A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

October 15, 1992 – Charles Taylor launches Operation Octopus, leading to clashes between the
NPFL and ECOMOG forces in Monrovia.
December 21, 1994 – The now five warring parties meet in Accra, Ghana for ECOWAS-sponsored
peace talks and agree to a five-member Transitional Ruling Council.
1995
September 1995 – Leaders of fighting groups Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kromah, and George Boley
are sworn in with three civilian representatives as part of a collective presidency that will head up a
transitional government.
April 6, 1996 – The NPFL and ULIMO forces under Alhaji Kromah battle in Monrovia against a
splinter ULIMO group led by Roosevelt Johnson, leading to 2,000 deaths and extensive looting.
August 17, 1996 – Another ECOWAS-brokered peace deal is signed in Abuja, Nigeria with
representatives from civil society. Ruth Sando Perry is selected as chair for a new transitional
government charged with organizing elections for May 1997.
November 22, 1996 – With help from the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia, ECOMOG
begins disarmament of armed groups.
July 19, 1997 – Charles Taylor wins ECOWAS-supervised presidential elections, in which Taylor
garners an overwhelming majority of the approximate 80 percent of the population that turn out to
vote. A song sung by young NPFL supporters goes: “He killed my Ma, he killed my Pa, I’ll vote for
him!”
August 4, 1997 – Charles Taylor is sworn in for a six-year term as President in Monrovia before
other West African heads of state.
September 18-17, 1998 – Taylor’s government forces clash with Roosevelt Johnson’s ULIMO
faction.
July 1999 – In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a group of Liberians form the rebel faction Liberians United
for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in opposition to the Taylor regime.
2000
September 2000 – LURD launches an insurgency from inside Guinea, raiding Liberian villages in
Lofa County.
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Appendix D