[Biggest
Islamic
web site in the
U.S.]
P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087.
Phone: 410-435-5000.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are not necessarily
shared by editorial committee.
Responses (positive or negative) up to 250 words are welcome.
Names will be withheld on request.
--------------------------------------------
LIBERIA: WHAT are the Facts Behind the News?
Only 15% are Christian and speak English
It's a "Made in
USA"
Failed State
by William Bowles
[by specific permission of the author]
"Another day, another atrocity in Liberia's
blood-soaked capital Monrovia"
is how the Independent tells it to us (26/07/03).
And of course, the
predictable pleas for "intervention" by the
"world's superpower" from liberal
commentators. The entire history of how Liberia
got to be where it is today, and
especially the role of the US, the IMF and the
World Bank in creating the current
situation, has been erased from our consciousness
by the corporate
media.
Either the current chaos is presented as being
"typical" for an African
country or, as one in need of "humanitarian"
assistance from the West. The
current situation being the result of foreign
intervention and manipulation is
rarely touched upon by the mass
media.
In an
article by Fergal Keane also in the
Independent, the best Keane could come up with is
to advocate the
recolonization of the country, when he says that,
"Only by turning Liberia into an international
protectorate, àà la Bosnia,
can the country be saved."
There's not much likelihood of this happening,
given the lack of strategic or
economic significance of a country, which since
the beginning of the 1980s
has been pretty well destroyed as a result
primarily of US policies. Challenging
the economic and political policies of the West
as being at the root of
Liberia's dilemma is not raised. Instead, Keane
and his ilk retreat into an
apolitical world, determined by some kind of
vague "moralistic" position where the
West, no longer having any interest in the
region, has better things to do.
US interest in "saving" the country can be best
summed up by this comment
from Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and
member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, who said he hasn't been convinced of
the need for troops.
"I think it's premature, and I would think a
strong case would have to be
made that this is necessary to protect America's
vital interests," he said.
Vital interests? How many times have I heard this
phrase? So much for US and
UK mouthings about their desire for freedom and
democracy around the world.
A nation founded by freed slaves?
Much of the "liberal" press commentary that
urges US intervention in
Liberia is based upon the entirely false claim
that Liberia was "founded by freed US
slaves" (eg
Washington Post,
01/07/03). It backs
up this entirely false claim
by citing the opinions of individuals in Liberia.
But of course desperate
people resort to desperate measures.
Yet even a brief analysis of the history of
Liberia reveals the reactionary
and
racist
role of the US in its creation and US
economic and political
interests vested in the country from its
foundation in 1822 to the present-day as
being the cause of the current situation.
"The doctrines of [the American Colonization]
Society ... should be regarded
by every man of color in these United States, as
an evil for magnitude,
unexcelled, and whose doctrines aim at the entire
extinction of the free colored
population and the riviting of Slavery."
Thus spoke the Philadelphia Convention of the
Free People of Colour in 1832
about the activities of the American Colonization
Society, an organisation
formed mainly by rich Southern slave owners
(Thomas Jefferson was also a member)
that created the country we know today as
Liberia.
"Repatriation", a word the West knows well
In 1822, the society established, on the West
Coast of Africa a colony that
in 1847 became the "independent" nation of
Liberia. Repatriation, it was
proposed, was the best way to avoid emancipation
of African-Americans in the
United States and thus avoid integration and the
recognition of African-Americans
as equal citizens. But the idea of
"repatriating" several million
African-Americans, many of whom were already
second or third generation descendents, was
in any case, unrealistic. By 1867 the society had
sent no more than 13,000
emigrants, and it was to send no more. In its
early days, white administrators
from the American Colonization Society ran the
Liberian colony.
English-speaking Liberians, descendants of the
former American slaves, make
up only 5% of the population, but have
historically dominated the intellectual
and ruling class. Liberia's indigenous population
is primarily composed of
Mande, Kwa, and Mel peoples. Liberia's
constitution denied the indigenous
Liberians equal rights with the immigrants from
America and their descendents, and
under their US-created constitution of 1847,
didn't even the achieve the right
to vote until 1951.
"Supported by US Navy firepower, the newcomers
settled on the coast and
occupied the best lands. For a long time, they
refused to mix with the
"junglemals", whom they considered "savages".
Even today only 15 per cent of the
population speak English and practice
Christianity.
In 1841, the US Government approved a
constitution for the African territory.
It was written by Harvard academics, which called
the country Liberia.
Washington also appointed Liberia's first
African governor: Joseph J Roberts. In
July 1847, a Liberian Congress representing only
the repatriates from the US
proclaimed independence. Roberts was appointed
President and the Harvard-made
constitution was kept, along with a flag which
resembled that of the United
States.
The emblem on the Liberian coat of arms reads:
"Love of liberty brought us
here". However, independence brought little
freedom for the original population.
For a long time, only landowners were able to
vote. Today, the 45,000
descendants of the former US slaves form the core
of the local ruling class and are
closely linked with transnational capital.
Firestone and Goodrich control one
of the principal exports, rubber, under 99-year
concessions granted in 1926.
The same is true of oil, iron ore and diamonds.
Resistance to this situation has
been suppressed on several occasions by US Marine
interventions to "defend
democracy".
http://gbgm-umc.org/country_profiles/country_history.cfm?Id=70
So much for the fiction that Liberia was "founded
by freed US slaves."
From Tubman to Taylor
The history of Liberia over the past fifty years
is little different from
that of the preceeding one hundred. With its
economy totally under the control of
US capital, it has been ruled by a series of
oligarchies of one kind or
another. Oligarchies which have been only too
willing to comply with schemes
initiated by the US during the Cold War period
and of course, to maintain a system
conducive to the continued exploitation of the
country's resources by US
corporations.
Dictators, first William V.S. Tubman and then
William R. Tolbert, Jr. of the
True Whig Party (both of whom had been backed by
the US) suppressed all
political opposition. But under Tolbert in the
1970s, the country moved to
strengthen ties with the Soviet Union. In 1980,
the army (backed by the
CIA)
engineered
a coup d'etat that brought Master Sergeant Samuel
Doe to power. With Tolbert
executed, Doe suspended the constitution and
consolidated his power.
Doe, trained by the US Green Berets, not
surprisingly, signed an agreement
with the International Monetary Fund, on the
condition of cuts in public
spending and the privatisation of state owned
companies. The result? Falling exports,
increasing unemployment, the reduction of
salaries in both public and private
sectors, and spiraling foreign debt, drove the
country to the verge of
bankruptcy.
By 1987, virtually all Government financing came
directly from the US, a fact
not unrelated to the vast North American business
interests in Liberia which
included $450 million in direct investments,
military bases, a regional Voice
of America station, and a communications center
for all US diplomatic missions
in Africa which included CIA and NSA listening
stations.
The Reagan years From 1981, under the Reagan
government, Liberia became a
centre for US covert actions against Libya, Chad
and Angola. Doe started by
closing the Libyan mission in Monrovia, as Reagan
had done in Washington and ordered
reductions in the size of the Soviet embassy
staff. Doe also granted staging
rights on 24-hour notice at Liberia's sea and
airports for the U.S. Rapid
Deployment Force. In 1982 the CIA, under the
direction of William J. Casey,
initiated a large-scale covert operation against
Libya with Liberia as its centre of
operations. Next was a covert operation in
support of Chadian leader Hissene
Habre, who had successfully ousted his
Libyan-backed rival, Goukouni Oueddei
in June.
Reagan"s support for the dictatorship of Samuel
Doe increased throughout the
1980s. In 1984, Doe changed the laws to make
himself eligible for election,
closed down newspapers, banned opposition parties
and got himself elected in
what was acknowledged to be a rigged election.
But this didn't stop the US from
continuing to back Doe. "This performance
established a beginning, however
imperfect," Assistant Secretary of State Chester
Crocker told Congress two months
later. After the election results were announced,
the House and Senate each
passed nonbinding resolutions calling for an end
to U.S. assistance, but the
Reagan administration continued to supply aid to
Doe.
Doe's regime also played a significant role in
supplying weapons to UNITA
after the repeal of of the Clark Amendment in
1985, which banned covert
assistance to Jonas Savimbi's Apartheid
government supported war against the MPLA in
Angola. This was the period of 'Low Intensity
Warfare' first tested in
Nicaragua against the Sandinistas.
CIA activity in Liberia increased. "We were
prepared to use every lever
against Tripoli, and Monrovia had an important
part," said a US intelligence
official with field experience in West Africa.
But by 1989, it seemed that Doe's time was up
and a rebel force, the NPFL,
led by Charles Taylor marched on the capital,
Monrovia. The US was reluctant to
let go of its "asset", after all, millions of
dollars had been invested in
the Doe dictatorship in creating an anti-Qaddafi,
anti-MPLA base in West
Africa. And in any case, Taylor was an unknown
quantity.
Things fall apart
By July 1990 the situation was deteriorating
rapidly with the emergence of
yet another "pretender to the throne," led by
"Prince" Johnson whose
Independent Patriotic Front (INPFL), a splinter
of the NPFL, in September captured
and executed Samuel Doe.
US dithering contributed directly to the
resulting chaos and mayhem. But
aside from sending ships to evacuate US citizens
and although the US negotiated a
cease-fire with Taylor (which the US later
renééged on), as with the current
situation, the US clearly preferred to sacrifice
African lives instead of its
own in the cause of "democracy".
The US did a deal with the
Nigerians
and the
ECOWAS force entered Liberia and
forestalled a complete takeover of the country by
Taylor's NPFL, but the
damage had already been done: 150,000 dead and
the almost complete dismemberment
of the country. It's estimated that the ECOWAS
occupation cost West African
countries $500 million toward which the US
contributed nothing except words.
But by now, the Cold War was over and the region
no longer had the same
strategic significance. US African policy could
now better be described as one of
benign neglect.
From this point on, the situation deteriorated
even further, with at least
two other factions entering the fray and the
civil war spilled over into
neighbouring Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone rebel
army, the RUF, entered the war in
Liberia, allegedly on the side of Taylor's NPFL
with the Sierra Leone
government accusing Taylor of aiding the RUF.
Elections were held in July 1997 under the
auspices of the UN that Charles
Taylor won convincingly, but by now the machinery
of the state was in tatters.
With no effective mechanisms in place, under the
circumstances it was
inevitable that the situation would spiral out of
control, and although Taylor formed a
government, it was never able to consolidate its
power and reconstitute an
effective central state. Further meddling from
the West only complicated the
situation, resulting in Taylor being indicted for
war crimes, a situation which
made it impossible for Taylor rule with any kind
of mandate regardless of his
ability to do so. It was only a question time
before Taylor's rule was
challenged.
Revising history
The current revisionist history peddled by the
West is that "aid" has led
to the current list of "failed" states in
Africa, encouraged corruption and
created a situation of "dependency" on the
West. In addition, the West claims
that because there is no "tradition" of
democracy in African countries,
they are prey to "tribal" divisions. Implicit
in this claim is the idea that
somehow Africans are "different" than people in
the West. But at the root of
the problem is the West"s policy of Structural
Adjustment which has
impoverished the continent. And the West
conveniently forgets that many, if not all of
the continent"s dictators have been propped up
for decades by the West, of
which Liberia is a textbook example.
And whilst I don't defend the actions of the
Taylors and Tubmans, it's
important to recognise that it is the lack of
developed economies, which in turn
forms the basis for the creation of viable civil
societies, that is the root
cause of the current chaos in Africa. The
crocodile tears currently being shed
in the West over the plight of much of Africa is
yet again, a case of "blaming
the victim."
It's all very well Western countries calling for
democratic accountability
and fiscal rsponsibility, but the majority of
sub-Saharan countries have seen
their economies increasingly impoverished by the
economic policies imposed on
them by the developed world since the 1970s.
Unable to compete on an equal footing, with
mounting debts and forced to cut
back on health, education, housing and job
creation in order to pay them:
their economies distorted by the need to export
to Western markets in order to
earn dollars to buy imports for products they are
no longer able to produce for
themselves: they are caught in a vicious spiral
that invariably ends in total
collapse.
It is the height of hypocrisy (not to mention the
inherent racism) to read in
the Western
media,
tales of terror that paint a
picture of barbarism in
Africa, as if it"s the product of the "African
mentality," without recognising
the role and responsibilty of the West in the
creation of "failed" states.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003-08-02 Sat 19:09ct