When civil war ended in 2003, few Liberians trusted the government to protect them. //
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Monkey CageAnalysis
In Liberia, the U.N. mission helped restore confidence in the rule of law
When civil war ended in 2003, few Liberians trusted the government to protect them.
Women in the town of Mweso, Congo, walk past a convoy from the U.N. peacekeeping mission on April 10. (Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images)
By Robert A. Blair
April 30, 2019 at 6:00 AM EDT
The second Liberian civil war began 20 years ago this month. All told, the conflicts that ravaged Liberia from the beginning of the first civil war in 1989 to the end of the second in 2003 resulted in the deaths of some 250,000 men, women and children, the displacement of more than 1 million civilians and the destruction of much of the country’s infrastructure.
The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) deployed in 2003 to help the country rebuild, and stayed until its mandate ended last year. By most accounts UNMIL was a success, shepherding in over a decade of peace and three consecutive democratic elections. What do we know now about the effects of international intervention to keep peace and restore the rule of law in Liberia and other war-wracked nations?
