BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Samuel Doe
| BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY |
| Samuel K. Doe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 21st President of Liberia | |
| In office 12 April 1980 – 9 September 1990 | |
| Vice President | Harry F. Moniba |
| Preceded by | William R. Tolbert, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Amos Sawyer |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 6, 1951 Tuzon, Liberia |
| Died | September 9, 1990 (aged 39) Monrovia, Liberia |
| Political party | National Democratic |
| Religion | Baptist |
Samuel Kanyon Doe (May 6, 1951 – September 9, 1990) was a Liberian politician who served as the leader of Liberia from 1980 to 1990. Then Master sergeant Doe served as chairman of the People's Redemption Council and de facto head of state after staging a violent coup d'etat in 1980 where he killed the previous leader, William R. Tolbert, Jr., and executed many of his supporters. The constitution was disbanded and Doe headed the country's military junta for the next five years. In 1985 he ordered an election and officially became the 21st President of Liberia, despite heavy controversy sparked by evidence of election fraud. Nevertheless, he enjoyed decisive support from the United States thanks to the strategic anti-Soviet stance he had taken in the Cold War. He was the first indigenous head of state in Liberian history.
Doe was a member of the rural Krahn tribe from inland Liberia. The Krahn people are a minority ethnic group but, like the majority of Liberians, they are of indigenous descent. Liberians of indigenous descent were historically faced with economic and political marginalization by the Americo-Liberian elites, who were descended from the free-born and formerly enslaved blacks from America who founded Liberia in 1847.
Under Doe, Liberian ports were opened to Canadian, Chinese and European ships, which brought in considerable foreign investment from foreign shipping firms and earned Liberia a reputation as a tax haven.
Doe attempted to legitimize his regime with a new constitution in 1984 and elections in 1985. However, opposition to his rule only increased, especially after the 1985 elections which were declared to be fraudulent by foreign observers, except the US which supported the Doe regime. In the late 1980s, as fiscal austerity took hold in the United States and the threat of Communism declined with the waning of the Cold War, the U.S. became disenchanted with entrenched corruption in Doe's government and began cutting off critical foreign aid to Doe. This, combined with the popular anger generated by Doe's favoritism toward his native Krahn tribe, placed him in a very precarious position.
A civil war began in December 1989, when rebels entered Liberia through Ivory Coast with the intent of capturing Doe. He was captured and overthrown on 9 September 1990. Following his capture, he was tortured before being executed.
Contents
Early life
On May 6, 1951 Doe was born in Tuzon, a small village in Grand Gedeh County.[1] At the age of sixteen, he finished elementary school and enrolled at a Baptist junior high school in Zwedru. Two years later, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of Liberia, hoping thereby to obtain a scholarship to a high school in Kakata, but instead he was assigned to military duties. Over the next ten years, he was assigned to a range of duty stations, including education at a military school and commanding an assortment of garrisons and prisons in Monrovia. He finally completed high school by correspondence. Doe was promoted to the grade of Master sergeant on 11 October 1979 and made an administrator for the Third Battalion in Monrovia, which position he occupied for eleven months.[2]
1980 coup, new government[edit]
Commanding a group of Krahn soldiers, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup on 12 April 1980 by attacking the Liberian Executive Mansion and killing PresidentWilliam R. Tolbert, Jr. Twenty-six of Tolbert's supporters were also killed in the fighting. Thirteen members of the Cabinet were publicly executed ten days later. Shortly after the coup, government ministers were walked publicly around Monrovia in the nude and then summarily executed by a firing squad on the beach.[3] Hundreds of government workers fled the country, while others were imprisoned.
After the coup, Doe assumed the rank of general and established a People's Redemption Council (PRC) composed of himself and 14 other low-ranking officers to rule the country. The early days of the regime were marked by mass executions of members of Tolbert's deposed government. One of Doe's first acts after seizing power was to order the release of about 50 leaders of the opposition Progressive People's Party who had been jailed by Tolbert during the rice riots of the previous month. Shortly after that, Doe ordered the arrest of 91 officials of the Tolbert regime. Within days, 11 former members of Tolbert's cabinet, including his brother Frank, were brought to trial to answer charges of "high treason, rampant corruption and gross violation of human rights."[4] Suspension of the Constitution allowed these trials to be conducted by a Commission appointed by the state's new military leadership, with defendants being refused both legal representation and trial by jury, virtually ensuring their conviction.
Thus ended 133 years of Americo-Liberian political domination. Some hailed the coup as the first time since Liberia's establishment as a country that it was governed by people of native African descent instead of by the Americo-Liberian elite, although persons with no Americo-Liberian heritage had held the Vice Presidency (Henry Too Wesley), as well as Ministerial and Legislative positions in years prior. Many people welcomed Doe's takeover as a shift favoring the majority of the population that had largely been excluded from participation in government since the establishment of the country. However, the new government, led by the leaders of the coup d'état and calling itself the People's Redemption Council (PRC), lacked experience and was ill prepared to rule. Doe became head of state and suspended the constitution, but promised a return to civilian rule by 1985.
Theories on the genesis of the coup
In August 2008, before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Monrovia, Doe's former justice minister, Councillor Chea Cheapoo — who contested the 2011 Liberia Presidential elections — alleged the American CIA had provided the map of the Executive Mansion, enabling the rebels to break into it; that it was a white American CIA agent who shot and killed Tolbert; and that the Americans "were responsible for Liberia’s nightmare".[5] However, the next day, before the same TRC, another former Minister of Samuel Doe, Dr. Boima Fahnbulleh, testified that "the Americans did not support the coup led by Mr. Doe".[6]
Some facts of the 1980 coup are still clouded by reports of an "Unknown Soldier".[citation needed] It is reported that an "unknown soldier" was one of the "white" mercenaries who would have staged the 1980 military takeover of the century-old one-party state. According to the autobiography of Tolbert's wife Victoria, the First Lady witnessed a masked man with a "white" hand stabbing her late husband.[7]
Presidency
During his rule, Doe portrayed himself as an enlightened leader whose actions were intended to bring "relief to many". He styled himself "Dr. Doe" starting in 1982, after making a state visit to Chun Doo-hwan in South Korea and being awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Seoul.[2] After seven years of calling himself a doctor, Doe announced in 1989 that he had completed a bachelor's degree from the University of Liberia.[8]
Relations with the United States
During his first years in office, Doe openly supported U.S. Cold War foreign policy in Africa during the 1980s, severing diplomatic relations between Liberia and the Soviet Union.
The United States valued Liberia as an important ally during the Cold War, as it helped to contain the spread of Soviet influence in Africa.[citation needed] As part of the expanding relationship, Doe agreed to a modification of the mutual defense pact granting staging rights on 24-hour notice at Liberia's sea and airports for the U.S. Rapid Deployment Forces, which were established to respond swiftly to security threats around the world.
New constitution and 1985 elections
A draft constitution providing for a multi-party republic was issued in 1983 and approved by referendum in 1984. On July 26, 1984, Doe was elected President of the Interim National Assembly.[9] He had a new constitution approved by referendum in 1984 and went on to stage a presidential election on October 15, 1985. According to official figures, Doe won 51% of the vote—just enough to avoid a runoff.[10] The NDPL won 21 of the 26 Senate seats and 51 of the 64 seats in the House of Representatives. However, most of the elected opposition candidates refused to take their seats.
The election was heavily rigged; Doe had the ballots taken to a secret location and 50 of his own handpicked staff counted them. Foreign observers declared the elections fraudulent and suggested that runner-up Jackson Doe of the Liberian Action Party had actually won.[11] Also, prior to the election he had more than 50 of his political opponents murdered. It is also alleged that he changed his official birth date from 1951 to 1950 in order to meet the new constitution's requirement that the president be at least 35 years old. Doe was formally sworn in on January 6, 1986.
Increased repression
Gen. Thomas Quiwonkpa, who had been a leader of the 1980 coup along with Doe, attempted to seize power on November 12, 1985; the attempt failed after fighting in Monroviain which Quiwonkpa was killed. Doe's corrupt and repressive government became even more repressive after the attempted coup, shutting down newspapers and banning political activity. The government's mistreatment of certain ethnic groups, particularly the Gio (or Dan) and the Mano in the north (Quiwonkpa was an ethnic Gio), resulted in divisions and violence among indigenous populations who until then had coexisted relatively peacefully.
Murder[edit]
Charles Taylor, a former ally of Doe's, crossed into Liberia from Ivory Coast on December 24, 1989, to wage a guerrilla war against Doe. Taylor had broken out of a jail in the United States, where he was awaiting extradition to Liberia on charges of embezzlement. The conflict quickly flared into full-fledged civil war. By mid-1990, most of Liberia was controlled by rebel factions.
Doe was captured in Monrovia on September 9, 1990 by Prince Y. Johnson, leader of INPFL, a breakaway faction of Charles Taylor's NPFL. Doe had been visiting ECOMOGpeacekeeping headquarters in Monrovia when Johnson arrived with his forces and seized Doe after a bloody gun battle. Doe was taken to Johnson's military base and torturedbefore being killed and exposed naked in the streets of Monrovia. His ears were cut off, then some of his fingers and toes; his body was later exhumed and reburied. The spectacle of his torture was videotaped and seen on news reports around the world. The video shows Johnson sipping a Budweiser as Doe's ear is cut off.[12][13][14]
Personal life
Doe was a Baptist. At one time, he was a member of the First Baptist Church in the town of Zwedru in Grand Gedeh County. He changed his church membership to the Providence Baptist Church of Monrovia on December 1, 1985.[15]
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