[#152] DEMON FORCES V, Part One: A Celebration of Markets, 1990-91

Dimitri launches into the most complex and sinister chapter of Demon Forces yet, exploring how the First Liberian Civil War metastasized into a West African proxy conflict and “vast international conspiracy” in 1990-91.

PART ONE: A CELEBRATION OF MARKETS

The crystallization of two de facto Liberian governments (IGNU vs. NPRAG), the formation of the anti-Taylor ULIMO force in Guinea/Sierra Leone, Mandingo Al-Haji Kromah declaring a jihad on the NPFL, US-trained Krahn General Albert Karpeh (murdered), the ULIMO-ECOMOG alliance, rumors of a US assassination plot against Taylor…

The RUF invasion of Sierra Leone in March 1991, Taylor’s murky relationship with Foday Sankoh, Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh’s TRC testimony about Houphouet-Boigny convincing the French to back Taylor’s rebellion, tacit US support for every side of the conflict simultaneously, Taylor’s pre-war collaborations with future President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the mysterious “intelligence officer”/Tolbert son-in-law Tonya King, and the Chet Crocker proverb: “Why don’t we let you handle that one, Francois?”

The emergence of a vast shadow economy/anarchocapitalist utopia in Greater Liberia, Taylor’s highly lucrative dealings with foreign business entities, Taylor’s connections to French businessman Robert Saint-Pai, French Ambassador to Ivory Coast Michel Dupuch, and the son of President Mitterand…

Background on the simmering geopolitical and economic rivalry between Nigeria and Ivory Coast, the ‘70s Nigerian oil boom, Houphouet-Boigny’s ill-fated attempt to force the world cocoa markets upward in the ‘80s, his bitterness towards “les Anglos-Saxons” colluding to suppress cocoa prices, African countries succumbing to IMF/World Bank “assistance” one by one, the regional power of the hard currency-backed CFA Franc, Liberia’s role as West Africa’s US Dollar zone…

Meyer Lansky and Tibor Rosenbaum using Liberia as a money laundering hub during the Tubman era, Doe and “notorious Italian fraudster” Giancarlo Parretti using revenue from Liberia’s oil business to buy companies abroad, the economic significance of the proposed Mount Nimba iron ore project on the Guinean border, Doe and Nigerian President Babangida skimming off Nigerian oil imports via the Liberian National Petroleum Company, French mining company BRGM and the Japanese Sumitomo Corporation, Taylor setting up business deals via his lawyer Ramsey Clark, Franco-Ivorian and Unification Church logging companies, UNITA laundering diamond exports through Liberia, the difficult-to-measure marijuana cultivation in northern Liberia, Taylor’s belief that African leaders should earn hard currency by laundering money for drug syndicates, the Corsican Mafia in Ivory Coast, cheap Nigerian amphetamines and Guinean “Sekou Touré” pills, crack cocaine factories in Abidjan, Pakistani hashish, Polish crime syndicates, Taylor’s Dutch consigliere Gus Kouwenhoven, and some preliminary materials for Dimitri’s theory of anarchocolonialism.