ABSTRACT
Before the gradual descent into its cataclysmic civil war, Liberia presented great attraction for many African countries, especially in their immediate post-independence years. International intervention to rescue failed and 'wounded' societies in Africa often comes from four quarters: neighbours and regional or continental organizations; the United Nations Organisation; international non-governmental organizations; and foreign, largely Western countries. Before 1822, when freed American slaves first arrived in what later became Liberia, the area was like any other West African coastal state, inhabited by indigenous population who engaged in harmonious and acrimonious intergroup relations. The civil war broke out on the Christmas Eve of 1989, when an attack was launched by a hitherto unknown organization named the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) on the Samuel Kanyon Doe government. Charles Taylor led the rebel movement, and its declared objective was to remove what was considered as Doe's tyrannical government.
