Liberia's Post-War Recovery: Key Issues and Developments [Updated May 5, 2006]   [open pdf - 244KB]

"This report, which will be updated as events warrant, covers recent events in Liberia, a small, poor West African country. It held elections in October 2005, with a presidential run-off in November, a key step in a peace-building process following its second civil war in a decade. That war began in 1999, escalated in 2000, and ended in 2003. It pitted the forces of Charles Taylor, elected president in 1997 after Liberia's first civil war (1989-1997), against two armed anti-Taylor rebel groups. It also destabilized neighboring states, which accepted Liberian refugees and, in some cases, hosted anti-Taylor forces and became targets of the Taylor regime."