What were the causes of the second Liberian civil war (1999-2003)? The contingent causes consisted of the failure of the post-first civil war transitional processes such as disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and re-integration, security sector reform. In short, the post-first civil war peace-building project was a dismal failure. The proximate causes included the use of ethnic scapegoating by the Taylor government, the regime's abuses of human rights, and its failure to tackle the chronic social and economic problems.

Against this background, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) launched armed attacks initially against the northwestern regions of Liberia on April 21, 1999. As expected, the Taylor regime launched counterattacks against the insurgents, thereby setting into motion the second Liberian civil war.

INTRODUCTION

The tenuous basis of Liberia's post-first civil war order made the reversion to violent conflict inevitable. The shaky foundation of the post-conflict peace-building project was laid by the failure to begin the critical task of constructing some of the pivotal pillars such as security sector reform and national reconciliation. The foundation for peace-building was further eroded by the hasty nature of the disarmament and demobilization processes. Thus, it was just a matter of time before Liberia descended again into the abyss of war and its associated violence and destruction.

With the stage set by the emerging vagaries of the post-first civil war peace-building project, Liberia was plunged into its second civil war on April 21, 1999. (1) The war commenced with armed attacks launched by a warlordist militia, "Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy" (LURD). The outfit was an amalgam of members of some of the erstwhile militias that were involved in the first Liberian civil war, disaffected members of the former Taylor-led National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), and war-time capitalists with interests in the private accumulation of capital. LURD launched its attacks from Guinea, Liberia's neighbor to the north. (2) In March 2003, the ambit of the war was broadened when the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), a surrogate organization of LURD, joined the war against the Taylor regime. (3) MODEL launched its armed attacks from Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia's eastern neighbor. (4) Hizkias Assefa provides an excellent summation of the events that culminated in the second Liberian civil war:

However, as soon as the [first] war was over, and a new government was installed, things quickly reverted to the way they were before the war. Abuse of power, corruption, manipulation of ethnic division, abject poverty, alienation, oppression of a large sector of the population, and hopelessness of the youth were still rampant. (5)

Against this background, the purpose of this article is to examine the causes of the second Liberian civil war. In other words, what were the contingent and the proximate factors that caused another conflagration in Liberia?

THE INTEGRATIVE MODEL OF CIVIL WAR

Several theoretical frameworks have been developed to serve as compasses for navigating the terrain of civil wars. For example, the ethnic model attributes the root causes of civil wars to...