The 1980 Military Coup
At approximately midnight on April 12, 1980, a group of seventeen soldiers led by Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe stormed the Executive Mansion in Monrovia (Montserrado County). President William R. Tolbert was killed. The coup d’état ended 133 years of Americo,Liberian political dominance.
Samuel Doe — First Indigenous Head of State
Samuel Doe — a 28 year old non-commissioned officer from the Krahn ethnic group of Grand Gedeh County, was the first indigenous Liberian to hold the country’s highest office. For the majority indigenous population, which had been politically excluded and economically marginalized since the founding of the republic, Doe’s seizure of power carried a genuine charge of liberation.
Promise and Failure
The promise of liberation curdled quickly. Doe’s government became increasingly dominated by members of his own Krahn ethnic group from Grand Gedeh County. Ethnic favoritism replaced class favoritism. The 1985 elections were widely condemned internationally as fraudulent. The brutal authoritarianism of Doe’s government produced exactly the conditions from which a violent insurgency would eventually emerge.
Sources:
IMANI House [16a];
Britannica [5];
World Without Genocide [12b]