthening ties with Africa a foreign policy priority.
(AFP, 3/1/19)
2019 Apr 29, Alfred Brownell was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for exposing alleged abuse by palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia and helping to prevent it from converting about 20 square miles (about 50 square km) of forest that is home to elephants, pygmy hippopotamuses and chimpanzees. He was forced to flee Liberia in 2016 after the government threatened to arrest him for his activism.
(AP, 4/29/19)
2019 Jun 7, Thousands of Liberians took to the streets of Monrovia to protest against the corruption and economic decline that many blame on their once hugely popular president, former football star George Weah.
(Reuters, 6/7/19)
2019 Sep 18, In Liberia a fire overnight at a Quranic school outside Monrovia killed at least 27 people. Many of the dead were thought to be children.
(AP, 9/18/19)
2019 Dec 6, A multi-million pound prosecution by Scotland Yard's war crimes unit against Agnes Reeves-Taylor (54), a former wife of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, collapsed after her lawyers won a bid to have the case discontinued.
(The Telegraph, 12/6/19)
2020 Mar 6, Liberia suspended the licenses of all fuel importers, including France's Total, to conduct performance reviews after some of the companies overdrew from reserves in state-run facilities, leading to gasoline shortages.
(Reuters, 3/6/20)
2020 Mar 12, A Finnish court jailed in a custody hearing Gibril Ealoghima Massaquoi (50), a Sierra Leone man suspected of committing serious war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1999 through 2003 during Liberia's bloody second civil war. Massaquoi has lived in Finland for more than 10 years.
(AP, 3/12/20)
2020 Mar 16, Benin, Liberia, Somalia and Tanzania became the latest African countries to report cases of coronavirus.
(Reuters, 3/16/20)
2020 Apr 11, A coronavirus lockdown in Liberia's capital Monrovia got off to a chaotic start, as some police officers used truncheons against residents who had ventured out into the streets to buy food and withdraw money. Liberia has so far confirmed at least 48 cases of the coronavirus, including five deaths.
(Reuters, 4/12/20)
2020 Apr 12, In Pennsylvania Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, a former lietenant for Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, died in Philadelphia of COVID-19 complications.
(SFC, 4/15/20, p.A3)
2020 Apr 28, The US extradited Alexander Mentol Zinnah (56), a member of former Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor's security forces, back to Liberia from Minnesota.
(https://tinyurl.com/y8yxddwt) (SFC, 4/30/20, p.A3)
2020 May 5, In western Liberia two miners died in a mine collapse in Grand Cape Mount County. Around 50 people were reported missing following the incident.
(Reuters, 5/5/20)
2020 Jul 9, The WHO said former Liberian pres. Ellen Johnson and former New Zealand PM Helen Clark will lead a new panel to give an assessment of the global response to the coronavirus pandemic.
(SFC, 7/10/20, p.A7)
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Subject = Liberia
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