“August 2003 was a dramatic month for Liberia. Rebels held Monrovia under siege, West African peacekeepers moved in, President Charles Taylor stepped down and the United States made its first peacekeeping foray into Africa in a decade. For Liberia, trapped in a 14-year cycle of civil war, recent events offer a first chance at peace, but the task ahead is enormous. Years of war and Taylor’s corrupt rule have left the country almost entirely destroyed.”
