Liberia is a country with 4 million residents. 1.1 million Liberians are living in its capital city Monrovia. The country has more than 15 ethnic groups, which remained relatively ignored by colonization until 1820 when the American Colonization Society (ACS) - founded in 1817 - began sending freed American slaves back to Africa. These settlers became known as Americo-Liberians, and until the 1980s, they held most of the country's political power, despite accounting for only roughly 3% of the population. The country has undergone a series of wars, partly between the elites and the rest of the people, along with other conflicts along ethnic divides. These wars have killed around 200,000 people and displaced about 700,000. The education system, along with the level of development, has fallen. Agriculture remains an important source of revenue for Liberia; its main cash crop is rubber. Logging has also supported the country's GDP as there are an estimated 3.8 million hectares of productive forest in the country. Liberia also has many minerals, including iron ore, gold, and diamonds; much of the fighting, as mentioned earlier, has been around gaining control over these minerals. In 1980 a civil war began in Liberia with a military coup led by Master-Sergeant Samuel Doe; this ended the 150-year reign of Americo-Liberian political power. Doe, from the ethnic group Kahn, reigned with ruthless repression. Following a fabricated election in 1985, a failed coup by the Gio group, a full civil war erupted in 1989 when Charles Taylor and fellow Americo-Liberian rebel forces invaded. By 1990, neighboring West African countries sent a peacekeeping force which became involved in offensive operations. Doe was assassinated in November of 1990; many failed peace deals and successions of alliances and splits between warring factions ensued. In 1995 a peace deal and elections were won by Taylor, whose rule was oppressive. In 1999 another civil war broke out, and Taylor, after being pressured by the US, fled to Nigeria. The UN and 15,000 peacekeepers led a two-year provisional administration, and in 2005, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won the presidential election; she was re-elected in 2011. In 2012 Taylor was convicted by the UN special court for crimes against humanity. Liberia also struggled with Ebola, the first cases reported in 2014; a reported 2,200 people died.

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