Liberia mired in instability, By Azza Munif

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Liberia mired in instability

By Azza Munif

Special to Gulf News | 31-07-2003

Liberia is making headlines today because of the fierce fighting raging in Monrovia between forces loyal to Taylor and the rebels of the Liberians United For Reconciliation and Democracy.

Yet, just two decades ago, the country was considered an oasis of tranquility in a continent swept by crises and conflicts. But it seems this stability was more like the lull before the storm.

Unlike other African countries, Liberia was never colonised by a European power. Instead, it was chosen by the American Colonisation Society, ACS, to settle slaves freed in the U.S. in the early 19th century.

The first group of freed slaves arrived here around 1822. Prior to their arrival, more than a dozen ethnic groups had inhabited the country for more than a 100 years. The process of settlement was not peaceful, with the newcomers facing resistance from several indigenous groups refusing to cede their lands.

Nevertheless, the new emigrants succeeded in countering these attacks and imposing their hegemony on the native people. Their efforts to establish a new state culminated in 1847 with the adoption of the declaration of independence and a constitution modelled on the American one. The new emigrants recreated a small American society within Liberia, adopting the same social and political values as that of the USA. They maintained the same currency and flag.

Unfortunately, the new settlers perpetuated the existing inequity and injustice by repeating the mistakes of their white masters in the U.S. The irony lies in the fact that the name Liberia, given by Congressman Robert Goodloe Harper, meant "the land of the free". This inequitable relationship remained unchanged until the 1943 election of William V.S. Tubman as the 18th president of Liberia.

Several changes

Under his 27-year rule, the country witnessed several changes with regard to the indigenous population, as part of the unification policy aimed at reducing tensions between the 'Americo' and African communities. In 1951, the original inhabitants and women were granted the right to vote in presidential elections for the first time. Moreover, racial discrimination was abolished in 1958.

Tubman wrought these changes in an attempt to counter any claims of self-determination by the indigenous population at a time when African nationalism and liberation movements were flourishing in the continent.

Tubman's rule was also marked by the adoption of the Open Door Policy which opened the country's economy to foreign investors to stimulate economic growth. However, these policies did not have a real impact on the lives of the indigenous people. On the contrary, the Americo-Liberian minority, who accounted for two per cent of the population in 1971, controlled more than 60 per cent of the country's wealth.

Following the death of Tubman in 1971, William Tolbert, his vice-president, succeeded him. Tolbert had the difficult, even impossible, mission of reviving the country's declining economy at a time of world recession and the oil crisis. His tentative efforts to reform Liberia's economy failed tragically.

Yet his greatest mistake was his decision to raise the price of rice which provoked the rice riots in 1979, ending in a bloody confrontation between the police and the people. Tolbert died in 1980 when he was killed in a military coup led by Master-Sergeant Samuel Doe, an African Liberian who called his movement The People's Redemption Council.

He claimed he would restore the natives' right to rule after 133 years of the Americo-Liberians. But to the great dismay of the indigenous people he turned out to be a corrupt despot. His regime merely replaced one elite with another. The Krahn, Doe's tribe, replaced the Americo-Liberians in power. Many observers consider Doe responsible for plunging the country into instability, which culminated in a civil war by the late 1980s.

Taylor's election

His successor, Charles Taylor, leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, NPFL, was elected president in 1997 after seven years of rebellion and internal fighting which resulted in the death of 200,000 people, or 10 per cent of the country's population.

Under Taylor's rule the country continued on the road to violence and chaos. His destructive ambitions extended to neighbouring countries.

A UN Panel of Experts Report on Diamonds and Arms in Sierra Leone indicted Taylor of war crimes in 2000, recognising his undeniable role in training and financing the rebel movement in Sierra Leone and Guinea in exchange for diamonds.

Now, after 14 years of fighting, Taylor does not have many allies, with many of his fellow fighters in the 1989-96 civil war now his opponents.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).