[2] Doe suspended the Constitution of Liberia, assumed the rank of general, and established the PRC as a provisional military government with himself as de facto head of state.

[2] Doe opened Liberian ports to Canadian, Chinese, and European ships, which brought in considerable foreign investment and earned Liberia's reputation as a tax haven.

Doe's rule was characterized by authoritarianism, corruption, favoritism towards fellow Krahns, and persecution of the Gio and Mano tribes, particularly after surviving a coup attempt in 1985, which led to growing opposition to his regime from the Liberian public and the United States.

The following year, Doe was captured and executed by the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), an NPFL splinter group led by Prince Johnson.

Doe was promoted to the grade of Master sergeant on 11 October 1979 and made an administrator for the Third Battalion in Monrovia, a position he occupied for eleven months.

[5] Commanding a group of Krahn soldiers, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup on 12 April 1980 by attacking the Liberian Executive Mansion and killing President William Tolbert.

Shortly after the coup, government ministers were walked publicly around Monrovia in the nude and then summarily executed by a firing squad on the beach.

After the coup, Doe assumed the rank of general and established a People's Redemption Council (PRC), composed of himself and 14 other low-ranking officers, to rule the country.

Within days, eleven former members of Tolbert's cabinet, including his brother Frank, were brought to trial to answer charges of "high treason, rampant corruption and gross violation of human rights.

Some hailed the coup as the first time since Liberia's establishment as a country that it was governed by people of native African descent instead of by the Americo-Liberian elite.

Many people welcomed Doe's takeover as a shift favoring the majority of the population that had largely been excluded from government participation since the country's establishment.

However, the new government, led by the leaders of the coup d'état and calling itself the People's Redemption Council (PRC), lacked experience and was ill-prepared to rule.

[11] However, the next day, before the same TRC, another former minister of Samuel Doe, Dr. Boima Fahnbulleh, testified that "the Americans did not support the coup led by Mr.

He styled himself "Dr. Doe" starting in 1982 after making a state visit to Chun Doo-hwan in South Korea and being awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Seoul.

The United States valued Liberia as an important ally during the Cold War, as it helped to contain the spread of Soviet influence in Africa.

[16] As part of the expanding relationship, Doe agreed to a modification of the mutual defense pact granting staging rights on 24-hour notice at Liberia's sea and airports for the U.S.

Foreign observers declared the elections fraudulent and suggested that runner-up Jackson Doe (not related) of the Liberian Action Party had won.

On the day of his inauguration as the twenty-first president, in the stadium, a show with several Liberian girls danced artistically in his honor with various hoops.

Official results showed that Doe received a narrow majority of the votes in the elections, although the US State Department alleged widespread fraud.

[29] On the morning of 9 September 1990, Doe arrived at a precarious time during an ongoing change in guard duty from the well-armed and better equipped Nigerian team of peacekeepers to the weaker Gambian contingent.

Johnson's rebels surprised everyone by suddenly arriving on the scene uninvited and heavily armed, overwhelming and disarming all of Doe's team while encountering no resistance.

After 12 hours of torture at Johnson's hands,[35] Doe was finally murdered; his corpse had its head shaved and was exhibited naked in the streets of Monrovia with cigarette burns.