A mural of General Baptiste in Monrovia
Andre Baptiste, Sr. was the self-proclaimed President of Liberia during the 1990s and early 2000s. He was known for severing the limbs of those who opposed him, and of having a cruel dictatorial rule that left thousands of innocents dead. He was one of the main figures of the Liberian Civil War during the 1990s.
Biography[]
Andre Baptiste was an Americo-Liberian, a descendant of African slaves in the United States that moved to the African colony of Liberia. Baptiste was educated in America and became an officer in the Liberian Army. During the virtually-nonstop Liberian Civil War of 1989 to 2003, Baptiste proclaimed himself the President of Liberia, and he recruited child soldiers into his army. Baptiste and his son, Andre Baptiste, Jr., were both known for their wanton cruelty. The older Baptiste had people's limbs chopped off if they opposed his rule, and he had a known habit of refusing grammar corrections, saying that he preferred things his way (such as when people nicknamed him "the Lord of War" instead of "warlord"); his son had a gold-plated AK-47 as well as a beautiful car that he drove with two prostitutes in the back. In the 1990s, Baptiste began doing business with Ukrainian-American arms dealer Yuri Orlov, who sold him military hardware in exchange for "blood diamonds". Initially, the weapons were simple guns such as a revolver (which Baptiste tested on one of his soldiers standing to the right of him as he was talking with one of Baptiste's prostitutes), but Orlov later offered to bring in armored personnel carriers to minimize casualties for an offensive that he was planning (which was delayed a week in exchange for the arrival of APCs). Baptiste did business with Orlov for much of the 1990s, but eventually Orlov decided that legitimate business would be better for him after his wife found out about his business.
In 2001, Baptiste visited New York City to face the United Nations, which was investigating the human rights abuses during the Liberian Civil War and the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone (Baptiste supported the Revolutionary United Front rebels with weapons). He stopped by Orlov's apartment and convinced him to resume his sale of guns to him, promising more money. Orlov decided to continue business, and when he arrived in Liberia on his plane, Baptiste announced to him that the other governments were unable to prove that recent elections were rigged, giving Liberia the disguise of a democracy. President Baptiste sent his son with Orlov to Sierra Leone for a deal with the RUF, but it would be there that Orlov's brother Vitaly blew up one of his brother's trucks and killed the younger Baptiste in a vain attempt to stop a refugee camp massacre, at the expense of his own life. Yuri Orlov decided to continue the deal, and he resumed business with Baptiste.