2J VOLUME XXVI, 2001 Number 1

LIBERIAN STUDIES JOURNAL

LIBERIA 8°N B°N

MONSERRADO

MARSI B 66N 66N

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Published by THE LIBERIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION, INC.

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The Liberian Studies Journal is dedicated to the publication of original research on social, political, economic, scientific, and other issues about or with implications for Liberia. Opinions of contributors to the Journal do not necessarily reflect the policy of the organizations they represent or the Liberian Studies Association, publishers of the Journal. Manuscript Requirements

Manuscripts intended for consideration should not exceed 25 typewritten, double-spaced pages, with margins of one-and-a-half inches. The page limit includes graphs, references, tables and appendices. Authors must, in addition to their manuscripts, submit a computer disk of their work, preferably in WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows. Notes and references should be placed at the end of the text with headings, e.g., Notes; References. Notes, if any, should precede the references. The Journal is published in June and December. Deadline for the first issue is February, and for the second, August.

Manuscripts should include a title page that provides the title of the text, author's name, address, phone number, and affiliation. All works will be reviewed by anonymous referees.

Manuscripts are accepted in English and French.

Manuscripts must conform to the editorial style of either the Chicago Manual of Style (the preferred style), or the American Psychological Association (APA) or Modern Language Association (MLA).

All manuscripts intended for consideration should be mailed to:

Amos J. Beyan, Editor; Liberian Studies Journal; Department of History; West University; 221E Woodburn Hall; Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-6306.

All items relevant to Book Reviews should be mailed to:

Yar D. G. Bratcher, Book Review Editor; Liberian Studies Journal; Emory University; 859 Petite Lane; Lithonia, Georgia 30058

Cover map: Compiled by William Kory, cartography work by Jodi Molnar; Geography Department, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

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LIBERIAN STUDIES JOURNAL Editor, Amos J. Beyan West Virginia University

Associate Editor, Konia T. Kollehlon Book Review Editor, Yar D. G. Bratcher Trinity College, Washington, D.C. Emory University

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD C. William Allen-University of South D. Elwood Dunn-The University Carolina-Spartanburg of the South Bertha B. Azango- M. Alpha Bah-College of Charleston Warren d'Azevedo-University of Nevada Momo K. Rogers-Kpazolu Media Christopher Clapham-Lancaster Enterprises University Yekutiel Gershoni-Tel Aviv University Thomas Hayden-Society of African Lawrence B. Breitborde-Knox College Missions Romeo E. Philips-Kalamazoo College Svend E. Holsoe-University of Delaware Henrique F. Tokpa- Coroann Okorodudu-Rowan College College of N.J. LIBERIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS Yekutiel Gershoni-President Arnold Odio Tel Aviv University Albany State College M. Alpha Bah-Vice President Timothy A. Rainey College of Charleston Johns Hopkins University Dianne Oyler-Secretary-Treasurer Ciyata Coleman Fayetteville State University Clark Atlanta University James S. Guseh-Parliamentarian Joseph Holloway Central University California State University-Northridge Cyril Broderick Delaware State University FORMER EDITORS D. Elwood Dunn Svend E. Holsoe Edward J. Biggane C. William Allen Jo Sullivan Edited at the Department of History, West Virginia University. The editors and Advisory Board gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History at West Virginia University in the production of the Journal.

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Africa, the Atlantic Alliance, National Security: Focus on Liberia By Katherine Harris. 1 The Use of Electronic Information Technology in Historical Research on Studies and the Emigration to Liberia, 1827-1901 By Katherine Olukemi Bankole. 40 Minority Rule and Political Trade-In By Yekutiel Gershoni. 63 Book Reviews Lamin Sanneh, Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making ofModern West By Amos J. Beyan 82 Katherine Bankole, You Left Your Mind in Africa: Journal Observations and Essays on African American Self-Hatred By Pamela K. Safisha Nzingha Hill- Traynham. 84 Edward Lama Wonkeryor, Ella Forbes, James Guseh, and George Klay Kieh, Jr., American Democracy in Africa in the Twenty-First Century By Katherine Harris. 87 New Publications on or Relevant to Liberia 92 Documents 93

A refereed journal that emphasizes the social sciences, humanities, and the natural sciences, the Liberian Studies Journal is a semiannual publication devoted to studies of Africa's oldest republic. The annual subscription rate is US$40.00, US$15.00 for students, and US$50.00 for institutions, and includes membership in the Liberian Studies Association, Inc. All manuscripts and related matters should be addressed to Dr. Amos J. Beyan, Editor; Liberian Studies Journal; Department of History; West Virginia University; 221E Woodburn Hall; Morgantown, West Virginia 26506- 6306. Subscriptions and other business matters should be directed to Dr. Dianne Oyler, Secretary-Treasurer; Liberian Studies Association, Inc.; Fayetteville State University; P.O. Box 14613; Fayetteville, North Carolina 28301-4297. Copyright © 2001 by the Liberian Studies Association, Inc. ISSN 0024 1989

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Katherine Harris*

The status of the post Cold War world in the new millennium is riveting discussions among diplomats and policymakers.1 Some analysts fear that the debates over enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by admitting a number of Central and Eastern European countries have provoked the first crisis in relations of Russia and the West possibly triggering " a new cold War."2 Diplomats concluded accords to avert escalating tension in the late 1990s. But offering a chilling view of the 1990s, the late Richard Nixon remarked that if "the Cold War ended in East Europe, it has extended to the third world."' This former President and Vice President may have been overly optimistic on East Europe given current reports of turmoil there and elsewhere around the globe. The William J. Clinton administration (1992/1993-2000/2001) deployed U.S. troops in Eastern Europe explaining the move as the use of "virtuous power."' Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright redefined the mission of the United States-led Atlantic Alliance away from its goal to defeat socialism and communism. This goal dominated the Cold War. With weapons stockpiled over the past forty years, however, phases of the Cold War are still being fought.' In Africa, despite the apparent end of the Cold War, strife continues in Liberia, , , , , , , and . While NATO partners have suggested sending a multilateral force to Zaire, the Clinton administration opted to act unilaterally by sending a C-17 Army contingent to Brazzaville, Congo in route to Zaire. The stated goal was to evacuate United States' citizens.6 To the public and perhaps the scholarly community, these pitched diplomatic and sometimes military encounters between the U.S., NATO and African states seem to have burst forth suddenly. But these events have not emerged in a historical vacuum.' They form part of a continuum and this article's focus is on the intersection of U.S., the

Dr. Katherine Harris teaches African/African American History at Central Connecticut State University. She is the author of African and American Values (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985). Her study of America's foreign policy objectives in Africa is under contract by Greenwood Press. Dr. Harris has also published several articles and book reviews in other scholarly journals.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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Atlantic Alliance-NATO, and African security relations as the Cold War peaked during the presidency of Democratic Harry S. Truman and Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson (1945-1952/1953) and the presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1952/1953-1960/1961). This article probes the Liberia connection with the Atlantic Alliance. Documents will show, however, that U.S. policymakers and their NATO allies absorbed the entire continent into their coalition and planning. Consequently, we will look not only at Liberia, but to the continental scope of the security planning which incorporated the independent areas (in the 1950s) of Liberia, , ; and the colonial enclaves in Africa. The military context of the Cold War Atlantic Alliance reflected deeply in the policy planning papers of U.S. officials. They assessed the impact of corollary issues and events as well: race, Marshall Plan aid, Korea, mutual security, anti-colonialism, nationalism, national integration, gender, and the Bandung, Indonesia Conference. The specter of Cold War loomed over all. We will begin with a review of earlier assessments of Africa and the Cold War Atlantic Alliance. Subsequent passages take another look at the subject and unravel the intricate nexus of connections revealed in the declassified documents of U.S. government agencies.

POLICYMAKERS, THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY, THE COLD WAR AND AFRICA The academic community is reanalyzing the Cold War.8 Selective case studies have aptly demonstrated the strategic importance of (South Rhodesia), Zaire (Belgian Congo), South Africa and .9 General accounts of U.S.-African affairs have suggested that, regarding the continent as a whole, the United States lost touch at the official level during the first decade after WWII.1° U.S. trade, foreign aid, and investment in Africa were low and, according to some scholars, this was evidence of the U.S.' lack of strategic interests particularly between 1953 and 1957." Policymakers' interests resumed only as the independence of the Sudan in 1956 and of in 1957 made it clear that Africa was undergoing a fundamental political revolution, according to some studies.' In May 1950, George McGhee was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs. He singled out Africa as one place "where-in the broadest sense-no crisis existed." Africa was a region of 10 million square miles in

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which no significant inroads have been made by communism, according to McGhee. He viewed area as relatively stable and secure.' Echoing McGhee, Professor Rupert Emerson wrote that American abstention from involvement in African affairs could be justified on the ground that Africa appeared relatively calm and untroubled.14 He added, however, that American policy and its effects in the postwar decade [the 1950s] were difficult to assess with accuracy. This was due, in part because some of the facts of the case were concealed in diplomatic archives. Emerson stated another reason as well. Policymakers wavered between acceptance of "self-determination and a cautious conservatism dictated by America's global postwar position and by the spell the Cold War cast over all of Washington's deliberations."' Two decades later, Russell Warren Howe revisited the era. He commented that Washington, in the late 1940s and the 1950s, let its Africa policy follow that of Britain. He explained the reasons were related, partly to the strong World War II and linguistic ties, but partly because of the British air of self-confidence about the de-colonization trend.16 Howe cited the U.S. budget reductions and cuts in staff for African posts in the early months of Eisenhower's administration as evidence of disinterest." Before ending his study, however, Howe altered this thesis. Many of the documents on this era of U.S. -African relations remained classified in 1975 when Howe published his work. He found, nevertheless, a growing U.S. financial presence in Africa. Rhode Island's Senator Theodore Green gathered Congressional support enabling President Eisenhower to increase aid to Africa, mostly administered by colonial powers, in direct loans and grants totaling $120,300,000 between 1953 and 1957. Howe concluded that the State Department began to forge a policy for Africa.18 Despite Howe's findings, by 1984 Professors Gann and Duignan retrieved the idea of disinterest in Africa in the 1950s. "[T]he global policy of containing Soviet

expansion took absolute priority over African matters. . . After World War II American official interest in Africa began to wane."19 But in words similar to Emerson's, they stated that a history of U.S. and Soviet policy toward Africa will be accomplished only when the newly available archives in the former metropolitan countries and the United States have been fully exploited, and when scholars can draw more detailed studies.2°

DECLASSIFIED SOURCES Drawing on material from some of the U.S. diplomatic archives and African sources available in the and the 1990s, this article, consequently, takes another look at the closing years of Democratic Harry S. Truman's administration from 1951-1953 and the first term of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration

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from 1953 to 1957. On one level, these archives buttress studies that accent the centrality of the international system of Cold War on U.S. foreign policy. The Cold War touched virtually all aspects of U.S. foreign relations in the 1950s.2' Africa was neither primary nor secondary, but an integral part of overall U.S. goals to protect global and national interests, contain African nationalism, support the Atlantic Alliance and combat what President Eisenhower called "communist imperialism."22 The President equated the European-styled imperialism in Africa with the idea of communist expansion, but ultimately, any political movements which varied from ideals of the NATO parliamentary democracies. In the 1950s, policymakers described intricately the African political land- scape.23 They analyzed European, Asian, and Soviet policymakers' differing versions of real politique in Africa. Goals complemented and criss-crossed as leaders pursued national and personal interests that involved issues beyond the Cold War such as personal rule and power. Here, however, we consider the following factors as they related to the Africa and the Atlantic Alliance: race, the early Cold War-Marshal Plan aid and Korea, African Defense Conferences; 1953, nationalism, anti-colonialism and the Communist factor; Bandung, Liberia, and the ; Liberia, and the Eisenhower Doctrine. U.S. diplomats wrote of an important link to the security relationship with Africa as well. It was race. Such policymakers as Assistant Secretary of State in Near Eastern and African Affairs George Allen remarked candidly, "American Negroes are our best hope of keeping Africa oriented towards the United States, [are] anxious for the Department to help in the improvement of economic conditions in Africa and would be very much upset by a decision against any technical assistance programs there."24 Studies show that the Cold War and the colonial struggle cut deeply into the African American community. Emerson wrote pointedly, "The ferment of Africa and the ferment of the Negro American could not possibly be kept separate from each other in watertight compartments."25Within the African American community, using informal and personal diplomacy, African American Dr. Horace Mann Bond, President of Lincoln University, wrote to the State Department urging the administration to press colonizing countries to grant independence and end racial discrimination globally and domestically.26 In a carefully crafted letter to President Eisenhower, A. Philip Randolph detailed that the growing demand for self-determination was fueled by the Color bar, pass laws, starvation wages and numerous inequities of colonialism, not the Cold War.27

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From Accra, U.S. Consul William Cole wrote that Dr. Bond was also working with white American promoter, Louis E. Detwiler and , the newly elected Prime Minister of the transitional government. They were trying to arrange private development financing to construct the Volta River Dam in Gold Coast in 1952. (Ghana)28 African did not present a united front on the Cold War and colonialism. Paul Robeson, a critic of the Cold War's emphasis on the East-West schism while ignoring racial discrimination in the U.S., suffered. During the Red Scare launched by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the U.S. Attorney General's office revoked Robeson's passport in 1950 and it was not restored until 1958. On behalf of the Senate International Security Subcommittee, Robert Morris summoned Ralph J. Bunche, African American International Civil Servant and Diplomat, to appear before the committee March 10, 1953. Meanwhile African American journalist Edith Sampson was recruited and funded by the U.S. government to support the Cold War efforts. For Black conservative Max Yergan, who had joined the de-colonization lobby, the Council on African Affairs, the Cold War took priority over domestic matters. He left the Council in the 1950s before it folded in 1955.29 One of the few black American diplomats, Ambassador Edward R. Dudley served in Liberia from 1948 to 1953. The Ambassador was aware of the volatile international climate of the Cold War, and protective of independence, he stated, "Africans recall the Monroe Doctrine, and then a little closer to home for them, the " Doctrine"-support without domination in Liberia."" He alluded to the nineteenth century Monroe Doctrine announced by U.S. President James Monroe that expressed U.S. hemispheric dominance in the Americas. Monrovia was named in Monroe's honor, but Dudley's reference emphasized that Africa's self-determination should not be compromised by the Cold War agenda. A small group of , as an interest group, made African independence a foreign policy issue linking it to the domestic agenda for civil rights during the Cold War.

AFRICAN DEFENSE AND THE MARSHALL PLAN, 1951 The intersection of foreign policy planning for NATO, African independence and domestic public policy on race began, however, during the Truman presidency. The U.S.-European-sponsored African Defense facilities conferences met in Dakar, and Nairobi in 1951. Conversations took place with the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs George W. Perkins in July 1952 with baron Silvercruys, Belgian Ambassador, R. Gordon Arneson, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Atomic

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Energy Affairs and Mr. McClelland. They affirmed that the "Department did clearly recognize that the defense of the Congo was foremost in the mind of the U.S. military establishment, and this territory should remain inviolate."31 The U.S. Congress appropriated approximately $13.3 billion for the European Economic Recovery Program called the Marshall Plan between 1948 and 1952. Some Marshall Plan aid money was disbursed to such countries as France and Great Britain.

These countries used the funds in their colonies in Africa.32 Exhibit 1 shows some of the disbursements to African colonies and independent Liberia.

Exhibit 1 Marshall Plan Aid Disbursements in Selected African Colonies and Countries (1948 - 1952)

Program Millions of U.S. Dollars

Economic Assistance $5.9 Loans $0.2 Grants $5.7

Colonies and Countries Receiving Economic Assistance Aid

Ethiopia $1.3 Liberia $2.3 Libya $1.8 $0.3 $0.2

U.S. OVERSEAS LOANS AND GRANTS- OBLIGATIONS AND LOAN AUTHORIZATION Liberia also received assistance under Truman's Point Four Economic Program. Compared to expenditures in Europe, however, $5.9 million of Marshall Program funds for Africa, not counting monies given to colonial powers for use in their African colonies, was sma11.33 The goal, however, was not match the assistance to Europe. The funds, purportedly for economic development, gave the impression of a united front to fill a economic vacuum which the Soviet Union might try to fill or exploit.

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LIBERIA, SELF-DETERMINATION AND COLD WAR (KOREA) Liberia endorsed the Cold War alliance by voting for the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution of the General Assembly, and contributed to the United States-led efforts in Korea.34 Liberians also participated in the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in the Middle East. In his inaugural address marking the beginning of his second administration in 1952, Liberia's President W.V.S. Tubman accented the country's "abiding conviction in the United Nations organization as a great

medium for the achievement of international understanding . . . ."" But he added that Liberia had faith in the axiom that all men are created free, independent and entitled to self-determination. President Tubman may have been apprehensive about the regional impact of the demise of French colonialism in neighboring . This was because of the uncertainty resulting from replacement of one political power, France, with that of Sekou Toure. Nevertheless, Liberian delegates consistently endorsed resolutions to end South Africa's mandate over Southwest Africa and honor the UN Charter on Human Rights."

ETHIOPIA, REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE (KOREA) Ethiopia was the other independent country in Africa. Its truncated boundaries reflected the severing of its territory by France, Britain and Italy. Ethiopia's Emperor had also supported the western allies in the Cold War by voting for UN multilateral efforts and Ethiopia supplied combat forces in Korea. H.E. Ato Akilou Abte Wolde, Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, reminded Vice President Nixon of this and added that Ethiopia had given aid to the U.S.-led Cold War alliance and as a result endured criticism from the Afro-Asian bloc that Ethiopia was too pro-western." In return for Ethiopia's cooperation, the Emperor pressed for U.S. support for an Ethiopian federation including and Somalia."

CENTRAL AFRICA AND THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE As 1953 began, the Eisenhower administration promised to end the Korean conflict. U.S. Consul Patrick Mallon in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), Belgian Congo, pondered Africa's continuing role in the Cold War as the Korea War was still flaring. Contrasting the disproportionate population ratios of 400,000 Europeans to 45 million Africans in Central Africa, he cited the "danger to racial peace posed by Communist propaganda, the UN's "dangerous meddling" in colonial affairs, and the alleged

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indifference and misunderstanding on the part of some metropolitan countries toward their colonists in Africa."39 Signaling Africa's importance as an ally, Mallon pointed out that in close association with Western Europe, Central Africa could form a powerful new bloc in world affairs, capable of tipping the balance against Communism.

EISENHOWER, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL AND THE EUROPE-AFRICA POWER COMPLEX Before 1953 ended, President Eisenhower and other U.S. officials had concluded similarly that the Cold War made the continent a vital security link for the

U.S. in concert with the NATO alliance. Planners explained that ". . . the resources of France must be concentrated on strengthening its Europe-Africa power complex as the

means of matching a resurgent Germany . . ." particularly, unilateral German re- militarization.' Elaborating further, the National Secu$28 million World Bank loan to bolster economic expansion. Planners accented the importance of Southern Rhodesia's base mineral industry to "our rearmament program."3 U.S. officials supported the Afrikaner government's industrialization efforts in South Africa as wel1.14 It was on the level of military security, however, that Africa figured most prominently in U.S. foreign relations and the NATO alliance. While the President and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles named their style of crisis management 'the New Look,' it was still Cold War. According to Soviet scholar Georgi Arbatov, U.S. Cold War mentality rested on the "desire to assess any political step solely from the angle of how to harm the other side."' This view, perhaps, inspired the drive for U.S. nuclear supremacy designed "to exhaust the Soviet Union economically in the course of a new round in the nuclear-missile arms race," wrote Arbatov.46 The enhanced role of nuclear weapons in diplomacy made Africa's uranium ore, and other commodities that much more valuable. Protecting these resources from Soviet control motivated U.S.-Africa interest in the continent. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian and African

Affairs Henry Byroade's principal concern was of Soviet aggression and ". . . the new Soviet colonialism."' But events within the continent gave a particular urgency to security planning.

DE-COLONIZATION, NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION At a time when imperial order may have been most desirable from a NATO standpoint, however, European colonialism actually began disintegrating and the 1950s was a watershed. Political protests and economic boycotts erupted everywhere in Africa.

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Trade unions served as catalysts for independence struggles in Nigeria, , , Guinea, Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia), (Nyasaland), , and (Tanganyika and Zanzibar)." Nationalist movements and political parties spearheaded decolonization in Libya, Ghana (Gold Coast), , Nigeria, Sierra Leone, , Senegal, Kenya, and . Meanwhile such ethnic-based cultural political groups as the ABAKCO Bakongo in Zaire (Belgian Congo) aided independence efforts. In Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, and Kenya, colonial revolts forced the dramatic end to colonialism.49 Equally important by the 1950s, various African political figures had returned to their homes and strengthened their organizational bases after residences abroad. They included Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), Kwame Nkrumah (Gold Coast), Hastings Banda (Nyasaland) who had been in the U.S. and Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Joe Appiah (Gold Coast), (Tanganyika and Zanzibar), Patrice Lemumba (Belgian Congo), Tom Mboya (Kenya), and Seretse Khama (Bechunaland) who had been in Europe.5° In December 1953, the Seventh Conference of West African nationalists convened in Accra. Kwame Nkrumah of Gold Coast was host. Delegates from Sierra Leone joined Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigerian nationalist, Liberian Assistant Secretary of State George Padmore, and Dr. Horace Mann Bond from the United States. In a communiqué, U.S. Consul C. Vaughn Ferguson recounted that Bond held a position of respect among the delegates. U.S. diplomats wrote that Nkrumah had encouraged the meeting to enhance his prestige. But a resolution for a "Federal State" would give encouragement to all people of African origin the world over. Felix Houphouet -Boigny

from Cote d'Ivoire did not attend the conference explaining that it was " . . . not to his interest to engage in ambitious foreign ventures such as the type sponsored by Nkrumah which might have the effect of weakening his position at home."' In South Africa, the African National Congress was on the move too. It was Africa's oldest liberation organization. Founded in 1912, it was rejuvenated by the Youth League under Walter Sisulu and Rohihlahla Nelson Mandela." Planners pointed to the racial imbalance in various enclaves that accentuated political problems. Between 1950 and 1953, the populations of the Central African Federation of Northern and Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland numbered 169,000 European settlers and 6.3 million Africans. Trying to hold on to power and angered by both the federation idea and "Black African nationalism," Afrikaners met with other settlers in Ruandi-Urundi to form the Capricorn Society African, an international organization of white colonists from the Rhodesias and Nyasaland and Belgian Congo."

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U.S. diplomats examined Africa's bilateral diplomacy too. These included proposals for a union between the British-held areas of Cameroon and adjacent areas of Nigeria.54 Ambassador Dudley compared the African political spectrum of the 1950s period to the U.S. in 1776 and 1789. He attributed the Africa's political disarray to colonialism and limited experience with liberal democracy.' Some parallels possibly existed between the two anti-colonial struggles. But the analogy had limits. While Ambassador Dudley attempted to place issues within a larger context to deter criticism of Africa, he may have understated the continent's political history of self-government. But the colonial problem he targeted was very real. Africa was reeling from the carving up of its multiethnic polities. Prior to the 1880s, the composition of the population and not fixed boundaries defined states, city-states and kingdoms. Colonialism changed these configurations. Cameroon, a former German enclave was split by a League of Nations mandate between the French and British. Then Britain had attached part of its mandated territory of Cameroon to Nigeria.56 In Nigeria, Britain had absorbed autonomous Yoruba and Igbo kingdoms, small communities and the Hausa city-states. A. Philip Randolph referred to "the apparent

policy of pakistanization of Nigeria, sometimes called the India of . . ." because of internal conflicts in Kano between Moslems of the North with Christians and

"pagans" of the South . . . ." He explained that these conflicts might be used by Britain as an excuse to delay Nigeria's independence in 1956.57 The unstable fusion of traditional and modern politics added to this volatile scene and troubled planners too. Dudley identified the issue of languages questioning whether U.S. news and information services should broadcast using local languages such as Ga, Ewe (Gold Coast and Togo) or Kiswahili in East Africa noting the high numbers of African languages. Indeed colonialism had not wiped out political cultures rooted in decision by consensus, constitutionalism, customary law, the Councils of Elders, matriarchal and patriarchal structures, clan leaders, emirs and sultans.58 These political structures were often linked to Islam, Coptic and Orthodox , especially in Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, or to other African religions and oral traditions. Traditional systems coexisted uneasily with colonial Africa's Legislative Councils, U.S. or European modeled political parties which pushed for contested elections, parliamentary structures, majority rule, educational and economic theories, and western Christianity.' Liberia also faced internal issues of national integration in the 1950s. These issues were connected to its past. Along what was known as the Ducoh Corridor,

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multiple ethnicities, political paramouncies and confederacies of the Grebo and Kru found their autonomy challenged by the combined presence of the U.S. naval officers, who seized the first tract of land at gunpoint from Bassa sovereigns for settlement of Diasporan Africans from the U.S. and West Indies and colonizationists.6° Liberia's declaration of independence in 1847 established its modern statehood. But President 's vision of a Liberia that integrated African traditions and those of repatriated Liberians suffered during the late nineteenth century scramble for Africa. Liberia lost territory and population. French colonialists split the Kru between Liberia and France's colony of the Ivory Coast. The French also split the Mano between Liberia and its colony of Guinea north of the Nimba range. Similarly, Britain split the Mende between Liberia and the Sierra Leone colony.6' Internal problems of governance compounded those stemming from the disruption of Liberian communities as a result of the nineteenth century imperial onslaught. Since 1932, Monrovia had organized the hinterland into Western, Central and Eastern Provinces. Rather than permitting the local population to elect their own officials, the central government appointed Provincial Commissioners who were responsible to the Secretary of the Interior. Protests to this system were frequent. The response of the administration was often to quell opposition. Tubman released from jail such activists as Nathaniel Massaquoi of Vai ethnicity. The Barclay administration incarcerated him for his attempts to highlight the political imbalance of a government that denied original Liberians a role in decision making on a significant level. Then in June 1955, Tubman publicized an alleged assassination attempt. Observing the Liberian political spectrum, U.S. planners predicted that the "autocratic system of government," despite limited reforms, would over the long term increase political instability.62 As the Cold War loomed, none of these fundamental contradictions over politics, religion, and ethnicity were resolved in Liberia or elsewhere in Africa. The conflicts festered and boiled over in the 1980s and 1990s as the East-West tensions subsided.

GENDER Debates on race, de-colonization and national integration joined those on economic and gender equity. Colonialism had depressed Africa's matriarchal structures such as the Queen's Council and the Queen Mother. Colonialism had almost destroyed African enterprises. Colonial monocultural and mining enclaves spawned not only the disarticulated economies that would plague the continent for the rest of the century, but

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the feminization of poverty as well. The migration of men to work in mines and on plantations left women alone for long periods. Because ofthis acute economic and racial inequity, women often led anti-colonial protests and economic boycotts.63 Regarding women, Liberia's 1847 Constitution securing women's property rights was a step in insuring women's political participation. Patriarchy did not disappear, however, such women as Edith Wiles Padmore, participated in politics. She was of Vai and West Indian heritage. She served as Presidential Assistant to Tubman and, in the 1950s, she shared the responsibility of her husband, George Padmore, Liberia's ambassador to the U.S.64 But Liberia's Open Door policy to attract foreign investment and increase the country's market exports of rubber and, soon, iron ore produced a problem of economic equity similar to colonial Africa. Men left their homes to labor in the mining concessions. Women, typically, faced the combined struggle of maintaining families with limited wages while laboring, especially on Firestone Plantations, as hard as men.65 In conversations between representatives from the Office of African Affairs and Ford Foundation staff, the Foundation listed its support for a woman's college in Pakistan and surveyed the possibility for similar projects in Africa.66 Interestingly, U.S. officials and private organizations did not dismiss the gender question. Yet, the political and racial issues took precedence in Washington's security planning for Africa's role in the Atlantic Alliance.

PLANNING FOR SECURITY IN AFRICA Liberia, tied by history to the U.S., was perhaps a reliable African ally. U.S. planners looked at all of Africa as a supporting partner in NATO. As African politicians searched for allies to assist in their independence efforts perhaps outside the western bloc, U.S. planners warned that the "Balkanization of Africa" was undesirable.67 U.S. planners hoped that U.S. support ofNATO members who had colonial empires would not impact on African nationalism, assuming that goodwill existed between U.S. and African politicians. Historian Howe wrote that the U.S.' anti-colonial education adapted it to an anti-colonial stance. The U.S. was the only western power promoting de-colonization.68 Diplomatic papers reveal, in contrast, that the Eisenhower administration did not readily embrace independence. The NSC staff advised that the U.S. "should not envisage premature self-government [for the colonies] but continue a 'middle-of-the-road' policy which avoided underminingthe position of France, a NATO partner, and insure[d] stable non-communist regimes in Africa while preventing 'threats to our [U.S.] own security

interests there' . "69

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The National Intelligence Office (NIO) knew that assisting the colonial empires might weaken the African commitment to the Western alliance. MO staff speculated that African leaders in British controlled territories might join the UN, "but would avoid membership in any multilateral Western military association," perhaps allowing "Western economic and strategic use of the area," only in return for "foreign capital and technical assistance from a number of foreign sources to avoid exploitation by a single country.' The Cold War anti-communist agenda guaranteed that planners would not ignore Africa.

THE SEARCH FOR COMMUNISTS In 1950, George McGhee wrote that communism had made no significant inroads in Africa. Throughout the decade, however, diplomatic records reveal policymakers' continued investigation of Africa's political landscape to find and repeal Soviet or Chinese influence. U.S. policymakers focused on particular politicians too. For, example, Washington officials appreciated Prime Minister Nkrumah's statements that American democracy and economic system were examples for Gold Coast to emulate.' Despite Nkrumah's criticism of one of the Atlantic Alliance's major members, U.S. Consular General Cole in Accra called the Gold Coast "the bellwether among the African colonies with far-reaching importance to the U.S." in the Cold War." Next to Southern Rhodesia, wrote U.S. Consular General (Cole), the Gold Coast was the most politically advanced of the British colonies. On the other hand, the State Department viewed the Prime Minister's neutralism as a for communists. U.S. Consul William E. Cole in Accra described the

conference of West African nationalists as a gathering ". . which included vague leftist or fellow travelers."' U.S. Chargé Nicolas Feld in the Gold Coast suggested that the State Department pay more attention to the Gold Coast and Nigeria with populations of 5,000,000 and 30,000,000, respectively. The present staff complement of the Office of African Affairs was not adequate, he wrote. Accordingly, the State Department began considering shuffling diplomats and adding staff. The survey of communist influence continued, however. U.S. policymakers interpreted 's independence movement and Ivory Coast's African Democratic Rally as pro-communist. Reports were that the African Democratic Rally disassociated with the left by 1950. Planners looked at East Africa. Analysts indicated that there was no conclusive evidence of communism in Kenya, but Mau Mau was a target for Soviet influence."

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NORTH AFRICA North Africa is often analyzed in the context of Middle East politics, it is squarely on the African continent, and U.S. officials reviewed the area in terms of a continental African strategy and Middle East politics. In Egypt, the overthrow of Turkish King Farouk, Naguib and Gamel Adbul Na'ser's rise to power in 1953 renewed U.S. fears of communist infiltration. Studies of Egypt have explored the souring of relations among Egyptian, British and U.S. officials during the pitched battles of the 1950s over control of the Suez Canal and construction of the Aswan Dam. Moscow was in the shadows, but it was hardly pulling the strings as Na'ser's government imprisoned Egyptian communists. Na'ser's interest in Soviet contacts was motivated by his quest for a counterweight to British power, the U.S.-led Atlantic Alliance, and prominent African nationalists Sekou Toure in Guinea, and Kwame Nkrumah in the Gold Coast. U.S. diplomats continued to place Egypt within the Soviet sphere, but they also realized Egypt's Muslim and Arab League connections could rival the communist threat.75 In another part of North Africa, U.S. analysts viewed Morocco's Abdelkadar Banjelloun, with suspicion. He was Interim Secretary General of the Moroccan Democratic Independence Party. According to a NATO ally, France's General Guillaume called the Moroccan independence Manifesto and the Istiqlal organization plans to deliver the country "over to the 'bolshevists' " and announced that "everyone knew that the Independence Movement is under orders of Moscow."76

THE PLANNING BUREAUCRACY The Eisenhower administration accelerated steps to insure African cooperation with the Western alliance. It analyzed Africa continentally, by geographical clusters and by controlling colonial power. Within the federal bureaucracy, the administration dispersed responsibilities for African affairs. The agencies were the Office of African Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian and African Affairs in the Department of State, the Office of African Affairs, the Department of Defense, the Foreign Operations Administration, the Mutual Security Agency, National Intelligence Office, Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Information Agency, and, most importantly, the National Security Council. United States Information Service, an arm of U.S. foreign policy said Bernard Blankenheimer, Chief of the African section, Office of International Trade.77

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LIBERIA AND THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE In Liberia, Charles Sherman, Liberia's Economic Advisor, asked that in return for support, the U.S. should relieve the Liberian government of economic development so that Liberia might bear its military burden that in part grew out of its responsibility to protect American investments in Liberia. The Liberians asked that the U.S. Army Mission in Liberia be increased. While the U.S. staff agreed to take the matter under consideration and Liberia eventually received funds through the Mutual Security Act, U.S. advisors offered immediate assistance in reorganizing the Liberian War Department and Frontier Force, improving training facilities, arms, and equipment, and increasing the numbers of officers and enlisted men. After protracted negotiations involving the U.S. Ambassador Jesse Locker and the Tubman administration, the Export-Import Bank authorized a $15 million loan to Liberia disbursed in June 1955 for the construction of roads connecting the provinces:8

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND THE REST OF AFRICA U.S. analysts proceeded to the next level of coordinating Africa's role in the Atlantic Alliance. They wrote that strategically North Africa might be required as a new base of Allied operations in the event of World War III. France and Spain contested Morocco, but in such French-controlled areas of North Africa as Algeria and Tunisia, U.S. planners calculated that 15 percent of French military from North Africans could be used in the defense of Europe. Planners focused on U.S. support for Europe assessing that African politicians would understand the need for U.S. world leadership to challenge the Iron Curtain.79 On August 18, 1953 the NSC Planning Board sent a statement to the NSC Executive Secretary James Lay emphasizing the strategic and political importance of French Morocco, Spanish Morocco, Tangier, Tunisia, and Libya, although Libya was technically independent." Planners stressed that coordinating political and strategic factors was "so important to the over-all position of the free world that it [was] in the security interest of the United States to take whatever appropriate measures" it could to insure Africa's association with the U.S. and the NATO coalition.81 MO studies elaborated on the importance of the Rhodesias, the Gold Coast and the Belgian Congo which produced uranium. Tropical Africa supplied over 75 percent of "Free World" production of cobalt, industrial diamonds, and columbite, and from 10 to 25 percent of the manganese, tin, vanadium, copper, chrome, cadmium, and graphite; 65 percent of "Free World's" cocoa and sisal; and 80 percent of the palm oil.. On the military level, analysts calculated that in event of a general war, bases in tropical Africa

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would be important in controlling the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea, especially if the Suez and Middle East bases were denied to the West.' African manpower remained a critical variable in the Atlantic coalition. Planners estimated that 300,000 troops from French West and French Equatorial Africa could be made available for deployment in Africa or overseas in the event of general war. Approximately 125,000 troops might be available from British West Africa and about 230,000 troops from British East Africa. Because neither British Central Africa nor the Belgian Congo could provide significant forces beyond their boundaries, the report suggested reorganizing the Ethiopian army with the assistance of the U.S. military mission to create an M-Day force of about 53,000 men.83

WEST AFRICAN DEFENSE CONFERENCE In early 1954, plans got underway for more multilateral planning on African support for the security of NATO partners in the anti-Soviet coalition. The British Ambassador Makins was one of the initiators of the conference when he sent a letter to Secretary of State Dulles suggesting a follow-up to the 1951 meeting in Nairobi, Kenya on African security needs. As a result, between March 11 and 19, 1954, the African Defence Facilities Conference convened in Dakar, Senegal." The site had meaning on multiple levels. Senegal was the home of a sort of cultural Pan Africanism called negritude. Senegalese nationalists and such African American intellectuals as Rayford Logan had to forge a base of solidarity. But NATO partners selected Senegal as the conference site because of its geographic position, potential military sites, transportation routes, natural resources, manpower and the West African region's special relationships with Western powers, the Moslem world, and the United Nations." Harold Parker of the United Kingdom and Vice President of the Conference, M. Jean Mons, President of the Conference and Permanent Secretary of French National Defense. and M. Jean Jurgensen, Chief of the African Section of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served as prime movers of the proceedings. U.S. military officials and the U.S. Consul C. Vaughn Ferguson were official observers. The Liberian government sent N. T. Milton who headed the delegation and the Liberian Chargé Wilmot David. Planners emphasized that coordinating these political and strategic factors was "so important to the over-all position of the free world that it [was] in the security interest of the United States to take whatever appropriate measures" it could to insure Africa's association with the U.S. and the NATO coalition.86

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Other delegates joined them from Belgium and Portugal. The British settler colonies of Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and South Africa sent delegates. Delegates discussed the lines of communication in 'South-North and West-Africa'. They tried to coordinate policies on the use of facilities, create a permanent secretariat and an information pool. Delegates approved provisions requiring consultation of participating countries in advance before communicating to an "Atlantic Regional Defense Organization." In his summary of proceedings, the U.S. Consul at Dakar Ferguson remarked his impression was good that parties could meet together." Ferguson complained, however, that the French were wont to point to what they felt was a common American failing in lumping large geographic areas together and expecting a common policy to fit the assembled mass. French delegates stated that they had no intention of following the policies of others, particularly the British. The French's 'favorite project' said Ferguson was to establish with somewhat lukewarm results, some link to NATO." Discord emerged from the Liberian delegation, according to Ferguson. Liberians were reserved and dignified, but played a negative role giving the appearance of being willing to cooperate with colonial powers. The settler governments in South Africa and in the Portuguese colonies were protective over their right to unilateral action in their political and economic spheres. Conference organizers lauded the appearance that delegates met M a cordial atmosphere.89As the conference closed in Dakar, planners in the NSC focused more on coordination of strategies with the U.S. domestic agencies-State Department, the JCS, FOA, Defense, and CIA. African security continued to occupy the conversations of U.S. officials. In early March 1954, Vice President Nixon confided to General Cutler that he was worried about developments in that area, meaning the entire African continent." At times U.S. planners seemed to contradict each other regarding Africa's military importance. For, example, a 1955 memo recounted the Pentagon's lack of strategic interests in Africa while 1953 documents had already tallied a total of 94 actual and planned U.S. military bases spread throughout 55 locations in six African countries excluding Egypt. The JCS complained that the French had not met their responsibility of protecting U.S. defense bases in Morocco to secure the North African region.91 The NATO allies were not the only persons, however, contemplating the problem of security.

AFRICAN REGIONAL SECURITY In April 1954, Ivory Coast's Felix Houphouet-Boigny and Liberia's Attorney General C. Abayomi Cassell spoke to Alexander Davit in the U.S. Office of African

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Affairs on the ripple effect which communist or Soviet expansion in metropolitan Europe might have on African colonies. Related to this, they called attention to the possibility that France's collapse might result in developments similar to those that had existed in World War II in which case territories contiguous to Liberia could fall under Communist domination. Following this, attacks might be made on Liberia, Cassell noted." Such moderate African officials as Liberia's Attorney General Cassell tended to agree with nationalists that their main problem was not the Cold War or the Soviet Union. Liberian diplomat and Assistant Minister of Education Nathaniel V. Massaquoi explained, "the problem with our Western allies was the burden of colonialism."'

BANDUNG, LIBERIA AND THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE While the East-West conflict defined the Cold War, anti-colonialism and self-determination were part of the sub-text of issues on the agenda of U.S. officials and U.S. delegates to the UN, such as Mason Sears and Secretary Dulles. Dulles warned Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge: "We are confronted by the problem of determining U.S. position regarding Tanganyika, Ruandi-Urundi and under Italian administration." As UN debates ensued on the trusteeships, the deliberations on self-determination shifted to another location. Delegates from 29 countries and colonies were preparing to meet in 1955. Indonesia's President Sukarno invited delegates from 29 countries to a multilateral summit in Bandung. Ultimately guests met representing 1.4 billion of the globe's 2.5 billion people.' Secretary Dulles declined the invitation to the U.S. to attend the summit. But when French diplomat Jacques Vimont asked U.S. officials to pressure Liberia and Ethiopia not to attend, John D. Jernegan, and J. Jefferson Jones in the State Department told him that it was too dangerous to discourage Liberia's and Ethiopia's attendance. Jernegan reasoned that the interests of NATO might be better served by encouraging "friendly non-communist invitees" to go to the Conference so as "to block communist 1195 maneuvers . . . . The Robesons and other African Americans applauded the Conference. Richard Wright and Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell attended. Ironically, Powell used the forum to condemn Paul Robeson and chide the Soviet Union.96 In what turned out to be a public relations victory for Dulles when Powell exclaimed to TASS reporters that he, the grandson of slaves, now sat in Congress, a tribute to American democracy. Congressman Powell apparently put aside the reality of daily racial turmoil and lynching of the black youth Emmett Till, the Montgomery

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[Alabama] bus boycott spearheaded by the Women's Improvement Association, and the Little Rock, Arkansas desegregation crisis. He also ignored the fact that Secretary Dulles had denied him official consent to attend. Powell had obtained press credentials to attend the Bandung conference. Ignoring these controversies, however, delegates formulated a platform to promote self-determination, equality among nation-states, and, most importantly, political nonalignment. Such policy makers as Joseph Dodge thought the administration had overreacted to the Soviet influence in the developing world while Illinois Democrat Adlai Stevenson viewed the Bandung meeting as the heir to the U.S. 1776 anti-colonial revolution.97 Despite Secretary Dulles' lingering suspicions that communist influence might be used to undermine the security of the Atlantic Alliance, particularly in the colonies who sent delegates to Bandung, and despite Dulles' fear that the meeting might call attention to U.S. race problems creating even more domestic instability, Richard Wright lamented that the "Negro problem" and "the naked racial tensions gripping and Africa" were not raised at Bandung.98 Nevertheless, the Bandung participants projected the nonalignment strategy as a peaceful multipolar alternative to the crisis- ridden East-West bipolar system.99 In the aftermath of the summit, however, U.S. diplomats such as General Consul McGregor in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, looked more deeply into the economic questions delegates raised at Bandung. "All are agreed that Africa is vital to the defense of Europe and that the loss of its landmass to the Soviets would imperil our own security." 100 To encourage African commitment, McGregor proposed an economic 'new deal' where modern techniques could be tried.1°1 He suggested using the UN in favor of a development policy to combat the undermining influences of Soviet propaganda and the Bandung powers. According to McGregor, "The dike in Africa cannot be held against the combined assaults of Asia and the Soviets without a 'Marshall Plan' for the continent."'" Planners did not formulate a new deal or a Marshall Plan for Africa. But the International Cooperation Administration prepared its own study to chart Soviet economic activity in Asia, the Near East and Africa. Meanwhile, Eisenhower proposed an additional $ 100 million for the President's Emergency Fund for purposes vital to

national security such as friendship of Middle Eastern and African countries. 1°3

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AFRICA AND SOVIET UNION Africa's relations with the Soviet Union were sometimes as strained as those with NATO. Some Soviet policymakers spoke in pejorative terms about Africans and wrote that they were unable to build socialist states, calling some African politicians "bourgeois nationalists."1°4 Soviet contradictions had also surfaced in 1945 when Josef Stalin asked for mandates of the Italian colonies of Somalia and Eritrea compromising the Marxist ideological opposition to colonialism.' Racial prejudice also clouded Soviet-African relations as well. Such Pan Africanists as George Padmore, a former socialist, ended his affiliation by the 1950s. He did so, in part, over communist-socialist reluctance to challenge racism." Other conflicts erupted between African states and the Soviet Union over economic development strategies. Soviet leaders became frustrated when some African politicians constructed their interpretation of "African socialism" or used western industrial take-off modernization models, notwithstanding the sometimes crippling socio-economic results.1°7 After 1955, nevertheless, Nikita Khrushchev and Foreign Minister Nikolai Bulganin mapped out a global strategy to expand Soviet relations in Third World and neutral nations. In 1956, the Soviet Ambassador in Belgium, Viktor Ivanovich Avilov, made a visit to Belgian Congo. That same year Soviet diplomats visited Ghana. The scene moved next to Liberia and President Tubman's second inaugural in 1956. He credited the United Nations with averting another global war, noting the Cold War seemed to have abated somewhat, but expressing anxiety and concern for more concrete evidence of a unwillingness of some states to subordinate national interests to the greater common interest and good of all. He cited the vexing issue of the world situation backed by the mighty arsenals of self-destrnction.108 If Liberia embraced the Atlantic Alliance, it also embraced non-alignment and invited Chinese delegates to the inaugural celebrations. U.S. diplomats had anxieties about Twe Sung's [in the "Red Chinese Government "] congratulations on the occasion of his third inauguration and commendatory comments about Liberia's association with the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung.109 Soviet diplomats were among the guests as well. A.P. Volkov, Chief of the Soviet Delegation, used the occasion to reopen talks, which had started in 1946, on establishing diplomatic missions. George A. Padmore, the Liberian Ambassador to the U.S. in April 1956, did not want to dismiss offer to establish a Liberian diplomatic mission in Moscow. But President Tubman yielded to U.S. pressure to reject Volkov's overture. (The U.S. assured Liberia that it would continue to receive economic aid

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through a $15 million World Bank loan.) Perhaps in return for this U.S. economic support, Liberian delegates Senator Frank Tolbert and I.E. Mitchell supported the U.S. to vote against China's admission in UN and in favor of Taiwan."°

SOME CONCLUDING ASSESSMENTS Many events through the several phases of the Cold War were yet to come. Ghana's independence invitations to the Chinese People's Republic caused a stir in Washington although Vice President Richard Nixon and Reverend and Mrs. Martin King and members of the Tubman administration were invited as well. By 1957, political and religious conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon served as the catalyst for Eisenhower Doctrine that defined the region as a part of U.S. vital interests to secure the Middle East and Africa. Eisenhower sidestepped criticism from senior Arkansas Senator William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."1 As Eisenhower's first administration came to a close between 1956 and 1957, the President was still committed to making sure that Africa's 135,000,000 people and the African American community allied with NATO and his view of the free world against the Soviet bloc."' Though white Americans directed administration policies, the President appointed African American scholar Dr. Helen Edmonds as UN delegate and U.S. special representative to Liberia in 1956.113 The President boasted too, "We do want credit for having pulled one of the outstanding diplomatic coups of all times. Three rulers of darker nations were the official guests of President and Mrs. Eisenhower in less than one

year." 14 were Emperor Haille Selassie of Ethiopia, President William V. S . Tubman of Liberia, and President Paul Magliore of Haiti. In President Eisenhower's view, the gesture supported "the yearning of peoples to govern themselves" and exercise political independence."' Yet in hosting such government leaders as Tubman, Selassie and Magliore, Eisenhower was giving aid to those who may have joined the Cold War alliance to secure their political positions in their homes rather than as a true expression of their commitments to liberal republican democratic traditions. Yet Liberia was in the forefront of those nations that protested South African apartheid, colonial and fascists powers. Indeed, the Tubman administration, similar to the Eisenhower administration, tried to strike a delicate balance between self-determination and liberal democracy, and security imperatives.116 Critics would charge that U.S. policymakers did not have an African policy. It had a Soviet policy in which Africa was a battleground. "'Yet U.S.-Africa relations were not entirely driven by the Cold War. African politicians had their own agenda that ranged

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from visions of Pan African, Islamic or Arab solidarity to non-alignment. The Eisenhower era, however, left an enduring impact on the continent. Africa received loans and grants of about $120.3 million under the Mutual Security Act from 1953-1957.'18 If the metaphor of tragedy has any usefulness in this article on Cold War U.S. - Africa policy, it is to note that both blocs-the Atlantic Alliance capitalist coalition and Council on Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) members and, at times, African officials-exploited nationalism, race, class, and colonialism in the game for political power. What emerged was a U. S.-Africa policy focused on national security. This view of national security blended domestic public, private and foreign factors that in the view of the U.S. Truman and Eisenhower administrations affected the country's security. Between 1985 and 1989, Africa's imported weapons bill had climbed to an estimated $15 billion:19 The continent was armed to the teeth with weapons that were never used to fight the Soviet Union. In battles shadowed by the larger Cold War system but rooted in the clash over African self-determination between colonies and empires, as many as seven million African lives may have been lost.120

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Figure 1 Republic of Liberia. (Source: U.S. Department of State)

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Figure 2 Africa. (Source: Foreign Relations of the U.S., 1952-1954, v. XI, part I, Africa and South Asia, pp. 90-91.

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ENDNO TES

1On the post-Cold War world, Senator Sam Nunn [D-Georgia] "The Course for NATO," The Atlantic Council of the United States, Bulletin, vol. VIII, No. 1, January 13, 1997, pp. 1-5 for text of the Senator's speech delivered November 13, 1996 on the end of the Cold War, NATO and national security. NATO, the Warsaw Pact and former Soviet Union, see NATO Handbook, (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), (Brussels: NATO Office of Information and Press, 1992), pp. 14-20. Arnold Kanter and Linton Brooks, U.S. Intervention Policy for the Post-Cold War World New Challenges and New Responses, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), pp. 13-62. "End of Cold War signals emergence of foreign policy splits," Journal Inquirer, Thursday, June 8, 1995 [Manchester, CT], p. 29. "German: NATO to Change Soon," Washington Post, Friday, June 1, 1990, p. A22. See conference "End of the American Century Searching for America's Role in the Post Cold War World." Senator Carol Mosely-Braun [D-Illinois] provided the closing address, June 4, 1996, (The Woodrow Center Report, vol. 8, June 1996, (Washington, DC), p. 12.

2 Panel chaired by General Andrew J. Goodpaster, USA (Ret), Chair, "Joint Policy Statement with Joint Policy Recommendations and Related Documents on The Future of Ukranian-American Relations and Russian-American Relations in a Pluralistic World June 20-July 1, 1995," p. 35 in section "Russia and NATO," pp. 35-52.

3 Transcript of interview with former vice president and president Richard Nixon after his March 8, 1990 address to the joint Houses of Congress on Cable News Network. The terms 'Third World,' less developed countries (LDCs), developing, less industrialized, and underdeveloped are often used interchangeably. Phrase supposedly coined at the Bandung, Indonesia, 1955 Conference; the Third World refers to "the politically nonaligned and economically developing and less industrialized nations ofthe world." See George Thomas Kurian, Encyclopedia of the Third World, 3rd ed. (New York: Facts on File, 1987), v. 1, p. ix and David Louis Cingranelli, Ethics, American Foreign Policy and the Third World, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), pp. 24-25. See Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics An Introduction, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). "Growing US Role in Bosnia," The Christian Science Monitor, Tuesday, September 5, 1995, pp. 1, 8. "We've got him - Marines fly into Bosnia and rescue downed American F-16 pilot," Journal Inquirer, Tuesday, April 8, 1995, [Manchester, CT] pp. 1,3. Thomas W. Lippman, "Critics Turn on Albright," "Wave of Foreign Crises Come Home," Washington Post, Sunday, August 30, 1998, pp. Al, A13, col. 1.

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Walter LaFeber delineates at least four 'Cold Wars' in "An End to Which Cold War?" in Michael J. Hogan, (ed.) The End Of The Cold War Its Meaning and Implications, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 13-19. Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1980). Michael Clough, "The United States in Africa: The Policy of Cynical Disengagement," Current History, v. 91, n. 565 (May 1992), pp. 193-98; Stephen Wright, "Africa in the Post-Cold War World," TransAfrica Forum, v. 9, n.2 (Summer

1992), pp. 25-37; and Michael Chege, "Remembering Africa," Foreign Affairs ,v . 71, n.

1 (February 1992), pp. 146-163. Walton L. Brown, "American Policy Toward Africa," in Kul B. Rai, David F. Walsh, Paul J. Best, America In The 21st Century Challenges and Opportunities in Foreign Policy, (Upper Saddle River, NJ:, Prentice Hall, 1997), pp. 223-252.

6 Cindy Shiner, "Liberia Makes a Fresh Start After Six Years of Civil War," The Christian Science Monitor, Tuesday, September 5, 1995, p, 6. "150 Hutus, mostly women and children, massacred in Burundi," Journal Inquirer, (Manchester, CT), Tuesday, April 8, 1995, p. 13. Contemporary new "Ghana Relents, Docking Liberian Refugee Ship," The New York Times, Wednesday, May 15, 1996, p. A7. "UNITA Rebel Attacks Aimed at Destabilizing Angola's Economy, Peace Talks" Zaire as Transshipment Point for U.S. Arms to Unita May 29, 1990 Press Release from Permanent Mission of The People's Republic of Angola to the United Nations (Fenton Communications, Washington, DC). President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and former Secretary of State James Baker (Republican George Bush administration) on peace initiatives in Angola, congressional resolution on U.S. diplomatic relations, civil rights mobilize against U.S aid to UNITA, in Angola Update, April 1990 , pp.1-2, 5. See also Africa news report of BBC (British Broadcasting Company) on the evacuation of 500 U.S. civilians from Zaire, most in Kinshasa, March 23, 1997. Nigeria - H.R. 2697, "A Bill To Impose Sanctions against Nigeria, and for other purposes" 104th Congress, 1st Session, November 30, 1995, pp. 1-16 Mr. Payne of NJ, Mr. Smith of NY, Ms. Waters of CA, Mr. Lantos of CA among those introducing bill. H. Con. Res. 40, "Conconcurrent Resolution Concerning the movement toward democracy in the Federal Republic of Nigeria," 104th Congress, 1st Session, March 15, 1995, pp. 1-7. Mr. Payne submitted resolution. Liberia - H.R. 4001, A Bill To Impose sanctions on the governments who violate the arms embargo, participate in the exchange of weapons for resources, for aiding and abetting the civil war in Liberia, and to bring to justice Liberian war criminals," 104th Congress, August 2, 1996, pp. 1-9 introducing bill Mr. Payne of NJ, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Flake, Mr. Foglietta, Mr. Lewis of GA, Mr.

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Hastings of FL, Mr. Owens, Ms. Norton. Sudan - H.R. 3766, "A Bill To prohibit economic assistance, military assistance, or arms transfers to the Government of Sudan until appropriate action is taken to eliminate chattel in Sudan, and for other purposes." 104th Congress 2d Session, July 9, 1996, pp. 1-7 Mr. Payne of NJ, Mr. Royce, Mr. Frank of MA, Mr. Lantos, Mr. Dellums, Ms. McKinney, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Wynn, Mr. Rush, Mr. Fattah introduced bill. Sudanese have rejected allegations of chattel slavery, and view the allegation as a diversionary tactic to focus attention away from external intervention that has derailed Sudanese statehood since 1956. United States House of Representatives, Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, December 2, 1996, (December 4, 1996) "Refugees in Eastern Zaire and Rwanda," pp. 1-8. Representative Christopher Smith, (R-NJ) chaired some of sessions. Representative Payne also present. Advisory panel included Chester Crocker, former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Phyllis E. Oakley, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Ambassador Richard W. Bogosian, Special Coordinator for Rwanda and Burundi, Vincent Kern, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (African Affairs), pp. 1-8. 8George Frost Kerman, Ambassador to the Soviet Union and State Department official during the Truman years articulated the theory of containment of communism in "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," [Mr. X], Foreign Affairs, v. XXV, No. 4 (July 1947), pp. 566-582. Examples ofnewer reflections on the Cold War include "Rethinking The Cold War A Conference In Memory of William A. Williams," October 1991 University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. See also Wade Huntley, "The United States Was the Loser in the Cold War," [Point of View], The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 31, 1993, p. A40 and Mark H. Lytle, "An Environmental Approach to American Diplomatic History," Diplomatic History, v. 20, no. 2, Spring 1996, p. 281. Christian F. Ostermann, "The United States, The East German Uprising of 1953, And the Limits of Rollback," Working Paper No. 11 published by the Cold War International History Project Woodrow Wilson Center For Scholars, December 1994. Peter Kindsvatter, "Report on the Temple University Conference - Exploring the "New" Cold War History and Missed Opportunities for Conflict Resolution", Newsletter The Society for Historians ofAmerican Foreign Relations, vol. 26, pp. 12-19.Papers and discussion on US, former Soviet Union and China. "The Eisenhower Legacy - A Centennial Celebration," October 1990 at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania ). See also Kenneth W. Thompson, Cold War Theories World Polarization, 1943-1953, v. I (1981); Geir Lundestad, "Moralism, Presentism, Exceptionalism, Provincialism, and

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Other Extravagances in American Writings on the Early Cold War Years," Diplomatic History, v. 13, n. 4, Fall, 1989, pp. 527-545.

9 Peter L. Hahn, The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945-1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War (Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina, 1991), Borstelmann, On U.S. and see William Finnegan, A Complicated War, The Harrowing of Mozambique, (University of California Press, Berkeley, , London, 1992/1993), pp. 34 - 35, 59, 80, 92, 113-19 178, 180, 237-38. Alex Thomson, Incomplete Engagement U.S. Foreign Policy towards the Republic of South Africa, 1981-1988, (Avery/Ashgate Publishing Group, Hampshire, England, 1996); Peter J. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 20-25. Thomas Borstelmann, "Africa and the United States," Diplomatic History, vol. 20, No. 4 (Fall 1996), pp. 681-684.

10 Rupert Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967), p. 21.

11 David A. Dickson, United States Foreign Policy Towards Sub-Saharan Africa, (University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London, 1985), p, 4 "Despite the designation of an Office of African Affairs in the Near Eastern Division of the State Department, Africa, largely lost the importance it was assigned during the Second World War. The Continent was to remain a preserve of the Europeans. The first half of the Eisenhower administration retained continuity with the Truman administration in terms of America's Africa policy."

12 Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, pp. 21-22. .Douglas Brinkley, "Kennan-Acheson: The Disengagement Debate," The Atlantic Community Quarterly, Winter 1987-88, pp. 413-425. Melvin Leffler, The Preponderance of Power, National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 1-24, 55-99, 312-360.

13 McGhee quoted in Department of State, Bulletin, XXII (June 19, 1950), 999-1002. On McGhee, see also Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs. 1935-1960, (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 235, 239-256.

14 Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, pp. 21-22.

15 Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, p. 24. 16 Russell Warren Howe, Along The Africa Shore An Historic Review of Two Centuries of U.S. - African Relations, (New York/London: Harper and Row Publisher, 1975), p. 110.

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17 "Editorial Note" in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952-1954, v. )U, p. 43 on American consular conference on offices from the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia held in Pretoria and Johannesburg on May 26, 27, and 28, 1953 to review current problems in light of expected reductions in staff and operating expenses. President Eisenhower announced intentions to cut the federal spending by forty billion dollars. The reductions were about ten billion dollars between 1953 and 1956. Michael Hogan, "Partisan Politics and the End of the Cold War," (Hogan, ed.), The End of the Cold War Its Meaning and Implications, pp. 236-7. Howe, Along The Afric Shore, p. 110. In 1954, the State Department cut positions for Africa from 207 Americans and 361 local employees to 129 Americans and 121 local employees, Henry F. Jackson, From Congo To Soweto U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa Since 1960, (New York: William Morrow & Co,1982), pp. 38-39.

18 Howe, Along The Afric Shore, pp. 108, 112. 19Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann, The United States and Africa A History, (New York: Cambridge University Press, and Hoover Institution,1984), p. 285. The volume surveys informal diplomatic relations in the 1780s, colonizationist- emigrationist activities, missionaries, traders, adventurers and entrepreneurs on p. 18. 20 Duignan and Gann, The United States and Africa A History, p. 285.

21 Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 104-107.

22 Eisenhower quoted in Eisenhower, Larsen and Branyan (eds.). Eisenhower Papers, v. II, pp. 951, 1306, 1153, 782. Other studies of the Eisenhower-Nixon-Dulles era, H. W. Brands, "The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and the National Insecurity State," The American Historical Review, v. 94, Oct. 1989), p. 989. Richard H. Immerman (ed.) John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower, President and Elder Statesman 1952-1969, (1984). Richard H. Immerman, "Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonizing Reappraisal," Diplomatic History, v. 14, no. 3, Summer 1990, pp. 319-342.

23 Howe, (Along The Afric Shore,) wrote that few U.S. policymakers had knowledge ofAfrica. However, the documents reveal detailed maps identifying colonial clusters, transport, and climate: British West Africa - Ghana (Gold Coast), Gambia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Togo; British East Africa - Kenya, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (Malawi) Federation, Southern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland (); ; French Sudan, French Equitorial Africa; French North Africa; Belgium Congo, Ruanda, Burundi; Portuguese Africa -,

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Sao Tome, Principe, Angola and Mozambique, FRUS, 1952-54, v. xi, pt. 1, pp. 90-1 for a map noting these divisions. See FRUS, 1952-1954, pt. 1, v.XI, p 103. For background analysis of security issues, see Paul H. Nitze and NSC Policy Planning Staff, NSC-68, "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, April 14, 1950, FRUS, 1950, pt. 1, 238-49. 24 Allen quoted in. "Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs George Allen to Secretary of State." FRUS, 1955-1957, pp. 22-23.

25 Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, p. 26. Penny M. Von Eschen, "Challenging Cold War Habits: African Americans, Race, and Foreign Policy," Diplomatic History, Vol. 20, No. 4, (Fall, 1996), pp. 627-638. Gerald Home, "Who Lost the Cold War? Africans and African Americans," Diplomatic History, Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 1996, pp. 613-626. Plummer, Rising Wind on African Americans and Cold War, 1940s, pp. 167-216 26 Dr. Bond and efforts to obtain private development assistance for Gold Coast Volta River Dam, "The Consul at Accra (William E. Cole) to the Department of State, Accra, August 25, 1952," conversation between Cole and Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 277. 27 "International President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (Randolph) to President Eisenhower," Chicago, June 17, 1953, FRUS, 1952-54, pp. 43-46. Reply to Randolph from the Office ofAfrican Affairs, September 4, 1953 in FRUS, 1952-54,pp. 51-52. 28 Dr. Bond and efforts to obtain private development assistance for Gold Coast Volta River Dam, "The Consul at Accra (William E. Cole) to the Department of State, Accra, August 25, 1952," FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 277. 29 Paul Robeson, The Negro People and the Soviet Union, (New York: New Century Publisher, 1950), pp. 5-6. Paul Robeson, Here I Stand, (Beacon Press: Boston/London: Dennis Dobson, 1958, 1971), pp. 28-47, 74-108. Paul Robeson on civil rights and against McCarthyism, Philip S. Foner, (ed.), Paul Robeson Speaks, (New York: Citadel Press Book, 1978), p. 368. Penny M. Von Eschen, "Challenging Cold War Habits: African Americans, Race, and Foreign Policy," 645. Bunche had served in the Department of State adviser on colonial affairs 1941-44 and OSS 1943-1944 and worked on the UN Trusteeship Council. He had seen colonialism and apartheid first hand. Robert Harris, "Ralph Bunche and Afro-American Participation in Decolonization," in Pan African Biography (Los Angeles, CA: Crossroads Press, 1987), pp. 120-123. Bunche, Brian Urquhart, Ralph Bunche, An American Life, (New York: Norton & Co.,

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1993), pp. 72-80. "Ralph Johnson Bunche," Who Was Who In America With World Notables v. V 1969-1973, (1969/1973), p. 99. Brian Urquhart, Ralph Bunche An American Life, (NY: W.W. Norton, 1993), pp. 247-250. Max Yergan in FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 92. Hollis Lynch, Black American Radicals and The Liberation of Africa: The Council on African Affairs 1937-1955. (Ithaca, 1978), pp. 7-10. 3° Edward R. Dudley, U.S. Ambassador to Liberia until June 15, 1953 in FRUS, Africa and South Asia, v. XI, Part 1, p. 19. On Black American Ambassador to Liberia Edward Dudley (1948-1949), see FRUS 1952-54, v. xi, pt. 1, p. 19, 51, 70, 92 and Principal officers of the Department of State and United States Chiefs of Mission 1778-1990, (Washington, DC: (Gov't Printing Office, 1991), p. 112.

31 Mention of the Dakar meeting and Nairobi report of 1951 "The Consul at Dakar (Ferguson) to the Department of State, Dakar, Senegal March 24, 1954, in FRUS

1952-1954 , pp. 112, 113. Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (George W. Perkins until Jan. 1953) Washington, July 1952 with baron Silvercruys, Belgian Ambassador. R. Gordon Arneson, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Atomic Energy Affairs and Mr. McClelland. FRUS 1952-154, p. 406. See Africa: 1941-1961 Intelligence Report, (October 19, 1951, "Prospects For African Political Stability In the Event of An Early East-West War," Part XIII, Office of Strategic Services/State Department Intelligence Research Reports, (Reel #4 Film A 215, Harvard University Lamont Library).

32 For information on the sixteen nations which received approximately $13. 3 billion appropriated under the Marshall Plan -European Economic Recovery Program 1948-1952, see Charles Weiss, Jr., The Marshall Plan: Lessons for U.S. Assistance to Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (Occasional Paper, The Atlantic Council of the United States, December, 1995), pp. ix, 11, pp. 47-49, 51 and Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan American Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952, Cambridge University Press, 1989/1987, pp. 60, 169, 433, 434. Neither of these works discusses the transfer of Marshall Plan funds to European colonies though FRUS 1952-1954 indicates this v. XI, pt. 1, p. 25. B U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants - Obligations and Loan Authorization, July 1, 1945-September 30, 1990 p. 89; pp. 105, 114-115, 121, 136. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,1990), pp. 89; 105, 114-115, 121, 136. "The Genesis of the Point Four Program - Memorandum of Conversation by Secretary of State Dean

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Acheson" Washington, D.C. FRUS, 1949, pp. 757-788 and Harry Truman's "Inaugural Address of January 20, 1949, Department of State Bulletin, January 30, 1949, p. 123.

34 D. Elwood Dunn, The Foreign Policy of Liberia during the Tubman Era, 1944-1971, (London, Hutchinson Benham Ltd., 1979), C.T.O. King Liberia's Ambassador to US/UN. p. 66. See also Walter LaFeber, "NATO and the : A Context," Diplomatic History, vol. 13, no. 4, Fall, 1989, p. 471. Schwartz was the National Security Council Planning Board Assistant in the Department of State.

35 President W. V.S. Tubman, Guannu, Inagural Addresses, p. 325

36 D. Elwood Dunn, The Foreign Policy ofLiberia during the Tubman Era, 1944-1971, (London, Hutchinson Benham Ltd., 1979), pp. 58-64. C.T.O. King was Liberia's Ambassador to US/UN. Guannu, Inaugural Addresses, p. 325)

37 "Memorandum of Conversation, Addis Ababa, March 12, 1957", H.E. Ato Akilou Abte Wolde, Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, H.E. Lidj Endalkatchew Makonnen, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vice President Nixon, U.S. Ambassador in Addis Ababa, Joseph Simonson, Joseph Palmer, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, FRUS, 1955-1957, p. 346

38 Ibid. 39Mallon from Leopoldville, Congo FRUS, 1952-54, pt. 1, v.xi, January. 1953, pp. 30, 33, 34. 4° Mallon from Leopoldville, Congo FRUS, 1952-54, pt. l,v.xi, January. 1953, pp. 30, 33, 34.

41 On the "Eurafrique" concept of France's international power position see "National Intelligence Estimate," FRUS 1952- 1954, Washington, August 31, 1954, p. 163. 42 "Paper Prepared in the Office of the Special Assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for National Security Council Affairs," Washington, DC, 19 March 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, pt. 1, v. xi, p, 104.

43 Paper Prepared in the Office of the Special Assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for National Security Council Affairs," Washington, D C, 19 March 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, pt. 1, v. xi, p. 103. FRUS, 1952-1954, p. 105. " Statement by the Consul General at Salisbury (Sims) to the American Consular Conference, Capetown, March 11-12, 1952 with Waldemar J. Gallman, Ambassador to the Union of South Africa, FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, pp. 8, 9

45 Arbatov quoted in Martin Schwartz, Soviet Perceptions of the United States, (Los Angeles, CA: Press 1978), pp. 119, 118. Critical perspectives of Dulles, Kerman and Dean Acheson include unpublished theses: Alan Stephen Cross, "The Function of

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theory in International Relations; A Comparative Analysis of John Foster Dulles and George F. Kennan," Honors Thesis, Harvard University, 1966 and George A. Krol, "A Cold War Relationship: Dean G. Acheson and George F. Kennan A Study of perspectives in Conflict," Honors Thesis, Harvard University, 1978. Historians note the tension between Eisenhower and Dulles. Dulles's style was more of confrontation reliance on nuclear forces and limited wars versus Eisenhower's tendency to negotiate, support even covert operations, use conventional forces, and flexible response. See Brands, "The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and the National Insecurity State," p. 989. On Dulles, see Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, (Boston, Press 1973) and Richard H. Immerman (ed.), John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War, (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990). Arbatov quoted in Schwartz, Soviet Perceptions of the United States, pp. 119, 118. 47 On uranium in Belgian Congo see Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 105. In October 1953, Assistant Secretary Byroade gave a speech ... this further. He said the Movement toward self-determination has recently encountered an even more strange and potentially more tragic paradox. At the same time that Western colonialism of the old type is disappearing, a new form of imperialism has begun to extend a clutching had to every quarter of the globe. I am referring to the new Soviet colonialism."Address by the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Byroade), October 31, 1953). FRUS, 1952-1954,pt. 1, v. xi, p.55. 48 Instability, self -determination in Africa, and African nationalism, FRUS, 1952-1954, p. 12. Regarding the Gold Coast nationalist K. A. Gbedemah's National Alliance of Liberals; Gbedemah Minister of Commerce and Industry FRUS, pp. 67- 68, 49 FRUS, 1952-1954, p. 78. Nkrumah's Convention People's Party, J. B. Danquah, opposition leader according to William C. Cole, FRUS, 1952-1954, '78 p. 69, 78, 80. Appiah, Ghana and politics, In My Father's House Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, p. 165. Joseph E. Harris, Africans and Their History, (New York, Penguin Books, 1972/1987) pp. 209-211, 222- 233. " See OSS 1942 report on African students Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mbdiwe Kingsley, .... United States, Record of Conversations with African Students, January 16 & 17, 1942, Dept. of State, (REEL # 1, Harvard U Collection). See Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mt. Kenya The Tribal Life of The Gikuyu, (New York: Viking Books, 1965), pp. 179-221; FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, pp.45, 355. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana The Autobiography ofKwame Nkrumah, (London, 1957), pp. 21, 24, 29-32, 157, 158. Tom

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Mboya, "Our Own Revolutionary Tradition: An African View," Current History, December 1956, p. 345.

51 On the meeting of West African nationalists, FRUS, 1952-1954, p. 70 on Houphouet Boigny. 52 Rohihlahla Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, (Boston: Little and Brown, 1994), pp. 85-88, 94 - A. Adu Boahen, African Perspectives On Colonialism, (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins U Press, 1985),

53 The Consul General at Leopoldville Patrick Mallon to the State Department, January 19, 1953, FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, pp. 30, 37. 54 FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 81 on the efforts of N. Azikiwe's National Council of Nigeria and the in the predominantly Igbo Eastern Region.See also Richard Joseph, Radical Nationalism in Cameroun: Social Origins of the Union Camerounaise Populaire [UP.C. Rebellion] , (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)

55 "The U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Edward R. Dudley to the Department of State," Monrovia, June 3, 1952, FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p.18.

56 "Boundaries of Yesterday, Borders of Today and Of Tomorrow, A problem heavy with consequences For the Realization of African Unity," Afrique Histoire, pp. 23-26) p. 24. On 19th and early 20th century German jurisdiction in parts of Cameroon (Buea, Bamenda, Ebolowa, Doula, Kribi, Victoria, and Wum) see Palaverburo Doula,

karte 1 von 2, Journale Zu den Protokollen der Summarischen Gerichtsbarkeit uber Eingeborene, 3 September 1892- 1898, An Das Kaiserliche Gouvernement in Buea, 27 August, 1907, Archives Nationales De la Republique Du Cameroun, Yaounde, Cameroon.

57 "A. Philip Randolph, International President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to President EisenhowerRandolph," June 17, 1953, FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 2, p. 45.

58 Dudley, FRUS, pp. 16-17 Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father's House Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1992), on clash of modernization, pp. 125-28, literacy, 130-33, tradition, 104, 108, postcolonial and postmodern, pp. 137-157; contrast of Ghanaian precepts on sphere of state, sphere of society, and paired adherences - Ghana, Asante, development, heritage, democracy, chieftancy, and society with Western state and corollary institutions - law based on ethics, government with authority to use coercive force, criminal code, taxes, and conscription.

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59 Appiah, In My Father's House , pp. 31, 131. Joe Appiah, Joe Appiah: The Autobiography of an African Patriot, (Westport, CT, Praeger, 1990). 6° See Manila Folder of Jehudi Ashmun's Papers of Treaty between Robert F. Stockton (Naval Lieutenant) and Agent Eli Ayres, and chiefs ofMesurado, December 15, 1821 and other documents located in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia, Liberia probably destroyed during the civil war during the 1980s. Joseph S. Guannu, An Introduction to Liberian Government, The First Republic and the People's Redemption Council. (Smithtown, NY, Exposition Press, Inc. 1982).

61 Okwowudiba Nnoli (ed), Ethnic Conflicts In Africa, (CODESRIA Books Seires, Dakar, Senegal and Nottingham, England, 1998), Eghosa E. Osaghae, " "The Ethnic Character and Class Character of Political Conflicts in Liberia," pp. 131-158 and Gilbert Gonnin, "Ethnicity, Politics and National Awareness in Cote D'Ivoire," pp. 165-166. "Boundaries of Yesterday, Borders of Today and Of Tomorrow, A problem heavy with consequences For the Realization of African Unity," Afrique Histoire, pp. 23-26) p. 24.

62 "Conditions and Trends in Tropical Africa," National Intelligence Estimates, Washington, 22 December 1953. The NIEs were high- level interdepartmental reports drafted by officers from the Intelligence Advisory Committee, discussed and revised by the Office of National Intelligence Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency in FRUS, 1952-54, p. 86. Dunn and Holsoe, Historical Dictionary ofLiberia, pp. 90, 124. FRUS. 1955 p. 390, FRUS, 1955,

63 Harris, Africans and Their History, p. 219. Gender issue Ghada Hashem Talhami, The Mobilization of Muslim Women In Egypt, (University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 1996) p. 107 "During the late 1940s and 1950s, there was a decline in religious reforming initiatives, only women's organizations continued to pressure for reform until the elimination of the Shari'a courts by order 462 in 1955; p. 46 on Islamic mobilization of women. Carolyn Bledsoe, Women and Marriage in Kpelle Society, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1980). 64 On Edith Wiles Padmore, see Dunn and Holsoe, Historical Dictionary of Liberia, pp. 126-127.

65 On Firestone and iron ore concessions "Conditions and Tends in Tropical Africa," Washington, 22 December 1953, FRUS 1952-1954, p. 86. FRUS 1952-1954, "Memorandum of Conversation, by the Officer in Charge for West Central, and East Africa Affairs," (Nicholas Feld) with members of the Ford Foundation February 20, 1952, p. 2

67 Balkanization of African undesireable, FRUS 1955-57. v. XVIII, p. 84.

68 Howe, Along The Afric Shore, pp. 110-112.

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69 Draft Policy Statement Prepared by the National Security Council Staff for the National Security Council Planning Board," Washington, August 18, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, pp. 151-152, 152.

70 "Conditions and Trends in Tropical Africa," National Intelligence Estimates, Washington, 22 December 1953,FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI pt. 1, pp. 71-72, 81.

71 FRUS, p. 276 on Gold Coast.

72 FRUS, p. 285 on Gold Coast. 73FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, June 25, 1953,pp. 285-287. FRUS, pp. 41-43; p. 54

74 For background on the 1950s, see White Paper on Afro-Arab Cooperation 1977-1978 (Arab Republic of Egypt, Ministry of Foreign Affairs State Information Service, 1980), Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., pp. 5, 7, 8. FRUS

75 FRUS on Morocco, p. xv, Hassan II, The Challenge, The Memoirs of King Hassan II of Morocco, (translated by Anthony Rhodes), London, Macmillan, 1978), p. 47. 76Rassemblement Democratique Africain or African Democratic Rally, FRUS, December 1953, p. 79. On Kenya and Mau Mau, p. 347 in FRUS 1952-1954

77 FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. xv. on Blankenheimer. 780n Liberia, October, 16, 1953, FRUS,1952-1954, pp. xxiv, 495, 516, check also January 20, 1955. Liberia and the $15,000,000 loan

79 "National Security Staff Study, Oct. 1954," FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 175. Spain and the Moroccan Question, pp. 172, 177, 807. " FRUS, 1952-1954, pp. 150-151.

81 FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 151.

82 On copper, mineral resources, FRUS 1952-1954, pp. 72, 103, 105,

83 FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, on manpower and troops, pp. 75, 104. 84 "The British Ambassador Makins to the Secretary of State Dulles, Washington, January 18, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, pp. 90-91. The Counselor of the Embassy in France (Robert Joyce to the Department of State, Paris, Feb. 18, 1954, p. 94.

85 FRUS, 1952-1954, Corrigan mentions Rayford Logan in Paris and

connections with Senegalese , pp 238, 243-244.

86 The Consul at Dakar Ferguson to the Department of State on International Cooperation in Africa Arising Out of the Dakar Conference on Defense Facilities, Dakar, Senegal, FRUS, 1952-1954 pp. 108, 111, 117, 119; 151.

87 Vaugh on the conference of West African Defense facilities, FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI,pt. 1, p. 114

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88 African Defense Facilities, FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 109. 114 89 Ibid. pp. 110-111 on Defense facilities and support from fascist state Portugal, and South African government. 9° FRUS 1952-54, Memorandum of the Policy Planning Staff to the Director of Policy Planning Staff (Bowie), p. 97.

91 FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 103 920n Massaquoi and Cassell "Memorandum of Conversation by Alexander J. Davit of the Office of African Affairs, Liberian Memorandum on National Security Defense," FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 524.

93 FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 255.

94 "Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, February 1, 1955" on the participation of African states in the Afro-Asian Conference, FRUS, 1955-1957, p. 1. See also FRUS, 1955-1957, pp. 390, 374.

95 Martin Staniland, American Intellectuals and African Nationalists 1955-1970, (New Haven, Connecticut and London, England, Yale University Press, 1991), p. 194, 294, 49, 245, 246. Bandung, FRUS1955-1957, pp. 390, 374

96 Wil Haywood, King of The Cats, The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), pp. 199, 201-202. Richard Wright, The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference, (Cleveland, 1956), p. 136. Paul Robeson, Here I Stand, (Beacon Press, Boston/ London, Dennis Dobson Pub., 1958, 1971), p. 46. Staniland, Martin Staniland, American Intellectuals and African Nationalists 1955-1970, p. 76

98 Richard Wright, The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference, (Cleveland, 1956), p. 178-179 99G. H. Jansen, Nonalignment and The Afro-Asian States, (New York, Praeger, 1966), p. 36. John Gaddis, "Russia, The Soviet Union and The United States," p. 231.

1°`) U.S. Consul General in Leopoldville, Congo McGregor, December, 1955 FRUS, 1955-1957, p. 28.

101 Ibid., p. 29

102 President's Emergency Fund established in 1955. See Burton I. Kaufman, Trade Not Aid Eisenhower's Foreign Economic Policy 1953-1961, (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 67.

103 Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, p. 36, FRUS 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 25.

1°4 FRUS, 1952-1954, v. XI, pt. 1, p. 42.

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105 Stalin's 1945 request cited in "Proposals for disposition of Italian Colonies in Africa -A Summary of the Council of Foreign Ministers and Paris Peace Conference, April 17, 1947," Reel #3 Film A 215) and "Geographic Basis For the Division of Eritrea between Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Ethiopia," OIR Report No 4493, October 13, 1947, Department of State Map Intelligence Division, (Harvard University Collection, Lamont Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Office of Intelligence Research, Department of State, "Summaries of Trade Agreements and Other Trade Accords of the Soviet Bloc with Countries of the near East and Africa (dated March 21, 1957) covers agreements 1953- 1954.

106 George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism, (Garden City, NY, Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 22-54; 357-374.

107 Tanzania President Julius Nyerere's concept of "ujamaa" as an African socialist model explored in B. U. Mwansasu and C. Pratt (ed). Towards Socialism in Tanzania, (Toronto, Canada, Toronto University Press, 1979). log William V.S. Tubman, "Third Inaugural Address January 2, 1956, Guannu,ed. The Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of Liberia, pp. 335-336, FRUS, 1955-1957, pp. 362, 390

109 FRUS, 1955-57, pp. 389-391.

110 FRUS 1955-1957, pp. 389-392.

111 "Special message to the Congress by President Eisenhower on the Middle East January 5,1957," generally called the Eisenhower Doctrine. Eisenhower called the Middle East the gateway between Eurasia and Africa, a regions that contains about two thirds of known oil deposits. Senator J. William Fulbrighi opposed the resolution contending that it was an executive usurpation of legislative prerogatives. Eisenhower Papers, v. II, pp. 705, 707, 708, 713.

112 FRUS 1952-1954, p. 99.

113 See "Dr. Helen Edmonds Honored by American Historical Association January 19, 1989, Durham Morning Herald and Darlene Clark Hine (ed.). Black Woman in America A Historical Encyclopedia (1993), pp. 379-80. 114 Eisenhower Papers, v. II, 1071.Eisenhower meeting with three presidents

115 Eisenhower Papers, v. II, p. 1337. In the President Eisenhower's view, the gesture supported "the yearning of peoples to govern themselves" and exercise political independence

116 Eisenhower Papers, v. II, pp. 849, 850, 949.

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117 M. F. Toinet, "La grand-mere patrie La Caommunaute noire et la politique africaine des Etats-Unis," Politique Africaine, v. 12, (Paris, Editions Karthala), December 1983, p. 15. 18 , "The Tragedy of Cold War History," Diplomatic History, v. 17, Winter 1993, pp. 1-16 especially p. 15. William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (first published in 1959 rev. ed. 1988). 19 Statistics presented at the "Pan Africanist Conference on Democracy," Dakar, Senegal 25-29 May 1992 cited in "No peace, no vote," Africa News, June 8-June 21, 1992, v. 36, no. 3, p. 16. Emerson, Africa and United States Policy, p. 26. 12° Ibid. p. 16. "Violence consumes Monrovia," The Hartford Courant, Monday,

May 6, 1996, p. 1 (Hartford, Connecticut).

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor The Use of Electronic Information Technology in Historical Research on African Diaspora Studies and the Emigration to Liberia, 1827-1901

Katherine Olukemi Bankole*

Computer technology has changed the way in which historical studies are viewed and conducted. In the case of African diaspora studies, electronic information technology has allowed for new immediate approaches to data collection, information storage; and a wider access to knowledge. The challenges of electronic information technology and historical studies include: the use and acceptance of research websites by traditional historians; the credibility concerns of historical evidence;' the use of standard electronic citation and documentation of sources; and the integrity of digitized primary sources on the net. The problems that stem from this are: (1) the accelerated manner in which materials can be plagiarized; (2) the continued testing of copyright laws in the use and dissemination of information; (3) the socio-economic issues involved in who will have access to state-of-the-art computers, software, web hosts, etc. (the "Digital Divide"); (4) reliability- the ability to verify and authenticate historical sources; (5) scholars analysis' of immediate access to "instantly" produced primary source accounts; (6) the level of complexity regarding the use of research descriptors used by the web host and the remote scholar; and (7) the alternative plans in case of long term electric black-outs, equipment failure or malfunction. Despite some of the potential problems, digital technology is currently viewed as one of the best ways to preserve historical records and provide world wide dissemination to students and scholars. This is especially relevant for storage limitations, and older records subject to age and acid damage. Historians of electronic information technology will be able to

*Katherine Olukemi Bankole is Director of the Center for Black Culture and Research, and Assistant Professor in the History Department, at West Virginia University. Her many publications include: You Left Your Mind in Africa: Journal Observations and Essays on African American Self-Hatred (2001); "A Critical Inquiry of Enslaved African Females and the Antebellum Hospital Experience," in the Journal of Black Studies (2001); and Slavery and Medicine (1998).

I want to thank Dr. Amos J. Beyan of Western Michigan University and Dr. Molefi Asante of Temple University for their critical reviews of the early draft of this article.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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develop and shape another branch of historical studies in general-the intersection of on-line historical research and historiography-and will have the opportunity to critique historical websites and databases for scholarly use. For students and scholars of history, perhaps this advance will mean less time researching and collecting information and data, and more time for studying, processing and immersion in the material. The use of electronic information technology will have a tremendous impact on African diaspora studies and the various types of searchable on-line journals, repositories, and catalogs available.2 It will increase access to the body of knowledge on Africana history, and include new perspectives and methodologies. And certainly web-based research alters the forms of retrieval of archival material, thereby influencing the ways in which research scholarships, fellowships and travel grants are awarded and carried out in the future. A specific example of the impact of internet technologies on historical research is the case of Liberian studies. The colonization is fascinating as it continues to provide new information and insights.3 Liberian history is also an important challenge for scholars because of its complex origins, and how the past has determined the economic, political and geographic course of the coastal West African country. In 1815 Paul Cuffee, an African American shipbuilder and Quaker, repatriated 38 Africans to Sierra Leone which was established by the British in 1787 for blacks from Britain and from the American diaspora. Later Liberia was founded and settled by African Americans through the sponsorship of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1822 (see note 3). Liberia became independent in 1847 with its early colonial history often described as an "experiment" by the ACS in which enslaved Africans in the United States were "returned" to the continent of Africa. This intricate history includes the purchase of territory in order to found the country, and the establishment of the city of Monrovia, named after the United States President James Monroe. How will internet technology in historical research continue to reveal the character of Liberian history? Specifically, how will electronic data and information available in the African diaspora contribute to our understanding of Liberian history? One example of available electronic-based primary source information of the African diaspora on Liberia can be found in the antebellum newspapers and publications produced by free African Americans in the United States and Canada. One such source which addresses the issue comes from Accessible Archives. Accessible Archives contains more than 60,000 records of nineteenth century African American newspapers. According to their web brochure, "Never before has such important original source

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material-written by African-Americans for African-Americans-been readily available for research and fresh interpretation by historians, sociologists, educators and students." This research database contains: Freedom's Journal (1827-1829), The Colored American (Weekly Advocate) (1837-1841), The North Star (1847-1851), The National Era (1847-1860), Provincial Freeman (1854-1857), Frederick Douglass Paper (1851-1859), and The Christian Recorder (1861-1902). The African-American newspapers contained in this electronic archive feature a condensed abstract of each item, and a full text of the original documents. The newspapers include an abundance of information about America and the world of the nineteenth century including, but not limited to: letters, announcements, reprints of articles, reports, ships manifests, court decisions, conference proceedings, obituaries, public notices, subscription information, employment appointments, meetings, congressional reports, and historical information-especially material related to the institution of slavery.' These newspapers relied heavily upon summaries and the reprinting of articles and information from other contemporary newspapers and publications. All of the African-American newspapers reported extensively on the settling and development of Liberia. In utilizing these documents there are numerous categories which comprise the unfolding of Liberia. Seven of these important categories include: (1) the emigrees to Liberia; (2) the work of the American Colonization Society; (3) missionarianism; (4) Liberia as a nation; (5) concerns over education; (6) the direct emancipation of enslaved Africans for colonization; and (7) the concerted debates over colonization. For many involved in African diaspora studies Liberian history is significantly impacted by the African American emigrants who arrived in what became known as Liberia in 1822. African American newspapers reported on the numbers of emigrees to Liberia, as well as the conditions which led to emigration. The papers also reported on the imports from Liberia, such products as cotton, coffee and gold. Much of the information, however, is concentrated on two main issues: (1) the general condition of repatriated African colonists (in relation to such issues as disease, climate, access to land, food, etc.); and (2) the social relationship between the "natives and the emigrants." In 1829, Freedom's Journal reported on the return of approximately 200 emigrants to Liberia. Like many of the articles of the time in support of colonization, the sentiment included the feelings of people wishing to return to their ancestral "fatherland," and the hope that colonization would be mutually beneficial to Liberia and America. These articles were keenly insightful about the historic nature of the repatriation of Africans,

". . . history presents no parallel of a similar enterprise having succeeded so well, and in so short a period." 6 By 1848, The North Star reported that the population of Liberia

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was 18,000, and that 3,500 of this number were from the United States.' Like most African-American newspapers, The North Star reported extensively on individuals who emancipated their slaves with the express purpose of emigration to Liberia. In one example a Fredericksburg, Virginia woman made an offer to free her slaves and contribute $200 if the American Colonization Society would pay for the travel to Liberia.8 African American newspapers reported on hundreds of persons repatriated to Liberia during the antebellum period. The emigration scheme to Liberia was a politically charged issue, and the African American newspapers often took decisive positions for and against colonization. This does not mean that the papers censored material contrary to their views; however, editorials were clear about their position. As in an 1829 editorial of the Freeman's

Journal, "We have pondered much on this interesting subject . . . and we come on from

the examination, a decided supporter of the American Colonization Society." 9 The positions were followed by examples which either proved or disproved that colonization to Liberia was positive or negative. In The Colored American in 1841, a letter from Rev. John Clarke comments on the wars in Liberia, and provides detailed descriptions of the land and social life. In Clarke's opinion, "by giving it as my opinion, from all I have seen and heard, that the good set forth by the colonization society will never be attained, unless a complete change of plan could be affected."' Stories in which this appositional theme plays out is the condition of repatriated African colonists and the social relationship between the native Liberians and the returning Africans. Newspapers seeking to prove that colonization was the best option for free and enslaved Africans included articles demonstrating the good conditions and the positive relationship and interaction between the two peoples. Publications attempting to show the deleterious effects of colonization printed information which showed the conflicts among the natives and the emigrees, and poor environmental conditions. By 1854, The Provincial Freeman called for "colored philanthropists of the United States to come over and lend a hand to reform the abuses of Liberia, and to elevate the race.' And in one letter (among many from Liberia observers) during this time gave an account of the mistreatment suffered by the native Liberians at the hands of the African American emigrants.12 Founded in 1816, the work of the American Colonization Society was the effort to ensure the success of its Liberian project, and this work was prominently reported in African American newspapers. There were also reports of plans to colonized free and enslaved Africans that specifically mention sending them to either Hayti (Haiti) or Jamaica. They also reported on the development of private and state colonization efforts

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which collaborated with the American Colonization Society. This was the case in New Jersey when an emigration resolution was passed. While The Colored American printed the resolution offering emigration, they did so with the warning: "But we forbear. The eye of God is upon these wicked men, and let the EYES of every colored man in the nation, and especially in the state of New Jersey, BE UPON THEM."13 African American newspapers published official organization documents and propaganda related to Liberia produced by the American Colonization Society to "lend a friendly ear to their expositions, reserving, however, the liberty of judging ultimately for ourselves.' Liberian emigration application guidelines were reprinted in the newspapers. In Freedom's Journal, the American Colonization Society's guidelines included that, "applicants to be able to furnish satisfactory testimonials of good character, to present proof of freedom, and to offer the affidavit of one or more white persons, before a justice of the peace, of the applicant having resided in this state during the last twelve months at least."15 These guidelines were specific to free Africans who wanted to emigrate from Norfolk, Virginia (the ship's point of departure) and . While the advertising efforts of the American Colonization Society was aggressive at times, African American newspapers scrutinized and railed their efforts. The Colored American, in 1838, absolved men of good will associated with the American Colonization Society, but emphatically stated that, "The whole scheme is one of deception-founded in prejudice and prosecuted in falsehood."16 Ten years later, The North Star found that it could not uphold any work of the colonists of Liberia because of their origins through the American Colonization Society. They described the society "as ill-designing as it has been unsuccessful in the attempt to carry out these designs."" Missionarianism the spreading of the Gospel of Christianity-to the native Liberians and the repatriated Africans was a major aspect of the colonization process. Along with white clergymen and women, many of formerly enslaved Africans emigrants to Liberia assumed the role of missionary to the indigenous population. However, missionary work was fraught with conflict from the very beginning of the founding of Liberia. Missionaries had conflicts with the Liberian government, the native Liberian people, the repatriated Africans, and other missionary groups. In 1841 The Colored American reported on one of the conflicts with the missionaries, resulting in the call for an expulsion of the missionaries by force if necessary.18 The missionaries themselves reported, through letters, articles, and other recorded observations, their work in Liberia, the social climate among people, the folkways of indigenous peoples, etc. A large body of knowledge from the missionaries' perspective included consistently damaging interpretations of the Africans in Liberia (native and emigrant), and which supported

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beliefs of the uneducable nature of African people. African American newspapers printed some of these observations, but also provided commentary on the obvious racial bias. The papers recognized how these stories, many of which they assert were exaggerated, upheld the current notions ofwhite civilization, while at the same time cast Africans as divinely unfortunate and warring.19In addition to missionary interpretations of African culture and civilization, the missionaries discussed the social relations between the "natives and emigrees." The Provincial Freeman reprinted a summary of letters from missionaries which detail a war between the colonists and the native Liberians. According to the report, "Thirty-seven American houses and much property have been destroyed and twenty-eight lives been lost. All missionary and business matters were at a stand."' The missionaries also reported that slavery existed in Liberia. One missionary woman wrote in 1851 that, "I have heard it said, here, that there have been slaves shipped out of the colony within the last year. And many emancipated slaves have died from the effects of climate, and the want of the means of support."21 In the same report, another woman resident of Liberia related that the colonists and the owned slaves; that slaves could be purchased for material items as well as money; that the slaves were treated badly to the point ofphysical abuse; and that their position in society was the lowest.22 Even further, the obstacles to effective missionary work in the founding of Liberia were many. In another example from The Christian Recorder, missionary work was hindered by the practice of polygamy in Liberia. The report asserted that the Africans would probably embrace Christianity better but they feared the loss of their wives. The church proceeded to set up criteria which would make some exceptions to monogamy in order to convert more Africans to Christianity.' By 1861 The Christian Recorder reported on the continuing struggle to convert Liberians to Christianity and surmised that a "general pacification" was eventually "consummated."24Butnot all of the African American newspapers agreed with missionarianism in Liberia. Some of the criticism had to do with the ways in which missionaries operated, never with the need for providing a Christian identity among the natives. The North Star reprinted the sentiments here by noting the "clumsy" way in which Africans in Liberia were being Christianized. But the piece in question also indicted the effort by asserting that it was an attempt to Christianize Liberians "by exposing her (Africa) and her children to the slave-traders for three centuries."25 As Liberia struggled to become a nation, African American newspapers were vigilant. Despite their largely anti-colonization stance, the papers were also committed to the prospects of an independent black republic on the African continent. It was heralded as "one of the most remarkable phenomena of modern times" by the New York

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Journal of Commerce.26 A large portion of news from African American papers was concerned with the recognition of the Republic of Liberia. The National Era reported on England and France's recognition of Liberia within he context of the American government's failure to acknowledge the nation.' With the added recognition of Liberia by Prussia and Belgium, the Frederick Douglass Paper reprinted: "Why is it that our own Government has not acted on this important subject? The founders and officers of the young African Commonwealth have gone out from our midst, they have modeled their laws and institutions after those of the country they left, and yet the mother still virtually refused to acknowledge her loving and dutiful child!"28Part ofthe answer to this question lay in the multiple roles and allegiances of President Roberts, who was lambasted by The North Star as "a fawning servilian to the negro-hating Colonizationists"29 who presumedly manipulated Roberts, ensuring his failure in truly representing Liberia as a republic, particularly in the eyes of the United States. Finally, African American newspapers reported on the finances of the Republic of Liberia generally detailing its expenditures and liabilities.' The idea of education was critical to both Africans in the United States, native Liberians, and those who emigrated to Liberia. But the issue of education was tied to the racist perceptions of African intelligence in the United States. Therefore, education was largely directed toward the repatriated Africans; and a large portion of the educational efforts were delivered through the work of missionaries. The idea that people of African decent were innately inferior to whites was ingrained in the national psyche: "Colored men are generally placed lowest in the scale of intellectual beings, but with what reason we are unable to divine. It is a fact that nine-tenths of the negro race is in a state of

savage ignorance . ."31Therefore, antebellum African American newspapers were quick to report on the educational attainments of African Americans, particularly those associated with Liberia. For example, The North Star related the story of an African American who, coming from Liberia in 1846, was denied admittance into a Massachusetts medical school. He eventually gained entrance and graduated as a medical doctor. The article concludes, "He is said to be well skilled in the science of medicine, and by his gentlemanly conduct has proved to the world that color is but matter - that mind makes the man."32 These stories were extremely popular for their value in debunking the various pro-slavery and pro-colonization arguments used against free and enslaved Africans. Yet Africans still needed to prove their "temperance, industry, purity and intelligence. "33 Another line of reporting included the numerous pieces citing efforts to organize institutions of higher . In 1848 The North Star reported, "A citizen of Mississippi has left $100,000 for the establishment of a college in Liberia,

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Africa."' It is clear that not all were supportive of the efforts towards education in Liberia. The Frederick Douglass Paper reported that donations for education in Liberia was "indignantly sent back." The editorial feeling was that slave holders were only interested in the removal of free Africans, not any type of educational attainments among them.35 Liberia was a colonizing project with many intentions, and which manifested other alternate designs. However, even the African officials of Liberia did not escape the necessity of others to marvel over their demonstration of leadership and intelligence. In 1862 The Christian Recorder reported on the positive progress of Liberia, noting that on one occasion, "The President of Liberia, his Cabinet, and the members of the Legislature, attended. The Hon. B. J. Drayton delivered an able oration, and ex-President J.J. Roberts, and Rev. E. W. Bryden, Professor in the College, followed with inaugural addresses. These are all colored men, many of whom were once slaves in the United States."36 The liberation of African people in the United States was a complex affair. The momentum of the Liberia project rested on the direct emancipation of enslaved Africans for colonization. This was often referred to as "emancipation and colonization." The main criticism of African American newspapers, and the reason that the work of the American Colonization Society was largely referred to as a massive scheme, had to with the fact that freedom from slavery carried no equal rights. For the hundreds of slaves who were freed during this period of colonization, most were freed only if they would agree to go to Liberia. Since emancipation was contingent upon the removal of Africans, most slave-holding states indicated an interest in or a support of emancipation and emigration to Liberia. It solved moral problems as well by attempting to demonstrate a willingness to grant freedom to an oppressed people. At the same time, it solved a great problem of the threat of free and enslaved African people. Most African American newspapers believed that colonization was nothing more than the organized (and some asserted that it was the dis-organized) removal of African people from the United States.37 The thrust of the movement being so great, "that the shareholders are releasing their slaves, faster than the means are obtained for their transportation to Liberia."38 The interest of slave states was considerable as many rushed to adopt measures to address the issue of colonization to Liberia. As many states' Black Codes became more restrictive on free Africans and mixed race people, it allowed for the serious examination of emigration to Liberia or elsewhere. The Maryland legislature of 1831 adopted an act disallowing free Africans and mixed raced persons to enter the state; while stipulating that whites could come and go with or without black and mixed race slaves. These people were under the threat of enslavement if they disobeyed, and their

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children would be enslaved under a contract with a specified number of years of servitude. But the legislation made clear that: "this act shall not be constructed to interfere with the provisions of the several acts of Assembly in favor of free people of color visiting Liberia, Trinidad, British Guiana, or other Colonies."39In another Maryland initiative, The National Era focused on the first session of the Thirty-First Congress noting the "Deficiency bill" which called for $200,000 for the emigration of free Africans to Liberia.' By 1851, the new state constitution of Indiana continued the harsh adaptation of the Black Codes, also allowing for colonization to Liberia.' The Tennessee legislature followed suit by introducing a bill attempting to make all free Africans emigrate to Liberia.42 African American newspapers responded vigorously to the state's efforts to promote and support colonization to Liberia. However, they were placed in the difficult position of denouncing colonization, and at the same time upholding the rights of Africans in American to be self-determining in the face of inordinate oppression. The National Era responded to the New York Tribune's admonition to African Americans that they were in a weak position, unable to resist colonization. The National Era noted: "Let the Tribune, if it choose, do all it can to persuade colored people to colonize Jamaica, or , or Liberia, but in Heaven's name let it not use its influence to embolden the enemies of the colored man to proscribe and persecute him, and to overwhelm him with dismay and despair. What he needs is, encouragement and defense; their inhumanity should be rebuked and resisted "43 In many ways colonization to Liberia was a test of will between the states of the United States, with their support of the American Colonization Society, and the desires for self-determination among free and enslaved African Americans. While African Americans were encouraged to "turn their faces to Africa' they were leery of their prospects of surviving in west Africa, but almost certain that their chances for survival in the United States were bleak. Hundreds of African Americans left the United States from many ports in ships bound for Liberia, and African American newspapers never missed an opportunity to record their departure. The Frederick Douglas Paper in 1851 noted the departure from Baltimore of one hundred free people; a Cincinnati, Ohio woman freed some twenty-eight slaves for Liberia"; and about fifty slaves traveling through Washington, D.C. on their way to embarkation in Baltimore were "recently manumitted" "on condition of their emigration to Liberia."'" Most of these immigrants were impressed into emigration; and a good number subject to conditional freedom as a part of a slaveholder's last will in testament. There was a report of an African woman refusing to emigrate to Liberia upon embarkation and was returned to slavery." In

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another case, a Virginia slaveholder left a will requesting that his slaves be freed to live in one of the free states. His family appealed this, requesting their emigration to Liberia.' In a similar contest, nearly one hundred slaves were freed by will with the right to remain on their plantation or to go to a free state. The relatives challenged the will, but the slaves rights were upheld. One response to this was, "There are a few, however,

who think that a will which provides for the emancipation of slaves . . . is quite conclusive proof of the insanity of the testator. These slaves, who have just become free by the justice and humanity of Mr. Ragland, will be removed, as soon as practicable, to some free State of this Union, or to Liberia."' The statement belies the sentiment of the slaveholding states and the consensus regarding the status of African Americans in the United States. Slaveholders and philanthropists were willing to provide funds to pay for the expenses of emigration to Liberia. That the option existed for even more prominent slave holders such as Thomas Jefferson (who considered emancipation with deportation in the late 1700s) is addressed by Finkelman in his work Slavery and the Founders. On Jefferson's decision not to free his slaves for the Liberia project, Finkelman observes:

". . . Jefferson had the option of sending his manumitted slaves to Liberia. Hundreds, even thousands, of Jefferson's fellow Virginians took advantage of the 1782 law, the openness of neighboring jurisdictions, or the American Colonization Society to free their slaves. That Jefferson failed to do so is not a function of the laws of Virginia but rather of his own hatred of free blacks, his utter inability to understand the humanity of his slaves, and his un restrained spending habits."' However, several reports appeared on the individual estates and wills of white citizens which included specific funds set aside for the Liberia project. In 1850, one slaveholder upon his death, provided for $5,000.00 to help to emigrate one hundred and sixty-four African Americans.' Another $4,260.00 was raised in 1854 to emigrate more than fifty enslaved and free persons to Liberia. The Provincial Freeman in 1854 reprinted the sentiments of The National Era noting the speed at which the funds were raised. The article reminded white citizens of the doctrine of "manifest destiny" and their awareness of issues of white racial purity. In a caustic and curious view of miscegenation, the Provincial Freeman noted that, if whites "are so concerned about the purity of Anglo-Saxon blood, so anxious that it shall not become contaminated, to look up the census reports, and otherwise institute a careful inquiry, to ascertain whether their Southern brethren although ranking with the

whites, should not properly be given their true place among the colored people . . . ."53 The assertion that some whites, especially those of southern slaveholder states, may have even minute portions of African ancestry was founded in the miscegenation practices.

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Yet, state legislatures did not make special allowances for mixed raced individuals-either free or enslaved. Regarding the issue of emancipation and colonization, there is an example from St. Louis of an unrestricted emancipation of enslaved Africans. The National Era reported in 1853 that, "All the members of the Unitarian Society in St. Louis who were slave holders, have lately emancipated their slaves unconditionally, without banishment to Liberia or anywhere else."54 Notwithstanding this isolated, example, and the direct confrontation of African Americans to the issue, the social climate was clear: if emigration could be nationally enforced, then it would be locally. And despite the pressure on free Africans to emigrate to Liberia, many chose to stay and confront the United States on the issues of racism, equality and democracy. Many of those who left for Liberia were well aware of the hazards of emigration for Africans. There were reports from Monrovia of deaths of emigrants' from problems with the ships, difficult ocean voyages, and disease. News from Liberia circulated in the United States often included reports of captured slave ships containing hundreds of enslaved Africans.' An ironic aspect of it all, but certainly in keeping with issues regarding access to ships, many of the same vessels used to carry enslaved Africans are also used to transport Africans for emigration to Liberia.57 From the very beginning of the Liberia project there were concerted debates over whether people of African descent, born in the United States, should be for or against colonization to Liberia. More than just a romantic optimism of a homeland they could only fantasize about, African people responded to the Liberia project as an issue of black repatriation, as opposed to white colonization. It was an empowering notion, that in the midst ofthe slaveocracy, there might be the potential of those Africans in America to be truly free and self-governing. One enslaved woman who bought her own freedom purportedly left $50.00 to the American Colonization society.58 Others extolled the virtues of emigration while detailing the contradictions of democracy and equality in America. Of emigration, a Thomas Brown wrote in 1837, "I feel myself a MAN among men. "59 Brown soon changed his mind having suffered personal losses in Liberia and was castigated for talking about the problems.6° Included in these feelings about colonization, white citizens responded in writing in their own newspapers and publications; and they responded to the writings contained in African American newspapers. In a letter to the editors of The North Star in 1849, one author felt that he was "misdignifying" himself by writing to blacks; however, he encouraged colonization to Liberia. This author, who felt challenged by the stance of The North Star reminded Frederick Douglass:

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Could your obtuse faculties and dim perceptions never-grasp hold of what is obvious to all white men of mind, that you (even if attempting the work) could not controvert my points? Ah Frederick, you have not yet been put where powerful arguments were unyieldingly in contention; you have not had yet, in any master mind, an opponent who would contest with you every inch of ground, and leave you finally

subdued . . . I would advise you as a friend to go to Liberia, and to urge your free colored brethren to this course. In the long run, stopping in

America can do the colored race no good . . . Strive to have a good, mild, amiable heart; and knowing your place, act as one conscious that

God's (Christ's) decree is forever for the beast . . . .61

For many Africans who favored colonization, their attitude was one of pragmatic resolution. Frequently, delegations of free African Americans met to discuss the issue. Often, citing the brutality and harsh nature of the Black Codes, and the persistence of slavery, they resolved that emigration to Liberia or elsewhere was the only real solution. Emigrationism contributed to a feeling of equality born out of always having the reality of being in imminent danger ofretaliation-especially for organizing activities. In 1852 the Frederick Douglass Paper reported on a delegation of free Africans who met to determine a resolution on emigration. The group, who were under the vigilance of the local police, resolved in favor of colonization to Liberia as their only way, noting that "their condition, both socially and politically, is worse now than twenty years ago."' The opposition to emigration to Liberia was fierce. It certainly afforded African Americans an opportunity to further address the issue of enslavement from another angle. For the large part, African American newspapers printed materials that were decidedly against the colonization of Liberia. Sharing the views of the free Africans in the United States, the newspapers ran stories about the various meetings, conventions, delegations and their ultimate resolutions. In 1827, a group made up of African American females made the determination against Liberian colonization citing concerns over climate, and the feelings that the work was rooted in the deception of removing free people to solidify the institution of enslavement.' Africans were detailed in their analysis of the colonization effort. They were also against colonization because of the ongoing debate over the meaning of democracy in America. In addition, they were very concerned that what was often described as a "missionary" effort was indeed a ruse.64 One of the significant points about the materials published by African American newspapers with reference to colonization was that they were adamant about the

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unwillingness of many free Africans to leave the United States. In the article "A Point Settled," the author states: "We are not willing to live, nor will we live, as inferiors to our white brethren, in anything, with which good morals, industrious habits, or cultivated intellects have to do. - Nor will we ever rest content, until our beloved AMERICA is

emancipated from every vestige of slavery and of unhallowed prejudice . . . ."65 Peter Williams, head of the St. Phillips Episcopal Church in New York, believed that the claims of voluntary emigration for free Africans to Liberia was propaganda. Williams, in a Fourth-of-July speech noted: "They profess to have no other object in view than the colonizing of the free people of colour on the coast of Africa, with their own consent; but if our homes are made so uncomfortable that we cannot continue in them, or, if like our brethren of Ohio and New Orleans, we are driven from them, and no other door is open to receive us but Africa, our removal there will be anything but voluntary. "66 Thus, while free African pro-emigrationists saw the harsh social conditions as an impetus to go, Williams saw the oppression of free Africans as the deliberate catalyst to force their removal. Anti-emigrationists often contextualized their desire to remain in the United States with the need to fight for an end to slavery. For example, in an 1840 letter to The National Era, the author clearly sees the plans for emigration to Liberia as a tool to assist the slave holder67 not an instrument to impart equality to African people. Some of the most damaging material reported by the African American newspapers demonstrating their disapproval for colonization to Liberia has to do with the work, and the perceived aims of the American Colonization Society. One article states that "the Liberian Colonization scheme is a gross fraud and imposture."68 Over time, African Americans took the position that the society had lied, not only about their ultimate goals of colonization (which they never trusted), but that they routinely fabricated information to induce Africans to emigrate. This view allowed for the Liberian project to be routinely referred to in the literature as "the twin-sister of slavery. "69 Many prominent African Americans addressed the question of colonization to Liberia. The words of Bishop Allen, David Walker and John Mercer Langston all contributed to the anti-colonization debate. Richard Allen, Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is heard through Freedom's Journal in 1827. Allen changed his views on the colonization to Liberia because he believed that Africans were not prepared for such an effort; and that they possessed a clear African and American identity." He was also concerned about the contradiction of removing free Africans while maintaining slavery. He believed that, "Africans have made fortunes for thousands, who are yet unwilling to part with their services; but the free must be sent away, and those who remain must be slaves?"71David Walker was more concerned about the issue of unity among the African

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American community in the United States. In a speech before the "General Colored Association" in Boston, Walker emphasized the same issues of unity as in the document which has come to be known as David Walker's Appeal.72 Like the Appeal which appeared a year after his address in Boston, Walker was more concerned about the issues of preparedness among African Americans, as well as the issue of allowing whites of good will to work on their behalf. According to Walker, the African must aspire to

national unity and be "resolved to aid and assist each other .. . ."73John Mercer Langston was against colonization to Liberia, but in 1852 he expressed a desire for emigration to some other part of the United States. While the Frederick Douglass Paper disagreed with Langston's assertions, Langston was concerned about the future existence of Africans in America as a distinct people-the very issue of Africanity.74 The newspaper was pleased with Langston's anti-colonization stance, but took great pains to respond to his ideas on the "absorbing and extinguishing" of the African race. His expressions of pro-African American nationalism was a very different concern among those reported on in the antebellum African American newspapers. Despite the anti-colonization efforts of African Americans, Liberia was a colony to be reckoned with. It still had potential to be what Africans in the diaspora wanted it to be; even though many refused to support the American Colonization Society's efforts. Finally, it is well documented that in total, a small number of emigrees to Liberia managed the difficult task of returning back to the United States. Electronic information technology will continue to inspire our imagination with the ongoing development of on-line knowledge systems, which is particularly significant for African diaspora studies. The challenge to this newest form of scholarship encompasses the opportunity for tremendous growth and global access to sources. As in the case of Accessible Archives, African American newspapers of the antebellum period provide abundant information on the issue of colonization in Liberia. The information contained within these articles reveal several important categories for further investigation into Liberian history. The categories include: (1) the emigrees to Liberia; (2) the work of the American Colonization Society; (3) missionarianism; (4) Liberia as a nation; (5) concerns over education; (6) the direct emancipation of enslaved Africans for colonization; and (7) the concerted debates over colonization. Colonization involved a complex set of cognitive, organizational, economic and social processes. As Asante has noted, "To engage in a discussion about white supremacy is to employ a term used by whites to legitimize white control over others or to speak about the control

exercised by whites over others since the 1600s. . . . Accompanying the political and economic 'successes' of colonization was the seeming capitulation of other people's

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cultures to that of the European."' Free Africans addressed the attendant issues of colonization in their active efforts to realize freedom, justice and equality. African American leaders, writers and educators of the time-like David Walker, Martin Delaney, Frederick Douglass, Richard Allen, John Mercer Langston, and many others-provided severe critiques of colonization and white supremacy. While there are many views on the colonization of Liberia, early African American newspapers give us an important historical glimpse into the events, attitudes, beliefs and the strong sense of agency among Africans in America and the diaspora.

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ENDNOTES

This article is based on African American new electronic newspaper sources.

2 For, example, see The Booker T. Washington Papers Online at the University of Illinois Press (February 23, 2001).

3 This article is limited to African American antebellum newspapers' on colonization and emigration to Liberia; it does not provide the white-dominated American Colonization Society's perspective, nor the historiography of Liberia. For the details of these aspects of Liberian history, see these works: Henry N. Sherwood, "Early Negro Deportation Projects," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 2 (1916), pp. 484-495; Amos J. Beyan, The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900 (Lanham, 1991); "The American Background of Recurrent Themes in the Political History of Liberia," Liberian Studies

Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1994), pp. 20-40; Tom W. Shick, Behold the Promised Land: A History ofAfro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth Century Liberia (Baltimore, 1980); Katherine Harris, African and American Values: Liberia and West Africa (Lanham, 1985); Phil Sigler, "The Attitude of Free Blacks Toward Emigration to Liberia," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University, 1969); Philip Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865 (New York, 1961); and Lawrence J. Friedman, "Purifying the White Man's Country," Societas, Vol. 6 (1976), pp. 1-24. 4 See Accessible Archives. . 5For example, "A Slave Catechism" was published in the Frederick Douglass' Paper, June 2, 1854. 6 "Emigrants to Liberia." Freedom's Journal. February 14, 1829, (February 19, 2001). ' "Liberia." The North Star. October 6, 1848, (February 19, 2001). "Mrs. Margaret See." The North Star. July 27, 1849, (February 19, 2001). 9 "Liberia." Freedom's Journal. February 14, 1829, (February 19, 2001).

10 "From Liberia." The Colored American. October 2, 1841, (February 19, 2001).

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11"Liberia." Provincial Freeman. December 16, 1854, (February 19, 2001).

12 "In Liberia." Provincial Freeman. December 9, 1854, (February 19, 2001).

13 "Look for Persecution." The Colored American. July 21, 1838, (February 19, 2001).

14 "For the Freedom's Journal. American Colonization Society. No. III." Freedom 's Journal. September 28, 1827, (February 19, 2001).

15 "Expedition to Liberia." Freedom's Journal. January 9, 1829, (February 19, 2001).

16 "The Chief of Sinners." The Colored American. January 20, 1838, (February 19, 2001). " "Republic of Liberia." The North Star. August 21,1848, (February 19, 2001).

18 "War in Liberia Between the Government and the Missionaries!!" The Colored American. May 15, 1841, (February 19, 2001).

19 "An African's Idea of the Creation of Man." The North Star. September 8, 1848, (February 19, 2001). 20 "War in Liberia." Provincial Freeman. April 25, 1857, (February 19, 2001). 21"From the Christian Press. Liberia." Frederick Douglass Paper. October 29, 1852, (February 19, 2001).

22 "From the Christian Press. Liberia." Frederick Douglass Paper. October 29, 1852, (February 19, 2001). 23 "Polygamy. - The Liberia Christian Advocate says." The Christian Recorder. June 15, 1861, (February 19, 2001).

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"Power of A Colony. - Bishop Payne, describing a visit to Cape Mount, states." The Christian Recorder. April 6, 1861, (February 19, 2001).

25 The North Star., April 13, 1849, (February 19, 2001).

26 "Liberia." The National Era. March 23, 1848, (February 19, 2001).

27 "Recognition of the Liberian Republic." The National Era.. December 14, 1848, (February 19, 2001).

28 "Liberia NOT RECOGNIZED." Frederick Douglass Paper. April 1, 1852, (February 19, 2001).

29 "Liberia." The North Star. March 2, 1849, (February 19, 2001). 3° For an example, see "Finances of Liberia." The Christian Recorder. March 30, 1861, (February 19, 2001). 31"The Christian Statesman, one of the most liberal of Colonization papers, thus speaks of the capacity of colored people. Ed. Era." The National Era. November 6, 1851, (February 19, 2001).

32 "A Colored Graduate." The North Star. February 18, 1848, (February 19, 2001).

33 "The Colored Young Men of Our City." Frederick Douglass Paper. December 3, 1852, (February 19, 2001). 3a "College in Africa." The North Star. October 27, 1848, (February 19, 2001).

35 "They Hate the Light." Frederick Douglass Paper. October 30, 1851 (February 19, 2001).

36 "The Affairs of Liberia." The Christian Recorder. April 26, 1862, (February 19, 2001).

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37 "Emancipation and Colonization." Freedom's Journal. January 2, 1829, (February 19, 2001). 38 "Emancipation and Colonization." Freedom's Journal. January 2, 1829, (February 19, 2001).

39 "Oppressive Law of Maryland." The Colored American. May 30, 1840, (February 19, 2001). See also the Maryland Act of 1831, Chapter 323, "An Act Relating to Free

Negroes and Slaves," Sections 1 through 8. 40 "Congress." The National Era. March 28, 1850, (February 19, 2001).

41 "Proscription of Colored People." The National Era. February 13, 1851, (February 19, 2001). 42 Provincial Freeman. December 29, 1855, (February 19, 2001).

43 "Worth Considering." The National Era. September 4, 1851, (February 19, 2001). 44 "Colonization." The National Era. July 6, 1848, (February 19, 2001).

45 Frederick Douglass Paper. November 13, 1851, (February 19, 2001). 46 "Slaves Liberated." Frederick Douglass Paper. February 19, 1852, (February 19, 2001).

47 "For Liberia." The National Era. November 13, 1851, (February 19, 2001).

48 "For Africa." The Colored American. August 24,1839, (February 19, 2001).

49 "Slaves Freed." Frederick Douglass Paper. September 24, 1852, (February 19, 2001).

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5° "Emancipation of Ninety Slaves." The National Era. September 18, 1851, (February 19, 2001).

51 Finkelman, Paul. Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996, pp. 161-162. 52 "Negroes for Liberia." The North Star. March 1, 1850, (February 19, 2001).

53 "Slaves Liberated." Provincial Freeman. October 14, 1854, (February 19, 2001). ' The National Era. July 14, 1853, (February 19, 2001).

55 "Liberia." The Colored American. October 24, 1840, (February 19, 2001). 56 "Slavers Captured." The North Star. March 10, 1848, (February 19, 2001). 57 "Liberia." The Colored American. December 26, 1840, (February 19, 2001).

58 Freedom's Journal. January 31, 1829, (February 19, 2001).

59 "Thomas C. Brown." The Colored American. July 15, 1837, (February 19, 2001). 60 "Thomas C. Brown." The Colored American. July 15, 1837, (February 19, 2001); see also "For the Colored American." The Colored American. December 8, 1838, (February 19, 2001).

61 "Folly of Our Adversaries." The North Star. January 5, 1849, (February 19, 2001). 62 "Colored Convention Mobbed." Frederick Douglass Paper. August 6, 1852, (February 19, 2001).

63 "To the Senior Editor, No. III." Freedom's Journal. August 17, 1827, (February

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19, 2001); see also "Opposition to Haytien Emigration." The Christian Recorder. November 30, 1861, (February 19, 2001).

64 "For The Freedom's Journal." Freedom's Journal. September 7, 1827, (February 19, 2001).

65 "A Point Settled." The Colored American. February 16, 1839, (February 19, 2001).

66 Woodson, Carter G. Negro Orators and Their Orations. Washington, D.C.: Association Publishers, 1925, pp. 79-81. 67 "For the National Era." The National Era. December 2, 1847, (February 19, 2001).

68 "Liberian Colonization." The North Star. September 8, 1848, (February 19, 2001).

69 "Colonization. - Sailing of the Liberia Packet." The North Star. September 14, 1849, (February 19, 2001). 70 Henretta, James. "Richard Allen and African-American Identity." The Early America Review, Spring 1997. (December 13, 1999).

71 "Letter From Bishop Allen." Freedom's Journal. November 2, 1827, (February 19, 2001).

72 See Walker's Appeal in Four Articles, Together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular and very Expressly to those of the United States of America, (1829) which can be found abridged and in its entirety in many anthologies and documentary history books, including Molefi Kete Asante and Abu S. Abarry's African Intellectual Heritage a Book of Sources. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.

73 "Address." Freedom's Journal. December 19, 1828, (February 19, 2001).

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74 "Great Anti-Colonization Meeting." Frederick Douglass Paper. April 29, 1852, (February 19, 2001).

75 Asante, Molefi Kete. Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, p. 183.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Akpan, M. B. (1973) "Black Imperialism: Americo-Liberian Rule over the African Peoples of Liberia, 1841-1964," Canadian Journal of African Studies. 7 (2): 217-236. Aptheker, Herbert (ed) (1965) One Continual Cry: David Walker's Appeal, Its Setting, and Its Meaning. New York: Humanities Press. Asante, Molefi Kete and Abu S. Abarry (1996) African Intellectual Heritage a Book of Sources. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Asante, Molefi Kete. (1992) Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press. Beyan, Amos J. (1994) "The American Background of Recurrent Themes in the Political

History of Liberia." Liberian Studies Journal. Vol. 19, No. 1 (20-40). (1991) The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900. Lanham, Md: University Press of America. Delany, Martin (1968) The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People. Salem, N.H.: Ayer Co., 1968. Finkelman, Paul. (1996) Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Higgs, Edward (ed.) (1998) History and Electronic Artefacts. New York: Oxford University Press. McCrank, Lawrence J. (2000) Historical Information Science: An Emerging Unidiscipline. Medford, N.J.: Information Today. Redkey, Edwin (1969) Black Exodus: Black Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890-1910. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Shick, Tom W. (1971) "A Quantitative Analysis of Liberian Colonization from 1820 to 1843 with Special Reference to Morality."Journal ofAfrican History. 12: 45- 59.

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Trinkle, Dennis A. (ed) (1998) Writing, Teaching, and Researching History in the Electronic Age: Historians and Computers. Armonk, N.Y.; M. E. Sharpe. Woodson, Carter G. (1925) Negro Orators and Their Orations. Washington, D.C.: Association Publishers.

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Yekutiel Gershoni*

The ideals upon which Liberia was based aimed to establish in the country a modern Christian state based on Western values-a state in which black settlers, known as Americo-Liberians, would spread the gospel among the Africans and integrate them into the political, economic and social life of the state. The reality, however, was fax from those ideals. The first and the second Republics in Liberia practiced segregation and were each ruled by a minority group. By analyzing the political history of Liberia, from its beginning as a colony established by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1822 to the end of the Civil War in 1997, this article will try to identify the causes which made the concept of minority rule the main value in Liberian political life.

IMPLEMENTING THE IDEALS The motives that underlay the founding of Liberia in 1822 and the establishment of trade centers and colonies by the European powers were somewhat different. While the latter was for commercial gain and from political considerations, the founding fathers of Liberia emphasized altruistic motives and Christian ideals. The settlement envisioned by the ACS on the west coast of Africa was to be based on the Western model of society which, on the one hand, would serve as asylum for all blacks residing in the United States, and on the other, would bring about the regeneration of the entire African continent by spreading Christianity and Western values among the Africans so that they would become productive citizens in the modern state. Rev. Samuel J. Mills and Rev. Ebenezer Burgess, the two agents sent by the ACS in 1818 to locate a suitable place on the African coast for the settlement of free blacks from the United States, referred in their official report to the society to the task of regeneration.

`Dr. Yekutiel Gershoni is a leading Israeli Liberianist. He is the current President of the Liberian Studies Association and the Chair of the History Department of Tel Aviv University in . Dr. Gershoni has published substantially on nineteenth century Liberia.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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. . . The altars on these mountains, which the natives had dedicated to devils, are falling before the temples of the living God, like the image of Dagon before the ark. The time is coming when the dwellers in these vales, and on these mountains, will sing hosannahs to the Son of David. Distant tribes will learn their song. Ethiopia will stretch forth her hands unto God, and worship.'

These ideals served as spiritual guidelines for the black settlers, who established the colony, and the society's agents, who were in charge of the colony. Several plans were formulated to implement the ideals. The first and most obvious was the plan to spread Christianity and Western education. In 1827, Jehudi Ashmun, the ACS agent who headed settlement from 1822 to 1828, planned a network of Christian schools among the settlements established by the black settlers, and in the African villages.2 This endeavor continued after the colony gained its independence in 1847 and became the Liberian Republic. In 1861, during the administration of President Stephen Allen Benson (1856-1863), a plan to establish a school network in all counties of the black Republic was formulated.3 In addition, the leaders of the Republic welcomed and supported the efforts of the various missions to spread Christian education in Liberia. However, the plans never materialized because of a lack of finances, qualified teachers and administrative staff. Another plan for fulfilling the goals of the founding fathers was to establish "civilized" settlements inhabited by black immigrants in areas where Africans were concentrated. The idea behind this was that "civilized" settlements would radiate Christianity and Western values. In 1857 and again in 1869, it was decided to establish a chain of "civilized" settlements in the hinterland. The Liberian Government asked the ACS to provide financial support while taking upon itself the task of organizing and training groups of settlers to move into the settlements.4 Only three successful settlements were established: Careysburg, east of Monrovia, which was founded in 1857; and Brewersville and Arthington up the St. Paul River, both founded in 1869. Neither the ACS nor the Liberian Government were in a position to finance or organize large numbers of new settlements. In addition, as we will see later, the migration of blacks from the New World was meager and unstable. Thus, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Liberian authorities failed to set up even a single settlement, and the plan was abandoned.

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The failure of the black settlers to "export" Christianity and Western values to the African population forced them to find other ways and means of achieving their aim. Realizing the difficulties involved in putting the founding fathers' ideals into practice, the leaders of the Republic decided to implement their initiatives step by step. Thus, it was decided to "co-opt" Africans into the Republic's political system in order to acquaint them with and integrate them into the Western ways of government and administration. To this end, on February 4, 1874, it was decided that ethnic groups residing in the coastal area would be allowed to send two representatives to act as "referees and advisers" in the Legislature in Monrovia. In addition to the geographical limitation to the coastal area only, the scope of these referees' power was also restricted to advising in matters concerning their own ethnic groups. Moreover, they were denied voting rights.' The attempt to grant the Africans limited legislative representation was combined with another attempt to establish Liberian authority in the hinterland. In 1868 and again in 1874, Benjamin J.K. Anderson, a government official, headed delegations to the hinterland with a two-fold aim: the first, establishing a Liberian presence among the various ethnic groups in the hinterland; and the second, encouraging trade relations with the African chiefdoms in the Savannah.6 The positive results of Anderson's delegations and the participation of the African referees from the coastal area in the Legislature encouraged the Americo-Liberian leaders to extend and expand African participation in the political life of the Republic. In 1881, it was decided that ethnic groups residing in the hinterland would be allowed to send representatives to Monrovia. These representatives were entitled to vote although only on matters pertaining to their own .' This new endeavor was successful, mainly because it was not dependent on substantial financial resources, or trained and skilled manpower. The limited participation of Africans in the Legislature might have served as an efficient tool for spreading Christianity and Western values to the African population and integrating them into the political and social activities of the Republic. However, in 1884, the Americo-Liberians themselves decided to put an end to the representation of ethnic groups in the Legislature. There were two reasons for their decision. The first concerned the extension of Liberian political authority. The leaders of the Republic had believed that the participation of Africans in the Legislature would be proof, at least defacto if not de jure, of the African ethnic groups' acceptance of the Republic's authority, mainly those residing in the

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hinterland. However, African leaders did not interpret their participation in the Republic's political life in this way and preserved their political independence. The second reason concerned the Americo-Liberians' fear that with the active participation of Africans, who represented a majority in the country, in the political and social life of the Republic, the Americo-Liberians might be overrun by the Africans. Mc Cants Stewart, a prominent Liberian political figure of the 1880s, expressed that fear when he declared: The intention is to give the native element ever larger representation in the future than in the past, going as far as practicable in the matter. Of course, to grant general representation, that is in proportion to numbers, would be to subjugate the Americo-Liberian civilization to native paganism and Mohammedanism.8

ATTRACTING IMMIGRANTS FROM THE NEW WORLD The Americo-Liberians were unable to put into practice the ideals on which the Republic was created, mainly because they remained a minority in the Republic they had established. At the end of the nineteenth century, the black settlers numbered less than 25,000.9 There was a desperate shortage, particularly of educated, skilled and industrious immigrants, as declared by President Daniel Bashiel Warner (1864-1867): "The need of this infant state of an intelligent and industrious immigration is urgent and obvious."' Therefore, the Americo-Liberians embarked on an all-out campaign to encourage the immigration of as many blacks as possible from the New World. The plan of bringing new settlers was initiated by (1832-1912), a renowned scholar, politician and statesman. In order to persuade Africans from the New World, mainly from the United States, to come to Africa, Blyden created the Providential Design Theory in the late 1880s. This theory was based on the Christian interpretation of history, whereby Providence directs the course of human events. Blyden, an ordained Presbyterian minister, held that Divine sanction was the root of the slavery of the Africans, like the Israelites before them. Attributing the slave trade to God's Will enabled Blyden to argue that the long years in bondage had important benefits. Africans emerged from the horrors of slavery strengthened and purified, he contended: "Slavery would seem to be a strange school in which to preserve a people; but God has a way of salting as well as

purifying by fire." 11 In fact, he claimed that slavery, with all its hardships and agonies, provided the blacks in the New World with the opportunity to absorb Christianity and to obtain a Western education in the arts and sciences. "The slave

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trade was regarded as a great means of civilizing the blacks-a kind of missionary institution," and moreover, that during their time as slaves, Africans were "not only indoctrinated into the principles of Christianity, but they were taught the arts and sciences."12 The logical conclusion was that these skills would enable the Africans' descendants in the New World to put into practice the ideals upon which Liberia was established. In order to justify the Americo-Liberian demand that American blacks uproot en masse and come to Africa to help restore the continent, Blyden emphasized that the extraordinary achievements of blacks in the New World were the product of God's Will, not human effort. Christianity, education, and technological know-how had been "deposited" in the hands of the Africans' descendants in the New World, mainly in America, to be used not for their own material gain, but for the advancement of their brethren in Africa in the great task of building a great black nation.13 In his endeavors to encourage New World blacks to come to Africa, Blyden crossed the Atlantic to America several times and made a dramatic call: "Two hundred millions of people have sent me on an errand of invitation to their blood relations here. Their cry is, 'Come over and help us.' "14 The urgent call to New World blacks to come to Liberia can be better understood against the background of events which took place in Europe. In the 1870s, Italy and Germany were created as nation-states unified along racial lines. This spurred the Americo-Liberian leadership to redouble its efforts to implement the ideals of the Republic's forefathers. Despite the efforts to generate mass immigration of New World blacks, the Providential Design Theory barely progressed beyond academic discussion. All attempts to translate theoretical conceptions into reality were doomed to failure because of the ideological dependence on the New World blacks, and particularly African Americans. The Americo-Liberians could not proceed without the arrival of their brethren from the New World, and few New World blacks had any inclination to leave their homes and migrate en masse to Africa. Thus, the Americo-Liberians were unable to settle the territories in the hinterland and they could not create a viable political entity in the Republic. That inability was clearly demonstrated by the failure to establish a line of "civilized" settlements in 1884, in the area between the Cavalla and San Pedro rivers. The Liberian Government had established the Department of the Interior "to push on

our work vigorously into the interior . . ." 15 In addition, the government officially requested that the ACS send more immigrants to live in the new settlements, and at

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the same time, the Liberian Secretary of State, Ernest J. Barclay (c. 1847-1894), asked for financial aid from the U.S. Government:6 However, that initiative met a similar fate to the previous ones. Financial support was not forthcoming; blacks from the New World were not willing to emigrate; and Liberia lacked the material and financial resources to carry out a plan for large-scale settlement.

FROM CULTURAL TO POLITICAL DISCRIMINATION At the end of the nineteenth century, the leaders of the Republic faced a gloomy reality. In addition to the failure of the various initiatives which were taken by the Americo-Liberians in order to realize the forefathers' ideals, the black Republic was a fragile and weak state, and not economically viable. Agriculture was undeveloped; the attempt to produce export crops was never realized; and the Republic lacked capital and economic investment. In the face of this reality, a decision had to be taken regarding the socio- political future of the Republic. It was decided to reduce de facto the size of the Republic to a narrow strip along the coast, where the government would be able to exercise its authority. This area was referred to as the "Constitutional Zone," and the Liberian constitution and judiciary were valid in that area alone. The size of the "Constitutional Zone" was dictated by several factors: the first, the concentration of Americo-Liberian settlements; the second, the recognized international boundaries between Liberia and its colonial neighbors at that time; and the third, the area in which the Liberian Government could effectively employ its police and militia. As a result of these considerations, the "Constitutional Zone" was an area 40 miles wide, extending from Cape Mount in the northwest to in the southeast. It is certain that the self-imposed reduction of its de facto border was a result of the internal state of affairs and not a consequence of external diplomatic or military pressure. Even in that relatively contained strip of land, the Americo-Liberian Government was not able to exercise its authority. Thus, the enforcement of law was sporadic, and levies and customs were only collected from the indigenous population in those places where government authority was present-namely, the Americo- Liberian settlements and the official ports of entry." The Americo-Liberians realized that even in the "Constitutional Zone" they remained a minority which would not be able to put into practice the ideal of a state based on Christianity and Western values in the manner which the Republic's forefathers had envisioned. Therefore, they confined that ideal to include only their own community. Africans who resided in the

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"Constitutional Zone" were deprived of participation in the political, cultural and social spheres of the modern state. They were never granted automatic citizenship. Africans who wanted to enjoy civil and political rights had to fulfill several criteria, such as proof that connections with their tradition, religion and way of life had been severed and total acceptance of Christianity and the Americo-Liberian way of life had been shown.18 Within the confines of the "Constitutional Zone" the Liberian Government faced difficulties in exercising its control. The 40-mile line represented the limits of the Republic's economic and political capabilities. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, the Liberian Government retained a large measure of flexibility and maneuverability that enabled it to pursue an independent policy-a policy which reflected the real extent of the Republic's capabilities. Inside the "Constitutional Zone," Liberia was a sovereign state, and despite all the difficulties, it maintained its own institutions and was internationally recognized. Finding the balance between economic and political capability and the reality of the situation still left a major hurdle: the Americo-Liberians' apprehension that they would be overrun by the African majority. In order to overcome that obstacle, the Americo-Liberians added to the already-existing cultural discrimination by imposing political discrimination as well. While it is true that Africans had been politically discriminated against before the territorial reduction, the ACS agents and the Americo-Liberian leaders had previously regarded that discrimination as a temporary phenomenon, a situation that they were obligated to change. The territorial concentration inaugurated a new era in Liberian history. It heralded the departure of the Americo-Liberians from the ideals upon which the Republic was based. In addition, as will be seen later, it laid the foundation upon which the concept of minority rule was developed. From the end of the nineteenth century, the main issue with which the Americo-Liberian leaders had to cope was surviving in power.

EXTENDING CONTROL AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MINORITY RULE Liberia's ability to decide the extent of its political sovereignty stemmed from the fact that its colonial neighbors, Britain and France, were at that time not interested in the hinterland.19 However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the situation changed completely when France and Britain extended their respective spheres of influence into the hinterlands in their colonies bordering Liberia. The scramble for the hinterland was initiated not by the Republic of Liberia, but by its colonial neighbors. Since 1882, France had been at war with the African

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ruler, Samori Toure, who had established his state in what is now territory belonging to Guinea and the Cote d'Ivoire. The war brought French units into territories in the hinterland which Liberia claimed to be its own. In 1904, a French contingent occupied the Trans Makona area in northeastern Liberia, an area which, according to the 1892 border convention between the two countries, belonged to the black Republic. The French justified their occupation by claiming that the Republic did not follow the principle of effective occupation, a resolution of the Berlin Conference (1884-1885).2° From its inception, the term effective occupation became the Americo-Liber- ian leadership's nightmare. In 1892, Liberia was already forced to surrender to France the area between the Cava lla and San Pedro rivers because it was not able to exercise effective occupation in the region. Over the next twelve years, Liberia became even more fragile politically and economically, and the task of exercising effective occupation over the vast area of the hinterland beyond the "Constitutional Zone" seemed to be far beyond its capabilities. The American diplomatic representative in Monrovia described Liberia's political and economic

shortcomings: ". . . practically Liberians have neither coast nor interior; except in spots on the 'surface' here and there where you may find a civilized settlement in the

territory . . .21 Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that the Liberian Secretary of State, Ernest Barclay, compared the acceptance of the Berlin Conference resolutions to committing suicide.' Liberia tried to resist being bound to the principle of effective occupation and launched an all-out diplomatic campaign against the Berlin Conference resolutions. In a letter to the U.S. resident in Monrovia, the Liberian Secretary of State claimed:

Liberia is neither a European Power, nor a signatory of the decision of the Berlin Conference; she was not invited to assist in those deliberations and is therefore not bound by its decisions, and further those decisions refer to further acquisitions of African territory by European Powers and not to the present possessions or future acquisitions of an African state.23

The Liberian government likened the situation to biased judicial proceedings, claiming:

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. . . the conduct of certain powers, signatories of the Berlin Conference who are now taking active steps to force us into a Court

in which the other side . . . will be a party, and also both Judge and Jury.24

The strong opposition to the Berlin Conference resolutions may be seen as an irony of history. The concept of effective occupation was already an integral part of the ideals upon which Liberia was based. Spreading Christian education, Western values and establishing "civilized" settlements constituted the practice of effective occupation long before the term was accepted as a guiding principle at the Berlin Conference. Moreover, the concept was not inconsistent with the Americo-Liberian political ideology. On the contrary, the black settlers' descendants fully identified with the term. However, the Republic lacked the material resources and skilled manpower to transform the concept into a reality. Thus, it was material shortages, and not ideological principles, that were behind the diplomatic campaign against the Berlin Conference resolutions. However, that campaign bore no fruit. Britain and France insisted that in order to retain the territories in the hinterland, Liberia had to implement effective occupation, and consequently, the Republic had no choice other than to accept the terms dictated by the colonial powers. In order to bridge the gap between Liberia's limited capabilities and the goal of establishing effective occupation in the hinterland, the Republic had to rely heavily on extensive foreign aid in the realms of finance, skilled manpower and diplomatic support. Between 1900 and 1926, several agreements were signed with foreign countries and financial institutions. In 1901, an agreement was signed with Great Britain in which Britain undertook to assist Liberia both physically and financially in the demarcation of the Republic's borders; to provide experts to reform the Republic's customs collecting system; and to guide and assist Liberia whenever requested.' Five years later, a loan agreement was signed with the D' erlanger Brothers company of London which granted a loan of f100,000 to the black Republic.26 In 1907, another agreement was signed between Liberia and Great Britain under which two British experts, W. I. Lamont and Major Robert Mackay Cadell, were sent to Monrovia-the former as financial advisor, responsible for reforms in the customs collection system, and the latter, to establish and command a standing army-the Liberia Frontier Force (LFF).27 While the British aid enabled Liberia to allocate funds to finance the administrative structure in the hinterland, and the establishment of a standing army

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provided the Liberian Government with an effective physical force, the foreign aid also brought with it undesirable consequences. Major Cadell abused his position of power and in February 1909, attempted to overthrow the Liberian Government.28 Although the rebellion failed, the whole process of establishing control over the hinterland was placed in jeopardy. It was obvious that the Republic would no longer allow the presence of the British experts. Nevertheless, the goal of controlling the hinterland could not be realized without foreign aid. Liberia decided to turn to the United States for help in overcoming this problem. In May 1912, three American officers came to Liberia to command and train the LFF, and a U.S. military attaché, Major Charles Young, undertook the preparation of a training program for the force.29 Between 1916 and 1918, five Americans were appointed as District Commissioners in the hinterland administration, and one of them, T.C. Mitchell, was appointed Commissioner General.' In 1912, an international banking consortium loaned the republic $1.7 million. An international receivership, headed by American experts, was established to control the loan repayments.31 In 1921, President Charles Dunbar Burgess King (1920-1930) made an unsuccessful trip to Washington, D.C. to discuss a Liberian request for further financial aid. Five years later, President King's administration signed an agreement with the Firestone Rubber Company, an American private enterprise. According to the agreement, Firestone invested $20 million in a rubber plantation and the rubber industry in Liberia. In addition, the company loaned $5 million to Liberia on condition that Firestone would control the Liberian customs and taxes to ensure the loan repayments.32 With the foreign aid and the presence of foreign experts, Liberia successfully completed the process of establishing effective occupation over the hinterland. The conclusion of the border demarcation in 1928 marked the end of the scramble for the hinterland. Liberia was secure within internationally recognized borders. However, the internal situation in the Republic was far from secure. Although from 1921, the hinterland administration was transferred from American hands to Liberian officials, the LFF continued to be trained and financed by Americans. In addition, the Liberian economy was placed in the hands of foreign companies, and the two principal Liberian exports, rubber and iron ore, were controlled by foreign companies. Firestone established itself as the main economic force in Liberia, overseeing the finance administration and the rubber industry, setting up a bank-the first of its kind at the time-and a trading company which sold a wide range of goods, from food to heavy machinery and from household articles

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to cars. Other foreign enterprises established themselves in the mining of the iron ore deposits in Bomi Hills and Nimba. These companies were Republic Steel of America, which started operating in 1951, and the consortium of American and Swedish companies, Liberian Swedish American Mining Company (LAMCO), which started operations in 1963.33 Another consequence of completing the mission of effective occupation of the hinterland was the increase in the political vulnerability of the Americo-Liberian minority. The Americo-Liberian leadership was aware of the fact that the size of its

community had not grown considerably since the 1 870s. Moreover, as a result of extending control over the hinterland, which consisted two-thirds of Liberian territory and more than three-quarters of the people in the republic, the number of Africans grew considerably. Thus, the Americo-Liberians became an even smaller minority in the midst of the Africans. At that juncture, there was no way to repeat the self-imposed territorial reduction implemented at the end of the nineteenth century. A different political solution had to be found in order to cope with the reality faced by the Republic from the beginning of the twentieth century. The political solution decided upon by the Americo-Liberians was the adoption of the model of indirect rule used by the British in neighboring Sierra Leone. The advantage of that system was that it was economical and easy to enforce with few skilled personnel.' After the Americo-Liberians had successfully established their rule over the whole hinterland and gained administrative experience, the French model of direct rule was adopted. Liberia was divided into two administrative areas: the coastal strip (the former "Constitutional Zone"), which was divided into six counties, and the hinterland, which was divided into five districts and ruled by a colonial-like administration.' This partition was modeled on the existing divisions in the British and French colonies. The British territories-Sierra Leone, Gold Coast and Nigeria-were sub-divided into two administrative parts: colony and protectorate. The former comprised the coastal strip, which was ruled according to the British judicial system; and the latter, the hinterland, which was subject to the colonial code of law. In Senegal, the French divided the coastal strip into four communes, in which French law prevailed, and the hinterland, which was subject to the colonial code of law-the indigenat.36 In Liberia, the adoption of the colonial-like administration killed two birds with one stone. It enabled effective control over the hinterland and its people; and, at the same time, it allowed the Americo-Liberian minority to keep its privileged political position.

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By imposing colonial-like rule over the hinterland, the Americo-Liberians were able to secure their minority rule, thus effectively dealing with the growing apprehension that they would be swamped by the African majority. However, that choice marked the final departure of the Americo-Liberians from the ideals upon which the Republic was based. It entailed the descendants of the black settlers turning their backs on the forefathers' ideals. It also inaugurated a new phenomenon: political "trade-in." The Americo-Liberians "traded in" ideology for political advantage. They "traded in" the ideals upon which the Republic was based for ad hoc political security. The inauguration of that phenomenon had far-reaching consequences for the future of the socio-political structure of the Republic. From that point on, the minority would use the tactic of political "trade-in" as a means of surviving in power, and the need of the minority to survive in power would become the raison d' etre of the Liberian Government in the first and second Republics.

MINORITY RULE TAKES A FIRM HOLD During the colonial period, the division and the segregation imposed by the Americo-Liberians over the African majority was an accepted procedure in the international community, and the settlers' descendants were able to firmly retain their socio-political supremacy. The leaders of the Republic not only justified the colonial-like rule practiced in the hinterland, but emphasized the advantages of the Liberian system over that implemented by the colonial powers. Thus, when President C.D.B. King received complaints from African chiefs and headsmen regarding heavy government demands and harsh treatment, he reminded the African leaders that their obligations were similar to the ones imposed on Africans in other territories and claimed that the administrative system existing in the Liberian hinterland had an advantage over that of the colonial territories because in the adjacent colonies the administrators were all white, while in Liberia they were black, "as black as any tribal person-their brethren." 37 With the end of colonialism and the beginning of the decolonization period, a new socio-political order emerged in Africa and in the world. The political power was transferred from the colonial governments to the hands of the indigenous leadership. That transfer of power posed a threat to the Americo-Liberian minority government. It was obvious that the colonial-like administration could no longer serve as a means of maintaining minority rule. On the other hand, this time, unlike during the colonial period, Liberia could not imitate the colonial powers and give up political control. Furthermore, the Republic had no option other than to find its place

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in the emerging new order. To that end, the Americo-Liberian leadership was obliged to re-evaluate its internal and external policies. Liberia had to create a situation in which it would be accepted as an equal member in the new political order of African independent states in the continent, while at the same time retaining the Americo- Liberian socio-political control in the country. With this goal in mind, in 1944, President William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman (1944-1971) implemented the Unification Policy which ostensibly aimed to break down the barriers between the Americo-Liberians and the African Liberians. Suffrage and civil rights were granted to the Africans in the hinterland. The colonial- like division of the hinterland was abolished, along with titles borrowed from the British colonial vocabulary, such as District Commissioner and Province Governor. Liberia was redivided into nine counties, each headed by superintendents, and each county had the right to send two representatives to the Legislature.38 To the world in general, and to the new African nations in particular, the Unification Policy seemed to be a parallel process to decolonization, and as a consequence, Liberia was accepted as an equal member among the new states in Africa. However, in reality, these changes were cosmetic in nature. The Americo- Liberians held onto their privileged positions and prevented the Africans from full participation in the political system. For instance, during the administrative redivision of the country, the hinterland, where the majority of the Africans resided. was divided into four counties, while the coastal strip, where the Americo-Liberians were concentrated, was divided into five counties. That simple tactic permitted the Americo-Liberians to maintain a majority in the Legislature." In addition, the Americo-Liberians kept all key positions in the administration and the government. Thus, the political system continued to be dominated by the True Whig Party, the standard-bearer of the Americo-Liberians from 1878. In order to cover up the continued political segregation of the Africans, the Americo-Liberians again used the "trade-in" tactic. This time, they traded cultural values for political power. African traditions and customs, which the black settlers' descendants had rejected, re-emerged and assumed a place of importance. The folklore of African ethnic groups became a subject for academic research, and traditional secret societies-previously forbidden to practice-became legal. Tubman, the Head of State, added traditional titles to his presidential title, and African- American officials changed their Christian names to African names. Furthermore, holidays and festivals which commemorated the settlers' victories over Africans were downplayed to discreet and modest celebration, or dropped altogether.°

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The cultural "trade-in" lost its appeal in the last years of Tubman's presidency, and more specifically during the term of his successor, William Richard Tolbert, Jr. (1971-1980). The Unification Policy generated political awareness among the Africans, and this resulted in the establishment of political movements during the first half of the 1970s, two of the most powerful being the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) and the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL). These movements demanded full participation of Africans in the political and economic spheres. The demand for radical political change reached its peak on April 14, 1979 when the Americo-Liberian Government was almost overthrown by a mass demonstration which deteriorated into riots (the Rice Riots). This time, in order to retain political and economic superiority, the Americo-Liberians "traded" socio-

economic development. In the words of President Tolbert, ". . . my experience in Government has caused me to reach the unmistakable conclusion that the problems of Liberia are socio-economic in nature."'" From his first year in office, Tolbert put forward a plan for economic and social reform.' The aim of that plan was to divert the Africans' attention from asserting their political rights. The Americo-Liberians hoped that the socio-economic reforms would achieve the same results as the cultural changes initiated by President Tubman. The concept of minority rule was so entrenched in the minds of the Americo- Liberians that even after the unprecedented event of the Rice Riots, they were not prepared to relinquish their privileged political and cultural position. The special presidential address, delivered three weeks after the riots, detailed ten decisions that the Tolbert Government was to implement, and none related to the political sphere.

Instead, Tolbert reiterated his plan for improving ". . . schools, roads, hospitals and such basic infrastructural facilities as water systems, electricity and communications."43 Tolbert's plan resembled the British colonial program at the end of World War II for vast socio-economic development in the British colonies as an effective means to counter the growing national feelings and the demand for political independence. However, the British soon learned that it was not possible to trade socio-economic reform for political hegemony and therefore abandoned their program and accorded political recognition to the various African national movements. The Americo-Liberians, on the other hand, were incapable of assessing the situation realistically and thus, did not learn the lesson that political power was not a "commodity" to be traded. Their uncompromising attitude toward political

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change resulted in the bloody coup d'etat of , 1980, which brought the Americo-Liberian minority rule to an abrupt end. With the ousting of the oppressing Americo-Liberian minority, the Second Republic aimed to promote the African Liberian majority, comprising 16 different ethnic groups, their traditions and values. Another goal was the creation of national unity in a nation state. Despite the attempt of the new military government to present the Second Republic as totally different from its predecessor, the new rulers soon found themselves in a similar situation to the Americo-Liberians-namely, with a contradiction between their goals and reality. Promoting the traditions and values of the 16 ethnic groups clashed with the ideal of a nation state. As in the First Republic, the contradiction between ideals and reality led to the establishment of minority rule in the Second Republic. The stalemate resulting from that contradiction stopped the Liberian "Revolution" in its tracks. All that remained of the slogan, "In the cause of the people, the struggle continues," was the struggle. It was not a struggle for social welfare, civil rights and a democratic system, but a power struggle between the various factions of the military junta which ruled the country. Head of State Samuel K. Doe (1980-1990) emerged triumphant and exercised authoritarian minority rule, supported by his own ethnic group, the Krahn. Although both the Americo-Liberians and the Krahn were groups which exercised minority rule, their paths to power were very different. The Americo-Liberians had emerged as a powerful minority as a result of a long evolutionary process during which they had succeeded in establishing a cultural and political infrastructure and a sense of unity among its members. Despite their entrenched position as a privileged minority, they nevertheless allowed Africans to join their ranks, albeit on an individual basis. By contrast, the Krahn was one of the smallest and least developed ethnic groups in the country, located in the southeast part of Liberia, and the were catapulted into their position of power as a result of the military takeover. The Krahn minority rule was heavily dependent on the power of the state because unlike the Americo-Liberians, who had "commodities," such as the forefathers' ideals, cultural values and a socioeconomic development plan to trade for political hegemony, the Krahn minority had nothing to trade. They used their power to curtail political and civil rights and the political freedom of the opposition parties. Thus, political life in the Second Republic was characterized by aggression, oppression and violence. The lack of "commodities" and the heavy reliance on oppression and violence resulted in violent counter-reactions. In 1985, a military coup almost

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toppled Doe's government, and five years later, a rebellion broke out in the eastern part of the Republic which escalated into the Civil War that lasted for seven years. The self-imposed concentration into the "Constitutional Zone" could be seen as the first step on the road to minority rule. Liberia's participation in the scramble for the hinterland and the imposing of effective occupation over the people of the interior ruled out any future possibility of implementing the ideals upon which the Republic was based. Retaining political power in the hands of the minority became the main goal. To that end, the ruling minority used the tactics of "trade-in" and violence. In 1997, free multi-party elections were held for the first time under international supervision, and these elections brought Charles Taylor to power. The harsh lesson learned from the system of minority rule, which dominated Liberian political reality in both the first and the second Republics and led to violent coups d'etat and the bloody Civil War, might serve as a catalyst for a new political ideology. Only the future will tell if Liberia has learned the bitter lessons of its violent path and will henceforth travel along a different political road, thus opening a new chapter in Liberian history.

ENDNOTES ' Archibald Alexander, A History of Colonization of the Western Coast of Africa. (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 101. 2 J. Ashmun, "Latest from Liberia," African Repository III, 6 (1827): 10.

3 Liberia adopted the administrative division which was prevalent in the United States. Thus, the Republic was divided into counties: In 1904, there were eight; in 1964, nine; and in 1984, thirteen. "Message of the President of Liberia, December 5, 1862," African Repository XXXIX, 3 (1863): 77. 4Liberian Herald, VII, 2 (January 5, 1857, and March 5, 1857). Jane Martin Jackson, "The Dual Legacy: Government Authority and Mission Influence Among the Glebo of Eastern Liberia, 1834-1910," Ph.D. dissertation (Boston University, 1968) p. 307.

6 Benjamin J.K. Anderson, Journeys to Musadu. (London: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1971), pp. 5, 28-29, 39-42. Jane Martin, Ph.D. dissertation, p. 308.

8 Thomas McCants Stewart, Liberia: The Americo-African Republic. (New York: Edward Jenkins' Sons, 1886), p. 62. Accurate numbers of black immigrants to Liberia are not available. J. Gus Liebenow estimated that the Americo-Liberians made up 5 percent of the population. J.

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Gus Liebenow, Liberia: The Quest for Democracy (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 3. I° "Annual Message of President Warner, December 6, 1864," African Repository XLI, 3 (1865): 75. II Edward W. Blyden, The African Problem and Other Discourses, Delivered in America in 1890. (London: W.B. Whittingham, 1890), pp. 1, 11. 'Quoted in V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention ofAfrica: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 98.

13 Edward W. Blyden, "Ethiopia Stretching Out Her Hands Unto God: or Africa's Service to the World," In Gideon-Cyrus M. Mutiso and S.W. Rohio, eds., Readings in African Political Thought ( London: Heinemann, 1975), pp. 6-7.

14 Edward W. Blyden, The African Problem and Other Discourses, Delivered in America in 1890, p. 2.

15 Charles H. Huberich, The Political and Legislative History of Liberia, 1847-1944, II, (New York: Central Book Co., 1947), p. 1224.

16 E.M. Barclay to U.S. Minister Resident A. Hopkins, March 16, 1886, Enclosure to Hopkins to Assistant Secretary of State James D. Porter, May 1, 1886, No. 16, all in Dispatches of U.S. Ministers to Liberia, September 2, 1882 - August 18, 1889, Vol. 4. U.S. Federal Archives, Washington, D.C. J.L. Morris to Howard, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Liberia, 1910-1929 (RECORDS), June 18, 1918.

18 , The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia: Tragedy and Challenge, (, Calif.: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press, 1992), p. 207.

19 This was not the case along the coastal strip where serious border disputes ensued. The dispute with Britain was solved in 1885, when the Mano River was agreed upon as the border between Liberia and the British colony of Sierra Leone. In 1892, the Cavalla River was established as the border with French Cote d'Ivoire, solving the dispute with France. 20 Extrait du rapport politique de la Colonie de Ia Guinee Francaise en septembre 1904, 7F 32, Frontiere franco-liberienne (Guinee) 1898-1904, Archives Nationales, Paris.

21 Taylor to the President of the U.S., received November 11, 1887, p. 33, in Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to Dept. of State, May 4, 1885 - January 29, 1892, Vol. 10.

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22 E.J. Barclay to Charles H.J. Taylor, U.S. Minister Resident and Consul General, June 8, 1887, in Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to Dept. of State, May 4, 1885 - January 29, 1892, Vol. 10.

23 Barclay to Taylor, DISPATCHES, June 8, 1887, Vol. 10, No. 12, enclosure. 24 E.J. Barclay to C.H.J. Taylor, U.S. Minister Resident and Consul General, U.S. Legation Monrovia, September 2, 1887, No. 12, in Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to Dept. of State, 4 May 1885-29 January 1892. 25 Draft Memorandum of Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the Government of the Liberian Republic (received from Foreign Office, August 31, 1901), Colonial Office 897/90, Public Records Office, London. 26 George W. Brown The Economic History ofLiberia, (Washington, .D.C: The Associated Press, 1941), p. 164. 27Ibid., p. 166.

28 David Michael Foley, "British Policy Towards Liberia, 1862-1912," Ph.D. thesis. (London: University of London, 1965), p. 313. 29 Young to Bundy, October 9, 1912, War College Division, General Staff, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 30 "Annual Message of President Howard, December 20, 1917," In Annual Messages, Messages, and Inaugural Addresses of Liberia's Presidents, 1848-1 929, p. 8.

31 S. Augustu P. Horton, Liberia's Underdevelopment-In Spite of the Struggle. (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1994), p. 26. 32Ibid., pp. 26, 27.

33 George W. Brown, The Economic History ofLiberia, p. 197, and S. Augustu P. Horton, Liberia's Underdevelopment-In Spite of the Struggle, pp. 26-28. 34 " For a detailed description for the indirect rule administration see Amos Sawyer, The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia: Tragedy and Challenge, p. 198-201. 35Yekutiel Gershoni, Black Colonialism-The Americo-Liberian Scramblefor the Hinterland. (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 58-59.

36 J.F.A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder, "West Africa 1919-1939: The Colonial Situation," In J.F.A Ajayi and Michael Crowder, eds., History of West Africa Volume Two. (London: Longman, 1974), pp. 523-524, and Sheldon Geller, "The Colonial Era," In Phyllis M. Martin and Patrick O'Meara, eds., Africa, Third Edition. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 149.

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37 Hannah Abeodu Bowen Jones, "The Struggle for Political and Cultural Unification in Liberia, 1847-1930," Ph.D. dissertation. (, 1962), pp. 250-251.

38 Gabriel Fungal°, "Tubman is Fulfilled of R.L. Unification," The Listener 15, 65. (29 July 1964): 1-2.

39 G. Liebenow, "Liberia," in James S. Coleman and C. Rosberg, Jr., eds., Political Parties and National Integration in Africa, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), p. 454. 4° Lawrence A. Marinelli, The New Liberia: A Historical and Political Survey. (New York and London: Raeger Publishers, 1964), pp. 67, 71, and Yakutiel Gershoni, "Liberia's Unification Policy and Decolonization in Africa: A Parallel Process," Asian and African Studies Journal of the Israel Oriental Society 16, 2. (July 1982), p. 252.

41 President , Jr., "Address to the People of the Republic of Liberia, May 5, 1979," Liberian Studies Journal XXIV, 2, (1999), p. 14. 42 "President Tolbert on the Policy of his Administration, Nationwide Broadcast, September 10, 1971," Republic of Liberia Presidential Papers: Documents, Diary and Record of Activities of the Chief Executive, First Year of the Administration of President William R. Tolbert, Jr., July 23, 1971-July 31, 1972, Monrovia: Executive Mansion, ND), pp. 152-162. 43 President William Tolbert, Jr.. "Address to the People of the Republic of Liberia, May 5, 1979," Liberian Studies Journal XXIV, 2, (1999), p. 14.

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Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa

Lamin Sanneh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. 291 pp.

The study discusses the attempts to abolish the transatlantic slave trade in West Africa. Sierra Leone, established by the British in 1787, and Liberia commenced by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1822, are presented as attempts at abolition of the trade. The theme of the study is that Westernized Africans such as Olaudah Equiano and Samuel Crowther who had been victims of the slave trade collaborated with British and American evangelists and humanitarians to support the colonization of blacks from the diaspora in West Africa. The author maintains that although they had attempted to promote Christianity in Africa earlier, Europeans were unsuccessful, because the religion they tried to promote was doctrinal; and besides, the attempt was made through indigenous rulers whose traditions differed from those of Europeans. It is argued that the second approach, which included the move to colonize black Americans in West Africa, succeeded because it was evangelical and less doctrinal. The author portrays the establishment of Sierra Leone and Liberia as replacement of slavery and savagery with Christianity, freedom, and enlightenment. There are problems with the above "positive good" argument that was once used by proslavery Americans and European intellectuals, politicians, and theologians to justify the transantlantic slave trade and American slavery. First, the author's description of coastal West African social, political, and economic systems as indigenous, especially since the 1400s, is misleading. West African chiefs like Bibiana Vez, Ya Kumba, Peter Tucker, and N' Damba were not indigenous. Their social backgrounds, which can be traced to the 1400s, were products of European and African interactions. Vez and Tucker were descendants of African women and European men. The population of their group in coastal West Africa was 12,000 in 1750. They served as intermediaries between European enslavers and interior Africans during the peak of the slave trade in the 1700s. Besides, their economic and social values were more reflections of the West than those of West Africa's indigenous social, economic and political arrangements.

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Further, the King of who had accepted Christianity in 1514, turned against his Christian allies not because Christianity was too doctrinal, as the author maintains, rather he acted as he did, because Christianity, that was also associated with European overseas expansion and domination, posed a serious threat to his status. King Nzinga Kuwu of the Congo who was baptized in 1491, acted similarly, because of the foregoing reason. While the British and the Americans viewed their colonization movements as means of abolition of the slave trade, promotion of Christianity and civilization in West Africa, the establishment of Sierra Leone in 1787 and Liberia in 1822 did not end the slave trade. Some 60,000 Africans who included Kissi, Temne, Kpelle, and Loma ethnic groups from Sierra and Liberia were enslaved in America between 1808 and 1861. The trade continued up to the 1880s. Besides, the forced labor system, that was not distinguishable from slavery, was practiced by all the colonial powers in Africa and the African American rulers of Liberia through the 1950s. The "positive good" argument that the author stresses is further contradicted by the deaths of more than 250,000 Liberians caused by that country's civil war in the 1990s, and the one fought in Sierra Leone in 2000 that led to the deaths of thousands of Sierra Leoneans.

Amos J. Beyan Western Michigan University

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Katherine Bankole. Dells low, WV: Nation House Foundation, 2001. 181 pp.

You Left Your Mind in Africa can only be described as "a phenomenal masterpiece." It will be, years from now, what Carter G. Woodson's The Miseducation ofNegro, is today, and African-centered scholars will refer to this work often. Katherine Olukemi Banko le, who has been involved in African American history and race relations for some time, has captured the essence of a major issue faced throughout the Africana community. She has clearly defined the historic behavioral issues encountered by contemporary Africans. The problem is the cycle of self-hatred and the irony manifested by those who are determined, because of the hate they have of self, to turn those of us who love ourselves, into them. The basic premise of this work is that African Americans have historically suffered monumental psychological effects of self-hatred due to the imposition of enslavement, cultural genocide, and racism. Bankole asserts that specific degrees of self-hatred are so pervasive in American society that they can be discerned by language and behavior. She suggests that a major result of generations of Blacks being told that they are inferior, is the development of a "system Negro mentality" whereby, some Africans and African Americans may succumb to an irrational drive to deny or destroy their own heritage and culture based on the implementation of racist social paradigms. Bankole goes further in this work to introduce the concept of a "Negro" profile which supports the self-alienation of African Americans and promotes a desire to degrade the Black community. Bankole's rationale is that western societies are predicated upon racist constructs which will only allow a small number of "acceptable" Blacks to participate. This is important, because these few are used to provide credibility to the contemporary attention to "virtual diversity"-a phenomena in which diversity appears to exist and operate without the necessary substance. This book offers a strong explanation of past and current societal challenges that contribute to self-hate. Bankole covers all ground regarding the language, attitudes and actions of self -hating Negroes. She carefully and consciously outlines many comments and reactions inherent in the self-hatred paradigm, particularly those that occur in racially "mixed company." The chapter on "Truth, Myths and Lies About Race Relations" hits very close to home, as the 45 statements, questions and perspectives

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mirror issues Africans have to deal with in higher education on a regular basis. She presents information in a format that is easy to read and clear to understand. Banko le lays everything out, neat and uncomplicated, yet straightforward, with no room for euphemisms, as she is dedicated to sharing the truth. As we understand, the truth can hurt, yet, it can also set you free. Bankole makes a strong attempt to set us all free. In chapters 14 through 17, Bankole begins the shift from the problem to the solution, as she brilliantly discusses the process of identifying elements of self-respect in and among the Africana community. This book is sound and engaging-it is so refreshing to be reminded that despite the overwhelming incidence of self-hatred among those, who either openly display their pitiful self-image, or attempt to masquerade it, there remains a conscious, collective and caring population ofpeople of African descent who love, embrace, and respect who they are..and whose they are. Bankole, in a sense, reminds us that we do not need permission to love ourselves despite our state of living in what she defines as two "cultural paradoxes." Bankole's observations are no doubt shared by many. She has taken the time and energy to record and formulate what she has witnessed and encountered, into a commanding document for the rest of the world to review. Through her work, she reassures us, members of the conscious Africana community, that we are not alone in our individual encounters with the patterns of self- hatred among Blacks, those who are found in all walks of life, at every institution of higher learning, in every community, in every family, and even in our places of worship. Bankole has produced a thought-provoking collection of essays on the issue of self-hatred and identity formation among African Americans. In an effort to weave her experiences as a historian, Africalogist, and cultural activist, Bankole reveals the disheartening side to the historic drive to assimilate into White American culture. I believe this intensive work is one of the most profound of the New Millennium and will quickly earn its place among other important works on the subject. Bankole has definitely made a contribution that will be constant for generations to come. By diving into the minds of the self-hating Negro, Bankole has taken a giant step towards the first

and most important goal of Africans . . .unity. Racism and racial double standards have left no doubt whatsoever that Africana scholars are at war and Africana scholarship is under attack. This work reminds us that unfortunately, the enemy can look like us, and it is our collective responsibility to embrace our lost brothers and sisters, and help them to find their way home. For if we all had a better understanding of the conditions (historically, psychologically and socially) that cause some of our brothers and sisters to hate self, then we are surely better prepared in our collective efforts to assist them in recovering their minds.

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Bankole's work is instructive and will go far in giving scholars an authentic reference to the issue of Black self-hatred. In addition, the work should be read by students in introductory African American Studies courses. You Left Your Mind in Africa has made an important contribution to historical criticism and Africana Studies. The work represents an expert rendering of traditional history, ethnographic observations, and personal narrative. Certainly this work will generate a deeper, more lucid discourse on the meaning of an African identity in the Americas.

Pamela K. Safisha Nzingha Hill-Traynham University of North Texas

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Edward Lama Wonkeryor, Ella Forbes, James S. Guseh, and George Klay Kieh, Jr. Cherry Hill, N.J.: Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2000. 197+ pp.

Anticipated fruits following forty years of Cold War were tranquility, economic and political stability. In the twenty-first century, these are dreams deferred in many countries. With a focus on Africa, the co-authors of this succinct and informative treatise document the three-decades-old struggle for American style political democracy. Well indexed, the volume provides a list of statistical charts and graphs to aid readers in cross-referencing them with textual material. American Democracy in Africa in the Twenty-First Century? is a collaborative multidisciplinary effort of scholars in Mass Communications, African American Studies, Political Science, International Relations, Law, Political Economy and Public Policy. Studies ofAfrica's political culture have provided a rich canon for academic debate over the years. American Democracy in Africa has several unique qualities, however. Rather than treating the theme as an aberration, the book connects African political culture to political theory. Writers explore the Athenian model of popular participation and the Platonian idea of republicanism or representation. Both concepts excluded vast numbers of residents and condoned forms of bondage (18-19). Importantly, the co-authors present Peter Ekeh's work. He identifies Africa's own, and in some cases more genuine, traditions of democracy with the model of consensus, Council of Elders, communalism, and the components of state, kinship and individual within multiethnic polities (68, 135-137, 139-140, 154-157). Avoiding the customary platitudes on democracy that appear in such works at Gunnar Myrdal's American Dilemma, the co-authors carefully differentiate American mythical democracy of freedom and equality from the actual practice that excluded vast segments of the population, dispossessed original communities of Native Americans from their land and institutionalized human bondage (19-20, 68). This condition came to define the African presence in the Americas. What made the United States different? The co-authors point to the innovation of U:S. liberal republican democracy. In the eighteenth century world of monarchy and feudalism, the system championed voting rights, respect for law, individual rights, free trade, open and free elections, peaceful transfer of power with constitutional limitations

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on the terms of office, a multiparty system, checks and balances to prevent the hegemony of one branch of government over another, and majority rule (18, 80, 91). Central to the book's theme, however, is the connection of Africa's diaspora to this exploration of continental politics. Co-authors state that U.S. perceptions of Africans in America, that is, African Americans, influence perceptions of Africa. These perceptions are formed in media and public policy that defined Africans as not equal humans or not citizens beginning with the 1789 constitution (29, 34-39). Exploring views of Paul Cuffe, Martin Delany, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Malcolm X, and Lanier Guinier, the co-authors cover two centuries of written protests, civil disobedience campaigns, emigration and Pan Africanism. Co-authors analyze the theory of proportional representation and lobby efforts of TransAfrica. African American activism challenged the public policy of visceral segregation (Plessy v Ferguson), lynching and the tyranny of the majority at home and colonialism abroad. American Democracy in Africa asserts that U.S. proclamations on affirmative action in1933 and 1965, Voting Rights, and Civil Rights were passed only when the U.S. image as a bastion of democracy was tarnished before world bodies (49-51, 150). Why U.S. interest in democracy in Africa? The reasons were and are self- interest, access to Africa's vast resources, and in the twenty-first century, 700 million new customers to buy products (161), write the co-authors. The book charts U.S. interest through three phases. The first coincided with the First World War (1914-1918) and the announcement of the Wilsonian policy of self-determination for African people under colonialism. The second wave overlapped the Cold War from the 1950s through the 1980s when the U.S. was a major obstacle toward democratization. For example the U.S. gave economic, military and political support for repressive governments in Kenya, Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan and Zaire (9). During the third wave, currently unfolding, U.S. officials have shifted policy on democratization. The result has been abandonment of client regimes such as Mohamed (Somalia), Samuel Kanyon Doe (Liberia), (Kenya) and (Zaire) (9). Co-authors offer the disclaimer that their goal is to present varying views and indeed they do. Regarding the opportunities of American political democracy, the book accents the two-party system and open political debate. The limitations are also noted in that the two U.S. major parties are sometimes difficult to distinguish. The cost of elections, moreover, prohibits many individuals from becoming candidates.

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American Democracy in Africa notes that the U.S.-based National Endowment of Democracy has been formed to encourage political democracy. But officials continue support of such client regimes as in Egypt- (9). He received $3 billion in economic and military assistance although in the "so-called Presidential Election" in 1999, Mubarak was the only candidate on the ballot (10). Co-authors catalog the examples of African politicians' obsessions with procedural democracy and the U.S. government's mixed record on promoting democracy. Meanwhile, the absence of proportional representation permits European communities in Zimbabwe and South Africa to exert political and economic power in great excess to their relative numbers. South Africa is, nevertheless, viewed as a beacon of democracy and is classified as Free (70, 117, 119, 175-177). The classifications are based on the degree of civil liberties, freedom of the press, association, religion, due

process of law, free and fair elections, on a scale of 1 to 7 devised by Raymond Gastil of Freedom House, published in New York (114, 175) Economic variables also influence political democracy's success according to co-authors. The debt ratio is one of those variables. Writers suggest a reward for democratization might be access to loan capital. This has been withheld from Kenya and Liberia. A greater incentive, however, might be continued negotiations to forgive some of the debt. The William J. Clinton administration has done so in about 20 countries amounting to $1.2 billion in debt (110, 160). Co-author Guseh presents another variable, the size of government and the political economy matrix. A large bureaucracy has a negative impact on economic growth while democratic market institutions result in development of health, education services and higher GDP (113). A bar graph does not tally individual countries, but it depicts stagnate economic activity in the private sector for selected years 1960-1994. Guseh elaborates that the 1973 oil embargo and high costs of this fuel partly explain the economic slowdown (108-199) Other data are used to assess the performance of market economies, mixed and socialist economies (123); Angola and Zimbabwe are identified as poor performing socialist economies. However, Angola, an oil producer, is heavily integrated into the capitalist market economy. This fact and the country's protracted anti-colonial and civil wars might be considered in evaluating Angola's economic performance. The text presents views of Bruce Bartlett and others who champion capitalism, the free market, and privatization. Co-authors balance these arguments providing evidence of tremendous gaps in wealth with profits for a few in capitalist economies (85, 93). Economic statistics used in the book are generated for the most part by the World

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Bank. It would be interesting to compare this with data from such African agencies as the Southern Development Community, ECOWAS or committees of Organization of African Unity. Nevertheless, the statistics are worthy of very careful review. Despite the continental scope of the book, it has particular relevance to scholars of Liberian studies. The co-authors state that Americo Liberians, a divisive term imposed by nineteenth century white American colonizationists, did not follow democratic procedures. Original Liberian communities were ruled through appointed County and District officials rather than popularly elected local officials. A "hegemonic American democracy in Africa" was established (70, 147, 155). Writers might want to probe this statement. How does one explain the implementation of an 1847 Constitution guaranteeing the property rights of women, pre-1900 efforts to merge hinterland, coast and ethnicities versus what has taken place in the 1980s and 1990s? These years are unrivaled in the levels of violent repression during Liberia's modern nationhood (118). Ironies abound. The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) was financed largely by the U.S. and led by the Nigerian military dictatorship to install a parliamentary democracy in Liberia (120). Such African American envoys to Africa as Jesse Jackson have asked the former President Clinton during his trip to Africa to talk with Liberian President Charles Taylor about democratization and ending civil strife. The statistical data provides a mixed record on Liberia's levels of democratic processes. Using the chart on African democracies Liberia has the following ratings: in 1975 PF, in 1980 NF, in 1985 PF, in 1990 NF, in 1995 NF, and in 1997-98 PF (116). The initials PF mean partly free, NF is not free and F is free. In contrast to Liberia, Botswana is the only country with the rating of F for years 1975 to 1998 (175, 179, 180). Another table identifies high level (1.0-2.5), medium level (3.0) and low level (5.5-7.0) of progress towards democratization (175).

Liberia has a rating of 4.5 on a 1 to 7 scale (176). The book unfolds various initiatives of the former President Clinton with emphasis on private investment rather that state-owned enterprises. They numbered about 3,000 in the 1980s (107). Very recent events have revealed some of the problems of private ventures in Liberia. The Oriental Timber Company, a Malaysian and Indonesian venture, logs and ships Liberia's timber. Some reports predict that uncontrolled logging will result in the destruction of Liberia's pristine forests within 10 years (National Public Radio, 4/11/01). American Democracy in Africa raises deep questions about the "rentier state" which Liberia and other countries become essentially renting out natural resources until they are gone rather developing competitive economies of production (124).

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As Africa continues to pursue political democracy, such scholars as Ali Mazrui recommend the formation of a Pan-African Senate of Elders composed of major religious leaders, traditional leaders, women, and intellectuals. The Elders would mediate and resolve ethnic and political conflicts (183,185-186). The need to honor the African Charter on Human Rights cannot be emphasized enough. The open forum offered by Radio Anfani in is an example that other states might follow (145). But American Democracy in Africa does not note an intriguing development towards democratic inclusion which the U.S. has not achieved in its over two-hundred-year history. Cameroon appointed Y. Assitou as Minister of Women's Affairs in the 1980s. Liberia installed a woman, , as President in the 1990s. The wounds to body, soul and psyche suffered over three decades will be tough to heal. The co-authors are, however, committed to the book's theme. Political democracy is indispensable. Emphasis should be on holistic democracy, individual rights and freedom in Africa (8).

Katherine Harris Central Connecticut State University

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor New Publications on or Relevant to Liberia

Gush, James S. "The Political Economy of the Public Sector and Privatization in Liberia," The Journal of African Policy Studies. vol. 5 no. 1, (1999), pp. 67-85.

Bankole, Katherine 0. You Left Your Mind in Africa: Journal ofObservations and Essays on African American Self-Hatred. Dellslow, WV: National House Foundation, 2001.

Wonkeryor, Edward, Ella Fordes, James Guseh, and George Kieh. American Democracy in Africa in the Twenty-First Century. Cherry Hill, N.J.: Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2000.

Ardouin, Claude D. and Emmanuel Arinze, eds. Museums and History in West Africa. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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ULAA Demands Taylor's Resignation`

Editor's Note: Concluding its rally and conference on democracy which brought together hundreds ofLiberians, this past weekend, to the City of Newark, New Jersey, the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA), in collaborations with other Liberian organizations, passed a string of resolutions, which among others, called for the resignation of Charles Taylor as President of Liberia.

"The Conference further resolved that given all of the aforementioned, it determined that to safeguard Liberia from the brink of anarchy, dictatorship, underdevelopment, deprivation and violence, President Charles Taylor should resign as President of the Republic of Liberia."

Challenging Liberians to positive action by putting their money where their mouth is, the conference resolved to establish a democracy fund in preparation for the 2003 .

The conference which followed the rally held in New York, comes on the heels of the United Nations' pending sanctions which are scheduled to be imposed on Liberia by May 7. The Liberian public opinion, both at home and in the Diaspora, is unanimous in their support for sanctions despite arguments to the contrary that sanctions would hurt the "ordinary" Liberians

Below is the full text of the ULAA Resolution:

Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA) Resolutions of the National Conference on Democracy in Liberia

Theme: " Formulating A Strategic Framework For The Democratization of the Liberian Society"

`This document is taken from The Perspective, May 1, 2001(.

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We Liberians residing in the United States, converging under the auspices of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas and hosted by the Liberian Community Association of North Jersey, at a National Conference on Democracy on Liberia on Saturday, April 28, 2001 in Newark, New Jersey, reviewed and examined the current political, economic and social conditions in Liberia since the 1997 special elections.

Liberians expected the elected government to: Maintain peace and security; Economic recovery and regulatory practices; Promote reconciliation and national unity; Professionalize the military and police; Improve education and health-care delivery, and Reform the political process.

During nearly four years of the Taylor presidency, the hopes and aspirations of our Liberian people have been dashed by: Ineptness, incompetence and corruption; Monopoly and lack of financial transparency; High unemployment and lack of investment; Rising ethnic tensions and religious intolerance; Benign neglect of basic services, including health, education, water, electricity, food, etc. Presidential control of the judiciary and legislature; Internal insecurity and regional destabilization, and Domestic repression and self-serving propaganda.

Having identified major impediments to the democratization of the Liberian society under the Taylor Presidency, the Conference resolved that the vision of a democratic and economically developed Liberia entails the following principles and goals:

1. The full participation of the Liberian people in the governance of their country; 2. The adherence to multi-party democracy and tolerance of political opposition; 3. The adherence to the Constitution and rule of law; 4. The independence of all branches of government and adherence to the check and balance system; 5. The provision of equal opportunity for all Liberians;

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6. The improvement of the basic standard of living of all Liberians; 7. The creation and maintenance of employment opportunities through a vibrant private sector and middle class; 8. Accountability in the management of the resources and affairs of the country; 9. Guarantee fundamental human rights and civil liberties; 10. Maintain regional peace and security, particularly good neighborly relationships, and 11. Foster and preserve national unity and integrity, including ethnic harmony and religious tolerance.

The Conference further resolved that given all of the aforementioned, it determined that to safeguard Liberia from the brink of anarchy, dictatorship, underdevelopment, deprivation and violence, President Charles Taylor should resign as President of the Republic of Liberia.

Towards this end the Conference finally resolved to take the following actions: 1. Calls upon all Liberians and members of the international community to fully support the UN Sanctions against the Taylor-led government; 2. Calls upon all international humanitarian organizations to provide material assistance to the Liberian people through local non-governmental organizations; 3. Calls upon all Liberians and their organizations in developing further civic and public relations actions in bringing the plight of the Liberian people to light; 4. Calls upon Liberians in the United States to establish a $1 million democracy fund for voter registration and education for the 2003 elections in Liberia by requesting each Liberian to contribute at least $5.00 to this fund. 5. Calls upon Liberians in the United States to support the establishment of a War Crimes Tribunal to investigate and prosecute all war crimes against humanity during the Civil War.

Done in the City of Newark, New Jersey this 28th Day of April, 2001

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor The Dilemma Posed by the Newsweek Story, "A Big Man in Africa"

William E. Allen-

Jeff Bartholet's "A Big Man in Africa" (Newsweek, 14 May 2001) presents a real dilemma for Africans. The author clearly outlines the shameless corruption and autocracy of President Charles Taylor of Liberia. The information can go a long way in shaping public opinions in Western capitals, which tend to influence foreign policy. This brings me to the problem that I find with Bartholet's article. While it is strong on details, it falls far short on causal explanations. Without an explanation into the causes for the evolution of the "Big Men in Africa," Charles Taylor and his likes are portrayed as a unique African phenomenon. Furthermore, Bartholet's comments (e.g., "penchant for violence") suggest that Africans are inherently a decadent people.

There are instances where Africans should rightly take the blame for the emergence of some of the bloodthirsty dictators that plunder, kill and maim innocent civilians. However, an analysis of some specific cases of corruption and autocracy in Africa will show that Western capitals are just as culpable - if not the actual architects of these evils. For example, Taylor's murderous odyssey to the presidency began, to a large extent, with the 1985 "jailbreak" in the United States. Was the usual routine investigation conducted into how he "escaped" from a Massachusetts prison and went through U.S. airport security (with a Liberian passport?) to somehow "resurface" in Africa and lead the incursion? The fact that Taylor's lawyer (or one of them) was a high-profile, ex-government official, should have inspired Newsweek's "senior writer" to ask the hard questions: e.g., Had Taylor not "escaped" at the time that he did, would the thousands of innocent Liberians he and his gang butchered, still be alive?

Moreover, how did the 1997 elections legitimize Taylor's tyranny, given that Bartholet concedes that "no country was willing to properly disarm fighters ahead of the

This document is taken from The Perspective, May 15, 2001 (.

**William E. Allen is a doctoral candidate at Florida International University.

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vote?" The author writes that Liberians elected Taylor "in part" out of fear. He does not, however, give the "other part" of the reason. Had Bartholet inquired, he would have discovered that the United States and its allies worked hard to stage the "fair and free" election, although Liberians at home and abroad warned against holding the election at the time because Taylor's Reign of Terror gave him an unfair advantage. The pivotal question is why was it necessary to hold the election in such an undemocratic atmosphere (i.e., armed fighters terrorizing citizens)? And Bartholet speaks of the Taylor "blood diamonds" but says nothing of France's role in Taylor's timber trade which is reportedly the conduit for the diamonds. The revenue from both the timber and diamonds helps to maintain local thugs and mercenaries that prey on the innocent, among others. France's reluctance to go along with the UN-sponsored sanctions against Taylor should have raised another "red flag" for the "senior writer." Only time will tell if the final watered-down version, the UN-sponsored "targeted sanctions," will achieve the desired results. I also wonder if the author would refer to an American student who earned B-minus and C (he does not say what Taylor's other grades were) as "well educated?" Or is Taylor well educated because he intersperses his speech with American idioms such as "Where is the beef' and "Don't go there?"

Africa is indeed "littered with Big Men . . . " in the words of the author. But some of these plunderers and murderers are "imports." Could the Savimbis and Mobutus survive as long as they do without the generous assistance from their transatlantic overlords? Had the senior writer probed, he would have noticed that some of the overseas assistance is used to maintain what he calls the "vampire state." How long could the "illiterate," slain former Liberian military dictator, , maintain his ruthless regime without U.S. intelligence and arms? Bartholet does not mention that in 1985 Liberians overwhelmingly elected Jackson Doe in perhaps the nation's first free election and the U.S. State Department congratulated "winner" dictator Samuel Doe, although it admitted there were "irregularities." At the time the U.S. State Department argued that in spite of the irregularities, the election was fair according to "African standards" (whatever that means). The word "irregularities" was actually a euphemism for the glaring election fraud that the dictator had the audacity to commit under the gaze of Western journalists, election monitors from the U.S. and, most significantly, U.S. Ambassador William Swing. Swing's role in solidifying the despotism of Samuel Doe during the early years of the military coup could be the subject for a useful dissertation in political intrigues. During Swing's tenure, "socialist plots" were efficiently uncovered and the "masterminds" routinely imprisoned; a number of the accused were summarily executed

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after "trials".

Bartholet's narrative is the kind of journalism that makes historians chuckle about how journalists often end up being the authors of the first drafts of history. His article contains all the ingredients for a solid inquiry. But for now it remains a rough draft and, perhaps, a good rough draft. However, Bartholet must rework it so that the American public can better understand the evolution of the "Big Men in Africa"; they are as big as Washington and its allies are prepared to bloat them.

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(An Interview)

Editor's Note: Claims and counter claims are not in short supply in the Lofa war between dissident and government forces. The claims and counter claims cannot be confirmed due to the Liberian government's ban on independent coverage of the war. On Friday, May 11, 2001, 1 Wehtee Wion (Director of the New York-based Liberian African News Service, LANS) conducted a satellite telephone interview with Mr. William Nihison, senior political advisor and spokesman of LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy)-an organization that is waging a fierce war in the north of Liberia to oust Liberian President Charles Taylor from power. Below is the full text of the interview:

J. Wehtee Wion: Will you give us [Liberians in North America] an update on the fighting between LURD and government forces?

Mr. William Nihison: As we have repeatedly said to our people that we are only going to have Charles Taylor arrested to prosecute him for war and economic crimes. And as I speak to you now, is being fought over and is divided between our forces

and Taylor's bandits. We have the whole of Lofa County under our control . . . all six political districts in Lofa are under our full control. And we are making sure that the civilian population under our control enjoys peace and security. We also have our men in upper Cape Mount County as well as in . Our fighters are now penetrating deep into the Suehn Mission area by way of Todee and Gbartala in Bong County. We are targeting the triangular terrain that covers Bong, Bomi and Montserrado Counties with our Company C fighters. They are awaiting special instructions from our central military command to begin a full-scale aggression on Monrovia. What we are trying to do is to make sure that we avoid fighting in counties where our forces encounter no resistance. We are not going for anyone but Taylor and his close associates of cronies.

J. Wehtee Wion: War is both propaganda and military science. In Liberia, the government has put a lid on the press. Every story that has to do with the current fighting

This document is taken from The Perspective, May 14, 2001 (.

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must be cleared by the Ministry of Information. In the midst of claims and counter-claims by both government and LURD forces, we don't know who is telling the truth. From your perspective, give us a clear picture of who is actually in control of Zorzor and other nearby towns.

Mr. William Nihison: As I speak to you now, we have our men positioned throughout the entire country. As I said, the entire Lofa and Gbopolu Counties are under the full control of LURD forces. This fellow [Taylor] is a liar and he will continue to lie to the Liberian people until we get to him. He continues to suppress the press and he has made some headways in bribing some people of influence who are associated [with] BBC's Focus On Africa program. This is why our people don't get the actual picture and message of our struggle. We have not taken Monrovia simply because we want to minimize civilian casualties. Taking is no problem to us. We decided to by-pass Gbamga so as to allow civilians who want to use that major highway to do so. We are, therefore, targeting the Suehn Mission area to lay the groundworks for our final push to take him down. Taylor is losing ground gradually and he is therefore paranoid and that is the truth of the matter.

J. Wehtee Wion: A BBC report by Mark Doyle from Monrovia and aired Thursday, May 10, quoted a government medical doctor, Walter Gwenigali as saying that he and other doctors have treated and are caring for hundreds of wounded government soldiers in scattered medical centers. Give us an idea if LURD has dealt any blows in terms of casualties on government soldiers.

Mr. William Nihison: Yes, unfortunately, we have killed hundreds of our own people who are being misled by this guy [Taylor] and we are sorry about that. Taylor is forcibly drafting our unwilling young men to go and die for him but Taylor doesn't care and he is not telling the Liberian people how we are killing his fighters in the hundreds. That is why he wants the press to toe his line. We are openly inviting the independent press and the International Red Cross to come into areas under LURD's control to verify what we are saying and to speak to the civilians who continue to seek refuge in territory under our control.

J. Wehtee Wion: So, how do you get the independent press and the Red Cross to visit you and verify your claims?

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Mr. William Nihison: We will gladly receive and protect anyone or group that wishes to visit LURD controlled areas. They may want to contact friendly governments, namely, the Ivory Coast and Guinea, that share a common border with counties under our control. As a matter of fact, we are about to set up a civil administration in our controlled areas.

J. Wehtee Wion: Liberia formally closed its border with Sierra Leone and expelled the ambassadors of Sierra Leone and Guinea accredited to Liberia. But then last week, the authorities in Freetown announced that four top Liberian military officers had been arrested inside Sierra Leone. The four who include a colonel, a major and two captains, from your point of view, are they runaways, spies or RUF collaborators even though one of them claimed that they were sent by the Commanding Officer of the Liberian Army, Gen. John Tarnue to retrieve a vehicle?

Mr. William Nihison: Based on our intelligence, the Liberians captured in Sierra Leone were on a double mission: (a) to consolidate Taylor's ties with the RUF rebels, and (b) to attack LURD forces, but we are prepared for any eventuality and will repel any aggressors.

J. Wehtee Wion: There is panic in Monrovia now as we speak to a point where the government of Taylor has placed travel restrictions and an 8:30 nightly curfew on foreign diplomats and residents while at the same time erecting roadblocks/checkpoints throughout greater Monrovia. What is your take on this?

Mr. William Nihison: Too little, too late for Taylor. We've already established our presence in Monrovia and even within Taylor's own security and military establishments and to include his cabinet. We are warning Taylor to leave innocent citizens and foreigners alone. And in particular, Taylor must leave journalists and the students at the University of Liberia alone or else, he and his senior officials and military officers will be held accountable and we mean it. The university students are in no way connected with LURD and Taylor's Justice Minister E. Varmah needs to take note. Any attempt to crack down on these groups will leave us no choice but to energize us and intensify our fight to end the suffering of the Liberian people under Taylor.

J. Wehtee Wion: The May 14, 2001 edition of Newsweek magazine highlights the pitfalls of Samuel Doe and now Charles Taylor in the areas of human rights, press

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freedom and democracy. Why must Liberians now believe that the leadership Of LURD would be any different from Doe and Taylor if you succeed in ousting Taylor?

Mr. William Nihison: We in LURD are a new breed of Liberians brought together by a common purpose under an agreed code of conduct with the goals and objectives

defined. We have put into place guidelines under which we operate . . . all of us in LURD. We are not power-hungry Mongols like Taylor and Doe. Mechanisms have been devised to deal with problems of tribalism and other vices. We are not interested in holding on to power. We want to be remembered as the group that brought freedom and democracy to all Liberians regardless of tribal origin and we are very mindful of that.

J. Wehtee Wion: If not asking too much of you, are you at liberty to tell my listeners where in Liberia are you speaking from now for this interview?

Mr. William Nihison: I am in Fazima, Lofa County and will be heading to Zorzor right after this interview along with one of LURD's senior advisors, Isaac Nyanebo to consult with our frontline commanders there.

J. Wehtee Wion: Usually when a dissident group is battling a sitting dictator, what they promise is just what they want the people to hear and then when they get in power, they all sing the same old song. Will any LURD member contest any presidential elections following immediately the end of the Taylor era if you succeed in removing Taylor from power?

Mr. William Nihison: I and LURD want to assure the Liberian people that it will NEVER happen because to do so would mean to go against everything LURD stands for. LURD is NOT and will NOT become a political party tomorrow and we are not fighting to make any individual president of Liberia. The Liberian people will decide who they want as president. Our task is to see to it that we create the necessary political atmosphere for those who are not TAINTED in anyway to contest any presidential elections after we overthrow Taylor. We told our people in LURD that anyone who harbors presidential ambition should leave and wait till the elections following Taylor's downfall.

J. Wehtee Wion: Thanks very much for your time and we look forward to talking with you again.

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(Amnesty International)

"One of the ATU [Anti-Terrorist Unit] members told the others: He is going to give us information on the rebel business. They took me to Gbatala. I saw many holes in which prisoners were held. I could hear them crying, calling for help and lamenting that they were hungry and they were dying. (Testimony of a young man detained at Gbatala military base in August 2000)

Amnesty International is calling on the Liberian government to ensure that widespread torture, including rape and killings by the security forces of unarmed citizens suspected of supporting Liberian armed opposition groups are immediately stopped.

In a report published by Amnesty International today-Liberia: War in Lofa County does not justify killing, torture and abduction-the organization details the findings of a recent visit to the country and also calls on armed opposition groups based in Guinea immediately to end abductions of civilians and other abuses in Liberia.

"The fighting in Lofa County has been marked by widespread human rights abuses. The international community must act urgently to stop these abuses, including by interceding with the Liberian government and requesting the Guinean government to use its influence over Liberian armed opposition groups based in its territory," Amnesty International said.

Since the renewal of armed incursions from Guinea into Lofa County in July 2000, the human rights situation has progressively deteriorated. Women and girls fleeing the outbreak of hostilities since February 2001 have been arrested at checkpoints and gang-raped by Liberian government forces. In early April 2001, a pregnant woman was grabbed near Zorzor, Lofa County, by an officer of the Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU), a special government security unit. She was repeatedly raped until being released a few

This document is taken from The Perspective, April 30, 2001(.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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days later. ATU officers beat her and stamped on her stomach, as a result of which she lost her baby.

Since mid-2000, dozens of civilians have allegedly been deliberately killed on suspicion ofbacking armed incursions from Guinea, and more than 100 civilians, mostly Mandingos, have been tortured by the ATU and other government forces. Unofficial detention centres include the military base in Gbatala, central Liberia, recently investigated by the UN as a training base for the Sierra Leonean armed opposition Revolutionary United Front (RUF), responsible for widespread killings, abductions, mutilations and other abuses in Sierra Leone. Other suspected dissidents have been held and tortured at the ATU cells behind the Executive Mansion, the office of the presidency, in Monrovia, the capital.

According to testimonies and other evidence gathered by Amnesty International during its three-week visit to Liberia in February 2001, civilians suspected of backing the dissidents are held in holes-some filled with dirty water-dug in the ground, at the military base in Gbatala. Prisoners are kicked and beaten including with gun butts; some have had plastic melted on their bodies or cigarettes extinguished on their skin and others have been forced to roll in mud, walk on broken glass with their bare feet or eat hot pepper. Suspects are regularly tabied, which means that their arms are tied together so tightly behind their backs that their elbows touch. The victims met by Amnesty International delegates still bore scars and marks of torture and were visibly traumatized.

In early April 2001, in response to significant military advances in upper Lofa County by the armed opposition groups, President Charles Taylor reportedly announced that a 15,000 force composed of former fighters of his warring faction, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), would be assembled to fight in Lofa County. The NPFL, as well as other former warring factions, was responsible for widespread human rights abuses during the 1989-1996 civil war. Amnesty International calls on the Liberian government to ensure that these forces do not carry out further human rights violations.

As a result of renewed fighting in Lofa County in July 2000 and pending further UN sanctions on Liberia, currently under discussion internal repression and intolerance by the government of any form of scrutiny by Liberian human rights organizations, journalists, students and opposition members has reached alarming levels. The security

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forces have used a wide range of methods including rape and other forms of torture to silence government critics. Since July 2000, human rights defenders, journalists or political opponents have been continuously arbitrarily arrested, tortured or forced to flee the country. During one of the latest crackdowns, on 21 March 2001, more than 40 university students, often on the front-line in promoting and defending , were held incommunicado and beaten with gun butts, kicked and humiliated by members of the Special Operation Division (SOD) and the ATU. Female students were raped.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Following the publication in December 2000 of a UN report containing detailed evidence of Liberian military support to the RUF and the illicit trade of diamonds from RUF-held areas through Liberia, the UN Security Council on 7 March 2001 reiterated the 1992 ban on arms transfers to Liberia. It also introduced a new ban on diamond exports from Liberia and travel for senior officials. The ban is due to come into effect on 7 May 2001, unless Liberia complies with the UN Security Council's demands which include ceasing military support to the RUF, expelling RUF members from Liberia and ending the import of rough diamonds from Sierra Leone.

For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 Amnesty International, 1 Easton St, London WC1X ODW web: http://w-ww.amnesty.org

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(A Statement)

The Association of Liberian Journalists in the Americas (ALJA) welcomes the Executive Order issued May 23, 2001 by U.S. President George W. Bush, prohibiting the importation of all rough diamonds into the United States from Liberia. The measure is in line with United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on Liberia for President Charles Taylor's reported involvement in diamond and arms smuggling with rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone.

We are hopeful that recent punishing measures against the criminal regime in Monrovia, are the beginning of serious efforts by the international community, led by the United States and Great Britain, to bring an end to Taylor's campaign of death and destruction in the Mano River Union Basin, which include Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

In a recent statement supporting the imposition of sanctions on Liberia by the UN Security Council, ALJA called on the Council to begin the process of establishing the legal framework to indict Taylor and others culpable of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the interest ofjustice and accountability, perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity must be made to answer for their conduct. This is a means by which the commission of such crimes would be brought under control.

From all indications, Taylor is the poster boy of a wider sinister plan to destabilize West Africa. His destructive plans are known to be directed from Libya, which is regarded as a leading sponsor of terrorism around the world. Libya, which originally trained Taylor's rebel group, and is seen to be a principal backer of the Liberian despot, has long been involved in attempts to destabilize West Africa. Tragically for Liberia, Libya found a brazen criminal like Taylor to preside over Liberia's destruction, apparently to send a message to the United States. Libya's destructive

`This document is taken from The Perspective, June 4, 2001(.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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influence in Liberia is generally known to be due to the country's strategic relationship with the U.S. during the Cold War era.

We are convinced that the rebel leader-turned-president of Liberia is incapable of ending the slaughter of defenseless people as he thrives on anarchy. Failure to contain Taylor now would eventually plunge the entire West Africa into a conflict of more catastrophic proportions, despite the enormous human tragedies that have occurred in Liberia and Sierra Leone, while Guinea is descending into anarchy.

According to recent reports, Taylor has accused the U.S. and Britain of arming rebels fighting his forces in northern Liberia, and has threatened a wider regional war. We hope that the dictator would not escalate the ongoing crisis and use it as a pretext to have Libyan troops deployed in Liberia, in order to further consolidate his grip on power.

Considering that Taylor's campaign of death and destruction in Liberia and the West African sub-region to grab power and resources has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of defenseless people, including five American Catholic nuns catering to orphaned children, ALJA, herewith, makes the following recommendations to the United States government:

1. That President Charles Taylor is declared a terrorist. Since the U.S. government has already declared the RUF a terrorist organization, it is within reason to recommend that Taylor, the known principal backer of the barbaric RUF, also be classified as a terrorist.

2. That the U. S. government takes urgent steps to freeze all assets of the Republic of Liberia in the United States. Mindful that Liberia has been reduced to nothing more than a bandit state amid widespread and indiscriminate plunder of the resources, freezing of the assets would help safeguard or preserve whatever is left of the decimated country.

3. That President Bush issues another Executive Order banning the importation into the United States of Liberian timbers. According to reports from the UN and other agencies, proceeds from the logging industry have been used by Taylor to purchase arms for the RUF, which has brought about an unspeakable degree of death and destruction in Sierra Leone, including amputation of the limbs of children. 4. That the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives pass the Liberian Refugee and Immigration Act, which is aimed at granting Permanent Resident Status to over 10,000

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Liberians who have resided in the United States under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) since 1991.

Our appeals are against the background that Taylor's brazenly corrupt, incompetent, murderous, and morally bankrupt regime does not represent the interest of the Liberian people. Liberia is in the grip of fascism. With a practically dysfunctional judiciary and a rubber-stamp legislature, and the military and paramilitary who are nothing more than the private militia and lynch mob of Taylor and his cohorts, the general Liberian population is basically disenfranchised and is also being annihilated.

While the Liberian population endures extreme poverty, Taylor's personal wealth is reported to be estimated at more than $400 million, and he and his cronies are living extravagantly. The Liberian leader is running the country as a private fiefdom, asset-stripping its long-term wealth for his short-term gains. Taylor has also appropriated Liberia's natural resources as his personal property. Last year, the national legislature, dominated by his stooges, passed the Strategic Commodities Act, which gives Taylor the sole power to execute, negotiate and conclude all commercial contracts or agreements with any foreign or domestic investor for designated commodities, including timber, gold, oil and diamonds.

Because of the prevailing state of terror in Liberia, the general public and the media are silenced or paralyzed by fear. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Liberian refugees have refused to return home, fearing reprisal and insecurity, while more people are being forced into exile.

The latest group ofpeople to flee Liberia includes 15 suspended student leaders of the University of Liberia, who reportedly fled to Ghana in May for fear of their lives. The students said they fled the country after receiving credible information that government security agents would eliminate them.

The students were suspended from school in April by the university authorities after a probe into a police raid of the university campus in March. Police and soldiers of the notorious Anti-Terrorist Unit raided the campus, when students were rallying to raise funds for the legal defense of four Liberian journalists detained by the government on false charges of espionage. Scores of students were reportedly wounded, raped and detained in the wake of the raid.

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The incarceration of the Liberian journalists followed the detention of four foreign journalists on similar charges of espionage. Having brutally suppressed the local media, the government issued new guidelines in May, imposing further restrictions on foreign journalists traveling to Liberia. The new guidelines provide for "background checks," after which the applicant could be rejected. In April, the independent weekly, The Journalists, was banned, while another publication, The Analysts, recently had its computers seized. We find it deeply troubling to note that the state of press freedom in Liberia is at its worst in recent Liberian history.

In due course, ALJA would send separate letters to President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell containing these recommendations. We also intend to make appropriate representations to the government of the United Kingdom, the UN Security Council, and the European Union regarding the state of affairs in Liberia.

Meanwhile, we are appealing for strong international effort to bring an end to the widespread destruction of Liberia's rainforest. We are alarmed by reports that Liberia's tropical forest, which was nearly 50 percent of the remaining forest areas in the entire West Africa, could be depleted in about 10 years if nothing is done to halt indiscriminate logging by the criminal regime in Monrovia and its foreign collaborators. The environmental advocacy group Global Witness has reported that apart from a largely untold variety of plant and insect species, Liberia's rainforest is also home to a number of unique mammal species. For example, it is the sole remaining habitat for the Pigmy hippo, a pig-sized relative of the larger hippo, and probably the last viable refuge for one-chimpanzee sub-species.

ALJA joins Global Witness and others in calling for the UN Security Council to reconsider including Liberian timber in the sanction measures against Liberia. We are also calling for an international boycott of Liberian timbers. There can be no question that the degradation of the environment in Liberia could contribute to future ecological disaster in Africa and the world at large, if the international community fails to take appropriate actions to stop the destruction of the forest.

In view of the fact that the media and the general public in Liberia are virtually silenced by fear, ALJA's primary goal presently is to help draw international attention to the terrible state of affairs in the country. While others may have reservations regarding our course of actions, we can only assure that we shall endeavor to reflect the

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facts for what they are. We will not waver in our effort to draw public attention to those who have proven to be nothing more than pariahs and vultures on the Liberian people, and to advocate for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity to be prosecuted.

ALJA shall continue to strive for good governance in Liberia. We believe that experience, integrity, democratic commitment and the rule of law should serve as the criteria for those to occupy Liberian government leadership. This is the only means by which lasting peace would prevail in Liberia.

Signed: Gabriel I.H. Williams, Secretary General

Approved: Isaac D.E. Bantu, Acting President

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Adding flesh to the sanctions regime imposed on Liberia about a month ago, the UN Security Council (on Monday) issued a list comprising of 130 persons who will be directly affected by the travel ban imposed on Liberia. The list, which could almost pass for a "Who's Who" in the Liberia saga that has aided and abetted the instability of the West African sub-region, comprises of an array of civilian ministers and their spouses, military personnel and their spouses, President Taylor and members of his family, the president's "inner circle" and dubious businessmen, core advisors, among others.

The list includes: Brig. Gen. ABU, Cyril Allen, Ibrahim Bah (Balde), Dawn Barnes, Nathaniel Barnes, Akkram Basma, Hassan Basma, Jamal Basma, , , , Hezekiah Bowen, Edith Bowen Carr, Charles R. Bright, Lewis G. Brown, II, Philipbert Browne, Samuel N. Burnette, Ade Jones-Captan, Monie Ralph Captan, Francis M. Carbah, Carol Chea, Daniel L Chea, Sr., Gen. Austen Clarke, M. Moussa Cisse, Gerald Cooper, Muarice Cooper, Randolph Cooper, Raphael Dago Gnade, A. Tijani Darrah, Kaddieyatu Darrah, James Dennis, Wisseh Dennis, Charles DeShield, Gerard Desnoes, Gabrielle Doe, Mont-gomery Dolo, Alcmenia Summerville Dunbar, Belle Y. Dunbar, Jenkins Dunbar, J. Adolphus During, , Samuel Eid, Talal El Ndine, Khalid El Ndine, S. Loyola Fleming, Jr., Richard Flomo, Emmanuel Gardiner, Alphoso Gaye, Saa(h) Gbollie, Martin 0. N. George, Myrtle Gibson, Samuel Mustapha Gibson, Omrie Golley, Reginald B. Goodridge (Sr.), Georges Elias Haddad, Victor Haikal, Romeo Horton, Sandra P. Howard, Tambakai A. A. Jangaba, Baba Jobe, Col. Jerbo (Jarbo), Lt. Gen. Macifierran Momo Jibba (Jebba), Koboi Johnson, Francis Kabah, Moha-mmed Kafel, Pasti Kadima, Phillip Kamah, Fafani B Kamara, Joseph Wong Kita, Kpenkpah Konah, Gus Kouen-hoven, Esther Kou-lay Weah, Kerkula B. Kpoto, Alexander Kulue, Johnson Leaman, John Wesseh McClain, David McGill, Grace Minor, Leonid Minin (Blaystein, Blyu- Vshtein, Blya-Fshtein, Bluv-Shtein, Blyu-Fshtein, Kerler, Vladimir Abramovich, Popilo-Veski (Popela/Popelo), Vladimir Abramovich, Breslan, Wulf, Osols, Igor), Joe Mont-gomery, Lawrence Morgan, Joseph W. Mulbah, Paul Mulbah, Massa Mussah, Isaac Mussah, Aziz Nassour, Juanita Neal Robert F. Neal, Blamo Nelson, Samih Ossaily (Samir Husseini), Y. Mewasah Paye-Bayee, Q. Somah Paygai,

This document is taken from The Perspective, June 7, 2001(.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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Cora Peabody, Maxwell Poe, Jonathan Refell, Victoria Refell, John T. Richardson, Charles B. Roberts (Jr.), Simon Rosenblum, Ruprah Sanjivan, NASR Samir, Emmett Russ, Mohamed Salami, Elias Saleeby, Lydia W.E. Sanimanie, Jenkins K.Z.B. Scott, Emmanuel Shaw (II), Abdallah Shehny, Nah-John Suah, Brig. Gen. John Tarnue,Charles "Chuckie" Taylor (Jr.), Charles Ghankay Taylor, Demetrius Robert Taylor, Emmett Taylor, Freddie Taylor, Jewell Howard Taylor, Jonathan Taylor, Tupee Enid Taylor, Agnes Reeves-Taylor, Timothy Thomas, Joachim Touah, , John Vamoh, Eddington Varmah, Samuel Varney, Edwin Vaye, George Wallace, Amelia Ward, John Whitfield, Sylvanus Willaims, James Kpateh Wolo, Jenkins Wongbay, Roger B. Woodson, , John Yormie, and Augustine Zayzay. For detail version of

the list, go to: http://www.theperspective.org/un sanctions_list.html .

In accordance with resolution 1343 which was adopted on May 7, 2001, by the Security Council, the members of the Council agreed on the following key decision:

"7. (a) Decides also that all States shall take the necessary measures to prevent the entry into or transit through their territories of senior members of the Government of Liberia and its armed forces and their spouses and any other individuals providing financial and military support to armed rebel groups in countries neighbouring Liberia, in particular the RUF in Sierra Leone, as designated by the Committee established by paragraph 14 below, provided that nothing in this paragraph shall oblige a State to refuse entry into its territory to its own nationals, and provided that nothing in this paragraph shall impede the transit of representatives of the Government of Liberia to United Nations Headquarters to conduct United Nations business or the participation of the Government of Liberia in the official meetings of the Mano River Union, ECOWAS and the Organization of African Unity."

But exceptions to the travel ban are allowable based on humanitarian or religious grounds:

"7 (b) Decides that the measures imposed by subparagraph (a) above shall not apply where the Committee established by paragraph 14 below determines that such travel is justified on the grounds of humanitarian need, including religious obligation, or where the Committee concludes that exemption would otherwise promote Liberian compliance with the demands of the Council, or assist in the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the subregion."

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Though the Security Council makes it clear that the list is not finite and will be subject to regular updates, the list-which is neither a "Schindler List" or "Blacklist"-has already begun to generate concern in several quarters among those who have followed the Liberian situation with watchful eyes. Many Liberian analysts view the list as not being exhaustive. They argue that it leaves wide open wiggle room or room for maneuver that would be exploited by the Taylor regime. For example, the layers ofjunior ministers such as deputy ministers, assistant ministers, directors, etc. are not covered by the banning order. These categories of ministers could be used in bursting the sanctions.

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By Worried Joe

Editor's Note: The author is a young Liberian lawyer who recently arrived in the United States and offered this description of how he left Liberia under the regime of Charles Taylor. For fear that his relatives back home may be harmed by the government, the author has asked that his name remains undisclosed, though he feels a compelling reason to inform Liberians about the realities of their country.

PART I

Liberians living abroad have a difficult time imagining what everyday life in Liberia is like today. A lot of people remember Liberia as it was the last time they saw it. Some impressions are as far back as the early years of President Tolbert for some residents in the United States. For the bulk of Liberians who fled the civil war in the 1990s, the imprints are much more vivid. But how are things today in the "post-war era?"

At my last count, there was still evidence of massive exits from Monrovia. People leave to go to Ghana or other parts of the subregion where they believe life is better. There is also always a crowding of the U.S. Embassy on Tuesdays and Thursdays in oftentimes-desperate bids for a visa to come to America. All of this desire to leave [occurs] despite the fact that the Taylor-led government was supposed to restore normalcy and has been trying to do so for at least three years. On my departure from Monrovia recently, I noted some of the fears responsible for the mass exits.

Waterworks Monrovia remains a shadow of what it once was, though that state was never very good even at its peak. The city has no pipe-borne water system since the attacking forces of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (led by Taylor) destroyed the White Plains hydro facilities in 1992 during the infamous Operation Octopus. An estimated 80 percent of the population has no access to safe drinking water, and water-borne diseases

`This document is taken from Liberian Orbit, Minneapolis, Minn. It was posted to this Web site on February 26, 2001. See (.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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such as cholera and diarrhea often reach epidemic proportions. Most of the inhabitants of the city live on water gotten from wells built by humanitarian organizations during the height of fighting in and around Monrovia.

A few well-to-do city dwellers have their water trucked into their homes from wells on the outskirts of the city by commercial enterprises set for that purpose. Fewer still can afford to buy imported mineral water for use in their homes. The affluence of private water purchase exists side by side with the use of open and unsanitary wells by the poor majority. No one seems to remember the time when water was available through the pipes for the rich and poor alike. Meanwhile, the purchase of 'cold water' in tiny plastic bags packaged oftentimes under suspect conditions remains the only way out for the people of the city.

Electricity There is also no electric power available to the bulk of the inhabitants of Monrovia. The Liberian Electricity Corporation was supposed to have brought in some generators from an Eastern European manufacturer to remedy that problem. Although the generators are said to have arrived, its effect is almost non-existent since the tiny fraction of the city supposed to be benefited has yet to experience it. Offices in the city, including government buildings such as the Executive Mansion which houses the President, the Capitol Building, which is the seat of the national legislature, as well as the Temple of Justice which houses the , are all powered by private generators at government's expense. Private businesses follow suit and a normal business day consists of the hum of diesel generators throughout the downtown sector. Because of this, nightlife in the city is limited to where a generator can be found and the city is enveloped in darkness for the most part every night.

Suburban sectors such as Gardnersville and Paynesville have long given up hope of electricity in the near future, especially since the President informed the populace that those wanting electric power would have to buy their own generators. Almost all government officials have private generators at their homes even though the same cannot be said of their offices. Ninety-five percent of the common citizenry have no such access to public electricity and have to survive by candlelight or the use of lanterns. Basic electric-powered household appliances such as televisions, stoves, refrigerators and pressing irons, which were once common place in Monrovia, are now luxuries enjoyed only by the wealthy. Another means of nighttime comfort becoming popular is

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the use of car batteries to power DC lamps. Most residents find even this to be very expensive. Monrovians in general continue to live in darkness even after three years of "normal time."

Roads The only remaining stretch of good road in Monrovia is a piece of Tubman Boulevard probably extended from ELWA junction to 9' Street, a distance of about five miles. The roads have not been maintained for as long as anyone can remember and have begun to erode away. Potholes are more normal than not, with the road to the Executive Mansion from 9th Street being the worst. It is, incidentally, the road traveled by the President every day on his way to work. Upgrading of the main road in New Kru Town, Sinkor Old Road, Logan Town, Seyon Town and Payne sville are examples of areas where previously existing roads have become non-existent. In fact, the New Kru Town road project is said to be nothing more than an attempt by Cabinet Director Blamo Nelson to pave the road to his residence. Outside of the capital is even worse.

All the highways are similarly damaged and no one drives off the pavement in Liberia during the rainy season. Rural roads were bad in times past, but they were passable in the worst of times. Today only a four-wheel drive vehicle can go beyond Ganta, and only the affluent few own four- wheel drives. Traveling through Liberia by road has become a life and death gamble, and during the rainy season it could take as long as a week to cover a hundred miles. There are only two streetlights in Liberia, and they are locked in downtown Monrovia at the intersections of Lynch and Broad Streets, and Randall and Broad Streets. They work infrequently when power can be gotten. Policemen man the rest of the streets during visits to the city center by the President.

Telecommunication The Liberian Telecommunication Corporation (LTC), forever the milk cow of successive Liberian governments, has become so dysfunctional in recent times that it breaks down for weeks during which times all telephone lines in the city are cut off. The establishment of a few new cell phone businesses by cronies of the ruling elite has provided some form of an alternative telephone system for those who can afford it. These are, however, overpriced and cannot be afforded by the bulk of the people. Government interference is also rife and breakdowns are normal. Internet facilities are

available to less than 1 percent of the population, and obtaining the rights to establish one is an opportunity to test the wonders of bribery. Although the LTC has complained

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of the need to replace important components including the main switch, the pleas have fallen on deaf ears as the government continues to plunder what little revenues are generated in order to support "operations," the self-explanatory word, which could mean anything. It is near limited to the city center and the nearer suburbs. There are no telephones in Paynesville, Gardnersville, ELWA, nor Brewerville.

Education The Liberian education system has collapsed. Nearly all government schools have declined in the quality of their standards and teaching staff. Private schools are closing down and turning into ill-equipped colleges while new private schools spring up every day bringing more substandard levels into the already devastated situation. Students buy grades firstly because of the depressed economy that provides low salaries and no benefits to teachers. This is further exacerbated by the nonchalance of the government whose priorities remain security and the preservation of the political power structure. Nowadays, elementary school kids do not have to study at all. They save up their lunch money for the teacher who will give them a passing grade if they should fail. The situation in the high schools and colleges is worse. Female students buy favor with money, and a lot of them are "supported" by government officials who require the teachers to pass them. The situation is so ridiculous that even the President of the country has a "girlfriend" in the St. Teresa's Convent High School in Monrovia. The same story exists in the rest of the country. Rural schools have to make do with whatever teachers that are available. At the last examinations given by the West African ExaminationsCouncil, the regional independent body of which Liberia is a member, less than 40 percent of the high school graduating population made a successful pass. In a lot of high schools no student passed at all.

Security If the repression of the people by the late President Samuel Doe's security apparatus was the major cause of the Liberian civil war, then certainly the war has been fought in vain. If anything, the behavior of the security forces of President Taylor is worse. Surely, nothing has improved. Former rebel militiamen with no formal training have replaced the men in uniform. Fear is the order of the day. Security patrol by truckloads of armed, uniformed policemen call SOD or task force is part of the landscape. The brutality with which they handle suspects or people they are asked to arrest is beyond justification. An arrest means beatings, loss of personal effects, and grievous bodily harm even if the arrested party has not been found guilty. In such an event

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an apology may not even be forthcoming. And the security patrol is a twenty-four hour business. Some of the worse security atrocities are committed in broad daylight, sometimes in crowded market places.

The nights are something to dread. Patrol of the streets is increased and after midnight, checkpoints are set up throughout the city of Monrovia. People traveling about without identification are arrested. People with identification that have no satisfactory explanation for being out at such "late" hours are arrested. The curfew is therefore unofficial, but definitely exists. People live under fear of constant intimidation and harassment by security personnel. Former NPFL rebel commanders and their men are employed by public corporations as corporate security officers. In fact, they are an extension of the government's own myriad security agencies. The Liberian Telecommunication Corporation, the National Port Authority and the Liberian Petroleum Refining Corporation, all maintain large arsenals and active military personnel in corporate uniforms. During the September 18, 1998 fighting between the government and the Krahn community in Monrovia, the LTC became a military barracks in a matter of hours. Residents of the city know this and it serves to keep people in check. The city looks every bit like one big garrison with civilians totally besieged by military forces.

No attention is paid to damaged buildings or to the restoration of public utilities; no regard for health nor education, but always a large security presence with brand new vehicles and uniforms, [and an] endless supply of fuel. Security-related killings are never resolved and this emboldens them to do more. There is no organized standing army, but the city is full of paramilitary groups owing loyalty to the President in their own independent and direct faction. It is no wonder that rivalry among various security units is becoming a trend and shootings among them is not rare. The resulting confusion may have led to the inclusion of foreign mercenaries among the President's immediate security detail at the Executive Mansion and at his residence. Sierra Leoneans and Gambians in Liberian security uniforms are a common and open sight. The general sense is that the security is for the President and not the people.

Summary Monrovia is damaged and Liberia is worse off today than in times before the December 24, 1989 invasion from the Ivory Coast that eventually brought the rebel leader to power. An improvement in the life of the people has yet to be seen.

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Reconstruction of damaged buildings and other infrastructure has not begun, and reconciliation isn't on the horizon. More than three years after the NPP government came to power, the people still await the recovery promised them by the erstwhile rebel group. But the reality is that the Liberian civil war was only an expensive change of government. Expensive in terms of human lives, mutilations and injuries, property damage and lost time. But there is nothing to show as a justification. The reality of Liberia today is that it is sadly a mess.

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(Religious Group Gives New Details)

Fresh accounts of the gruesome murder of five American nuns in the NPFL rebel attack on Monrovia several years ago are now emerging. A religious group has reported to the U.S. Congress that. "C.O. Mosquito and Black Devil shot and killed the sisters."

A representative of a religious human rights group recently told the African Committee of the U.S. Congress that the sisters were directly shot in the neck, back and other critical areas by Charles Taylor's NPFL soldiers when the rebel group launched its OCTOPUS operation to capture Monrovia in 1992.

Sister Stephanie Mertens, Coordinator of the Peace and Justice Office of the Order of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, appeared before the House Committee last March and submitted the report as part of the Congressional inquiry on Liberia with the theme: Confronting Liberia. The Orbit presents the full speech of Stephanie Mertens delivered on March 14, 2001 to the House Subcommittee on Africa, headed by Rep. Ed Royce.

"Chairman Royce, and Members of the Africa Sub-Committee, the Adorers of the Blood of Christ (ASC), are grateful to respond to your invitation through this Liberia Hearing Testimony to honor the memory of our five sisters murdered in October 1992 during the war in Liberia. I am Sister Stephanie Mertens, ASC, Coordinator of the Adorers Office of Peace and Justice. I personally knew all five of the Sisters. I hope during this testimony to acquaint you with each of the sisters and their ministry, and to tell the story of their deaths. I will describe the responses of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ to the Sisters' deaths and that of the numerous other groups around the world, including our own U.S. State Department officials. I will also try to envision what the lives they have given might mean for the future of Liberia and all peoples seeking peace and stability in our world.

This document is taken from Liberian Orbit, Minneapolis, Minn. It was posted to this Web site on May 1, 2001. See (.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVII, 1 (2001)

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Sister Shirley Kolmer, 61, was a leader, a person of vision. She loved and taught math in grade, high, and university in the U.S. and in Liberia. She was a jovial spirit. Part of her ministry in the U.S. included being friend and companion to young women in the U.S. preparing to enter religious life. Sister also served as provincial of the order. She challenged all Adorers to be women of prayer and to work for justice.

Sister Joel, 58, was an educator, a person with a great smile, a sparkle in her eye, and hearty laughter. She was artistic, creative. She taught religion and did parish ministry. She was in charge of candidates from Liberia for the order.

Sister Barbara Ann Muttra, 69, was a nurse with a great love for the infants. She was compassionate, energetic, very active. She collected medicines and food for the poor. She cared for babies. She helped Liberian mothers learn child care. She founded clinics.

Sister Agnes Mueller, 62, loved to read and discover ideas. She was a nurse and religious educator. She was especially concerned about helping women. She was doing literacy programs with the people.

Sister Kathleen McGuire, 54, had a very great sense of hospitality. She helped the child soldiers of Liberia cope with the trauma of war. During her work for justice in the U.S. she organized Sanctuary ministry to help refugees fleeing to the U.S. for safety from violence in Guatemala.

The five women lived in a convent in Gardnersville. For some months it had been clear that the deteriorating situation posed grave danger to the sisters. The sisters, fully conscious of the danger, resolved to stay in order to serve the people who had nowhere to go. The sisters remained in harm's way for the sake of charity and solidarity with the people. It was not long after their deaths that it became clear that they were truly "Martyrs of Charity," a term first used by John Paul II on November 1, 1992 at his noon address.

I will now describe the events that led to their deaths. The night of October 20, a security guard at the convent said he was worried about his family. Two of the sisters, Barbara Ann and Joel, agreed to drive him home. On the way they picked up

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two ECOMOG soldiers. The sisters did not return from the trip and the other sisters feared the worst. Later it was learned that the two sisters had been killed.

On October 21, the sisters and the young women with them, packed some belongings into a car with a view to move into Monrovia, but they were afraid to leave because of the intense shooting all day. On October 23, at about 5:00 p.m., NPFL soldiers arrived. Five of them entered the Convent grounds under the command of C.O. Mosquito. He ordered everybody out of the Convent. Mosquito said he was going to kill all the white people. Sister Shirley begged him not to kill the Sisters. Sister Kathleen went towards the gate in order to open it. As she did so, Mosquito shot her in the forearm. She fell and he then shot her fatally in the neck.

Sister Shirley was ordered to bring the car keys and any money she had. She entered the convent and came back with the keys and the Liberian Dollars which she offered to Mosquito. He took the keys and demanded American dollars. She told him she had none. All were then ordered outside the fence where Sisters Shirley and Agnes were told to step to one side from the others. At that point another soldier, Black Devil, fatally shot Agnes and Shirley. They died instantly.

Here in the States the first alert that the sisters were in imminent danger came on October 28, 1992. Their deaths were confirmed by Church and State Department officials on October 31, 1992. On All Saints Day November 1, 1992, the Adorers Convent Mass in Ruma, Illinois was for all of our martyred Sisters. On November 5, 1992 a Mass honoring the five sisters, was held at the diocesan Cathedral with over 2,000 people present.

Immediately upon the death of the sisters responses came from around the world.

U.S. Ambassador William Twaddell said: "The safety and welfare of the wounded and defenseless were their only concerns." U.S. Ambassador Peter Devos said: "They were real Americans who ate hamburgers, drank milk shakes, and ate French fries." The Catholic Standard of Washington, D.C. archdiocese wrote: "Their killing took the largest number of U.S. Clergy women since the three nuns and one lay woman were murdered in El Salvador in 1981." Senator Simon wrote: "I hope that through the tragic deaths of these heroines, a new consciousness of the need for love

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and compassion will emerge in the war-torn areas of west Africa." Archbishop Michael K. Francis of Monrovia said: "Together they served the Lord in this part of His vineyard, together they went to Him." The Pope said: "Despite great danger they remained alongside the people `til the end." The Pope prayed that their deaths would be a catalyst for peace in Liberia.

It was important to all Adorers that after some time with the assistance of the Society of African Missions (SMA), State Department Officials, and Senator Paul Simon, the sisters remains were able to be retrieved and returned to our convent for burial in the convent cemetery. The grave sites have been visited by many people.

I will now describe other responses to the deaths of the five Sisters. In 1992- 93 both the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Africa and the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa held hearings on the situation in Liberia including the deaths of the sisters. Adorers presented testimony at each hearing with a focus on hoped-for rebuilding of Liberia. The matter was also addressed in testimony delivered by Assistant Secretary of State, George E. Moose before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa on May 18, 1994.

A national effort titled: "ASC Martyrs of Charity - Peace in Liberia Campaign" was launched by the Adorers with assist from the Africa Faith and Justice Network (AKIN). The campaign called for prayer and fasting, development of personal peace skills, and letters to the President, legislators and the UN Ambassador concerning Liberia. Thousands of actions were taken as part of the campaign.

Other responses by Adorers and friends were a Scholarship established in honor of the sisters at the Kansas Newman College. A large memorial sculpture by Professor Rudy Torrini which depicts the Sisters standing as strong figures in a circle looking out with hands clasped together raised to heaven was erected in front of the Ruma Convent. A symposium titled: "Hope for Africa" was held on the fifth anniversary of the Martyrs' deaths. A beautiful "Song to the Martyrs" was composed by Carolyn McDade. A book about the martyrs titled Echoes In Our Hearts was written by Clare Boehmer, ASC.

Adorers have continued to collaborate with the bishops of Liberia giving whatever financial assistance was possible. We have been saddened by the untimely

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death of Bishop Sekey, 61, youngest of the three bishops, due to a heart attack in December 2000. We have given financial educational support to five young women from Liberia in the U.S. At present no Adorers are in Liberia. As an international congregation, we hold great hope that one day we shall return.

I will now briefly envision what the lives given may mean for the future of Liberia.

The dedication of our slain Sisters has motivated Adorers throughout the world to pursue the Jubilee 2000 Debt Cancellation Program. We are collaborating with Bread for the World in its work to bring hunger relief to African countries. We are doing advocacy with appropriate authorities to guarantee fair trade with the countries of Africa. We support efforts to deal with the HIV-AIDS problem in various countries, including Liberia.

It has been very encouraging this past week to learn that the UN Security Council is demanding that Liberia immediately cease support for the RUF and other armed rebels. This action , as well as the work of Senator Russell D. Feingold and others, gives us new hope for peace in Liberia and all west Africa.

Our vision for the future of Liberia includes the presence of programs of education, cultural enrichment, women's development, adult literacy, and other skills training opportunities in harmony with the work the five sisters had been doing in Liberia. A missionary who knew the Martyrs has recently sent this message to Adorers: "I have no doubt that their lives, so generously given have borne, and are bearing fruit that we know nothing about at this time."

Hopefully, this Liberia Hearing will be an instrument bearing such fruit. I thank you again for the invitation to honor the five Martyrs and all that their lives given with such great charity and solidarity have meant for Liberia and the whole world."

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