Space Program of Liberia

------The Liberean Space Agency------

Level = 0                                         Development: Very Low

  

Country Overview

What has been going on in Liberia?

 

 

Space Agency and its Activity

What kind of space power do they have?

 

 

Weapons and Power Projection

Does Liberia have space weapons?

 

 

Timeline and the Future

What are they planning over there?

Population: 3,300,000 / Language: English / GDP: $900 / Cities: Monrovia

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OVERVIEW

 

 

 

Liberia is Africa's oldest republic, but it became better known in the 1990s for its long-running,

ruinous civil war and its role in a rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Although founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, Liberia is mostly made up of indigenous Africans, with the slaves' descendants comprising 5% of the population.

The West African nation was relatively calm until 1980 when William Tolbert was overthrown by Sergeant Samuel Doe after food price riots.

The coup marked the end of dominance by the minority Americo-Liberians, who had ruled since independence, but heralded a period of instability.

Politics: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became president in 2006 after the first polls since the end of the civil war

Economy: The infrastructure is in ruins. Liberia seeks a lifting of the UN ban on diamond exports, which fuelled the civil war. A UN ban on timber exports was lifted in June 2006

International: 15,000 UN peacekeepers are in place; ex-president Charles Taylor faces trial in The Hague for alleged war crimes for supporting rebels in Sierra Leone; Liberian refugees are scattered across the region.

 

By the late 1980s, arbitrary rule and economic collapse culminated in civil war when Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) militia overran much of the countryside, entering the capital in 1990. Mr Doe was executed.

Fighting intensified as the rebels splintered and battled each other, the Liberian army and West African peacekeepers. In 1995 a peace agreement was signed, leading to the election of Mr Taylor as president.

The respite was brief, with anti-government fighting breaking out in the north in 1999. Mr Taylor accused Guinea of supporting the rebellion. Meanwhile Ghana, Nigeria and others accused Mr Taylor of backing rebels in Sierra Leone.

Matters came to a head in 2003 when Mr Taylor - under international pressure to quit and hemmed in by rebels - stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria. A transitional government steered the country towards elections in 2005.

Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil war and many thousands more fled the fighting. The conflict left the country in economic ruin and overrun with weapons. The capital remains without mains electricity and running water. Corruption is rife and unemployment and illiteracy are endemic.

The UN maintains some 15,000 soldiers in Liberia. It is one of the organisation's most expensive peacekeeping operations.

Full name: Republic of Liberia

President: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

US-educated economist and former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won the second round of presidential elections in November 2005 and in January 2006 she was inaugurated as Africa's first elected woman head of state. The poll was intended to draw a line under Liberia's war.

Her rival, the footballer and political novice George Weah, alleged fraud. International observers said the vote had been broadly free and fair.

 

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 Liberia's Space Infrastructure

Liberia is one of the world's poorest countries, with a nonexistant space program. Not only does it certainly not have an agency, but also no infrastructure in which one could arise. Its major university, the University of Liberia, does not have space related eucational content, lacking astrophysics, astronautics, aeronautics and natural sciences. The government has no ministry devoted to science of this type.

Liberia has no history of being part of any organization dealing with space, nor has any launch capability.

Liberia lacks the industrial base, the educational base and the political foundation for a process like this to occur within it. It has no functioning university with an astrophysics or astronautics program, this includes Monrovia's University of Liberia.

Liberia operates no satellites and, not having a presence, has no space power.

The government of Liberia in Monrovia has no plans for attempting to further any ambition in space development or research.

 

 

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WEAPONS AND POWER

 

 

 

 None

 

 

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Timeline of Events in Liberia

...From the Past to the Future

  1847 - Constitution modelled on that of the US is drawn up.

Monrovia: Capital is striving to recover after 14-year conflict

1847 July - Liberia becomes independent.

1917 - Liberia declares war on Germany, giving the Allies a base in West Africa.

1926 - Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company opens rubber plantation on land granted by government. Rubber production becomes backbone of economy.

1936 - Forced-labour practices abolished.

1943 - William Tubman elected president.

1944 - Government declares war on the Axis powers.

1951 May - Women and indigenous property owners vote in the presidential election for the first time.

1958 - Racial discrimination outlawed.

1971 - Tubman dies and is succeeded by William Tolbert Jr.

INDEPENDENCE
"[Providence] will miraculously make Liberia a paradise..."
President J J Roberts, 1847

1974 - Government accepts aid from the Soviet Union for the first time.

1978 - Liberia signs trade agreement with the European Economic Community.

1979 - More than 40 people are killed in riots following a proposed increase in the price of rice.

Years of instability

1980 - Master Sergeant Samuel Doe stages military coup. Tolbert and 13 of his aides are publicly executed. A People's Redemption Council headed by Doe suspends constitution and assumes full powers.

Samuel Doe: Leader of 1980 coup was killed in 1990

1984 - Doe's regime allows return of political parties following pressure from the United States and other creditors.

1985 - Doe wins presidential election.

1989 - National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor begins an uprising against the government.

1990 - Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) sends peacekeeping force. Doe is executed by a splinter group of the NPFL.

1991 - Ecowas and the NPFL agree to disarm and set up an Interim Government of National Unity.

1992 - The NPFL launches an all-out assault on West African peacekeepers in Monrovia, the latter respond by bombing NPFL positions outside the capital and pushing the NPFL back into the countryside.

Tentative ceasefire

1993 - Warring factions devise a plan for a National Transitional Government and a ceasefire, but this fails to materialise and fighting resumes.

1994 - Warring factions agree a timetable for disarmament and the setting up of a joint Council of State.

1995 - Peace agreement signed.

1996 April - Factional fighting resumes and spreads to Monrovia.

CHARLES TAYLOR
Taylor and his forces in 1990, during the rebellion against Doe

1996 August - West African peacekeepers begin disarmament programme, clear land mines and reopen roads, allowing refugees to return.

1997 July - Presidential and legislative elections held. Charles Taylor wins a landslide and his National Patriotic Party wins a majority in the National Assembly. International observers declare the elections free and fair.

Border fighting

1999 January - Ghana and Nigeria accuse Liberia of supporting Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone. Britain and the US threaten to suspend aid to Liberia.

1999 April - Rebel forces thought to have come from Guinea attack town of Voinjama. Fighting displaces more than 25,000 people.

1999 September - Guinea accuses Liberian forces of entering its territory and attacking border villages.

2000 September - Liberian forces launch "massive offensive" against rebels in the north. Liberia accuses Guinean troops of shelling border villages.

2001 February - Liberian government says Sierra Leonean rebel leader Sam Bockarie, also known as Mosquito, has left the country.

2001 May - UN Security Council reimposes arms embargo to punish Taylor for trading weapons for diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone.

2002 January - More than 50,000 Liberians and Sierra Leonean refugees flee fighting. In February Taylor declares a state of emergency.

Rebel offensives

2003 March - Rebels advance to within 10km of Monrovia.

2003: Citizens run for cover as rebels, government forces clash

2003 June - Talks in Ghana aimed at ending rebellion overshadowed by indictment accusing President Taylor of war crimes over his alleged backing of rebels in Sierra Leone.

2003 July - Fighting intensifies; rebels battle for control of Monrovia. Several hundred people are killed. West African regional group Ecowas agrees to provide peacekeepers.

Taylor in exile

2003 August - Nigerian peacekeepers arrive. Charles Taylor leaves Liberia after handing power to his deputy Moses Blah. US troops arrive. Interim government and rebels sign peace accord in Ghana. Gyude Bryant chosen to head interim administration.

2003 September-October - US forces pull out. UN launches major peacekeeping mission, deploying thousands of troops.

2004 February - International donors pledge more than $500m in reconstruction aid.

2004 October - Riots in Monrovia leave 16 people dead; the UN says former combatants were behind the violence.

2005 June - UN extends a ban on Liberian diamond exports - a source of funding for the civil war.

2005 September - Liberia agrees that the international community should supervise its finances in an effort to counter corruption.

2005 23 November - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf becomes the first woman to be elected as an African head of state. She takes office the following January.

2006 February - Truth and Reconciliation Commission is set up to investigate human rights abuses between 1979 and 2003.

2006 April - Former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, appears before a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone on charges of crimes against humanity. In June the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court agrees to host his trial.

2006 June - The UN Security Council eases a ban on weapons sales so Liberia can arm newly trained security forces. An embargo on Liberian timber exports is lifted shortly afterwards.

2006 July - President Johnson-Sirleaf switches on generator-powered street lights in the capital, which has been without electricity for 15 years.

TODAY AND INTO THE FUTURE

 

 

Nothing Planned

 

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