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LIBERIA - American Colonization Society, Abolitionists & Slave Owners Unite To “Send Negroes Back To Africa” – 1 of 2
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posted Monday, 20 March 2006
LIBERIA -
American Colonization Society,
Abolitionists & Slave Owners Unite
To “Send Negroes Back To Africa” – 1 of 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Liberia re world…Liberia re Africa
The American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society was established in 1816 by Robert Finley as an attempt to satisfy two groups in America. Ironically, these groups were on opposite ends of the spectrum involving slavery in the early 1800's. One group consisted of philanthropists, clergy and abolitionists, who wanted to free African slaves and their descendants and provide them with the opportunity to return to Africa. The other group was the slave owners, who feared free people of color and wanted to expel them from America.
Both these groups felt that free blacks would be unable to assimilate into the white society of this country. John Randolph, one famous slave owner called free blacks "promoters of mischief". {Tabacco: Note the HYPOCRISY - Whites captured and imported slaves to America against their wills; but "Negro" slaves, not White slave-owners, are "promoters of mischief".} At this time, about 2 million Negroes live in America, of which 200,000 were free persons of color. Henry Clay, a southern congressman and sympathizer of the plight of free blacks, believed that because of "unconquerable prejudice resulting from their color, they never could amalgamate with the free whites of this country."
On December 21, 1816, a group of exclusively white, upper-class males including James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key, and Daniel Webster met at the Davis hotel in Washington D.C. with Henry Clay presiding over the meeting. They met one week later and adopted a constitution. During the next three years, the society raised money by selling memberships, using the certificate shown here. The Society's members relentlessly pressured Congress and the President for support. In 1819, they received $100,000 from Congress and in January 1820 the first ship, the Elizabeth, sailed from New York, headed for West Africa with three white ACS agents and 88 emigrants.
The ship arrived first at Freetown, Sierra Leone, then sailed south to what is now the Northern coast of Liberia and made an effort to establish a settlement. All three whites and 22 of the emigrants died within three weeks from yellow fever. The remainder returned to Sierra Leone and waited from another ship. The Nautilus sailed twice in 1821 and established a settlement at Mesurado Bay on an island they named Perseverance. It was difficult for the early settlers, made of mostly free-born blacks, who were not born into slavery, but were denied the full rights of American citizenship. The native Africans resisted the expansion of the settlers resulting in many armed conflicts. Nevertheless, in the next decade 2,638 African-Americans migrated to the area. Also, the colony entered an agreement with the U.S. Government to accept freed slaves captured from slave ships.
During the next 20 years the colony continued to grow and establish economic stability. Since the establishment of the colony, the ACS employed white agents to govern the colony. In 1842, Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first non-white governor of Liberia. In 1847, the legislature of Liberia declared itself an independent state, with J.J. Roberts elected as its first President.
The society in Liberia developed into three segments: The settlers with European-African lineage; freed slaves from slave ships and the West Indies; and indigenous native people. These groups would have a profound affect on the history of Liberia.
http://personal.denison.edu/~waite/liberia/history/acs.htm
The Lone Star, the flag Liberia Coat of Arms/National
of Liberia Emblem
A question of freedom
Six thousand miles from the United States lies a country whose flag bears a striking resemblance to the American one: alternating red and white horizontal stripes and, in the upper left-hand corner, a dark blue square. Against this blue background is a lone white star -- the star of liberty. The flag is a symbol of the history of the Liberian state, its relationship with America, and its search for its own identity.
The present-day Republic of Liberia occupies 43,000 square miles (slightly more than Tennessee) in West Africa. It is bordered on the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean and surrounded by Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. From antiquity through the 1700s, many ethnic groups from the surrounding regions settled in the area, making Liberia one of Africa's most culturally rich and diverse countries. Settled in the early 1800s by freeborn Blacks and former slaves from America, Liberia, whose name means "land of freedom," has always struggled with its double cultural heritage: that of the settlers and of the indigenous Africans.
From America to West Africa
In 1816, a group made up mostly of Quakers and slaveholders in Washington, D.C., formed the American Colonization Society (ACS). The Quakers opposed slavery, and the slaveholders opposed the freedom of Blacks, but they agreed on one thing: that Black Americans should be repatriated to Africa. The Quakers felt that freeborn Blacks and former slaves would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States. They also saw repatriation as a way of spreading Christianity through Africa. The slaveholders' motives were less charitable: They viewed repatriation of Blacks as a way of avoiding a slave rebellion like the one that had taken place on the island of Santo Domingo, today's Haiti.
Despite opposition from many Blacks and from white abolitionists, the repatriation program, funded by ACS member subscriptions and a number of state legislatures, moved forward. In 1822, the first 86 voluntary, Black emigrants landed on Cape Montserrado, on what was then known as the Grain Coast. They arrived with white agents of the ACS who would govern them for many years. Many others followed, settling on land sometimes purchased, sometimes obtained more forcefully, from indigenous chiefs.
Related Video:
Settlers shared the land with indigenous tribes. (:48) Watch
The first years were a challenge: The settlers suffered from malaria and yellow fever, common in the area's coastal plains and mangrove swamps, and from attacks by the native populations who were, at various times, unhappy -- unhappy with the expansion of the settlements along the coast; with the settlers' efforts to put an end to the lucrative slave trading in which some ethnic groups were engaged; and at the settlers' attempts to Christianize their communities. Despite these difficulties, the Black settlers were determined to show the world that they could create, develop, and run their own country. And so they kept arriving.
In 1824, the settlement was named Monrovia, after the American president (and ACS member) James Monroe, and the colony became the Republic of Liberia. Over the next 40 years, 19,000 African American repatriates, sometimes known as Americo-Liberians, settled in Liberia, along with some 5,000 Africans recaptured from slave ships, and a small number of West Indian immigrants.
Related Video:
Settlers were determined to create a Black America overseas. (1:42) Watch
A two-tiered society struggles to stand on its own feet
The settlers recreated American society, building churches and homes that resembled Southern plantations. And they continued to speak English. They also entered into a complex relationship with the indigenous people -- marrying them in some cases, discriminating against them in others, but all the time attempting to "civilize" them and impose Western values on the traditional communities. After Liberia declared its independence in 1847, Joseph J. Roberts, a freeborn Black who was born in the American state of Virginia, was elected Liberia's first president. It had taken fewer than 25 years for the Blacks from America to begin to govern their own, free country. Soon after his inauguration, President Roberts traveled to Europe, where he was received in the courts of Queen Victoria and Napoleon III. Queen Victoria gave him a gunship to combat slavery, which had continued along the coast with unscrupulous native traders who preyed on weaker ethnic groups. Not surprisingly, England and France were the first countries to recognize Liberia's independence in 1848. Roberts and his senators, all American-born, resolved to create a country based on the principles of justice and equal rights.
The settlers built schools and a university, and during the early years, agriculture, shipbuilding, and trade flourished. Yet as Liberia expanded its borders, a government of repatriates located largely on the coast attempted to establish control over a growing native population located largely in the interior. Over the next few decades, escalating economic difficulties began to weaken the state's dominance over the coastal indigenous population. When the financially burdened ACS withdrew its support, conditions worsened as Liberia tried desperately to modernize its largely agricultural economy. The cost of imports was far greater than the income generated by exports of coffee, rice, palm oil, sugarcane, and timber. Liberia was also struggling under the burden of heavy loans, primarily from Britain. By 1909, the government was bankrupt and forced to borrow further, in large part from the United States.
Related Video:
Forced labor was very much like slavery. (2:23) Watch
To bring in more revenue, the Liberian state leased large areas of land to American companies such as Firestone, which operated a massive rubber plantation in the African nation. The terms of the leases were strongly in favor of the private companies. The final straw came in 1930 when an accusation by the League of Nations, of "forced labor ... hardly distinguishable from slavery," turned out to be true. The government collapsed, and the new president, Edwin Barclay, dealt with the mounting discontent among his people by introducing increasingly repressive laws.
An international profile, and trouble at home
Despite its political, economic, and social troubles, Liberia, as the only free republic in Africa, was a model for African colonies struggling to achieve independence. William V.S. Tubman, elected president in 1944, further highlighted the country's world profile by traveling abroad and allowing international investment in Liberia. With this investment and the income from the newly discovered mineral deposits, he modernized parts of Liberia (mostly along the coast) and built schools, roads, and hospitals. Tubman also expanded the incorporation of indigenous populations into the social and economic mainstream, granting them, for example, the right to vote. Under Tubman, Liberia was a founding member of the United Nations as well as of the Organization of African Unity, and he strongly championed the independence of other African states.
Despite these developments, the gap between the ruling elite and the indigenous populations increased. Tubman was criticized for being too influenced by the United States and its interests in the area (i.e., the fight against communism), and for repressing political opposition. Tubman's rule became gradually more authoritarian: He changed the constitution to allow himself to remain in office for seven consecutive terms, gagged the press, and introduced a system of government spies to report on all political activity.
By the time Tubman died in 1971, frustrations in Liberia were running high. His vice president and successor, William R. Tolbert, attempted to improve the economic and political climate by introducing many new changes. But the damage of the past seemed irreparable. The majority of the population was poor and lacked basic amenities such as access to safe water and electricity. Tolbert's attempt to liberalize Liberian society backfired -- some thought he was moving too quickly, while others thought he wasn't moving quickly enough. Many could no longer bear the political dominance of the descendants of American settlers. At the same time, Tolbert's own administration opposed his efforts to bring more indigenous Liberians into the upper echelons of government. Tolbert's proposal in 1979 to increase the price of imported rice, a basic part of the Liberian diet, as a tactic to encourage local production was interpreted negatively, and this provided the spark for demonstrations which rapidly turned violent.
Related Video:
Doe led the coup that resulted in the assassination of Tolbert. (1:10) Watch
Violence spreads
Some soldiers in the army sympathized with the demonstrators, but others strongly believed in the power of the military. In 1980, a group of enlisted men led by Samuel K. Doe, a 28-year-old indigenous master sergeant, fought their way into the presidential mansion and shot Tolbert to death. Shortly afterwards, 13 members of the Cabinet were publicly executed. Hundreds of government workers fled the country, while others were imprisoned.
Many people welcomed Doe's takeover as a shift favoring the majority of the population that had been excluded from power. The new government, led by the leaders of the coup d'ètat and calling itself the People's Redemption Council (PRC), lacked experience and was ill prepared to rule. Soon there were internal rifts, and Doe began to systematically eliminate Council members who challenged his authority. Paranoid about the possibility of a counter-coup, Doe began to favor people of his own ethnic background, the Krahns, placing them in key positions. Among ordinary Liberians, support for Doe's government soon dampened.
In 1985, Doe declared himself the winner of a presidential election he had actually lost. His corrupt government became more repressive, shutting down newspapers and banning political activity. The government's mistreatment of certain ethnic groups, particularly the Gio (or Dan) and the Mano in the north, resulted in divisions and violence among indigenous populations who until then had coexisted relatively peacefully.
Civil war
The brutal treatment they faced at the hands of the Liberian army drove some indigenous northerners across the border to the Ivory Coast. There, a man named Charles Taylor organized and trained many of them. Taylor had previously served as deputy minister of commerce under Doe, but was imprisoned for allegedly transferring millions of government funds into his own account. He was reported to have bribed his way out of a Massachusetts jail. When Taylor and his force of 100 rebels reentered Liberia in 1989, on Christmas Eve, thousands of Gio and Mano joined them. While they formed the core of his rebel army, there were many Liberians of other ethnic backgrounds who joined as well. A brutal civil war ensued.
In September 1990, Doe was captured and tortured to death by another rebel group originally associated with Taylor, while fighting between the rebels and the Liberian army escalated into civil war. Entire villages were emptied as people fled. Soldiers, some of them still children, committed unspeakable atrocities, raping and murdering people of all ages, in what became one of the world's worst episodes of ethnic cleansing.
Five years later, at a conference sponsored by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations and the United States, the European Union, and the Organization of African Unity, Charles Taylor agreed to a cease-fire and a timetable to demobilize and disarm his troops. In a climate hardly conducive to free movement and security of persons, he won a 1997 presidential election against 12 other candidates. Liberians had voted for him in the hope that he would end the bloodshed.
The bloodshed did slow considerably, but it has not ended. Violent events have flared up regularly since the end of the war. Taylor, furthermore, has been accused of backing guerrillas in neighboring countries and funneling diamond monies into arms purchases for the rebel armies he supported, and into luxuries for himself.
The end of the turmoil?
Seven years of civil war undid much of what Liberia had achieved. Most of the country's infrastructure and public buildings were destroyed. Two hundred thousand people were killed, and another 800,000 displaced from their homes. Close to another 700,000 became refugees in neighboring countries. Recent reports from international political, environmental, and humanitarian groups point to Liberia's sky-high unemployment, continuing human rights violations, and the uncertainty of the upcoming 2003 elections.
Today, the Liberian people are just beginning the slow process of recovering from the economic, social, political, and psychological trauma of the war. The world waits and watches to see if the cycle of clashes between different populations has truly been broken, and if Liberia can rebuild itself as a unified nation to achieve the promise of its star of liberty.
Related links
Africa: South of the Sahara: Liberia:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/liberia.html
An extensive list of links to dozens of Liberia-related Web sites, from Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources.
Liberia's History: Time Line:
http://www.denison.edu/~waite/liberia/history/index.htm
Prepared by a former Peace Corps volunteer to Liberia, this timeline focuses primarily on the achievements and challenges of the many men who have held the top office in Africa's oldest republic. The timeline ends with President Tolbert's execution in 1980, and a literal question mark as to how the country's problems escalated to this point.
Liberia: History:
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0859267.html
Cartage (Central Array of Relayed Transaction for the Advance of General Education): Liberia:
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/GeogHist /histories/history/hiscountries/L/liberia.html
The Liberian Connection:
http://www.Liberian-Connection.com/
Liberian Embassy: Liberia at a Glance:
http://www.liberiaemb.org/info.html
History: Liberia:
http://www.ku.edu/history/VL/africa/liberia.html
African Studies: Liberia:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies /Country_Specific/Liberia.html
African-American Mosaic: Colonization:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html
Time Line:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html
Contributors
Anjali Mitter Duva is a freelance writer and consultant based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This essay was reviewed by D. Elwood Dunn, a professor of political science at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and by Womi Edith Neal, a District of Columbia public school teacher and founder/executive director of the Grass Roots Theatre Company in Bethesda, Maryland.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/liberia/essays/history/
Liberia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Republic of Liberia is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire. It has recently been afflicted by two civil wars, the Liberian Civil War (1989–1996), and the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003), that have displaced hundreds of thousands of its citizens and destroyed the Liberian economy.
History
Settlers from America
The history of Liberia as a political entity begins with the arrival of the black American settlers — the Americo-Liberians, as they came to be known — who established a colony of “free men of color” on its shore in 1822 under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. The historical roots from which a majority of present-day Liberians derive their identity, however, are found in the varied traditions of the several ethnicities of indigenous Africans whom the settlers confronted in their struggle to gain a foothold in Africa and, later, extend their control into the interior.
On July 26, 1847, the American settlers declared the independence of the Republic of Liberia. The settlers regarded the continent from which their forefathers had been taken as slaves as a "Promised Land", but they did not become reintegrated into an African society. Once in Africa, they referred to themselves as "Americans" and were recognized as such by local Africans and by British colonial authorities in neighboring Sierra Leone. The symbols of their state — its flag, motto, and seal — and the form of government that they chose reflected their American background and Diaspora experience.
The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South. These ideals strongly coloured the attitudes of the settlers toward the indigenous African people. The new nation, as they perceived it, was coextensive with the settler community and with those Africans who were assimilated into it. Because of mutual mistrust and hostility between the "Americans" along the coast and the "Natives" of the interior, a recurrent theme in the country's subsequent history, therefore, was the usually successful attempt of the Americo-Liberian minority to dominate people whom they considered uncivilized and inferior. They named the land "Liberia," which in European languages, and in Latin in particular, means "Land of the Free".
The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American religious and philanthropic groups, but the colony enjoyed the support and unofficial cooperation of the United States government. Liberia’s government, modeled after that of the United States, was democratic in structure, if not always in substance. After 1877 the True Whig Party monopolized political power in the country, and competition for office was usually contained within the party, whose nomination virtually ensured election. Two problems confronting successive administrations were pressure from neighboring colonial powers, Britain and France, and the threat of financial insolvency, both of which challenged the country’s sovereignty. Liberia retained its independence during the Scramble for Africa, but lost its claim to extensive territories that were annexed by Britain and France. Economic development was retarded by the decline of markets for Liberian goods in the late nineteenth century and by indebtedness on a series of loans, payments on which drained the economy.
Significant mid-20th-century events
Two events were of particular importance in releasing Liberia from its self-imposed isolation. The first was the grant in 1926 of a large concession to the American-owned Firestone Plantation Company; that move became a first step in the modernization of the Liberian economy. The second occurred during World War II, when the United States began providing technical and economic assistance that enabled Liberia to make economic progress and introduce social change.
1980 coup under Doe
On 12 April 1980, a successful military coup was staged by a group of noncommissioned officers of tribal origins led by Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe, and they executed the President of nine years William R. Tolbert, Jr. in his mansion. Constituting themselves the People’s Redemption Council, Doe and his associates seized control of the government and brought an end to Liberia’s "first republic".
Doe made strong ties with the United States in the early 1980s, receiving more than $500 million for pushing out the Soviet Union from the country, and allowing exclusive rights for the US to use Liberia's ports and land (including allowing the CIA to use Liberian territory to spy on Libya).
Doe continued his authoritarian policies, banning newspapers, outlawing opposition parties and holding staged elections.
1989 and 1999 civil wars
In late 1989, a civil war began, and in September 1990 Doe was ousted and killed by the forces of faction leader Yormie Johnson and members of the Gio tribe. As a condition for the end of the conflict, interim president Amos Sawyer resigned in 1994, handing power to the Council of State. Prominent warlord Charles Taylor was elected as President in 1997. Taylor's brutal regime targeted several leading opposition and political activists. In 1998, the government sought to assassinate child rights activist Kimmie Weeks for a report he had published on its involvement in the training of child soldiers, which forced him into exile. Taylor's autocratic and dysfunctional government led to a new rebellion in 1999. More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the civil wars. The conflict intensified in mid-2003, when the fighting moved closer to Monrovia. As the power of the government shrank and with increasing international and American pressure for him to resign, President Charles Taylor accepted an asylum offer by Nigeria, but vowed: "God willing, I will be back."
Politics
The Americo-Liberians had little in common with the tribal communities living inland. Because development of the country tended to be in only the capital city where the Americo-Liberians people lived, the tribes felt left out and cheated of the country's wealth, which they believed to be their own. One of these tribes was the Krahn, to which Samuel Doe belonged. That was partly the reason for the 1980 coup.
In the run-off election of November 8, 2005 between soccer legend George Weah and former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Johnson-Sirleaf became the first female elected head of state in African history. She was inaugurated on January 16, 2006.
Economy
The Liberian economy depended heavily on the export of iron ore. Before 1990 Liberia also exported rubber, and that exporting has resumed now that the hostilities have ended. The long civil war has destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, and Liberia is dependent on foreign aid. The country currently has an approximate 85% unemployment rate, the worst in the world.
In 2005, lawsuits were brought against the company Bridgestone/Firestone for its alleged role in using slave labor in its rubber plantations in Liberia.
Demographics
The population of over 3 million comprises 16 indigenous ethnic groups and various foreign minorities. The Kpelle in central and western Liberia is the largest ethnic group. Americo-Liberians, who are descendants of freed slaves that arrived in Liberia early in 1821, make up an estimated 5% of the population. There also is a sizable number of Lebanese, Indians, and other West African nationals who make up a significant part of Liberia's business community. A few whites (estimated at 18,000 in 1999; probably fewer now) reside in the country.
Political upheavals and civil war have brought about a steep decline in living standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Bush Refuses To Take Action as Over 600 Killed In Liberia
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2003
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/22/1437227
Dozens of mortar shells were fired throughout the capital, two hit the U.S. Embassy. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for immediate deployment of peacekeeping troops. We talk to Salih Booker of Africa Action.
At least 600 civilians have been killed in intense fighting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia in recent days according to the country’s defense minister. Dozens of mortar shells were fired yesterday into the port city. At least two shells hit the U.S. embassy compound.
Calls for the U.S. to send in peacekeeping troops intensified. President Bush said he was watching the situation. To date the U.S. military has deployed 41 Marines to boost security at the embassy. And 4,500 US troops have been moved into the Mediterranean Sea but it would take them a week to sail to Liberia if needed.
To protest Washington’s indifference, Liberians laid the bodies of deceased loved ones outside the U.S. embassy yesterday.
Analysts say the U.S. may have lost its best chance to oversee a peaceful transition from President Charles Taylor to a new democratic government because now troops will be entering a combat situation instead of a cease-fire.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the immediate deployment of U.S. and international troops. The Economic Community of West African States has pledged to send in 1,5000 peacekeeping troops.
* Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
* Salih Booker, Director of Africa Action.
TRANSCRIPT:
AMY GOODMAN: As we move first to deal with the issue of Liberia. We go now to Salih Booker, who is Director of Africa Action. At least 600 civilians have been killed this weekend in Liberia. A shell hit the U.S. compound where it looks like between 10 and 20,000 Liberians have taken refuge, killing more than a dozen Liberians. Their bodies put outside the embassy compound by Liberians to show the world what is taking place. Sally Booker, what do you think needs to happen? What should happen right now? Before we to go Salih Booker, we'll go to Congressman Charles Rangel. I just spoke to him a few minutes ago about the situation and what he was calling for.
CHARLES RANGEL: Well, we should intervene through the international community; it should not be a unilateral decision. We should get support from the African countries. But I think that humane reasons dictate that we stop the violence, we bring food and medicine and restore our role as really a defender of democracy rather than one that liberates through bombing.
AMY GOODMAN: So you think troops should be sent in? Is there a discussion to get George Bush to do this?
CHARLES RANGEL: Not unilaterally. I want to make it abundantly clear that I think all United States intervention, internationally, should be done by the United Nations.
AMY GOODMAN: That's New York Democratic congress member, Charles Rangel. Salih Booker on the line, Director of Africa Action. Your response? What should be done right now?
SALIH BOOKER: Well, the Bush administration has been stalling all along before George Bush made his first official trip to Africa several weeks ago, the White House had met with the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department, to consider the urgent situation in Monrovia at the time, and the requests of the United Nations and West African nations and Liberians themselves, for the United States to play a lead role within a multi-national force to establish peace and stability for the political resolution to be allowed to go forward in Liberia. And at that time, it's my firm belief that the Bush administration rejected any significant role for the United States. That it doesn't consider Liberia a serious interest to its own sort of minority rule here in Washington. And they simply decided to stall so that their decision not to be involved in Liberia would not become a major embarrassment during the president's trip to Africa. So they sent a military assessment team to Monrovia. They really looked mainly at the humanitarian situation, which is in just crisis proportions in terms of health conditions, in terms of the huge number of internally displaced people in Liberia. That mission has never reported back to the White House.
The president went--through his trip, he met with Kofi Annan, shortly after returning from Africa and he's continued to promise to offer U.S. assistance for security and solution in Liberia. But like his other promises to Africa, whether it's on AIDS or whether it's on anything else, these are promises that are broken nearly as soon as they're made.
AMY GOODMAN: Bush has said he is watching the situation carefully. What do you think it is he is looking for, with tens much thousands of people now concentrated right in his own embassy's compound?
SALIH BOOKER: Well I think he's doing very much what his father did in 1990. George Herbert Walker Bush, president at the time, faced a very almost identical situation. There were U.S. warships off the coast of Monrovia, they were evacuating Americans and Europeans and basically they decided to leave Liberians to their own fate. And it was a very violent fate. They wanted the situation to resolve itself without requiring American intervention. And in 1990, that's exactly what happened. The rebel factions that were fighting in Monrovia captured the head of state Samuel Doe, who had been American puppet for the last decade of the cold war, and they killed him and essentially destroyed the capital. And the U.S. decided well there's no reason for us to intervene now. I think that's what George Bush is exactly doing right now, waiting for some violent solution to present itself. Whether it's the death of Charles Taylor or the triumph of one or the other of these rebel militia factions. But he's looking for a way out, while simply promising that the U.S. will support the West African effort, which is of course itself also extremely slow in getting its act together.
www.democracynow.org
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/22/1437227&mode=thread&tid=25
West African Troops Land in Liberia, Charles Taylor to Resign, U.S. Troops Still Not Deployed
Monday, August 4th, 2003
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/04/1517214
As West African forces land in Liberia we speak with author and freelance journalist David Goodman on Liberia's history and its relationship with the U.S. government. [Includes transcript]
Click here to read to full transcript
The first West African forces arrived in Liberia capital of Monrovia today.
The troops are part an international mission to end 14 years of carnage and oversee departure of Liberian President Charles Taylor.
300 Nigerian soldiers are scheduled to land today. The soldiers’ ranks are expected to swell to 5,000 by the end of the month.
AP reported a dozen Nigerian soldiers in green camouflage and flak jackets leaping out of a Russian-made helicopter at Liberia's main airport. They took up defensive positions around the landing strip.
Residents near Monrovia’s embattled port heard cheers and watched flares go up as the rebels celebrated the arrival of the West African forces.
The situation in Monrovia is dire. Two months of rebel sieges have killed more than 1,000 civilians and more than 1.3 million have been cut off from food and water.
The Washington Post reports Liberians are still pleading for President Bush to send in U.S. troops but no move from Washington has been made.
The deployment of U.S. troops has been delayed in part because President Bush first wanted assurances that any troops, who go into Liberia, will be protected from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. We'll have more on Liberia later in the show.
Liberian President Charles Taylor had agreed to relinquish power on August 11 but it is no longer clear when he will go into exile in Nigeria. Taylor wants the war crimes indictment against him to be dropped before he goes into exile.
* Alphonso Toweh, Reuters' correspondent in Monrovia, Liberia.
* David Goodman, freelance journalist and author of Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: As we turn now to Liberia. The first West African forces have arrived there today, 675 Nigerian soldiers, 18 of their officers assembled on the airfield to take part in the first deployment. The troops are the start of a promised 3250 force of U.N. peacekeepers.
A reported a DOZEN Nigerian soldiers in flack jackets leaping out of a Russian made helicopter at Liberia’s main airport. They took up defensive positions around the landing strip. Residents near Monrovia’s embattled port heard cheers and saw flares as rebels celebrated arrival of the West African forces.
The situation right now in Liberia is dire. People are suffering from disease, having been cut off by the fighting as well as starvation.
We turn now to David Goodman who is a freelance reporter and author of “Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa” I spoke to him last week. He has reported on Liberia on the situation of child soldiers as well as the Firestone plant in Liberia about the U.S. role over the years.
DAVID GOODMAN: The U.S. relationship with Liberia is a long and sordid one. It dates back to 1816 when the first U.S. Navy warships delivered settlers, the first settlers to Liberia.
This was part of the American Colonization Society that was headed by then president James Monroe, who then got to have his name attached to the capital of Liberia, Monrovia. The operation then was sort of a bizarre mix of missionary zeal and ethnic cleansing.
It was an attempt to have free African Americans leave the country because southern slave owners were afraid of what they represented, that they might inspire slaves to revolt, and it was also the hope of a lot of churches that they could Christianize this African territory at that time.
The relationship continued in the mid 1800’s when officially Liberia was established by freed American slaves, but in the 1900’s, it took on a much stronger economic dimension. In 1926, Harvey Firestone of Firestone Tires was granted a lease under strong pressure from the U.S. government which he had got a million acres of Liberia. Now having traveled in the Firestone rubber plantation, this is the largest rubber plantation on earth.
It supplies much of the rubber for Firestone tires, which until recently were the main tires on any Ford vehicle that you might have had. The plantation functions as almost a separate nation within Liberia. It has its own security force, it’s basically a no go zone for the Liberian government. And it gives very little back in terms of finances, except in the salaries it pays. When I was there in 1999 I was looking into the working conditions for Mother Jones magazine on the Firestone plantation. Found out that rubber tappers there are paid $2.50 a day. And they were suffering as a result of the Firestone debacle here where their tires were blowing up. So for making $2.50 a day their wages were further slashed and their benefits further slashed in Liberia because of tires blowing up on our roads.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to David Goodman who has reported on Liberia on the firestone plant there and the Liberian workers and also on child soldiers.
DAVID GOODMAN: Right.
I was also in Liberia for Unicef investigating the aftermath of the seven-year Civil War that raged through the 1990’s when Charles Taylor led a rebel group that eventually brought him to power and elections in 1997.
15,000 children down to the age of six fought in that conflict. It became one of the most notorious conflicts for its use and abuse of children. And I heard often in my travels around the country the particular fear that these units, they were called small boy units, the S.B.U.s in Liberia. They were particularly feared because children can be persuaded and brainwashed to do just about anything. So many of the most heinous crimes during the Civil War were actually committed by children on the orders of their commanders.
Once again now in the conflicting go on now, both the government and in Liberia and the rebel groups LURD and MODEL have been accused of using child soldiers. I spent one particularly memorable day with the group of what were called hardcore combatants.
These were children by and large—if there’s any effort at all made to do something for these kids, and often there is no effort made— But where help is offered it’s to reunite children with families. But these hardcore combatants had committed atrocities so severe that their communities would not take them back.
Now, this is kind of a longstanding ritual which is that a way to prove loyalty to your commander is to force a child to do something to his own family or to his own community, the commander thus knowing that he cannot return to that community or family so it can involve everything from burning down a whole village to killing a family to killing a family member. So these were the kids I was dealing with.
All I can tell you is that the damage done lasts a lifetime. And when I asked one Liberian social worker looking around at the wreckage of Liberia and it is particularly striking, I’ve traveled in war zones all throughout Africa; I’ve never seen anything quite like Liberia. The capital Monrovia is as if a lawn mower were lowered overall the buildings. They’re simply blown off. Glass lies shattered on the street that has been there for seven years because no one bothers to clean it up. This was the state of Monrovia two years ago. One can only imagine right now.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Charles Taylor and the U.S. relationship with him?
DAVID GOODMAN: Well, Charles Taylor, we have to trace him back just couple more years to the Coup, is that brought him into the picture. In 1980, there was a Coup in which the president, Tolbert was overthrown by a Sergeant Doe a 28yearold illiterate Army sergeant who was trained by the U.S. green berets. Ronald Reagan who became president shortly after Doe came to power, Doe was a particularly sadistic leader but he was also a particularly shrewd and loyal one when it came to the United States.
At that time in the 1980’s the U.S. was concerned that Libya was going to make a move in Africa and line up series of satellite states. Doe played the Libya card very well. Such that in the 1980’s, Liberia became the top recipient of U.S. aid in sub-Saharan Africa received over 400 million dollars between 1981 and 1986. What flowed from that was an increasingly brutal dictatorship that enjoyed basically an open checkbook from Washington. As long as Doe kept uttering the words Libya or Russia, he was golden. He met with Ronald Reagan in a famous meeting where Ronald Reagan welcomed “Chairman Moe” to the White House instead of Samuel Doe. And Charles Taylor was actually a clerk in Doe’s government. But then came to the United States, was arrested and was going to be extradited.
AMY GOODMAN: Was arrested for what?
DAVID GOODMAN: He was charged with corruption in Liberia, which is almost a joke since corruption was endemic in Liberia with all this money flowing through. He was being extradited and was in jail outside of Boston and miraculously escaped. It is thought that he had help from inside the prison—from the prison guards themselves. In 1989 he shows up in west Africa and ivory coast, launches an attack against Samuel Doe and what follows is a horrendous seven year long Civil War in which some 200,000 people are killed and a million and half people are displaced.
That’s where we are today. In 1997 he gets elected president. I asked people around Liberia whom they vote for; he won with 70% vote. In election that was actually certified to be somewhat free and fair, when I asked people, even educated Liberians “who did you vote for?”; they say, “Well we voted for Taylor”. And why would you vote for a sadistic war Lord like this.
The answer was, because he’s the only one, who can stop the fighting. If Taylor isn’t president, the war goes on and soldiers go back to the bush. We know it will never end. People voted for in 1997 was an end to war. That meant voting for Charles Taylor. So Taylor’s corruption and brutality has not ceased. So it’s not surprising that he has also spawned conflicts in every state around him. Ivory Coast, the most stable country in West Africa. With the Liberian backed insurgency now toppling the government. Guinea, Sierra Leone.
AMY GOODMAN: Sierra Leone he is doing it for the diamonds?
DAVID GOODMAN: Right. How is he funding all of this? So-called blood diamonds, which are the diamonds that are being extracted from Sierra Leone to finance his war. But also more recently timber sales. Charles Taylor in a wide ranging U.N. investigation has been implicated in the sale of rare hard woods, basically clear cutting huge swatches to sell these hard woods overseas. Diamonds and wood has financed his war. But when you travel to Liberia I can’t you see the U.S. marks everywhere enormous radio satellite towers that are here and there across the country. It was the main C.I.A. listening post for all of Africa up until the Civil War in the 1990’s. So when we hear now that Liberians are looking to the United States not to the French, not to the British, it’s because they are intimately familiar with this close relationship with the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: The second city has fallen to the rebels, Buchanan. You’ve spent time there.
DAVID GOODMAN: Buchanan is to call it a city by-- I mean it has a kind of wide open dirt path in the middle, it’s been nearly destroyed in the last war. It was a base for Charles Taylor. And many of his old bases, his hometown in the interior, a place called Bonga has fallen to the rebels, he’s basically lost most of the country except Monrovia. Buchanan is significant; it’s the second port city in Liberia. To re-supply or feed the many people who are now starving in Liberia it’s either Buchanan or Monrovia. Now both ports have by and large been cut off because of fighting. So here we have fast forwarding to right now, we have Marines stationed off the coast of Liberia. Well this is a very familiar scene for Liberians. In 1990, the first President Bush sent Marines to the coast of Liberia when fighting broke out. And a number of Liberians recounted to me the sense of joy at seeing that their suffering was about to end. The Americans had finally come. And indeed they came and in a scene that was described to me, Marines landed in amphibious boats, razor wire went up on the streets around the enormous U.S. embassy, it takes over whole section of the city called Momba Point, and sure enough the Marines came, got all the white people and embassy employees and left. And what followed was the 7-year civil war. Interestingly, Bush the first’s Undersecretary of State Herman Cohen has said in his exit interview one of his biggest regrets was dropping the ball in Liberia which he says a modest deployment could have avoid add very of our troops could have avoided a very long conflict. What have we learned in the 13 years since that time?
A modest deployment.
AMY GOODMAN: David Goodman freelance journalist and author of the book “Fault Lines” spent time reporting on from Liberia as we turn now in this last minute we have just reached Alphonso Toweh Reuters correspondent in Monrovia. Welcome to Democracy Now!
ALPHONSO TOWEH: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the latest situation there now? The reports of starvation and disease and arrival of the Nigerian troops.
ALPHONSO TOWEH: Yes. The information in Monrovia now is that about 40 Nigerian troops have arrived here and at the international airport where the areas here and first thing they have done is to secure the entire area, the airport. And around here the people are happy that these troops have arrived here and there is optimism for peace here.
AMY GOODMAN: The situation in Monrovia to this point, we’re reading of reports of starvation and disease.
ALPHONSO TOWEH: Most of the people almost everyone is happy over what’s happening here today. And thousands of people who have lined up are in anticipation to see the troops.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us. That does it for today’s program.
If you like to get a video or audiocassette of this program, call 18008812359. Our website is www.democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
www.democracynow.org
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/04/1517214&mode=thread&tid=25
Liberian President Charles Taylor Surrenders Power and Flies Into Exile in Nigeria
Tuesday, August 12th, 2003
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/12/1458230
Charles Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia yesterday leaving vice president Moses Blah in charge but not before saying, “God willing I will return.” We go to Monrovia to hear from Christian Science Monitor’s Nicole Itano.
Charles Taylor stepped down as the president of Liberia yesterday but not before saying “God willing, I will be back.” In his farewell address he said “I have accepted this role as the sacrificial lamb ... I am the whipping boy.”
Under pressure from rebels from the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, Taylor surrendered power to his vice president Moses Blah and then flew into exile in Nigeria.
Blah, himself, is to hand over power in October to a transition government meant to lead Liberia into elections.
Rebels have seized most of Liberia in their three-year campaign to depose Taylor and have laid siege to the capital Monrovia.
Amid Taylor’s departure, three U.S. warships with 2,300 Marines and 2,500 sailors aboard moved within sight of shore. The ships have been within 100 miles of Liberia for more than a week. U.S. officials had said they were waiting for the right moment before bringing them into sight.
Associated Press described hundreds of Liberians lining the country's rock-lined shores, exclaiming and hugging at a dramatic day they prayed would mark a turning point for their country.
President George Bush called Taylor's exile ``an important step'' but gave no hint whether it moved him closer toward deploying more U.S. troops to assist with peacekeeping or humanitarian relief efforts.
In a CNN interview yesterday, Blah appealed to the U.S. Marines offshore. He said ``Please come to Liberia and save us because we are dying. We are hungry.''
* Nicole Itano, covering events in Liberia for the Christian Science Monitor. She joins us on the phone today from Monrovia.
www.democracynow.org
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/12/1458230&mode=thread&tid=25
American architectural
influence in Liberia
In many respects, emigrants to Liberia re-created an American society there. The colonists spoke English and retained American manners, dress, and housing styles. Affluent citizens constructed two-story houses composed of a stone basement and a wood-framed body with a portico on both the front and rear, a style copied from buildings in the southern American states from which most of the emigrants came. Liberia's president lived in a handsome stone mansion that resembled a southern plantation house.
"President Roberts's House, Monrovia" Philadelphia: Wagner & McGuigan's, ca. 1850 Lithograph Prints and Photographs Division (12)
Like the United States, Liberia used dollars and cents as its units of currency. Reflecting the many inhabitants engaged in agriculture, early Liberian currency pictured farmers and farm animals. Later currency included a ship and palm trees like those on the national seal. During the 1830s, the Maryland Colonization Society, which had broken away from the ACS, ran its own colony call "Maryland in Liberia" and issued its own currency. The colony joined the Republic of Liberia in 1857.
[Liberian currency from the 1830s to the 1880s] Currency American Colonization Society Papers Manuscript Division (13)
Congress made the importation of slaves into the United States illegal in 1808. In 1819, Congress passed an "Act in addition to the acts prohibiting the Slave Trade." This act authorized the president to send a naval squadron to African waters to apprehend illegal slave traders and appropriated $100,000 to resettle recaptured slaves in Africa. At various times, the ACS entered into agreements with the U.S. government to settle these rescued victims of the slave trade in Liberia. By 1867, more than 5,700 people had come to Liberia under this program.
[Agreement to take recaptured slaves to Liberia], 1860 American Colonization Society Papers Manuscript Division (16)
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam003.html
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)
American Colonization Society,
Abolitionists & Slave Owners Unite
To “Send Negroes Back To Africa” – 1 of 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Liberia re world…Liberia re Africa
The American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society was established in 1816 by Robert Finley as an attempt to satisfy two groups in America. Ironically, these groups were on opposite ends of the spectrum involving slavery in the early 1800's. One group consisted of philanthropists, clergy and abolitionists, who wanted to free African slaves and their descendants and provide them with the opportunity to return to Africa. The other group was the slave owners, who feared free people of color and wanted to expel them from America.
Both these groups felt that free blacks would be unable to assimilate into the white society of this country. John Randolph, one famous slave owner called free blacks "promoters of mischief". {Tabacco: Note the HYPOCRISY - Whites captured and imported slaves to America against their wills; but "Negro" slaves, not White slave-owners, are "promoters of mischief".} At this time, about 2 million Negroes live in America, of which 200,000 were free persons of color. Henry Clay, a southern congressman and sympathizer of the plight of free blacks, believed that because of "unconquerable prejudice resulting from their color, they never could amalgamate with the free whites of this country."
On December 21, 1816, a group of exclusively white, upper-class males including James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key, and Daniel Webster met at the Davis hotel in Washington D.C. with Henry Clay presiding over the meeting. They met one week later and adopted a constitution. During the next three years, the society raised money by selling memberships, using the certificate shown here. The Society's members relentlessly pressured Congress and the President for support. In 1819, they received $100,000 from Congress and in January 1820 the first ship, the Elizabeth, sailed from New York, headed for West Africa with three white ACS agents and 88 emigrants.
The ship arrived first at Freetown, Sierra Leone, then sailed south to what is now the Northern coast of Liberia and made an effort to establish a settlement. All three whites and 22 of the emigrants died within three weeks from yellow fever. The remainder returned to Sierra Leone and waited from another ship. The Nautilus sailed twice in 1821 and established a settlement at Mesurado Bay on an island they named Perseverance. It was difficult for the early settlers, made of mostly free-born blacks, who were not born into slavery, but were denied the full rights of American citizenship. The native Africans resisted the expansion of the settlers resulting in many armed conflicts. Nevertheless, in the next decade 2,638 African-Americans migrated to the area. Also, the colony entered an agreement with the U.S. Government to accept freed slaves captured from slave ships.
During the next 20 years the colony continued to grow and establish economic stability. Since the establishment of the colony, the ACS employed white agents to govern the colony. In 1842, Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first non-white governor of Liberia. In 1847, the legislature of Liberia declared itself an independent state, with J.J. Roberts elected as its first President.
The society in Liberia developed into three segments: The settlers with European-African lineage; freed slaves from slave ships and the West Indies; and indigenous native people. These groups would have a profound affect on the history of Liberia.
http://personal.denison.edu/~waite/liberia/history/acs.htm
The Lone Star, the flag Liberia Coat of Arms/National
of Liberia Emblem
When freedom raised her glowing form
On Montserrado's verdant heights
She set within the dome of night
Midst low'ring skies and thunderstorm --
The star of liberty.
On Montserrado's verdant heights
She set within the dome of night
Midst low'ring skies and thunderstorm --
The star of liberty.
A question of freedom
Six thousand miles from the United States lies a country whose flag bears a striking resemblance to the American one: alternating red and white horizontal stripes and, in the upper left-hand corner, a dark blue square. Against this blue background is a lone white star -- the star of liberty. The flag is a symbol of the history of the Liberian state, its relationship with America, and its search for its own identity.
The present-day Republic of Liberia occupies 43,000 square miles (slightly more than Tennessee) in West Africa. It is bordered on the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean and surrounded by Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. From antiquity through the 1700s, many ethnic groups from the surrounding regions settled in the area, making Liberia one of Africa's most culturally rich and diverse countries. Settled in the early 1800s by freeborn Blacks and former slaves from America, Liberia, whose name means "land of freedom," has always struggled with its double cultural heritage: that of the settlers and of the indigenous Africans.
From America to West Africa
In 1816, a group made up mostly of Quakers and slaveholders in Washington, D.C., formed the American Colonization Society (ACS). The Quakers opposed slavery, and the slaveholders opposed the freedom of Blacks, but they agreed on one thing: that Black Americans should be repatriated to Africa. The Quakers felt that freeborn Blacks and former slaves would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States. They also saw repatriation as a way of spreading Christianity through Africa. The slaveholders' motives were less charitable: They viewed repatriation of Blacks as a way of avoiding a slave rebellion like the one that had taken place on the island of Santo Domingo, today's Haiti.
Despite opposition from many Blacks and from white abolitionists, the repatriation program, funded by ACS member subscriptions and a number of state legislatures, moved forward. In 1822, the first 86 voluntary, Black emigrants landed on Cape Montserrado, on what was then known as the Grain Coast. They arrived with white agents of the ACS who would govern them for many years. Many others followed, settling on land sometimes purchased, sometimes obtained more forcefully, from indigenous chiefs.
Related Video:
Settlers shared the land with indigenous tribes. (:48) Watch
The first years were a challenge: The settlers suffered from malaria and yellow fever, common in the area's coastal plains and mangrove swamps, and from attacks by the native populations who were, at various times, unhappy -- unhappy with the expansion of the settlements along the coast; with the settlers' efforts to put an end to the lucrative slave trading in which some ethnic groups were engaged; and at the settlers' attempts to Christianize their communities. Despite these difficulties, the Black settlers were determined to show the world that they could create, develop, and run their own country. And so they kept arriving.
In 1824, the settlement was named Monrovia, after the American president (and ACS member) James Monroe, and the colony became the Republic of Liberia. Over the next 40 years, 19,000 African American repatriates, sometimes known as Americo-Liberians, settled in Liberia, along with some 5,000 Africans recaptured from slave ships, and a small number of West Indian immigrants.
Related Video:
Settlers were determined to create a Black America overseas. (1:42) Watch
A two-tiered society struggles to stand on its own feet
The settlers recreated American society, building churches and homes that resembled Southern plantations. And they continued to speak English. They also entered into a complex relationship with the indigenous people -- marrying them in some cases, discriminating against them in others, but all the time attempting to "civilize" them and impose Western values on the traditional communities. After Liberia declared its independence in 1847, Joseph J. Roberts, a freeborn Black who was born in the American state of Virginia, was elected Liberia's first president. It had taken fewer than 25 years for the Blacks from America to begin to govern their own, free country. Soon after his inauguration, President Roberts traveled to Europe, where he was received in the courts of Queen Victoria and Napoleon III. Queen Victoria gave him a gunship to combat slavery, which had continued along the coast with unscrupulous native traders who preyed on weaker ethnic groups. Not surprisingly, England and France were the first countries to recognize Liberia's independence in 1848. Roberts and his senators, all American-born, resolved to create a country based on the principles of justice and equal rights.
The settlers built schools and a university, and during the early years, agriculture, shipbuilding, and trade flourished. Yet as Liberia expanded its borders, a government of repatriates located largely on the coast attempted to establish control over a growing native population located largely in the interior. Over the next few decades, escalating economic difficulties began to weaken the state's dominance over the coastal indigenous population. When the financially burdened ACS withdrew its support, conditions worsened as Liberia tried desperately to modernize its largely agricultural economy. The cost of imports was far greater than the income generated by exports of coffee, rice, palm oil, sugarcane, and timber. Liberia was also struggling under the burden of heavy loans, primarily from Britain. By 1909, the government was bankrupt and forced to borrow further, in large part from the United States.
Related Video:
Forced labor was very much like slavery. (2:23) Watch
To bring in more revenue, the Liberian state leased large areas of land to American companies such as Firestone, which operated a massive rubber plantation in the African nation. The terms of the leases were strongly in favor of the private companies. The final straw came in 1930 when an accusation by the League of Nations, of "forced labor ... hardly distinguishable from slavery," turned out to be true. The government collapsed, and the new president, Edwin Barclay, dealt with the mounting discontent among his people by introducing increasingly repressive laws.
An international profile, and trouble at home
Despite its political, economic, and social troubles, Liberia, as the only free republic in Africa, was a model for African colonies struggling to achieve independence. William V.S. Tubman, elected president in 1944, further highlighted the country's world profile by traveling abroad and allowing international investment in Liberia. With this investment and the income from the newly discovered mineral deposits, he modernized parts of Liberia (mostly along the coast) and built schools, roads, and hospitals. Tubman also expanded the incorporation of indigenous populations into the social and economic mainstream, granting them, for example, the right to vote. Under Tubman, Liberia was a founding member of the United Nations as well as of the Organization of African Unity, and he strongly championed the independence of other African states.
Despite these developments, the gap between the ruling elite and the indigenous populations increased. Tubman was criticized for being too influenced by the United States and its interests in the area (i.e., the fight against communism), and for repressing political opposition. Tubman's rule became gradually more authoritarian: He changed the constitution to allow himself to remain in office for seven consecutive terms, gagged the press, and introduced a system of government spies to report on all political activity.
By the time Tubman died in 1971, frustrations in Liberia were running high. His vice president and successor, William R. Tolbert, attempted to improve the economic and political climate by introducing many new changes. But the damage of the past seemed irreparable. The majority of the population was poor and lacked basic amenities such as access to safe water and electricity. Tolbert's attempt to liberalize Liberian society backfired -- some thought he was moving too quickly, while others thought he wasn't moving quickly enough. Many could no longer bear the political dominance of the descendants of American settlers. At the same time, Tolbert's own administration opposed his efforts to bring more indigenous Liberians into the upper echelons of government. Tolbert's proposal in 1979 to increase the price of imported rice, a basic part of the Liberian diet, as a tactic to encourage local production was interpreted negatively, and this provided the spark for demonstrations which rapidly turned violent.
Related Video:
Doe led the coup that resulted in the assassination of Tolbert. (1:10) Watch
Violence spreads
Some soldiers in the army sympathized with the demonstrators, but others strongly believed in the power of the military. In 1980, a group of enlisted men led by Samuel K. Doe, a 28-year-old indigenous master sergeant, fought their way into the presidential mansion and shot Tolbert to death. Shortly afterwards, 13 members of the Cabinet were publicly executed. Hundreds of government workers fled the country, while others were imprisoned.
Many people welcomed Doe's takeover as a shift favoring the majority of the population that had been excluded from power. The new government, led by the leaders of the coup d'ètat and calling itself the People's Redemption Council (PRC), lacked experience and was ill prepared to rule. Soon there were internal rifts, and Doe began to systematically eliminate Council members who challenged his authority. Paranoid about the possibility of a counter-coup, Doe began to favor people of his own ethnic background, the Krahns, placing them in key positions. Among ordinary Liberians, support for Doe's government soon dampened.
In 1985, Doe declared himself the winner of a presidential election he had actually lost. His corrupt government became more repressive, shutting down newspapers and banning political activity. The government's mistreatment of certain ethnic groups, particularly the Gio (or Dan) and the Mano in the north, resulted in divisions and violence among indigenous populations who until then had coexisted relatively peacefully.
Civil war
The brutal treatment they faced at the hands of the Liberian army drove some indigenous northerners across the border to the Ivory Coast. There, a man named Charles Taylor organized and trained many of them. Taylor had previously served as deputy minister of commerce under Doe, but was imprisoned for allegedly transferring millions of government funds into his own account. He was reported to have bribed his way out of a Massachusetts jail. When Taylor and his force of 100 rebels reentered Liberia in 1989, on Christmas Eve, thousands of Gio and Mano joined them. While they formed the core of his rebel army, there were many Liberians of other ethnic backgrounds who joined as well. A brutal civil war ensued.
In September 1990, Doe was captured and tortured to death by another rebel group originally associated with Taylor, while fighting between the rebels and the Liberian army escalated into civil war. Entire villages were emptied as people fled. Soldiers, some of them still children, committed unspeakable atrocities, raping and murdering people of all ages, in what became one of the world's worst episodes of ethnic cleansing.
Five years later, at a conference sponsored by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations and the United States, the European Union, and the Organization of African Unity, Charles Taylor agreed to a cease-fire and a timetable to demobilize and disarm his troops. In a climate hardly conducive to free movement and security of persons, he won a 1997 presidential election against 12 other candidates. Liberians had voted for him in the hope that he would end the bloodshed.
The bloodshed did slow considerably, but it has not ended. Violent events have flared up regularly since the end of the war. Taylor, furthermore, has been accused of backing guerrillas in neighboring countries and funneling diamond monies into arms purchases for the rebel armies he supported, and into luxuries for himself.
The end of the turmoil?
Seven years of civil war undid much of what Liberia had achieved. Most of the country's infrastructure and public buildings were destroyed. Two hundred thousand people were killed, and another 800,000 displaced from their homes. Close to another 700,000 became refugees in neighboring countries. Recent reports from international political, environmental, and humanitarian groups point to Liberia's sky-high unemployment, continuing human rights violations, and the uncertainty of the upcoming 2003 elections.
Today, the Liberian people are just beginning the slow process of recovering from the economic, social, political, and psychological trauma of the war. The world waits and watches to see if the cycle of clashes between different populations has truly been broken, and if Liberia can rebuild itself as a unified nation to achieve the promise of its star of liberty.
Then forward sons of freedom march
Defend our sacred heritage
A nation's call from age to age
A nation's loud triumphant song
The song of liberty!
The Lone Star forever, the Lone Star forever
Oh, long may it flow over land and o'er sea
Desert it, no never!
Uphold it, forever!
Oh, shout for the Lone Starr'd banner, all hail.
Defend our sacred heritage
A nation's call from age to age
A nation's loud triumphant song
The song of liberty!
The Lone Star forever, the Lone Star forever
Oh, long may it flow over land and o'er sea
Desert it, no never!
Uphold it, forever!
Oh, shout for the Lone Starr'd banner, all hail.
Related links
Africa: South of the Sahara: Liberia:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/liberia.html
An extensive list of links to dozens of Liberia-related Web sites, from Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources.
Liberia's History: Time Line:
http://www.denison.edu/~waite/liberia/history/index.htm
Prepared by a former Peace Corps volunteer to Liberia, this timeline focuses primarily on the achievements and challenges of the many men who have held the top office in Africa's oldest republic. The timeline ends with President Tolbert's execution in 1980, and a literal question mark as to how the country's problems escalated to this point.
Liberia: History:
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0859267.html
Cartage (Central Array of Relayed Transaction for the Advance of General Education): Liberia:
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/GeogHist /histories/history/hiscountries/L/liberia.html
The Liberian Connection:
http://www.Liberian-Connection.com/
Liberian Embassy: Liberia at a Glance:
http://www.liberiaemb.org/info.html
History: Liberia:
http://www.ku.edu/history/VL/africa/liberia.html
African Studies: Liberia:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies /Country_Specific/Liberia.html
African-American Mosaic: Colonization:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html
Time Line:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html
Contributors
Anjali Mitter Duva is a freelance writer and consultant based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This essay was reviewed by D. Elwood Dunn, a professor of political science at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and by Womi Edith Neal, a District of Columbia public school teacher and founder/executive director of the Grass Roots Theatre Company in Bethesda, Maryland.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/liberia/essays/history/
Liberia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Republic of Liberia is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire. It has recently been afflicted by two civil wars, the Liberian Civil War (1989–1996), and the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003), that have displaced hundreds of thousands of its citizens and destroyed the Liberian economy.
History
Settlers from America
The history of Liberia as a political entity begins with the arrival of the black American settlers — the Americo-Liberians, as they came to be known — who established a colony of “free men of color” on its shore in 1822 under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. The historical roots from which a majority of present-day Liberians derive their identity, however, are found in the varied traditions of the several ethnicities of indigenous Africans whom the settlers confronted in their struggle to gain a foothold in Africa and, later, extend their control into the interior.
On July 26, 1847, the American settlers declared the independence of the Republic of Liberia. The settlers regarded the continent from which their forefathers had been taken as slaves as a "Promised Land", but they did not become reintegrated into an African society. Once in Africa, they referred to themselves as "Americans" and were recognized as such by local Africans and by British colonial authorities in neighboring Sierra Leone. The symbols of their state — its flag, motto, and seal — and the form of government that they chose reflected their American background and Diaspora experience.
The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South. These ideals strongly coloured the attitudes of the settlers toward the indigenous African people. The new nation, as they perceived it, was coextensive with the settler community and with those Africans who were assimilated into it. Because of mutual mistrust and hostility between the "Americans" along the coast and the "Natives" of the interior, a recurrent theme in the country's subsequent history, therefore, was the usually successful attempt of the Americo-Liberian minority to dominate people whom they considered uncivilized and inferior. They named the land "Liberia," which in European languages, and in Latin in particular, means "Land of the Free".
The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American religious and philanthropic groups, but the colony enjoyed the support and unofficial cooperation of the United States government. Liberia’s government, modeled after that of the United States, was democratic in structure, if not always in substance. After 1877 the True Whig Party monopolized political power in the country, and competition for office was usually contained within the party, whose nomination virtually ensured election. Two problems confronting successive administrations were pressure from neighboring colonial powers, Britain and France, and the threat of financial insolvency, both of which challenged the country’s sovereignty. Liberia retained its independence during the Scramble for Africa, but lost its claim to extensive territories that were annexed by Britain and France. Economic development was retarded by the decline of markets for Liberian goods in the late nineteenth century and by indebtedness on a series of loans, payments on which drained the economy.
Significant mid-20th-century events
Two events were of particular importance in releasing Liberia from its self-imposed isolation. The first was the grant in 1926 of a large concession to the American-owned Firestone Plantation Company; that move became a first step in the modernization of the Liberian economy. The second occurred during World War II, when the United States began providing technical and economic assistance that enabled Liberia to make economic progress and introduce social change.
1980 coup under Doe
On 12 April 1980, a successful military coup was staged by a group of noncommissioned officers of tribal origins led by Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe, and they executed the President of nine years William R. Tolbert, Jr. in his mansion. Constituting themselves the People’s Redemption Council, Doe and his associates seized control of the government and brought an end to Liberia’s "first republic".
Doe made strong ties with the United States in the early 1980s, receiving more than $500 million for pushing out the Soviet Union from the country, and allowing exclusive rights for the US to use Liberia's ports and land (including allowing the CIA to use Liberian territory to spy on Libya).
Doe continued his authoritarian policies, banning newspapers, outlawing opposition parties and holding staged elections.
1989 and 1999 civil wars
In late 1989, a civil war began, and in September 1990 Doe was ousted and killed by the forces of faction leader Yormie Johnson and members of the Gio tribe. As a condition for the end of the conflict, interim president Amos Sawyer resigned in 1994, handing power to the Council of State. Prominent warlord Charles Taylor was elected as President in 1997. Taylor's brutal regime targeted several leading opposition and political activists. In 1998, the government sought to assassinate child rights activist Kimmie Weeks for a report he had published on its involvement in the training of child soldiers, which forced him into exile. Taylor's autocratic and dysfunctional government led to a new rebellion in 1999. More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the civil wars. The conflict intensified in mid-2003, when the fighting moved closer to Monrovia. As the power of the government shrank and with increasing international and American pressure for him to resign, President Charles Taylor accepted an asylum offer by Nigeria, but vowed: "God willing, I will be back."
Politics
The Americo-Liberians had little in common with the tribal communities living inland. Because development of the country tended to be in only the capital city where the Americo-Liberians people lived, the tribes felt left out and cheated of the country's wealth, which they believed to be their own. One of these tribes was the Krahn, to which Samuel Doe belonged. That was partly the reason for the 1980 coup.
In the run-off election of November 8, 2005 between soccer legend George Weah and former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Johnson-Sirleaf became the first female elected head of state in African history. She was inaugurated on January 16, 2006.
Economy
The Liberian economy depended heavily on the export of iron ore. Before 1990 Liberia also exported rubber, and that exporting has resumed now that the hostilities have ended. The long civil war has destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, and Liberia is dependent on foreign aid. The country currently has an approximate 85% unemployment rate, the worst in the world.
In 2005, lawsuits were brought against the company Bridgestone/Firestone for its alleged role in using slave labor in its rubber plantations in Liberia.
Demographics
The population of over 3 million comprises 16 indigenous ethnic groups and various foreign minorities. The Kpelle in central and western Liberia is the largest ethnic group. Americo-Liberians, who are descendants of freed slaves that arrived in Liberia early in 1821, make up an estimated 5% of the population. There also is a sizable number of Lebanese, Indians, and other West African nationals who make up a significant part of Liberia's business community. A few whites (estimated at 18,000 in 1999; probably fewer now) reside in the country.
Political upheavals and civil war have brought about a steep decline in living standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Bush Refuses To Take Action as Over 600 Killed In Liberia
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2003
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/22/1437227
Dozens of mortar shells were fired throughout the capital, two hit the U.S. Embassy. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for immediate deployment of peacekeeping troops. We talk to Salih Booker of Africa Action.
At least 600 civilians have been killed in intense fighting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia in recent days according to the country’s defense minister. Dozens of mortar shells were fired yesterday into the port city. At least two shells hit the U.S. embassy compound.
Calls for the U.S. to send in peacekeeping troops intensified. President Bush said he was watching the situation. To date the U.S. military has deployed 41 Marines to boost security at the embassy. And 4,500 US troops have been moved into the Mediterranean Sea but it would take them a week to sail to Liberia if needed.
To protest Washington’s indifference, Liberians laid the bodies of deceased loved ones outside the U.S. embassy yesterday.
Analysts say the U.S. may have lost its best chance to oversee a peaceful transition from President Charles Taylor to a new democratic government because now troops will be entering a combat situation instead of a cease-fire.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the immediate deployment of U.S. and international troops. The Economic Community of West African States has pledged to send in 1,5000 peacekeeping troops.
* Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
* Salih Booker, Director of Africa Action.
TRANSCRIPT:
AMY GOODMAN: As we move first to deal with the issue of Liberia. We go now to Salih Booker, who is Director of Africa Action. At least 600 civilians have been killed this weekend in Liberia. A shell hit the U.S. compound where it looks like between 10 and 20,000 Liberians have taken refuge, killing more than a dozen Liberians. Their bodies put outside the embassy compound by Liberians to show the world what is taking place. Sally Booker, what do you think needs to happen? What should happen right now? Before we to go Salih Booker, we'll go to Congressman Charles Rangel. I just spoke to him a few minutes ago about the situation and what he was calling for.
CHARLES RANGEL: Well, we should intervene through the international community; it should not be a unilateral decision. We should get support from the African countries. But I think that humane reasons dictate that we stop the violence, we bring food and medicine and restore our role as really a defender of democracy rather than one that liberates through bombing.
AMY GOODMAN: So you think troops should be sent in? Is there a discussion to get George Bush to do this?
CHARLES RANGEL: Not unilaterally. I want to make it abundantly clear that I think all United States intervention, internationally, should be done by the United Nations.
AMY GOODMAN: That's New York Democratic congress member, Charles Rangel. Salih Booker on the line, Director of Africa Action. Your response? What should be done right now?
SALIH BOOKER: Well, the Bush administration has been stalling all along before George Bush made his first official trip to Africa several weeks ago, the White House had met with the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department, to consider the urgent situation in Monrovia at the time, and the requests of the United Nations and West African nations and Liberians themselves, for the United States to play a lead role within a multi-national force to establish peace and stability for the political resolution to be allowed to go forward in Liberia. And at that time, it's my firm belief that the Bush administration rejected any significant role for the United States. That it doesn't consider Liberia a serious interest to its own sort of minority rule here in Washington. And they simply decided to stall so that their decision not to be involved in Liberia would not become a major embarrassment during the president's trip to Africa. So they sent a military assessment team to Monrovia. They really looked mainly at the humanitarian situation, which is in just crisis proportions in terms of health conditions, in terms of the huge number of internally displaced people in Liberia. That mission has never reported back to the White House.
The president went--through his trip, he met with Kofi Annan, shortly after returning from Africa and he's continued to promise to offer U.S. assistance for security and solution in Liberia. But like his other promises to Africa, whether it's on AIDS or whether it's on anything else, these are promises that are broken nearly as soon as they're made.
AMY GOODMAN: Bush has said he is watching the situation carefully. What do you think it is he is looking for, with tens much thousands of people now concentrated right in his own embassy's compound?
SALIH BOOKER: Well I think he's doing very much what his father did in 1990. George Herbert Walker Bush, president at the time, faced a very almost identical situation. There were U.S. warships off the coast of Monrovia, they were evacuating Americans and Europeans and basically they decided to leave Liberians to their own fate. And it was a very violent fate. They wanted the situation to resolve itself without requiring American intervention. And in 1990, that's exactly what happened. The rebel factions that were fighting in Monrovia captured the head of state Samuel Doe, who had been American puppet for the last decade of the cold war, and they killed him and essentially destroyed the capital. And the U.S. decided well there's no reason for us to intervene now. I think that's what George Bush is exactly doing right now, waiting for some violent solution to present itself. Whether it's the death of Charles Taylor or the triumph of one or the other of these rebel militia factions. But he's looking for a way out, while simply promising that the U.S. will support the West African effort, which is of course itself also extremely slow in getting its act together.
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West African Troops Land in Liberia, Charles Taylor to Resign, U.S. Troops Still Not Deployed
Monday, August 4th, 2003
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/04/1517214
As West African forces land in Liberia we speak with author and freelance journalist David Goodman on Liberia's history and its relationship with the U.S. government. [Includes transcript]
Click here to read to full transcript
The first West African forces arrived in Liberia capital of Monrovia today.
The troops are part an international mission to end 14 years of carnage and oversee departure of Liberian President Charles Taylor.
300 Nigerian soldiers are scheduled to land today. The soldiers’ ranks are expected to swell to 5,000 by the end of the month.
AP reported a dozen Nigerian soldiers in green camouflage and flak jackets leaping out of a Russian-made helicopter at Liberia's main airport. They took up defensive positions around the landing strip.
Residents near Monrovia’s embattled port heard cheers and watched flares go up as the rebels celebrated the arrival of the West African forces.
The situation in Monrovia is dire. Two months of rebel sieges have killed more than 1,000 civilians and more than 1.3 million have been cut off from food and water.
The Washington Post reports Liberians are still pleading for President Bush to send in U.S. troops but no move from Washington has been made.
The deployment of U.S. troops has been delayed in part because President Bush first wanted assurances that any troops, who go into Liberia, will be protected from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. We'll have more on Liberia later in the show.
Liberian President Charles Taylor had agreed to relinquish power on August 11 but it is no longer clear when he will go into exile in Nigeria. Taylor wants the war crimes indictment against him to be dropped before he goes into exile.
* Alphonso Toweh, Reuters' correspondent in Monrovia, Liberia.
* David Goodman, freelance journalist and author of Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: As we turn now to Liberia. The first West African forces have arrived there today, 675 Nigerian soldiers, 18 of their officers assembled on the airfield to take part in the first deployment. The troops are the start of a promised 3250 force of U.N. peacekeepers.
A reported a DOZEN Nigerian soldiers in flack jackets leaping out of a Russian made helicopter at Liberia’s main airport. They took up defensive positions around the landing strip. Residents near Monrovia’s embattled port heard cheers and saw flares as rebels celebrated arrival of the West African forces.
The situation right now in Liberia is dire. People are suffering from disease, having been cut off by the fighting as well as starvation.
We turn now to David Goodman who is a freelance reporter and author of “Fault Lines: Journeys into the New South Africa” I spoke to him last week. He has reported on Liberia on the situation of child soldiers as well as the Firestone plant in Liberia about the U.S. role over the years.
DAVID GOODMAN: The U.S. relationship with Liberia is a long and sordid one. It dates back to 1816 when the first U.S. Navy warships delivered settlers, the first settlers to Liberia.
This was part of the American Colonization Society that was headed by then president James Monroe, who then got to have his name attached to the capital of Liberia, Monrovia. The operation then was sort of a bizarre mix of missionary zeal and ethnic cleansing.
It was an attempt to have free African Americans leave the country because southern slave owners were afraid of what they represented, that they might inspire slaves to revolt, and it was also the hope of a lot of churches that they could Christianize this African territory at that time.
The relationship continued in the mid 1800’s when officially Liberia was established by freed American slaves, but in the 1900’s, it took on a much stronger economic dimension. In 1926, Harvey Firestone of Firestone Tires was granted a lease under strong pressure from the U.S. government which he had got a million acres of Liberia. Now having traveled in the Firestone rubber plantation, this is the largest rubber plantation on earth.
It supplies much of the rubber for Firestone tires, which until recently were the main tires on any Ford vehicle that you might have had. The plantation functions as almost a separate nation within Liberia. It has its own security force, it’s basically a no go zone for the Liberian government. And it gives very little back in terms of finances, except in the salaries it pays. When I was there in 1999 I was looking into the working conditions for Mother Jones magazine on the Firestone plantation. Found out that rubber tappers there are paid $2.50 a day. And they were suffering as a result of the Firestone debacle here where their tires were blowing up. So for making $2.50 a day their wages were further slashed and their benefits further slashed in Liberia because of tires blowing up on our roads.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to David Goodman who has reported on Liberia on the firestone plant there and the Liberian workers and also on child soldiers.
DAVID GOODMAN: Right.
I was also in Liberia for Unicef investigating the aftermath of the seven-year Civil War that raged through the 1990’s when Charles Taylor led a rebel group that eventually brought him to power and elections in 1997.
15,000 children down to the age of six fought in that conflict. It became one of the most notorious conflicts for its use and abuse of children. And I heard often in my travels around the country the particular fear that these units, they were called small boy units, the S.B.U.s in Liberia. They were particularly feared because children can be persuaded and brainwashed to do just about anything. So many of the most heinous crimes during the Civil War were actually committed by children on the orders of their commanders.
Once again now in the conflicting go on now, both the government and in Liberia and the rebel groups LURD and MODEL have been accused of using child soldiers. I spent one particularly memorable day with the group of what were called hardcore combatants.
These were children by and large—if there’s any effort at all made to do something for these kids, and often there is no effort made— But where help is offered it’s to reunite children with families. But these hardcore combatants had committed atrocities so severe that their communities would not take them back.
Now, this is kind of a longstanding ritual which is that a way to prove loyalty to your commander is to force a child to do something to his own family or to his own community, the commander thus knowing that he cannot return to that community or family so it can involve everything from burning down a whole village to killing a family to killing a family member. So these were the kids I was dealing with.
All I can tell you is that the damage done lasts a lifetime. And when I asked one Liberian social worker looking around at the wreckage of Liberia and it is particularly striking, I’ve traveled in war zones all throughout Africa; I’ve never seen anything quite like Liberia. The capital Monrovia is as if a lawn mower were lowered overall the buildings. They’re simply blown off. Glass lies shattered on the street that has been there for seven years because no one bothers to clean it up. This was the state of Monrovia two years ago. One can only imagine right now.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Charles Taylor and the U.S. relationship with him?
DAVID GOODMAN: Well, Charles Taylor, we have to trace him back just couple more years to the Coup, is that brought him into the picture. In 1980, there was a Coup in which the president, Tolbert was overthrown by a Sergeant Doe a 28yearold illiterate Army sergeant who was trained by the U.S. green berets. Ronald Reagan who became president shortly after Doe came to power, Doe was a particularly sadistic leader but he was also a particularly shrewd and loyal one when it came to the United States.
At that time in the 1980’s the U.S. was concerned that Libya was going to make a move in Africa and line up series of satellite states. Doe played the Libya card very well. Such that in the 1980’s, Liberia became the top recipient of U.S. aid in sub-Saharan Africa received over 400 million dollars between 1981 and 1986. What flowed from that was an increasingly brutal dictatorship that enjoyed basically an open checkbook from Washington. As long as Doe kept uttering the words Libya or Russia, he was golden. He met with Ronald Reagan in a famous meeting where Ronald Reagan welcomed “Chairman Moe” to the White House instead of Samuel Doe. And Charles Taylor was actually a clerk in Doe’s government. But then came to the United States, was arrested and was going to be extradited.
AMY GOODMAN: Was arrested for what?
DAVID GOODMAN: He was charged with corruption in Liberia, which is almost a joke since corruption was endemic in Liberia with all this money flowing through. He was being extradited and was in jail outside of Boston and miraculously escaped. It is thought that he had help from inside the prison—from the prison guards themselves. In 1989 he shows up in west Africa and ivory coast, launches an attack against Samuel Doe and what follows is a horrendous seven year long Civil War in which some 200,000 people are killed and a million and half people are displaced.
That’s where we are today. In 1997 he gets elected president. I asked people around Liberia whom they vote for; he won with 70% vote. In election that was actually certified to be somewhat free and fair, when I asked people, even educated Liberians “who did you vote for?”; they say, “Well we voted for Taylor”. And why would you vote for a sadistic war Lord like this.
The answer was, because he’s the only one, who can stop the fighting. If Taylor isn’t president, the war goes on and soldiers go back to the bush. We know it will never end. People voted for in 1997 was an end to war. That meant voting for Charles Taylor. So Taylor’s corruption and brutality has not ceased. So it’s not surprising that he has also spawned conflicts in every state around him. Ivory Coast, the most stable country in West Africa. With the Liberian backed insurgency now toppling the government. Guinea, Sierra Leone.
AMY GOODMAN: Sierra Leone he is doing it for the diamonds?
DAVID GOODMAN: Right. How is he funding all of this? So-called blood diamonds, which are the diamonds that are being extracted from Sierra Leone to finance his war. But also more recently timber sales. Charles Taylor in a wide ranging U.N. investigation has been implicated in the sale of rare hard woods, basically clear cutting huge swatches to sell these hard woods overseas. Diamonds and wood has financed his war. But when you travel to Liberia I can’t you see the U.S. marks everywhere enormous radio satellite towers that are here and there across the country. It was the main C.I.A. listening post for all of Africa up until the Civil War in the 1990’s. So when we hear now that Liberians are looking to the United States not to the French, not to the British, it’s because they are intimately familiar with this close relationship with the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: The second city has fallen to the rebels, Buchanan. You’ve spent time there.
DAVID GOODMAN: Buchanan is to call it a city by-- I mean it has a kind of wide open dirt path in the middle, it’s been nearly destroyed in the last war. It was a base for Charles Taylor. And many of his old bases, his hometown in the interior, a place called Bonga has fallen to the rebels, he’s basically lost most of the country except Monrovia. Buchanan is significant; it’s the second port city in Liberia. To re-supply or feed the many people who are now starving in Liberia it’s either Buchanan or Monrovia. Now both ports have by and large been cut off because of fighting. So here we have fast forwarding to right now, we have Marines stationed off the coast of Liberia. Well this is a very familiar scene for Liberians. In 1990, the first President Bush sent Marines to the coast of Liberia when fighting broke out. And a number of Liberians recounted to me the sense of joy at seeing that their suffering was about to end. The Americans had finally come. And indeed they came and in a scene that was described to me, Marines landed in amphibious boats, razor wire went up on the streets around the enormous U.S. embassy, it takes over whole section of the city called Momba Point, and sure enough the Marines came, got all the white people and embassy employees and left. And what followed was the 7-year civil war. Interestingly, Bush the first’s Undersecretary of State Herman Cohen has said in his exit interview one of his biggest regrets was dropping the ball in Liberia which he says a modest deployment could have avoid add very of our troops could have avoided a very long conflict. What have we learned in the 13 years since that time?
A modest deployment.
AMY GOODMAN: David Goodman freelance journalist and author of the book “Fault Lines” spent time reporting on from Liberia as we turn now in this last minute we have just reached Alphonso Toweh Reuters correspondent in Monrovia. Welcome to Democracy Now!
ALPHONSO TOWEH: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the latest situation there now? The reports of starvation and disease and arrival of the Nigerian troops.
ALPHONSO TOWEH: Yes. The information in Monrovia now is that about 40 Nigerian troops have arrived here and at the international airport where the areas here and first thing they have done is to secure the entire area, the airport. And around here the people are happy that these troops have arrived here and there is optimism for peace here.
AMY GOODMAN: The situation in Monrovia to this point, we’re reading of reports of starvation and disease.
ALPHONSO TOWEH: Most of the people almost everyone is happy over what’s happening here today. And thousands of people who have lined up are in anticipation to see the troops.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us. That does it for today’s program.
If you like to get a video or audiocassette of this program, call 18008812359. Our website is www.democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
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Liberian President Charles Taylor Surrenders Power and Flies Into Exile in Nigeria
Tuesday, August 12th, 2003
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/12/1458230
Charles Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia yesterday leaving vice president Moses Blah in charge but not before saying, “God willing I will return.” We go to Monrovia to hear from Christian Science Monitor’s Nicole Itano.
Charles Taylor stepped down as the president of Liberia yesterday but not before saying “God willing, I will be back.” In his farewell address he said “I have accepted this role as the sacrificial lamb ... I am the whipping boy.”
Under pressure from rebels from the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, Taylor surrendered power to his vice president Moses Blah and then flew into exile in Nigeria.
Blah, himself, is to hand over power in October to a transition government meant to lead Liberia into elections.
Rebels have seized most of Liberia in their three-year campaign to depose Taylor and have laid siege to the capital Monrovia.
Amid Taylor’s departure, three U.S. warships with 2,300 Marines and 2,500 sailors aboard moved within sight of shore. The ships have been within 100 miles of Liberia for more than a week. U.S. officials had said they were waiting for the right moment before bringing them into sight.
Associated Press described hundreds of Liberians lining the country's rock-lined shores, exclaiming and hugging at a dramatic day they prayed would mark a turning point for their country.
President George Bush called Taylor's exile ``an important step'' but gave no hint whether it moved him closer toward deploying more U.S. troops to assist with peacekeeping or humanitarian relief efforts.
In a CNN interview yesterday, Blah appealed to the U.S. Marines offshore. He said ``Please come to Liberia and save us because we are dying. We are hungry.''
* Nicole Itano, covering events in Liberia for the Christian Science Monitor. She joins us on the phone today from Monrovia.
www.democracynow.org
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/12/1458230&mode=thread&tid=25
American architectural
influence in Liberia
In many respects, emigrants to Liberia re-created an American society there. The colonists spoke English and retained American manners, dress, and housing styles. Affluent citizens constructed two-story houses composed of a stone basement and a wood-framed body with a portico on both the front and rear, a style copied from buildings in the southern American states from which most of the emigrants came. Liberia's president lived in a handsome stone mansion that resembled a southern plantation house.
"President Roberts's House, Monrovia" Philadelphia: Wagner & McGuigan's, ca. 1850 Lithograph Prints and Photographs Division (12)
Like the United States, Liberia used dollars and cents as its units of currency. Reflecting the many inhabitants engaged in agriculture, early Liberian currency pictured farmers and farm animals. Later currency included a ship and palm trees like those on the national seal. During the 1830s, the Maryland Colonization Society, which had broken away from the ACS, ran its own colony call "Maryland in Liberia" and issued its own currency. The colony joined the Republic of Liberia in 1857.
[Liberian currency from the 1830s to the 1880s] Currency American Colonization Society Papers Manuscript Division (13)
Congress made the importation of slaves into the United States illegal in 1808. In 1819, Congress passed an "Act in addition to the acts prohibiting the Slave Trade." This act authorized the president to send a naval squadron to African waters to apprehend illegal slave traders and appropriated $100,000 to resettle recaptured slaves in Africa. At various times, the ACS entered into agreements with the U.S. government to settle these rescued victims of the slave trade in Liberia. By 1867, more than 5,700 people had come to Liberia under this program.
[Agreement to take recaptured slaves to Liberia], 1860 American Colonization Society Papers Manuscript Division (16)
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam003.html
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)
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