ABSTRACT
Liberia is located on the coast of West Africa and has boundaries with Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cte dIvoire. Liberia originated through a charter granted by the US Congress in 1816 to the American Colonisation Society to establish a settlement for freed slaves on the west coast of Africa. Firestone Corporation signed an agreement with Liberia in 1927 and established the world's largest rubber plantation at Harbel. There was relative stability under the True Whig Party (TWP), which came to power in 1878. However, under its two leaders, William Tubman and William Tolbert, fiscal mismanagement, nepotism and corruption gradually generated strong domestic opposition. On 12 April 1980, Tolbert was overthrown and a Peoples Redemption Council chaired by Samuel Doe took over with a civilian-military cabinet. The new regime immediately became repressive and there were several coup attempts before Doe, with his newly launched National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL), won the election of 1985 in highly dubious circumstances.
