Samuel Doe
Samuel Kanyon Doe was a Liberian politician and military officer who served as the 21st President of Liberia from 1986 until his execution in 1990. He ruled Liberia as Chairman of the People's Redemption Council from 1980 to 1986 and then as president from 1986 to 1990.
A member of the Krahn ethnic group, Doe was a master sergeant in the Armed Forces of Liberia when he staged the violent 1980 coup d'état that overthrew President William Tolbert and the True Whig Party, becoming the first non-Americo-Liberian leader of Liberia and ending 133 years of Americo-Liberian rule. Doe suspended the Constitution of Liberia, assumed the rank of general, and established the PRC as a provisional military government with himself as de facto head of state.
Doe dissolved the PRC in 1984 and attempted to legitimize his regime, with a new democratic constitution and a general election held in 1985. He won with 51% of the votes, but the election had widespread allegations of election fraud. Doe opened Liberian ports to Canadian, Chinese, and European ships, which brought in considerable foreign investment and earned Liberia's reputation as a tax haven. Doe had support from the United States due to his anti-Soviet stance during the Cold War.
Doe's rule was characterized by authoritarianism, corruption, favoritism towards fellow Krahns, and persecution of the Gio and Mano tribes, particularly after surviving a coup attempt in 1985, which led to growing opposition to his regime from the Liberian public and the United States. The First Liberian Civil War began in December 1989 when the anti-Doe National Patriotic Front of Liberia led by Charles Taylor invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast to overthrow him. The following year, Doe was captured and executed by the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, an NPFL splinter group led by Prince Johnson.
Early life
Samuel Kanyon Doe was born on 6 May 1951 in Tuzon, a small inland village in Grand Gedeh County. His family belonged to the Krahn people, an important minority indigenous group in this area. At the age of sixteen, Doe 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. Instead, he was assigned to military duties.
Over the next ten years, he was assigned to duty stations, including education at a military school and commanding garrisons and prisons in Monrovia. He finally completed high school by correspondence. on 11 October 1979, Doe was promoted to master sergeant and made an administrator for the Third Battalion in Monrovia, a position he occupied for eleven months.
1980 coup d'etat and new government
On 12 April 1980, commanding a group of Krahn soldiers, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup by attacking the Liberian Executive Mansion and killing President William Tolbert. His forces killed another 26 of Tolbert's supporters 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. The convicted were denied the right to a lawyer or any appeal. 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, 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. Doe ordered 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, eleven 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." Doe suspended the Constitution, allowing 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.
Doe abruptly 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. Other persons without Americo-Liberian heritage had held the Vice Presidency, 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 government participation since the country's establishment.
However, the new government, led by the leaders of the coup d'état and calling itself the People's Redemption Council, 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.
In the first alleged plot against his government, nine military personnel arrested two months after the original 1980 coup were reportedly jailed for life.
In June 1981, his government denounced another alleged coup in which thirteen members were executed behind closed doors.
Months later, Thomas Weh Syen, an outspoken critic of some of Doe's policies, including the closure months before of the Libyan diplomatic mission and the forced reduction of staff from fifteen to six at the Soviet embassy, was beaten and arrested on 12 August of that same year, along with four other officers. They were promised a defense attorney, but none was given, and in three days, they were executed, which caused panic among the citizens of the capital.
Conjectures on the genesis of the coup
In August 2008, before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Monrovia, Doe's former justice minister, Councillor Chea Cheapoo — who contested the 2011 Liberia Presidential elections — alleged the American CIA had provided a 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". 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".Some facts of the 1980 coup are still clouded by reports of an "Unknown Soldier". It is reported that an "unknown soldier" was one of the "white" mercenaries who would have staged the 1980 military takeover of the 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.
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 Seoul National University. 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.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. 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 Force, 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 26 July 1984, Doe was elected President of the Interim National Assembly. He had a new constitution approved by referendum in 1984 and went on to stage a presidential election on 15 October 1985. According to official figures, Doe won 51% of the vote—just enough to avoid a runoff. 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 won. Before the election, Doe had more than 50 of his political opponents murdered. It is also alleged that he changed his official birth date from 1951 to 1950 to meet the new constitution's requirement that the president be at least 35 years old.
Doe was formally sworn in on 6 January 1986. On the day of his inauguration as the twenty-first president, in the stadium, a show with several Liberian girls danced artistically in his honor with hoops. Later, the dancers danced with maracas. Finally, the army paraded in line and they played a majestic orchestra.
Doe publicly declared that if he lost the elections, he would not hand over power, and the army would carry out another coup in less than two weeks. This position was harshly criticized by the international community and the political parties participating in the elections. Official results showed that Doe received a narrow majority of the votes in the elections, although the US State Department alleged widespread fraud.