On February 20, Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, announced the start of the truth and reconciliation commission established by the Liberian parliament last year. The seven-member commission has a mandate to investigate crimes committed between 1979, which saw the deadly repression of riots and the ensuing bloody coup d'état by chief sergeant Samuel Doe, and 2003, which marked the end of the civil war started in 1989 by Charles Taylor, who has been indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone and is currently taking refuge in Nigeria. According to AP, the commission has received only $500,000 from the United Nations and $350,000 from the Liberian government for its budget thus far.