It was backed by ECOMOG troops from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Guinea, and Nigeria, with Nigeria by far the dominant presence.
Then a contingent from another Ecomog country arrived.
The national units within ECOMOG backed different factions and themselves plundered Liberia's resources.
The president, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, fled to neighbouring Guinea by helicopter and called for intervention by ECOMOG.
The Nigerians insisted that their soldiers were acting under the mandate of ECOMOG, the Nigerian-led multinational force sent by ECOWAS to Liberia.
Rural rides Reprints Related topics United Nations Social issues Human rights Politics DiplomacyWithout an army, the president asked Ecomog, West Africa's (largely Nigerian) peacekeeping organisation, to evict the rebel soldiers and the RUF from Freetown.
So later that year the Nigerians came but as part of a regional peacekeeping force called ECOMOG.
African leaders, however, meeting at an Organisation of African Unity summit in Zimbabwe, gave intervention a mandate, albeit retrospectively, by calling on ECOWAS, the organisation of West African states that is responsible for ECOMOG, to restore constitutional order in Sierra Leone.
Moreover, in next-door Liberia, Nigerian troops, the backbone of West Africa's regional peacekeeping force known as ECOMOG, are holding the ring in the run-up to elections now scheduled for July 19th.On May 25th, Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, was woken by the sound of gunfire.
They and 900 Nigerian troops, part of an ECOMOG peacekeeping force guarding various installations in Sierra Leone, beat back the rebels and forced them to the negotiating table.Under national and international pressure, the junta kept to its election promise.
The Sierra Leoneans also attack Guineans, largely, it seems, in reprisal for operations by Guinean troops attached to the West African peacekeeping force, Ecomog, which intervened in Sierra Leone.
