Liberian Studies Journal

VOLUME XXVI 2000 Number 2

LIBERIAN STUDIES JOURNAL

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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 Liberia or with implications for Liberia. Opinions of contributors to the Journal do not necessarily reflect the policy ofthe 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 ofthe 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 Virginia 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-University of Liberia 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- Cuttington University Coroann Okorodudu-Rowan College College of N.J.

LIBERIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS Cyril Broderick-President Joseph Holloway Delaware State University California State University- Yekutiel Gershoni-Vice President Northridge Tel Aviv University Timothy A. Rainey Dianne Oyler-Secretary-Treasurer Johns Hopkins University Fayetteville State University Ciyata Coleman Arnold Odio-Parliamentarian Clark Atlanta University Albany State College

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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Mother Liberia By Doris Mayson Elliott. 1 Liberia's Search for Resolution to the Governance Puzzle By Patrick L.N. Seyon 3 Gender and Aging: Are Women "Warriors" Among the Glebo of Liberia By Mary H. Moran. 25 How are Liberians Doing in the United States By Konia T. Kollehlon. 42 The Strange Career of John Cocke: Contextualizing American Colonization Society Manumissions By Eric Burin. 63 Crisis and Intervention: How ECOMOG Brought About Peace in Liberia, but Was Still Unable to Guarantee a Democratic New Beginning By Werner Korte and Robert Kappell. 83 New Publications and Theses on or Relevant to Liberia 106 Documents 109

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 © 2000 by the Liberian Studies Association, Inc. ISSN 0024 1989

Doris Mayson Elliott*

0 mother Liberia we pray, Please grant your people peace. We've spoken of harmony so long, Yet it's so far away.

Mother, see how your pride is diminished. Your children's noses are dragged in the dirt. They are barefooted over the land, Displaced all over the world.

How low you have fallen, It pains our souls to see you fall. People and nations scorn you, Right now you are a nobody.

*Doris Mayson Elliott was born in Buchanan, Liberia. She earned a B.Sc. degree in Education from Cuttington University College in Bong County. After teaching for a few years at J. J. Roberts United Methodist School in Monrovia, she left Liberia to further her education. She received a Masters degree in Reading at Cleveland State University, in Cleveland, Ohio. She returned to Liberia in 1982 and resumed teaching at J. J. Roberts school, and later at Firestone School in Harbel until the onset of the civil war. In 1994, she returned to the United States, and now resides in Anaheim, California. The poet has written several inspirational poems and is now writing about her experiences during the Liberian civil war. With her passion for writing, she intends to write poems and stories for children. "Mother Liberia" was written in Paynesville, Libereia in early 1991. This poem may be considered a poem of the heart. It was written immediately after the British Broadcasting Corporation reported the failure of (one of many) ECOWAS-sponsored peace talks. It has been revised.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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Once you reached a peak so high, You were a forerunner of African independence. We spoke of you from length to breadth. Won't you regain your power?

Though tossed about and bruised, We love you still, and always will. O mother dear though the righteous fall, They always rise again.

O mother Liberia we pray, Unite your people regain, Those sunny days, and happy days, Where peace and love abound.

Wake up! Rise up! Liberia, Put whip to your horse. Wake up! Rise up! Liberia, Ride on to glorious heights!

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Liberia's Search for Resolution to the Governance Puzzle

Patrick L. N. Seyon*

I. THE BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM

The resolution of the governance puzzle, let alone good governance, has eluded Liberia from its very inception in the early 1800s to the present. But the idea of evolving into and being a democratic state, governed by Africans, and the thirst and hunger of Liberians to make the idea a reality have fueled the search up to now. A combination of historical, sociopolitical, economic, and cultural processes are responsible for Liberia's failure to solve the governance puzzle; hence its current state of crisis. Finding a lasting solution to this puzzle will ultimately require the creation of a political community, something which currently does not exist in Liberia. Creating and sustaining such a community will depend largely on ensuring that certain conditions are met: having in place (1) the "machinery"-institution-public education system-that prepares democratic citizens (Bethell, 2000); (2) democratic civil society; (3) full inclusion and participation of all members on equal terms; (4) rule of law; (5) power sharing; and (6) equitable distribution of opportunities and the resources of the community. The question that must be asked first, though, is: What are the processes that are responsible for Liberia's failure to solve the governance puzzle, and what lessons can be drawn from them? Not much in the way of change can be expected in Liberia unless the right lessons are drawn from its long, sorry history. More importantly, its history is not a mere backdrop for understanding current developments in the country-it is a powerful force influencing such developments. Liberia is so deeply mire in its past, there are serious doubts as to whether it can escape and enter a future, which is like a fleeting moment on a distant horizon. Here are some reasons why this may prove problematic. First, there is the lack of a democratic legitimacy and tradition. Reference is made here to free association and participation of the people to establish the Liberian state. From such an association and participation would have evolved a set of

*Professor Seyon, formerly President of the University of Liberia, is a Research Fellow at the African Studies Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts. This is a revised copy of a discussion paper he presented to a Liberian Working Group in Washington, DC, in October, 2000. It is based on his forthcoming book.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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acknowledged and institutionalized rules, values and beliefs that would informally and formally regulate interaction of the members, on the one hand, and foster relations between the people and their government or state, on the other. For example, it is participation by the people that grants democratic legitimacy to elected leaders and the key decisions that they make. Both this process and condition do not develop overnight; time is needed to create and nurture them. Unfortunately, at the outset, the Liberian settlers neither elected nor chose their leaders, nor did they draw up their own rules for governance. They were not like the Pilgrims, who established the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts, and who drew up their Mayflower Compact and elected their leaders. Much worse, they were perceived by their sponsor, the American Colonization Society (ACS), as incapable of governing themselves (Beyan, 1991). The ACS, therefore, appointed agents to govern the colony. Had the Liberian settlers drawn up their own rules for governance and elected their leaders, the seeds for democratic legitimacy of the state and governance would have been planted at the very beginning. Stated differently, the Liberians were not involved in a process in which all of the people collectively decided "the course of their own historical fate" (Guinier, 1998, p.89). They would have also derived an authentic cultural or national identity. Instead, the seeds of democratic illegitimacy, which has plagued the Liberian state for all of its existence, were sown and have grown over time. Even when it was thought that the settlers needed to assume responsibility for self-government in 1847, their constitution was drafted, not by themselves, but by Harvard law professor Simon Greenleaf who used the United States' constitution as his model. The Liberian settlers had neither been schooled in the philosophy and principles of the liberal democracy laid down in their constitution, nor had they experienced them on the southern plantations from which many came, or on the slave ships from which many were taken. John Locke's theory of the social contract between the governed and governor, which formed the basis of the United States constitution, was totally unknown to those for whom Professor Greenleaf drafted the constitution. Equally importantly, there was the false assumption, though well-intentioned it might have been, that democracy, devoid of its underpinning cultural values, norms, and environment, could be planted like a tree in the Liberian soil and it would grow, or transferred like a piece of technology and it would work. Much worse, there was the fatal assumption then and now that somehow, democracy is supposed to grow like air-borne fungi without the appropriate institution or "machinery" that prepares people to be democratic citizens. By explicitly or implicitly making these assumptions, the sponsors of the Liberian colony might not have been aware of, or, if they were, ignored Thomas

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Jefferson's view on the relationship between education and democracy. Jefferson held the view that an educated citizenry was needed to make intelligent decisions regarding a system of government by which they would be governed, and that education "would enable the common people to select qualified leaders, effectively interact with their government, and pursue their expected destiny" (Mitchell and Torres, 1998, p. 17; Hes lop, 1969, p.88). It might be disappointing, but certainly is no surprise that democracy has not developed in Liberia. Thus, very early, Liberia established what is now being confirmed in Eastern Europe: that the importation of free parties, democratic constitutions and parliaments cannot create democratic civil societies. The net result is that Liberia's imported constitution was all but abandoned, save in name, in the first one hundred years of the country's existence. The absence of the "machinery" to produce democratic values and norms meant that the principles of three separate and co-equal branches of the government, an independent judiciary, the state being under the control of civil society, and fundamental rights of citizens were all never put into practice. In 1981, when the Doe military government set up a commission to draft a new constitution, some observers, including members of the commission, expressed the view that there was nothing wrong with the old constitution, it was just not implemented. However, not even the 1984 constitution remedied the fundamental conditions of the 1847 constitution: the lack of(I) an effective and efficient public education system; (2) a democratic civil society; (3) decentralized, participatory democracy; and (4) state structures that provide for and protect inclusion and participation, power sharing, and equitable distribution of opportunities and resources. In other words, building a democratic state then required (and still does today) working from the ground up, because, as Benjamin R. Barber (1992, p. 76) has pointed out: "Democracy grows from the bottom up and cannot be imposed from the top down." Not starting from the bottom meant that there were no democrats then, and today, Liberians are thirsty and hungry for democracy more than at any time in the country's history. But they are being prevented from satisfying their need for democracy. Fortunately, the Liberian war, with all of its brutality and ugliness, has provided a window of opportunity to start anew. It should not be allowed to go unseized; time is running out on this window. Second, both the 1847 and 1984 constitutions are foreign and created an imperial state. They did not evolve from the belief and value systems of the very people they claim to represent. As a result, the state has been distant from its "citizens". The people did not develop a feeling of belonging to or being a part of it. Even if access to and participation in the state could have been negotiated for the indigenous states and people, they were prevented, because the state took on an imperial posture toward them.

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They became "internal colonies". The Liberian state, following adoption of the 1847 constitution, patterned its thought and actions on those of the ACS, which appointed governors to rule the settlers. Since the governors were not elected by the settlers, they held themselves accountable only to the ACS and not the settlers (the governed). In like manner, the Liberian settlers appointed themselves overlords for the indigenous states and their peoples in the region without being elected by them. To complicate matters, the settlers assumed the paternalistic cultural values and attitudes of the ACS: that they had been returned to Africa to rid their African brothers and sisters of "savage heathenism and barbarism" and to "civilize and Christianize" them. Not surprisingly, one of the criteria for citizenship for the indigenous peoples, which remained in effect from 1841 to 1944 stated: "The native must subscribe to civilized habits for three years, by living decently clad, or covered from his former nude state" (Martin, 1969, p.5). Even to vote, the settlers insisted that three years prior to the year of the elections, the indigenous people had to abandon "all forms, customs and superstitions of heathenism, and [conform] to the forms, customs and habits of civilized life" (Huberich, 1947, Vol. 2, p.1029). Up to the present, in the minds of some Liberians as well as in sociopolitical and cultural terms, at least two Liberias exist (Liberty, 1977): (1) the Liberia of the "uncivilized country people or natives" (the vast majority of the country's population, by the way); and (2) the Liberia of the so-called "civilized" descendants of the settlers (less than five percent of the population). Most of the descendants of the settlers have an attitude of "entitlement and the right" to rule the "natives". The political status of the indigenous peoples as "colonized" remained unchanged until 1964. By then the decolonization storm blowing over the whole of Africa forced President William V. S. Tubman to grant "independence" to the Liberian Hinterland Provinces -the "internal colonies"-of western, central and eastern provinces. They were integrated as counties (Lofa, Bong, Nimba, and Grand Gedeh) into the Liberian state, thus putting them on symbolic, equal political footing with the settler counties. Up to the 1980 military coup that brought Samuel K. Doe to power, and the decade of bloodletting that followed, this symbolic integration remained just that. The real challenge now, which has received lip service over the years, is how to create a political community in Liberia that will include all sociocultural groups on an equal footing. Third, there was the perception (and perhaps still is today for most African states) that the imperial state neither had need for nor cause to promote democracy in order to govern.. Since there are different kinds of democracy (i.e. multiparty democracy; representative democracy; participatory democracy), and the term carries

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different meanings for different people, it is important to state what it means here. Unfortunately, it is defined in the negative in order to emphasize how an undemocratic state operates. Noam Chomsky's (1987, p. 113) view is shared on this matter. Among other things and at the minimum level, a state is not democratic if it has the power "to coerce its citizens and protect itself from their scrutiny and control,.. .prevent free

expression and free association,. . . maintain state secrets and conduct its affairs without public awareness and influence." That is precisely how the Liberian state has and continues today to conduct its affairs. It, therefore, was not, nor is it a democratic state today. As an imperial and undemocratic state, Liberia felt that it only needed force or violence to both "pacify" and rule the "natives." The European conquest and rule of Africa for nearly a century and the Cold War, following the end of the Second World War, seem to lend support for this view. In Liberia's case, it all started at the very beginning, going back to 1821, when an agent of the ACS, at gunpoint, forced the leaders of one of the indigenous states to cede territory for the settlers. From then on the Liberian state relied on superior modern weapons, the support of the United States government and military, bogus treaties and multinational corporations, such as Firestone, to dispossess the indigenous states and their peoples of their land and disrupt their ongoing social transformation and development. Included in this perception was also the myth that the Liberian state represented the indigenous peoples. These imperial designs and acts ofthe Liberian state were repeatedly challenged by the indigenous peoples into the second half of the twentieth century. For example, as early as 1856, the Grebo Confederation defeated the armed forces of the independent state of Maryland, which led to its joining the Liberian republic the following year. Then in 1875, the Grebo Reunited Kingdom defeated the entire armed forces of the Liberian state (Jones, 1973). There were times when the United States had to intervene militarily to save the Liberian state. Thus, in 1915 and again in 1933, when the Kru, under chief Juah Nimene's leadership, cut off communication between Sinoe County and the rest of the Liberian state and blockaded ports, the United States navy bombarded Nimene's blockade to break the siege. The idea that all an imperial state needed to govern, and Liberia perceived itself as an imperial power vis-à-vis the indigenous states and peoples, was a strong military, and not the consent of the governed, or democracy in general, became the centerpiece of Liberia's national policy. Not having the consent ofthe governed meant not having an orderly and peaceful environment in which to govern. Liberia has had to live with that consequence throughout most of its history. In the process, Immanuel Kant's idea of a republic, unlike an authoritarian state, acting in its citizens' interests, not to mention best

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interests, did not come into play in Liberia'. Instead, Liberia maintained the name of a republic without any of the functional attributes of a republic or commitment to republican philosophy. Thus, Liberia has the dubious, contradictory distinction ofbeing Africa's oldest republic and its oldest, authoritarian one-party state simultaneously (The True Whig Party ruled Liberia continuously from 1870 to 1980.). Multiparty democracy and elections in Liberia were mere masquerades, so much so that it has earned the dubious, unenviable distinction of having conducted the world's most rigged elections in 1927. Elections in Liberia, when they were held, as in the recent cases of Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Brazil, were not about electing people to position of political power, whether in the legislative or executive branch, for political power did not lie in the hands of the voters, and, therefore, they could not give what they did not have. The elections were never freely contested, rarely free and fair, or honest. As Bethell (2000, p.3) has observed about Brazil, in Liberia and most African states "elections [were and are] without democracy." The extent of this imperial attitude of not needing democracy or democratic legitimacy to govern was shown as recently as 1979. At the time, the Liberian state was on the verge of collapse during the so-called Monrovia rice riot. The soldiers refused orders from the defense minister to fire on demonstrators. President William R. Tolbert turned not to the Liberian people to resolve the conflict but to Guinea for troops to protect him and his government. Once again., the people were not brought into the arena collectively to "decide the course of their historical fate." A year later, it took only seventeen semi-literate, noncommissioned officers and a few enlisted men to butcher Tolbert and topple the government. And the people jubilantly danced and cheered, not as actors from within the center of political power, but as observers and the oppressed on the outside at the periphery, where they have been all along throughout Liberia's history. A David, they thought, had slain their Goliath (I Sam. 17:48-5 1)2. Instead of deliverance, though, they received more oppression and repression at the hand of their new Goliath, Samuel K. Doe.

' See Kenneth N. Waltz, "Kant, Liberalism, and War", American Political Science Review 56:2 (June 1962) p. 332.

2 In the Bible, David, the shepherd boy, killed Goliath, the giant leader of the Philistines, who had terrorized the Israelites and liberated his people. The Liberian state is symbolized here, as Goliath, but Samuel Doe, who overthrew the Tolbert government, was not a David nor did he liberate the Liberians from an oppressive, authoritarian state.

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Finally, the imperial state produced the imperial presidency. For more than a century, Liberia was praised for its "stability", ostensibly because of its "strong leaders"; the phenomenon referred to in recent times as the "African strong man". The imperial president became an embodiment of the state, with no dividing line between his persona and the state. Tubman's more than a quarter century of personal, authoritarian rule is a prime example (Jackson and Rosberg, 1982). In recent times, Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor have raised the bar of personal, authoritarian rule to higher levels, and have felt that they do not need democracy or the consent of the Liberian people to govern. That is what Liberia's history has told them. For them and that history, political power derives not from the consent of the people, but from the barrel of the gun. That, to them, makes democracy irrelevant, and not even a necessary nuisance. Times, though, have changed, and a new history is in the making. The new epoch and emerging history make democracy and good governance the only medicine in town to secure peace and stability in Liberia, as well as cure its other chronic socioeconomic and political ills. Given the background and problem discussed above, it would be an impossible mission to expect that a structurally exclusive, non-democratic, highly centralized, and socially unjust system can be relied upon to transform itself and become inclusive, democratic, decentralized, and socially just. Liberia is at center stage of the African continent that is described as a "human and environmental disaster area" (Kennedy, 1994, p.211). It is well recognized that not only is Liberia's disaster both human-made and self-inflicted, but also that Liberia's troubles were brought on by the processes discussed above. Liberia's current sociopolitical structure and institutions are a major part of Liberia's problems; thus they cannot be looked to for solution. They need to be replaced. Since very urgent attention is required to save Liberia from self-destruction, fresh thinking, broad-based community and national dialogue, and new ideas are called for to reinvent the Liberian state. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to commencing such a dialogue.

II. CRITERIA AND KEY ELEMENTS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE

The dialogue on what Liberians can do to save their country from self- destruction, establish order and peace, and democracy should start with the Liberian state itself. The state is the "eye" of Liberia's hurricane of crises. There is a direct causal relationship of the crisis of the state to lack of good governance. This is the reason for beginning with the criteria and key elements of good governance.

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It may be argued that talking of good governance in the absence of a democratic state is like describing safe driving rules when there is neither a road nor vehicle to drive. Since the hallmark of a democratic state is good governance, and the two are inseparable, it is hoped that describing good governance will lay the foundation for building democratic states in Africa in general, and Liberia, in particular. The concept of good governance is partly controversial and confusing, because it is associated with the Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In fact, it was the World Bank that introduced the concept in 19893. As a result, the World Bank has been accused of using the concept as a mechanism for interference in the internal affairs of African states, at the least, and, at the extreme, as an instrument for recolonization of the African continent by mainly the western, rich, and former imperialist nations (International Institute For Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 1998; The Wall Street Journal, 22 October 1996; Ayittey, 1999).

The Criteria for Good Governance Controversy and confusion aside, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), the criteria for good governance are: (1) participation; (2) transparency; (3) accountability; (4) effectiveness; and (5) efficiency (IDEA, 1998, p.36). It defines good governance as "all those measures that are implemented to ensure and optimize the management of public affairs (economic, political, social, and administrative)". Unfortunately, Liberia has failed on these criteria throughout its entire history. It is that history that establishes a compelling necessity for good governance in Liberia. An examination of the first three criteria tells the whole story. Participation. There are several levels to participation. For example, participation can be measured by the proportion of the citizenry that votes in presidential and general elections. Even though Liberians theoretically legally have the right of universal suffrage-everyone eighteen years and older having the right of one person, one vote-participation in elections has been severely restricted throughout the country's history, as was pointed out earlier. Elections were nothing more than a

3 See The World Bank. 1989. Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. A Long Term Perspective Study. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Also, The World Bank. 1997. The State in a Changing World. 1997 World Development Report. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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meaningless ritual. As recently as the 1997 elections, less than a third of the eligible voters participated. It may be contended that the 1997 elections were special elections, designed and held under special circumstances to end Liberia's bloody conflict. If that in fact were the goal, then that is all the more reason to have had all eligible Liberians-in and out of the country-participate. If the argument is that Liberia's 1997 elections were designed, as its supporters would have the world believe, to end the fighting, that has not happened. Why not? It is because, in part, justice was not done and trust was not repaired or restored among the people. The thousands who suffered physical and moral injuries from the war are demanding justice now on their terms. And if the elections were designed to create democracy in Liberia, even a flawed one, that too has not happened, and may not happen. The partial reason is that those who suffered physical and moral injuries from the war and have not received justice have already detached themselves from what they perceive to be an immoral, unjust and tyrannical state, and are no longer citizens upon whom the Liberian state can rely. Liberians had hoped that the war was going to give them a new beginning at building a real democracy. That is what the supporters of the elections made them to believe. But the small number of traumatized participants robbed the people of their hope and an opportunity to create a better future for themselves, leaving them trapped in their past, while the whole world looked on, pretending it was helpless to do anything about the evil it had helped to create, and while the evil doers laughed at their victims. At the end of the day, undemocratic elections with undemocratic or no citizens can hardly be expected to produce democracy in Liberia. And the door for Liberia to escape from its past seems to have been sealed. Participation, however, is not limited to voting. It also includes involving people in making the critical decisions that fundamentally affect their lives. Voting to elect representatives and leaders may be one form of making such critical decisions. However, history and experience have taught that so-called elected representatives and leaders have not always served the best interests of the Liberian people, if at all. And there are constitutional mechanisms that allow the people directly to make such decisions (i.e. declaring war; accepting World Bank and IMF structural adjustment packages and conditionalities) themselves rather than leaving them to politicians. Such mechanisms are unavailable to Liberians. For example, Liberia's constitution makes no provision for popular referenda in order for the people to decide critical national issues, nor does it make provision for recall of "elected" officials. An ombudsman provision that was designed to empower the citizens to call their officials to account was thrown out of the draft of the 1984 constitution. Only a handful of Liberia's ruling elite has made all such decisions throughout the country's history. In the past, representatives in the legislature

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were handpicked by presidents, and, therefore, did what was asked of them by the presidents, even when the people's or the country's best interests were not served. The emergency laws under Tubman, then Doe (i.e. the defunct and infamous degree 88A), and now Taylor are examples. Participation also involves the principle of proportionality. The test of this principle is not met, for example, when the Kpelle ethnic group, who represent more than twenty percent of the population, do not have proportional representation in the legislature and cabinet. Conversely, when the descendants of the settlers, who represent less than five percent of the population, have overwhelming majority of the seats in the legislature, cabinet and foreign service, then the principle of proportionality is not met. Liberia cannot be expected to have peace, stability, and sustainable socioeconomic development under conditions which allow one group to monopolize political and economic power, and maintain tyrannical minority or majority rule over all other groups. Finally, participation includes allowing people to have their voices heard in decisions affecting their welfare, who governs, and how the rules for governance are made. In the past and now, the people have been effectively silenced by a whole host of schemes including, but not limited to, manipulation, brutality, intimidation, and exclusion. This happened largely because of personal, authoritarian rule and the absence of an independent judiciary. Accordingly, there was no judiciary to which the people could turn for protection of their fundamental human rights and civil liberties, including but not limited to freedom of speech, assembly, and association. It may be argued that the problem of participation can be solved by the institution or implementation of constitutional mechanisms such as multipartyism, regular, periodic elections, and by broadening the base of an essentially authoritarian system. Such measures are inherently defective and cannot remedy the problem outlined above. The highly centralized state structures that inhibit participation will have to be decentralized and power diffused in order to secure and protect the participation of vulnerable groups (i.e. women, ethnic, religious, and other groups). Transparency. The principle of transparency is simple and straightforward. It involves openness and honesty. As indicated earlier, both in the past and now, Liberia's governments have not operated by the principle of transparency in conducting the affairs of the state. The small number of people involved in running the state made it possible for governments to violate the principle of transparency by operating without public awareness and scrutiny and to get away with it. The resulting consequences have been lack of trust and confidence in both public officials and the government, thus leading to alienation of the people from the state. Few, if any, governments of Liberia have had the

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support, trust and confidence of the people. In the future, particularly following the recent nasty war, governments will have to both commit themselves to and promote transparency and honesty in conducting the affairs of the state, in order to gain the support, trust and confidence of the people. Accountability. In a democracy, at regular and periodic intervals, elections are conducted. These elections enable the people to alternate and circulate their elite. The elite, in turn, come to the people either to get their mandates renewed, or to get new mandates. Overtime, a process of check-and-balance between the people and the elite evolves. But when no elections are held, or when elections are a mere masquerade, there is no accountability. The politicians do as they please. The people are left with little option, except to revolt periodically at great cost of lives. Dictators then entrench themselves in power by means of violence. This has been the story of Liberia. With the war now nearly over, efforts must be made to put into place institutions and mechanisms that will ensure accountability by politicians to the people. Whether or not that happens will depend largely on the governance structure that is put into place. And this raises the question as to whether or not the military should be part of that structure. The Role of the Military. This brings up a fundamental issue: Does Liberia need a military? There are those who cannot imagine a territorial state without an army. They equate national sovereignty with having an army or armed forces. From the time the army was established at the start of the 1900s up to the present, it has been an instrument of repression and oppression in Liberia. For those who think that a sovereign state must have an army, Switzerland and Costa Rica are two examples of the most democratic states in the world, and they do not have standing armies. The whole matter thus rests on two questions: (1) Does the military have a role to play in Liberia's reconstruction and sustainable development, judging from the immediate experience of its involvement in the country's devastating war, and what could such a role be?; and (2) Will Liberia be better or worse off in the future with or without an army or military? These questions are of concern to Liberians and non-Liberians--in and out of the country-who are interested in putting in place a new governance structure for Liberia. This is a very sensitive matter that deserves to be fully aired not by a few, but all Liberians. Some preliminary arguments for and against inclusion of the military are presented to get the conversation started. The attempt here is not to provide an exhaustive, but rather core, arguments to begin with. The arguments against inclusion are presented first, followed by those in favor. First and foremost, the military is seen as a repressive and oppressive institution that has outlived its usefulness in Liberia. Second, it is perceived as a

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predatory, non-productive parasitic institution. It is argued, therefore, that at a time of massive reconstruction needs for the country, whatever meager resources are available cannot be wasted on a non-productive institution. Third, it is further argued that having the military available will create the possibility, even probability, that it may fall into the hands of the wrong leader, at some future date, and be used against the people once again. The way to deal with that problem is not to have a military waiting around at all. Fourth, it is argued that in the past Liberian leaders relied on the military for governance, and that undermined or prevented the development of democracy, in general, and good governance, in particular. Finally, it is contended that the military has only been a disruptive, destabilizing force in the country's history. So, why maintain such a force?, it is asked. A set of counter arguments states: First, the military is needed to protect Liberia's sovereignty and borders. Most sovereign states maintain their military to protect their citizens against external aggression. In an uncertain, unstable world environment, it is contented that Liberia cannot leave itself vulnerable by not having a military that will protect its sovereignty. Second, a peaceful, stable and enabling environment is needed in order to undertake the massive reconstruction task that lies ahead. The military, not necessarily the current one, is seen as the institution that will provide such an environment. There are those who would counter that that enabling environment can best be created by having Liberia declare itself a neutral state. That way, it neither needs to spend its meager resources to maintain an army, nor does it have to worry about military takeover of power. Further, they argue that a factionalized or ethnicized military could be captured by some faction or ethnic group in the future. Finally, it is argued that the military can and should be put to work to rebuild infrastructure such as schools, clinics, roads and other facilities that it destroyed during the war. As the dialogue begins, more arguments will be added.

The Key Elements of Good Governance There are four essential elements of good governance: (1) rule of law; (2) independent judiciary; (3) accountability; and (4) leadership. Rule of Law. The true test of a democracy is rule of law. Here reference is made to a set of acknowledged, institutionalized body of laws that is impartially administered by an independent judiciary, without fear or favor, and without regard to status, sex, religion, ethnicity, race, or age. The fountainhead of rule of law is a constitution. Fundamental human rights and civil liberties of citizens are protected under regimes that are governed by rule of law. Thus, the principle of rule of law embodies due

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process. This means, among other things, that an individual cannot be locked up on the orders of a head of state or other high officials of government without being properly charged; that when charged, he or she will be afforded the opportunity of a fair trial and by a jury of his/her peers; and that even if convicted of the charge, he or she will not be subjected to cruel and unusual or inhuman punishment. It does not automatically follow that because a country has a constitution, which contains provision for protection of fundamental human rights, that such rights are in fact exercised and protected, as the case of Liberia has shown. Liberia's story is that neither the 1847 nor 1984 constitution, nor the democratic institutions and mechanisms laid down in them have been or are being implemented. In theory and on paper, Liberia, like the former Soviet Union, has been a democratic state. But in practice, Liberia has been characterized, not by rule of law, but as a one-party state, governed by personal, authoritarian imperial presidents. Under these circumstances, rule of law has been an endangered species in Liberia. Unless it receives immediate attention, it may pass into history. Independent Judiciary, The independence of the judiciary is laid down in the Liberian are indispensable to a democratic state. Where they do not exist, the claim of a democratic state cannot be sustained. It is an independent judiciary that constrains, and, in fact, puts the citizens beyond the reach of a strong, repressive and oppressive hand of the government or state. And it erects an impenetrable protective wall shielding the weak and powerless from the strong and powerful. When there are no independent judiciary and rule of law, society degenerates into disorder or anarchy, where the weak are at the tender mercy of the strong, particularly the state. The crisis of the judiciary in Liberia is directly linked to that of the state. Several reasons account for this situation. First and foremost, like the rest of the Liberian constitution, the independence of the judiciary was not only not implemented, but was also easily compromised. Second, the judiciary has been dependent on the executive for the appointment of judges and provision of resources to operate. That immediately undermined the principle of separate and co-equal three branches of the government. Withholding resources from the judiciary to bring independent-minded judges to their knees was a standard practice in Liberia. Third, since judges have been dependent on the executive for their careers, they have been reluctant to rule against the executive or government. Fourth, it was not uncommon for Liberian executives to intervene in matters under consideration by the judiciary and to dictate how they should be decided. In such instances, the judges considering the matters have given in to the presidential pressures. Thus, the executive over time usurped the powers of the judiciary,

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or totally compromised and corrupted it. Finally, the judiciary was subject to socioeconomic pressures, particularly given the low pay scale of the judiciary, poor or lack of training ofjudges, and irregularity of salary payment. This led to presidents corrupting judges, and ultimately the whole system, so much so that those who had money could buy justice, and those who did not have money were denied justice in Liberia. Leadership. Robert I. Roberg (2000, p. 50) has observed: "Africa's failure to thrive at the end of the century has many causes, not least of which is mismanagement." While it has produced tyrants like Mobutu Sese Seko of the now Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Idi Amin of Uganda, Jean Fidel Bokasa of the Central African Empire, and Samuel K. Doe of Liberia, among others, it has not produced many democrats in the second half of the twentieth century. It cannot be overemphasized that democracy does not just mushroom overnight, and that it is a long process that takes democrats both to create and sustain. It has been pointed out throughout this paper that even where democratic institutions and mechanisms were laid down in constitutions, Liberia's leaders, either out of epochal prevailing conditions, ignorance, or by deliberate design or both, subverted them. The one single, most critical variable that could have been relied upon to make Liberia a democratic state was its leaders. A careful review of Liberia's story for the past century and a half will reveal that the one variable that doomed democracy in Liberia has been its leaders. Even though political leadership has been emphasized here, Liberia also suffered from an even more critical leadership deficiency-intellectual leadership. The country suffered greatly because it did not produce a critical mass of intellectuals who could have charted Liberia's course in history and assisted in keeping it on that course. Every revolution in history has been the brainchild of intellectuals. Unfortunately, Liberia, operating in a cultural context of anti-intellectualism, has produced pseudo- sycophantic intellectuals, who, even when given the opportunity in a time of crisis, are unable to save the country, let alone produce revolutionary ideas. Lacking the intellectuals and intellectual capacity to generate original ideas that can serve as the launch pad to propel Liberia into a different future trajectory, the country finds itself today in a mire of socioeconomic and political decay, wallowing in dependency and mediocrity. The intellectuals are not without their own problems, not least of which is their inability to put aside the western intellectual binoculars through which they have been viewing the Liberian landscape. As a result, they have been unable to see the real Liberia, let alone understanding its problems and to find appropriate solutions. For example, the western binoculars maintain to the Liberian intellectuals that Liberia is a

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state. But the reality says the concept of Liberia being a state is only a myth. If Liberia's intellectuals recognize and accept the reality of this myth, they would have a greater chance of success in creating or reinventing a Liberian state and building democracy in Liberia. If Liberia is seen not as a concrete, established reality, but only an idea that is in the making and lies in the future, a future that is malleable, manipulatable, and subject to continuous creation and innovation in the present, then the intellectuals are going to be in a better position to address Liberia's needs and problems. However, to the Liberian intellectuals, who have been trained and nurtured on western thought, a power sharing formula that includes civil society groups like trade unions and farmers' associations (most food producers in Liberia are women, as in most of Africa) is incomprehensible, and, therefore, rejected. The simple reason? They have been socialized to accept as the "natural order" the exercise of power and governance by the owners of capital and elite over, but not to share it with, the working or ordinary people. They are, therefore, having difficulty understanding that neither democracy nor sustainable socioeconomic development can take place in Liberia if the owners of capital, those who serve their interests (the ruling elite, including the so-called intellectuals) and working people do not sit at the same table on equal terms to determine Liberia's future. However, setting aside the western binoculars may call for a radical change in how the intellectuals perceive themselves vis-à-vis their country and their role in its transformation. The process may require nothing less than a complete metamorphoses. Meeting that challenge remains to be seen. No doubt, of all the challenges that Liberia now faces, the challenge of finding a political leader, with a vision for the country's future, commitment, administrative and technical skills, and capacity to sew up the gapping wounds of a war-weary people, is the most daunting one. The handful of intellectuals around will have to redouble their efforts to generate ideas for reconstructing a better Liberia for all Liberians, and also to increase their number to a critical mass. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never in Liberia's history has its life depended on a few intellectuals, and that is a duty they must perform, if Liberia is to be kept alive. Further discussion on accountability is not needed here, because it was discussed earlier. Propositions and recommendations growing out of the discussion now follow.

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III. PROPOSITIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Given the nature of the problem outlined above, an important question arises: What can or should be done about this burning problem of lack of good governance and the need to create a democratic state in Liberia? Subtle hints have been provided throughout the paper regarding specific measures that need to be taken to remedy aspects of the general problem. The comments that follow are intended to provide specific propositions and recommendations for consideration. Unless they are given serious attention, Liberians can kiss good governance and the creation of a democratic state goodbye. The broad propositions are presented first, followed by the specific ones. Two broad propositions are provided: Proposition One: The problem of lack of governance, let alone good governance, and the urgent need to create a democratic state are so severe that patchwork and quick fixes cannot remedy them. Proposition One, therefore, calls for: a complete overhaul or restructuring of Liberia's existing political system or creation of a new one is needed to secure peace, stability, and sustainable socioeconomic reconstruction and development. The principal instrument whereby this can be achieved is the drafting of new constitution. Organizing one-shot, multiparty elections, no matter how transparently free and fair, will not overnight produce the long process of developing a democratic civil society, democratic legitimacy and good governance in Liberia, nor will it transform centralized, exclusionist, non-democratic and socially unjust political structures, institutions and mechanisms into decentralized, inclusive, democratic and socially just ones. Proposition Two: The severity of the problems sketched out in Proposition One is acknowledged. However, the existing constitution, political institutions, structures, and mechanisms are not so materially defective that they have to be discarded. The cost of writing a new constitution, and creating new institutions, structures and mechanisms for governance at this time is beyond Liberia's financial resources. Furthermore, time is a significant factor, and it is not on Liberia's side. Besides, the existing constitution, institutions, structures, and mechanisms have not been fully implemented, even though there are some defects that need correction. Proposition Two, therefore, calls for: (1) full implementation of the existing constitution and the institutions, structures and mechanisms laid down in it; and (2) institution of the additional measures needed to correct the defects in the existing constitution. Note: The major problem with Proposition Two is leaving the old system in place, doing some patchwork here and there, and praying and hoping the good Lord will

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do the rest. That is, the Liberians are expecting God to do for them what he has given them the capacity to do for themselves. Since that has not happened in one and a half centuries of praying and waiting, it is less likely to happen now. At the end of the day, if the Liberians do not do the right thing, Proposition Two may be no more than spinning the wheels without any movement in the direction of the desired changes for Liberia and its people. Now the specific recommendations.

1. Community and National Dialogue The general objective of the dialogue is for Liberians in their communities everywhere to begin dialoguing about their future. it is also intended to reconcile Liberians one to another and to develop trust and social capital, without which Liberians will be unable to work together. Finally, the dialogue is needed for healing the wounds from the war. Liberia's war has done terrible things to all Liberians, and left deep, gapping wounds in their hearts and souls. All Liberians have suffered physical and moral injuries that will last their lifetime. The uprooting and displacement of two-thirds of Liberia's pre-war population of 2.4 million; the sending of 850,000 people into refugee camps to live under degrading and dehumanizing conditions; and the death of 250,000 people mean that there is hardly a single Liberian who has not been touched deeply by the Liberian war. The magnitude of this tragedy forces every Liberian into sharing a common experience of severe pain and grief. There is an urgent need for community and national healing. Yet, since the official end of this war, Liberians have not provided themselves the opportunity to grieve together and to reconcile. Mali and Burkina Faso conducted national dialogues as part of the resolution of their conflicts. Liberians can definitely benefit from such a process. It can start by Liberians reaching out to each other in their communities in and out of the country. Community, religious, and other civic leaders can play a key role in organizing this dialogue. The mass media and scholars as well as civic organizations can play key roles in getting this dialogue underway. July 2001 is proposed as National Dialogue Month, ending with a major reconciliation conference on 26 July 2001 to mark Liberia's one hundred fifty-fourth independence anniversary.

2. Convening of a Sovereign National Conference The war has done so much damage and ripped the national fabric that it is felt nothing short of a sovereign national conference is needed to repair the damage and get the country back together and going again. The thinking of people favoring the sovereign

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national conference is that the process of mobilizing and organizing people, and getting them to elect their representatives to the conference will aid greatly in replenishing trust and social capital that are so badly needed for national reconstruction and development. The conference may result in a complete overhaul or restructuring of the political system, including drafting a new constitution and change of government. For that reason, the idea involves great political risks, which may inhibit holding it. First and foremost, the government in Monrovia has to sign off on it. It is called sovereign national conference because whatever decisions are made by the people's representatives at the conference are binding on the government. it is less likely that the government will sign off on an exercise that may mean its demise. And secondly, the people have to desire the conference so badly that they would mobilize to demand it. Or, alternatively, conditions in the country have to be so bad that both the government and the people would come to a mutual agreement to have such a conference. The idea holds great promise of making Liberia a better place for all Liberians and should be explored.

3. Drafting a National Development Plan The war has left Liberia in total ruins, and there is good will in the international community to help Liberians rebuild their country. So far, the leadership factor and the absence of a national plan of action have left Liberians without the needed assistance. Time is slipping by quickly, and other human disasters around the world are drawing the attention of the international community away from Liberia. Not very much can be achieved in mobilizing external resources, if a comprehensive national plan of action for reconstruction is not quickly developed. This exercise is urgently needed, and does not require reinventing the wheel. It may take the form of a set of sectoral plans (i.e. agriculture, education, health) and could take as little as 90 to 120 days to gather the needed data and prepare the plan. One major obstacle here is that funds will be needed for travel, data gathering and preparation of the plan. If citizen groups come up with proposals for developing these plans, they may find the necessary funding from interested parties. It may need the involvement and full cooperation of the government in Monrovia. That may be another obstacle. Finally, the experts working on the plan will need autonomy to present views, which may not be pleasing to the government. For the benefit of the country, efforts need to be made to prepare such a plan of action. This is another activity that can be used to mobilize the people to become involved in drawing up the plans for reconstruction of their country. One way to get such involvement is to set up sectoral national commissions (i.e. national commission on education; national

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commission on health; national commission on agriculture, etc.) to which citizens can elect representatives.

4. Referendum on the Military According to the Abuja Two Accord, which finally brought the bloodletting in Liberia to an end in 1997, the Economic Community of West African States' peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, was supposed to restructure and train Liberia's new military. Upon his election as president of Liberia, Charles Taylor claimed that restructuring the army was his constitutional duty, and refused to cooperate with ECOMOG. Fed up with Taylor's shenanigans, ECOMOG packed up and left Liberia. That gave Taylor the freedom to pack the armed forces with the murdering thugs from his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). There are, therefore, no national armed forces of Liberia; only Taylor's private army, much the same way that Samuel K. Doe turned the military into his ethnic army. Given the track records of these two armies, Liberians collectively need to decide whether or not to have a national army, and what its makeup should be. This calls for a national referendum.

5. Drafting of New Constitution The one activity in which the people can collectively "decide the course of their historical fate" is the drafting of a new constitution. it is strongly felt by some Liberians that nothing short of a new constitution is needed in order to create a new state in Liberia, and thereby secure permanent peace and stability, rule of law, participation, and power sharing. The need for the new constitution is in part based on the argument that Liberia's crisis cannot be solved without completely restructuring the state. This can only be achieved by drafting a new constitution; an exercise which, it is anticipated, would involve all civil society or sociocultural groups in the country. As part of the process of drafting the 1984 constitution, the commission conducted extensive hearings all across the country. The commission also included a referendum to approve the draft constitution. These exercises mobilized the people, afforded them the opportunity to participate and to have their voices heard. All this created a feeling of national identity with the new constitution and state, and, above all, gave democratic legitimacy to the entire exercise. Not all of the people's expectations were met. The betrayal of not implementing that constitution now leads some Liberians to insist upon starting anew and doing it right once and for all by writing a new constitution. They point out that the war would not have happened if the 1984 constitution, though imperfect, had been

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implemented. Not writing a new constitution means leaving in place a unitary state, with centralized political power, which will limit participation, power sharing, and equitable distribution of the resources of the country. Advocates of the new constitution point out that this will lead the country back to where it has been in the past decade of bloodshed. Concluding Comments. It is clear that Liberia stands at a crossroad, and is at great risk of self destruction. Urgent attention is required to save the country and its people. This is a challenge for Liberians. The world will join Liberians in rebuilding their country, if they take the lead. This paper has presented, at the political level, some views that may contribute to beginning the national conversation on what steps Liberians need to take to rebuild their country. What is needed to get started is the political will (not quick fix approaches, but sustained engagement) and commitment to act, and now. Robert J. Samuelson has noted, in a different context, that "people do best when asked to do more."4 On the whole, day by day, Liberians, individually, have done the little things just to stay alive. Now, collectively, they have to create the opportunity, like the Ivorian people, and before them, the people of Yugoslavia, to do more and the big things for themselves. They must now act collectively to create their own future.

4 Robert J. Samuelson. 2000. "The Lesson of Tough Love," Newsweek, September 4, 2000.

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References

Ayittey, George B. N. 1999. Africa in Chaos. New York: St.Martin's Griffin. Barber, Benjamin R. 2000. "Jihad vs. Mc World", in Frances V. Moulder, (ed.) Social Problems of the Modern World, California: Wadsworth, 2000. Bethell, Leslie. 2000. "Politics in Brazil: From Elections without Democracy to Democracy without Citizenship", in Daedalus, Spring 2000. Beyan, Amos J. 1991. The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900. New York: University Press of America. Chomsky, Noam. 1987. "The Domestic Scene", in The Managua Lectures, South End Press. Guinier, Lam. 1998. Lift Every Voice. New York: Simon & Schuster. Heslop, R. D. 1969. Thomas Jefferson and Education. New York: Random House. Huberich, Charles Henry. 1947. The Political and Legislative History of Liberia. New York: Central Book Company. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 1998. Democracy in Burkina Faso. Washington, DC: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Jackson, Robert H. and Carl Rosberg. 1982. Personal Rule in Black Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jones, Abeodu Bowen. 1973. "The Republic of Liberia". In J. F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press. Kennedy, Paul. 1994. Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Vintage Books. Liberty, Clarence E. Zamba. 1977. Growth of the Liberian State: An Analysis of its Historiography. Stanford, California: Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, Stanford University. Martin, Jane J. 1969. "How to Build a Nation: Liberian Ideas about National Integration in the Later Nineteenth Century". Paper presented at Conference on Social Sciences Research in Liberia, Stanford University, and August 1-2. Mitchell, Theodore R. and Lawrence A. Tones. 1998. "Something, But not Very Much' School-University Partnerships in Historical Perspective". In P. Michael Timpane and Lori S. White (eds.) Higher Education & School Reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

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Roberg, Robert J. 2000. "Africa's Mess, Mugabe's Mayhew", in Foreign Affairs, September/October 2000. Samuelson, Robert J. 2000. "The Lesson of Tough Love." Newsweek, September, 2000. Wall Street Journal, 22 October 1996 Waltz, Kenneth N. 1962. "Kant, Liberalism, and War," American Political Science Review 56:2 (June 1962). World Bank. 1989. Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. A Long Term Perspective Study. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

. 1997. The State in a Changing World. 1997 World Development Report. Washington, DC The World Bank.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Gender and Aging: Are Women "Warriors" Among the Glebo of Liberia?

Mary H. Moran*

INTRODUCTION: MEN'S AND WOMEN'S AGE GRADES IN AFRICA For many years the study of age systems occupied a privileged place in the classical literature of Africanist anthropology. Applying a structural-functionalist paradigm which emphasized social integration and the management of intergenerational conflict, scholars such as Gulliver (1958), Jones (1962), Wilson (1951) and others produced detailed accounts of the political, military, and symbolic operation of these institutions, particularly in East Africa. More recently, as new theoretical approaches

supplanted earlier models, the study of age systems fell out of scholarly favor; ". . . already a settled case: they are an old-fashioned topic far from 'post-modern' matters" (Kurimoto and Simonse 1998:x). Two recent developments, however, have served to revitalize interest in African age systems. One is the realization that these institutions have not withered away under pressure from urbanization, economic change, and other influences. On .the contrary, new evidence is emerging of the mobilization of militarized age sets as an aspect of contemporary civil struggles, such as within the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the Oromo Liberation Front, and in the violent clashes which took place in Kenya's Rift Valley in 1991 (Simonse and Kurimoto 1998:24 -25).' A second emerging area of interest stems from the realization that the literature on age systems is more properly a literature on men's age systems. Spurred by the feminist critiques of the 1970s and 1980s, a number of researchers have attempted to

*Dr. Moran is an American Liberianist. She is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. She is the author of Civilized Women: Gender and Prestige in Southeastern Liberia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.

It would be fascinating to know if and how existing age organizations have played a role in the on-going conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone; however, that is not the purpose of this paper and remains a topic for further research. For an analysis of the symbolic manifestations of warrior status in Liberia, see Moran 1995.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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rectify this situation by turning attention to comparable age-based organizations for women (Bernardi 1985; Kertzer and Madison 1981; Kurimoto and Simonse 1998). Bernardi remarks that "today no study of the problem of age classes could be considered systematic and objective without taking into account the position of women" (1985:132). But the well-intentioned attempt to "add women and stir" has thus far been disappointing. Kertzer and Madison, hoping to redress the balance with a survey of East African groups, came up with only three cases in which women's age grades are "present" and a few others in which they are "assimilated" to men's classes but none in which they operate with the acknowledged significance and authority of the men's system (1981:122, 125). Although he devotes a chapter of his book to the topic, Bernardi finds himself unable to explain the lack of fully elaborated women's age grades except by "the existence of a direct link between age class systems and the political control exercised by men rather than women" (1985:142). Noting that descriptions of women's age systems are at best, "rare and thin," Kurimoto and Simonse nevertheless assert that they:

. . . have the same origin and obey the same mechanisms as their male counterparts. The antagonism in which women's age-sets are involved is not with the enemy outside the group boundary, but with the men. In societies made up of antagonistically structured groups, women have not overlooked the opportunity the system offered them: to unite in opposition to men (1998:19).

This analysis, however, is unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, it assumes rather than documents gender antagonism by representing men and women as inevitably opposed and in conflict. Furthermore, while men's age grades are understood to operate on principles of opposition by which men are divided from each other, the equivalent organizations for women are somehow expected to produce gender solidarity. Moreover, in the very next paragraph, the authors conclude, "women's age-sets do not form a

coherent system in themselves . . . .Their principal reference is the male system" (Ibid). This sense of women's institutions as derivative is reinforced by the only paper on women in Kurimoto and Simones' recent collection-Kaori Kawai's "Women's Age Categories in a Male-Dominated Society: The Case of the Chamus in Kenya" (1998). Kawai distinguishes between recognized age grades which assign women to a series of biologically and socially perceived life stages and the age sets women enter at marriage. These sets are essentially auxiliaries to the male age sets, and a woman joins the set

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occupied by her husband regardless of her chronological age. Kawai argues that the grades, or unorganized life stages, hold far more relevance for women on a daily basis than the formal sets (Ibid:149). It is virtually an article of faith that men's age grades in sub-Saharan Africa are fully political bodies, especially "in those societies in which the basic allocation of roles is not overwhelmingly determined by membership in kinship groups and where some important integrative functions remain to be fulfilled . . . ." (Eisenstadt 1954:102). Likewise, Kertzer and Madison note that formalized age categories can reduce tension and conflict between older and younger men:

To enable the younger men to replace the older in a communally sanctioned fashion, and to ease the personal effects of such a role change on the elders, a formalized age-set system with specified points of collective transition has much to recommend it (1981:128).

Since a woman's ascension to senior status does not depend on her mother's willingness to cede this position, "There is thus no individually- nor societally-generated pressure to have a ritualized and clearly agreed upon transition to old age for women" (Ibid). I argue that it is the insistence that men's age systems are political institutions while women's are not which drives the confusion in the ethnographic literature. Simonse and Kurimoto argue that age systems are linked to politics in three ways: as organizations for military and territorial expansion, as cultural models of oppositional conflict, and as elements for the production and negotiation of cultural identity (1998:22). Furthermore, they "reach their peak of relevance in the period surrounding the promotion, succession or handing over ofpower" (Ibid:27). If such domains are seen as exclusively the preserve of men, there is obviously no reason for women's age grades to exist in anything like the male form. The lack of reporting on women's age organizations is therefore justified if the analysis ofpolitics focuses exclusively on formal political hierarchies occupied by male office holders. However, although men's age grades may be thoroughly political institutions, authority-bearing roles for women, access to which are not based on relative age, may be part of the same structure. It is this aspect of local-level administration which is frequently ignored by analysts who assume politics to be an exclusively male concern. Because age figures so powerfully in the lives and organized activities of men in many African societies, the lack of comparable women's organizations has been taken

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as evidence of exclusion and subordination to men's authority. The assumption that age is a natural ranking mechanism which affects all members of a society equally precludes the possibility that people may age quite differently in the same culture (Kertzer and Madison have made a similar argument; see 1981:109, 127). Based on my fieldwork in southeastern Liberia, I will make a case for the differential aging of men and women among the Cape Palmas Glebo.2 Well-meaning attempts to discover and document a system that is comparable to men's age grades only perpetuates the assessment of female age-based organizations as derivative and imitative of men's. Women's political participation and the authority-bearing roles they hold in the dual-sex structures that characterize many African societies (Okonjo 1976) are based not on age but on achievement, speaking ability, and sometimes marriage to office-holding men. Trying to force Glebo women's political structures into a strained parallelism with the men's age grades, I argue, obscures the real structural basis of women's political autonomy and authority in southeastern Liberia.

THE CASE OF THE GLEBO OF CAPE PALMAS In 1844, Bishop John Payne of the Protestant Episcopal Mission to West Africa noted that the Glebo women of Cavalla, on the southeastern coast of Liberia, were "divided into two or three classes, according to their ages, who dance together and have certain regulations and privileges as a community" (1845:115). Payne's statement, taken at face value, would appear to be evidence not only of women's age grades, or a system of age determined roles that are "specific, defining, and limiting" (Gulliver 1968:157),

but also of age groups, or corporate bodies "based on criterion of coequality; . . . a permanent collection of people who recognize a degree of unity, a unity that is acknowledged by non-members"(Ibid:159).3 Since the nineteenth century, other authors have cited Payne's observation, assuming that women's age grades and groups among the Glebo parallel the well described grades and groups of men (for example, see Johnson

2 Research with the Glebo of Cape Palmas was conducted for fifteen months in 1982-83 with support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Program and a Hannum-Warner Alumnae Travel Grant from Mount Holyoke College. 3 The literature on formalized systems of stratification by age contains a confusing array of terms: group, grade, set, class, association, society and category have all been used, sometimes synonymously. Many authors use the same terms in radically different ways (for example, compare Gulliver 1968 with Bernardi 1985). I have chosen to use the terms "grade," "group," and "category" as Gulliver defines them because they correspond to McEvoy's use of these terms in his description of the Sabo (1971).

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1957:53-54; Kurtz 1985:110-111; Martin 1968:21). Such assumptions seem to have stymied further research on the issue, and the Glebo have simply been noted as a group in which women's age grades are present. When Frederick McEvoy described a series of named women's age grades, some of which seemed to function as groups, among the Grebo-speaking Sabo of the southeastern interior in the late 1960s, he blamed male bias for the "real dearth of information in the published literature in regard to female age-grading and age-based corporate groups among the Kru- and Grebo-speaking peoples" (1971:610).4 He attributed the lack of interest since Bishop Payne's report to the fact that, "the anthropologists or other writers concerned simply failed to inquire about women's social organization" (ibid). Yet, McEvoy also assumed that the women's age grades he observed were unlike the men's in that they were "based on conceptions of economic productivity and fecundity" (Ibid:172). He described these grades as linked to divisions that, from a male perspective, made up the useful stages of a woman's life cycle:

. . . unlike men, women do not continue to gain in prestige after reaching an age when economic activities can no longer be carried out. When a woman has ceased to be economically productive, in the sense that she can no longer "make farm" or do other important tasks, she passes, in effect, into retirement and out of the prestige system (Ibid:172-3).

McEvoy was not alone in his assessment. In the 1960s, ethnographic surveys of southeastern Liberia were conducted under the auspices of the Tubman Center of African Culture. Due to limited funding for fieldworkers, these reports depended heavily on earlier written accounts and tended to confirm their findings. For example, in their survey of the Kran-speaking peoples of the interior, who are similar linguistically and culturally to the Grebo-speakers, Schroder and Seibel observe, "The age-groups for women were less elaborate [than men's] and served mainly economic purposes and social obligations" (1974:98). The clearly military and political aspects of

It is conventional among Liberianist scholars to use the term "Grebo" to refer to a number of named ethno-political units speaking various Grebo languages. "Glebo" refers to the coastal people occupying either side of Cape Palmas, from Fishtown Point to the Cavalla River, a distance of some thirty miles. For more on the difficulties of ethno-linguistic classification in the region, see McEvoy 1977.

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the men's groups, according to Schroder and Seibel, had declined as these functions have been taken over by the Liberian state. Although the authors devote some time to their discussion, only two of the numerous Kran groups surveyed actually mention age grades for women (Ibid: 99-103). Likewise Ronald Kurtz, who surveyed the Grebo-speaking peoples, finds evidence of women's age grades only among the Sabo and the Glebo, for which he depends on the work of McEvoy and Martin as well as earlier writers (1985:110). Inspired by these same sketchy but enticing reports, I searched for evidence of women's age grades and corporate age groups when I worked with the Cape Palmas Glebo in 1982-83. I was both disappointed and disconcerted to find the Glebo contradicting themselves; they either presented women's age divisions as a mirror image of the men's system or denied that such women's groups even existed. Perhaps significantly, it was the women I spoke with who were more likely to state categorically that they did not participate in organizations comparable to those of the men. An incident from my field notes is emblematic of numerous conversations: an older man was leading me through the well-documented men's system of named grades. When I asked about women, he repeated himself; women of such an age are "juniors," the next level is the "warriors" and so on. But I was becoming suspicious, since I had never heard women referred to collectively as warriors, only individually, as when faced with a particularly dangerous or painful childbirth. Questioning more closely, I apparently exhausted my informant's patience for he sighed and said, "Mostly, we just call them 'women.- I am therefore forced to conclude that neither Glebo men nor Glebo women consider the categories which punctuate the lives of men as being salient for women. But a more interesting question arises from this case: why were women's age grades thought to exist among southeastern Liberian peoples in the first place? What is it about the structure of gender relations in this region that would impress outside observers with this notion? How does age, which is clearly an important ranking mechanism for Glebo men, intersect with gender in determining an individual's prestige, or standing in the community? Finally, what kinds of structures organized the activities McEvoy observed among Sabo women in the 1960s if these were not age grades? Among the Glebo, have women's age grades become "lost," or can Kurtz and McEvoy's findings be interpreted in a different light?'

5 Although I am here taking issue with McEvoy's interpretations, this should in no way indicate a refutation of either the descriptive evidence he has collected or of his many other thoughtful conclusions. Frederick McEvoy's work has made a major and lasting contribution to our

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The Glebo and their neighbors are shifting, dry rice horticulturalists, adapted to the Guinea Coast tropical forest environment of alternating dry and rainy seasons. Speaking languages belonging to the Kwa subfamily of Niger-Congo (Greenberg 1963:8), the southeasterners are distinguished both linguistically and culturally from the Mande- and West Atlantic-speaking peoples to their north. Lacking the centralized politico-religious Poro and Sande societies of the north, southeasterners in general have received little attention from anthropologists and the full ethnographic complexity of the region is still little understood. Complicating the lack of intensive ethnographic work is the variation in dialect and local cultural practices over very short distances; within ten miles to the interior of my field site on the coast, a different dialect is spoken. Differences in dialect may be used as markers of "tribal" or dako identity. A dako consists of a cluster of towns, sharing a common origin myth and formerly allied with each other in time of war. There is, however, no indigenous dako-level administrative structure and the component towns are free to handle their own external and internal affairs.' Cutting across dako identities and linguistic differences are the named patrilineal clans, or pane (Sabo, tua; Kru, panton). Not all towns have a local branch of each pano (singular), but persons sharing a common clan name do have the right to hospitality in each other's towns, even in times of war. The interlocking pano identities seem to be the only regional integrative structure in the southeast and, like the dako, have no centralized system of authority (McEvoy 1977). Characteristically, the age-grading of men in the southeast is dako-specific and highly variable from place to place, both in the number of ranked levels and the names used to describe them (Kurtz 1985:100-104; McEvoy 1971:598-616), although Kurtz notes that every southeastern dako has one level which is designated "soldiers" or "warriors" (1985:109). Keeping this diversity in mind, it is possible that both the Sabo and the Glebo of Cavalla who were observed by Bishop Payne do (or did) have women's age grades. I argue, however, that both Payne and McEvoy have mistaken elements of the

understanding of the complexities of southeastern Liberian ethnography (see also McEvoy 1977). In addition, as a male ethnographer writing in the late 1960s and early 70s, his work is unusually sensitive to gender and the activities and contributions of women. 6 The indigenous hierarchy has, since the late nineteenth century, been subsumed into one imposed by the Liberian state. The national administrative system, modeled on European structures of indirect rule, has transformed the indigenous Glebo position of wodo baa into a "Town Chief." No corresponding salaried position exists under the national system for his female counterpart, the blo nyene.

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parallel men's and women's political hierarchies for organized women's groups based on age. Glebo men's age grades and groups have both political and ritual functions. Little boys, from toddlers through about age twelve, belong to the grade (which at this level is little more than an age category, following Eisenstadt's [1956:22] distinction) called kyinibo or pede nyinibo ("those who fail to look after their own excrement"). McEvoy reports that the lowest level in the Sabo system translates similarly as "those who defecate around the house" (1971:180). Along with girls of the same age, they constitute the category of wodo yudu, or "town children." Young boys have fewer domestic responsibilities than their female contemporaries, unless they are unlucky enough to live in a household with a shortage of girl children to do the work of fetching water and firewood. Such tasks are not gender specific in that any young person may be pressed into service by an elder, but girls are more likely to have regular duties at an early age (Moran 1990:26). The next grade, the kinibo, consists of adolescents and young men who are not yet married. In former times, the kinibo seems to have operated as a kind of police force, carrying out the judgments of those above them in the hierarchy (Johnson 1957:53). With marriage and the building of a house, a man passes into the sidibo or gbo, the "warriors" or "soldiers." McEvoy writes that entrance into this grade is marked by initiation into the men's secret society among the Sabo and that the gbo are internally divided into four sub-grades (1971:181). I found no evidence of a similar internal structure among the Glebo of the early 1980s, but as a young woman ethnographer there were areas of men's knowledge that were necessarily closed to me. The sidibo or gbo in both the Sabo and Glebo cases are a clear example of a corporate age group; they have an internal system of officers, share ownership of drums and other ritual equipment, and have their own building, the tiba kae, for meetings. Martin, who has extensively surveyed the nineteenth century missionary reports on the Glebo, suggests that internal politics in the coastal towns was characterized by an on-going power struggle between the sidibo and the council of elders, the gbudubo or takae (1968:19-20). This council, for the Glebo at least, is not an age grade in the sense that cohorts or even individuals are automatically promoted at a certain age or life stage. Rather, the takae is made up of the oldest living male member of each residentpano or clan in a town. Some very elderly men, therefore, remain sidibo or warriors all their lives, due to the longevity of a slightly older kinsman (Moran 1990:30). The takae is the primary administrative body of a Glebo town, serving as advisors to the wodo baa or "town's namesake," a largely ceremonial post which is held

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by a particular clan in each town. Members of the takae are widely feared for their presumed supernatural power (having survived to such exalted age, they must necessarily be spiritually very powerful) and for their legitimate authority to impose fines for infraction of town laws or ritual taboos. In theory, no adult is supposed to leave town for an extended period without seeking the permission of the takae or a fine of one or two cows may be levied (Ibid:27, 37). The men's age grades are clearly visible in public displays such as funeral dances, for which the different grades wear distinctive costumes and dance together. Women's funeral dances, by contrast, do not distinguish age classes by differences in dress, although there is a tendency to cluster the youngest and least experienced dancers at the end of the line. Less obvious, however, is the women's parallel political structure which operates in conjunction with that of the men. A women's takae, consisting of an elder female member of each resident clan (either a natal daughter or an in-marrying wife) meets in joint session with the men's takae and on their own for specifically women's issues. As a check on the power of the men's side of the structure, an elected female officer, the blo nyene, is said by both men and women to have veto power over decisions made by the wodo baa and his councilors (Moran 1990:33). Evidence exists of similar parallel structures, representing women but without emphasizing relative age as a criteria for participation or leadership, in other southeastern groups (Kurtz 1985:110-111; McEvoy 1971:176-77, 611-14; Schroder and Seibel 1974: 76, 100-101). It is this parallel political structure which I believe McEvoy has mistaken for women's age grades among the Sabo.

THE SABO CASE The age grades McEvoy describes for Sabo women include a generalized category of girls aged five to fifteen, the nesauwulu, or "those who take the water road," characterized as "apparently unorganized" (1971:173). Following Gulliver's use of the term, such an "unorganized" collectivity would not be a "grade" at all, but rather an age category, a "generalized role disposition into which specific roles may be built" (1968:157, following Eisenstadt 1956:22). Like the Glebo kyinibo for boys or wodo yudu for both sexes, the nesauwulu appears to be a recognized category of sub-adolescents, not an organized grade with clearly defined roles. Next for the Sabo women is a grade which McEvoy sees as also an age group, the wainyo, or Wire Company. This is a dancing society for young unmarried and married women up to the age of about forty (McEvoy 1971:174) It is said to have been started in 1961 among Sabo migrant workers at the Firestone rubber plantation at Cavalla

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and spread quickly to the home villages. Performances are sponsored by a "big man" who calls the group to dance at his house and offers them food and drinks. The group has several male officers and raises money internally to buy cloth of the same pattern for each member to wear as a dancing costume (Ibid:176). The Glebo also have such dancing companies, known as glorro, but these appear to be voluntary associations and are not based on universal ascription. It is not clear from McEvoy's account if membership in the Sabo wainyo is compulsory for all women of a certain age. Based on its recent origins and similarity with the Glebo glorro and other Kru, Kran, and Grebo women's performance clubs documented in the literature (Banton 1957; Buelow 1980-81; Schroder and Seibel 1974), I find it highly questionable to characterize the wainyo as an age grade and certainly not as an age group. The next level in the Sabo system is the denyino or "town women," who McEvoy defines as those past the age of childbearing but still economically active. Although he claims they are also an age group, McEvoy admits they have no organized dance company or officers. All the women of a Sabo town are represented by the nyinokei or women's chief, a position apparently analogous to the Glebo blo nyene. McEvoy says only that the nyinokei may "argue" with the men's council of elders and there is no mention of a veto power, as among the Glebo (McEvoy 1971:176). The women's takae or gbudubo in Glebo towns is also referred to as the "town women" (wodo nyeno) but unlike McEvoy's report for the Sabo, this decision-making council does not include all women over the age of childbearing; it is made up of one female representative of each resident pano in town. Given the noticeable differences between the Sabo and Glebo, this may well be a case of very different structures, but it is also possible that McEvoy misunderstood the actual composition and purpose of the "town women." At public events, middle-aged women generally sit together as a solid block and are sometimes referred to collectively as "town women" although only a select few are actually members of the takae (Moran 1990:31). Likewise, Bishop Payne's famous discussion of Glebo women's age grades is followed by a description of the essentially political functions of such officers as the blo nyene and her female takae (1845:115, 334). McEvoy notes that the Sabo nyinokei, like the Glebo blo nyene, is selected by all the adult women of the town based on her speaking ability and recognized qualities of leadership rather than on a hereditary basis or by virtue of her advanced age. Further, she may be "backed up by a 'second chief" (1971:176) and McEvoy mentions parenthetically that "this structure then parallels the town political organization" (Ibid).

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By the town political organization, McEvoy clearly means the male side of a dual sex political system. Kurtz also notes that the Sewo (Trembo) have a female elder who must be consulted when the town's women "want to carry out any plan" (1985:110). In summarizing the Sewo data, Kurtz presents the evidence as follows:

. . . that some group of women dances; that a group of elder women meets to discuss and develop plans for action of some kind; that the group or its representatives meet together with the male elders to consider those plans; and that there is a leading elder of the elder women (Ibid:110-111).

I have no doubt that were such activities described as being carried out by men, they would be labeled unhesitatingly as part of the political structure. Yet, it is from precisely this evidence that Kurtz reaches the conclusion, "The age-grading of women among the Sewo is a probability" (Ibid:111). This, and not inattention to women's age grades, is the "male bias" in the literature on southeastern Liberia. Schroder and Seibel document the presence of similar female elders and "women's presidents" among the Kran (1974:99-103) yet do not include these positions on their ten-page list of "Leaders and Officers of the Kran Tribes" (Ibid:71 -82). These authors, in fact, conclude that "in the affairs of the village and the tribe women had practically no voice" (Ibid:66). Kurtz likewise provides a listing of the "political roles" of all the Grebo towns surveyed, yet admits that he has omitted the "highly significant" roles of the deyo (a ritual specialist, this position is held by both men and women), the high priest's wife, and the leader of the elder women, admitting that he does not understand how to fit these offices into the hierarchy of roles he has outlined for men (Ibid:157). He speculates that:

. . . they may have political significance equal to that of the head

person of the [male] elders . . . . I do not, however, have enough information to answer this question, nor am I able to place these women's roles in the above hierarchy of [men's] roles, as no informant specifically addressed the problem (Ibid:158).

Significantly, all of the informants questioned by the survey team were men (Ibid:235). Kamene Okonjo has argued that in many indigenous African political systems, "the major interest groups are defined and represented by sex" (1976:45). She states that:

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We can label such systems of organization "dual-sex" systems, for within them each sex manages its own affairs, and women's interests are represented at all levels. Dual-sex organization contrasts with the "single-sex" system that obtains in most of the Western world, where political status-bearing roles are predominantly the preserve of men. In single-sex systems, women can achieve distinction and recognition only by taking on the roles of men in public life and performing them well (Ibid).

Characteristic of many African political systems including the Glebo (and, based on the evidence, other Grebo and possibly Kran groups), such dual-sex structures were ignored, overlooked, delegitimized and disrupted by Western single-sex structures of colonial rule (including Liberian colonialism; see Moran 1986; 1989). The tenacity of these structures in spite of repeated attempts to suppress them is visible in the history of mass demonstrations by African women against both colonial and post-colonial states which have refused to acknowledge women's claims as independent political actors (for only a few examples, see Rosen 1983; Van Allen 1972, 1976). McEvoy, Kurtz, Schroder and Seibel, and even Bishop Payne before them appear to have interpreted this parallel administrative structure as evidence of all-inclusive age-based groups. The irony here, as I have mentioned above, is that while men's age grades and groups are assumed to be important precisely because of their political functions, the act of naming women's organizations "age grades" relegates them to the category of mere social or economic bodies, thus obscuring and denying the real political authority of women.

DIFFERENTIAL AGING When McEvoy discussed the lack of elaboration of Sabo women's "age grades," relative to those of men, with male informants, he was told, "women are women-they do not need such things" (1971:171). This would seem to correspond to my informants' statement, "mostly, we just call them 'women.'" McEvoy believes that the practicalities of virilocal residence make it impossible for age to be used as a strict ranking device among women as it is among men:

Having married into the village from any of the other villages within the dako, or from a village in one of the adjoining dakwe [plural of dako], the women in the village under consideration simply cannot

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decide, with any certainty, that for example, Weaju is one or two years older, or one or two years younger, than Klaja (Ibid:172).

I argue, however, that the differential valorization of age is located in the cultural construction of gender among southeastern peoples, rather than in virilocal residence. The Glebo use relative age as a metaphor to describe the hierarchical relationship between the genders. A common saying, "men are always older than women," is invoked to explain the ideal of wifely subservience, although it is not acted upon literally (as with young sons attempting to assert status over their mothers) (Moran 1990:30). This is a clear example of the collapsing of one prestige hierarchy into another (see Ortner and Whitehead 1981:16-18). Age cannot be as important a ranking mechanism for women as it is for men because they do not, according to the Glebo, experience the process of aging in the same way. McEvoy discussed this differential aging by gender for the Sabo when he noted that very elderly men continue to gain in prestige while women of the same longevity do not (1971:172) Men are entitled to authority over women by virtue of their gender just as older men are entitled to authority over younger men by virtue of their age. The difference, of course, is that young men will someday become old men, but a woman will never "outgrow" any man; gender overrides other prestige markers in this case. In their parallel political hierarchy, women have comparatively more autonomy than is the case in single sex political systems (Okonjo 1976:45), but relative to men, their status is lower. Why then did Payne, Kurtz, and McEvoy "see" women's age grades where none existed? I argue that this stems from the assumption that aging is a unitary process which affects all persons equally. If my analysis is correct, women do not age in the same way as men among southeastern Liberian peoples. The overwhelming fact of their gender overrides age differentiation in most cases, including promotion to the gbudubo or takae among the Glebo. It is the woman who has established herself as a leader and spokesperson in the pano who succeeds to the takae rather than the chronologically eldest, if only for the difficulties in establishing relative age among in-marrying women as McEvoy described. While McEvoy and Kurtz saw women's age grades as at least a possibility, they saw politics as an inherently male domain; when women "interfered" with men's decision-making, it was seen as a by-product of their organization into age grades (this seems to be the kind of "opposition" referenced by Simonse and Kurimoto 1998:19). Yet when Kurtz experienced difficulties in fitting female officials into his list of political roles, he could simply leave them out; they were, after all, just the officers of age grades, not part of the formal political structure (although the officials of men's

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age grades were included as a matter of course). Kurtz recognizes that something is amiss with the traditional interpretation of women's activities found in the earliest sources on the Glebo, yet he believes that," observers have incorrectly attributed the ceremonial and religious accompaniments of an elder women's age grade to a separate women's secret society; that in fact there is not such a parallel society among the Glebo, but that an age grading system, partially parallel to the men's exists for women" (1985:111). While he may be correct in asserting that a separate "secret society" does not exist, it does not occur to Kurtz that the parallelism he observes may exist at the level of the town administrative structure. Since both dual-sex political structures and male age grades are common throughout sub -Saharan Africa, this analysis may have implications beyond southeastern Liberia. Rather than simply noting the absence or reduced nature of female age grades (where we can be sure they exist), it may make more sense to examine the incorporation of both age and gender into symbolically integrated systems of prestige (Moran 1990). Age as well as other status categories must be analyzed as they impact differentially on different categories of persons. In this way, future analysts may be spared the dilemma faced by Bernardi, who felt compelled to add a ten-page chapter on women's age grades to his book in order to be "systematic and objective," yet found himself with very little to say (1985:132-42). Such approaches do little to enhance our understanding of either age or gender as they intersect with other components of African systems of authority and prestige.

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REFERENCES CITED Banton, Michael. 1957. West African City: A Study of Tribal Life in Freetown. London: Oxford University Press. Bernardi, Bernardo. 1985. Age Class Systems: Social Institutions and Polities Based on Age. Translated from the Italian by David I. Kertzer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 1954. "African Age Groups," Africa 24:100-113.

. 1956. From Generation to Generation: Age Groups and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press. Greenberg, Joseph. 1963. "The Languages of Africa," International Journal of American Linguistics 29: 1-171. Gulliver, Philip H. 1958. "The Turkana Age Organization," American Anthropologist 60:900-22.

. 1968. "Age Differentiation," in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol. 1: 157-162. New York: McMillan Free Press. Johnson, S. Jangaba M. 1957. Traditional History and Folklore of the Glebo Tribe. Monrovia: Bureau of Folkways, Republic of Liberia. Jones, G.I. 1962. "Ibo Age Organization with Special Reference to the Cross River and North Eastern Ibo," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 92: 191-210. Kawai, Kaori. 1998. "Women's Age Categories in a Male-Dominated Society: The Case of the Chamus of Kenya," in Eisei Kurimoto and Simon Simonse, eds., Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: Age Systems in Transition. pp.147-167. Oxford/Athens, Ohio: James Currey/Ohio University Press. Kertzer, David I. and Oker B. B. Madison. 1981. "Women's Age-Set Systems in Africa: The Latuka of Southern Sudan," in Christine L. Fry, ed., Dimensions: Aging, Culture, and Health, pp. 109-130. New York: Praeger. Kurimoto, Eisei and Simon Simonse. 1998. Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: Age Systems in Transition. Oxford/Athens, Ohio: James Currey/Ohio University Press. Kurtz, Ronald J. 1985. Ethnographic Survey of Southeastern Liberia: The Grebo-Speaking Peoples. Philadelphia: Institute for Liberian Studies, Inc. Liberian Studies Monograph Series No. 7. Martin, Jane Jackson. 1968. "The Dual Legacy: Government Authority and Mission Influence Among the Glebo of Eastern Liberia, 1834-1910," Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Boston University.

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McEvoy, Frederick D. 1971. "History, Tradition, and Kinship as Factors in Modern Sabo Labor Migration," Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon.

. 1977. "Understanding Ethnic Realities Among the Grebo and Kru Peoples of West Africa," Africa 47:62-79. Moran, Mary H. 1986. "Taking Up the Slack: Female Farming and the 'Kru Problem' in Southeastern Liberia," Liberian Studies Journal 11:117-124. .1989. "Collective Action and the 'Representation' of African Women: A Liberian Case Study," Feminist Studies 15:443-60.

. 1990. Civilized Women: Gender and Prestige in Southeastern Liberia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

. 1995. "Warriors or Soldiers? Masculinity and Ritual Transvestism in the Liberian Civil War" in Constance R. Sutton, ed., Feminism, Nationalism, and Militarism. pp. 73-88. Arlington, Virginia: American Anthropological Association. Okonjo, Kamene. 1976. "The Dual-Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria," in Nancy J. Haflcin and Edna G. Bay, eds., Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. pp.45-58. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Ortner, Sherry B. and Harriet Whitehead. 1981. "Introduction: Accounting for Sexual Meanings," in Sherry B. Ortner and Harriet Whitehead, eds., Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. pp. 1-27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Payne, John. 1845. "The Journal of the Rev. John Payne," The Spirit of the Missions 10:113-145, 241-303, 330-365, 395. Rosen, David. 1983. "The Peasant Context of Feminist Revolt in West Africa," Anthropological Quarterly 56:35-43. Schroder, Gunter and Dieter Seibel. 1974. Ethnographic Survey of Southeastern Liberia: The Liberian Kran and the Sapo. Newark, DE.: Liberian Studies Association. Liberian Studies Monograph Series No. 3. Simonse, Simon and Eisei Kurimoto. 1998. "Introduction" in Eisei Kurimoto and Simon Simonse, eds., Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: Age Systems in Transition. pp. 1-28. Oxford/Athens, Ohio: James Currey/Ohio University Press. Van Allen, Judith. 1972. "Sitting on a Man: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women," Canadian Journal of African Studies 6:165-81.

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. 1976. "Aba Riots or Igbo Women's War?: Ideology, Stratification, and the Invisibility of Women," in Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay, eds., Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. pp. 59-85. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wilson, Monica. 1951. Good Company: A Study of Nyakyusa Age Villages. London: Oxford University Press.

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Konia T. Kollehlon*

INTRODUCTION As we enter a new century and millennium, it is perhaps appropriate to pause and reflect briefly on the socioeconomic position of Liberians in the U.S. While much has been written about Liberia and Liberians in the Liberian Studies Journal, very few, if any, systematic, nation-wide empirical study of Liberians residing in the U.S. has appeared in this journal.. This apparent neglect may be due in part to the relatively small numbers of Liberians living in the U.S. However, it is important to remember that, despite their relatively small numbers, Liberians living in the U.S. have often had tremendous impact on Liberia, far out of proportion to their numbers. For example, as is common knowledge, the current Liberian president and many members of his administration were residents of the U.S. in the 1970s. The study of Liberians living in the U.S. may also be important from the standpoint of U.S. immigration/national policies, especially those regarding race relations. Since the 1965 U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Act, there has been a dramatic change in the origin and racial composition of immigrants to the U.S. Most immigrants to the U.S. since the 1965 Act now come from the Third World and many of them are non-white. As immigration from the Third World has increased, so have concerns about these newest immigrants. For example, Tim Walsh, a construction worker notes that "They are letting all of those Coloreds come and soon there wouldn't be any place left for white people." "It makes you wonder, is this a white country or what?"(Quoted in Rubin, 1998:92). Brimelow (1995) further argues that recent immigration to the U.S. is so huge and so systematically different from that of the past that it threatens to eventually destroy the U.S.; while Luttwak(1992) laments

*Dr. Kollehlon is a leading Liberian Liberianist. His publications include: "Religious Affiliation and Fertility in Liberia," in Journal of Biosocial Science, vol. 26, no. 4 (1994); "Ethnicity and Fertility in Liberia in Liberia: A Test of the Minority Group Status Hypothesis" in Social Biology, vol. 36, no. 1-2 (1989); "Occupation States Attainment in Liberia: The Roles of Achievement and Ascription," in Social Science Research, vol. 18, no. 2 (1989); "Residence and Fertility: Some Exigency From Liberia," Liberia Forum, no. 2 (1986); and "Migration and Fertility: The Case of Liberian Women," Liberian Studies Journal, vol. 11, no. 2 (1986). Dr. Kollehlon is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity College, Washington, D.C. He taught at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore from 1985 to 1999. He is Associate Editor of the Liberian Studies Journal, 1998-2001.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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"the third-worldization of America." In contrast to these restrictionist views, there are accommodationist views like those of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who argues that we live in a diverse world and that the genius of America has been to take different traditions and draw on them to enhance the country (cited in Puente, 1996:64). Of course, Americans are not unique in their concerns about the racial composition of immigrants and potential citizens.. Liberia in fact explicitly denies citizenship to non-Negroes; arguing that "In order to preserve, foster and maintain the positive Liberian culture, values, and character, only persons who are Negroes or of Negro descent shall qualify by birth or naturalization to be citizens of Liberia"(Constitution of the Republic of Liberia, 1986:14). Against this backdrop of concerns about recent U.S. immigration, and with the enduring uncertainty of the immigration status of thousands of Liberians whose temporary protective status(TPS) was extended only until September, 2000, it is important to study one such group of non-white immigrants-Liberians. Given the history and current reality of racism in the U.S., the study of Liberians raises a number of important sociological questions concerning the adaptation of recent non-white immigrants more generally. For example, how are recent black immigrants like Liberians adapting to U.S. society? Are the patterns of socioeconomic attainment of black African immigrants like Liberians similar to or different from those of mostly white African immigrants like South Africans or Egyptians? How does the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians compare with those of U.S. natives generally, and with African Americans in particular? This study will attempt to address these and related questions by examining the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians in the U.S. In this paper then, I propose to describe the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians (and other Africans) in the U.S. Given the paucity of research on the African foreign-born in general (and Liberians in particular) in the U.S., this study attempts to provide some baseline information that will lay the foundation for further, more definitive, inferential studies of the topic. While a few studies of African immigrants have been conducted, most of these studies either treats Africans at the most general, aggregate level (see, for

example, Wong, 1985 ; Farley, 1996 ; Portes and Rumbaut, 1990) or considers only a single sex (Poston, 1994; Butcher, 1994; Dodoo, 1997). Many of these studies of African immigrants generally find that African immigrants have a high level of socioeconomic (especially educational and occupational) attainment (see also, Campbell and Baum, 1984; Poston, 1994; Dodoo, 1997). However, since most of

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these previous studies consider African immigrants at only the aggregate level, it is difficult to ascertain as to whether the high level of socioeconomic attainment applies to all African immigrants regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, or national origin. And given the important role that sex plays in the socioeconomic attainment process, the consideration of only a single sex obviously leaves much to be desired. By taking national origin, sex, and race into consideration, the present study goes beyond previous ones by specifically addressing these concerns. But, before attempting to address these questions, we should first briefly consider the socio-historiacl context of this most recent Liberian (and African) immigration to the U.S.

SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF RECENT LIBERIAN IMMIGRATION TO THE U.S. Apart from the involuntary immigration of millions of Africans to the New World during the slave trade, the immigration of Africans to the U.S. since the emancipation of the slaves has been very low. While African immigration in general began to increase quite dramatically from about 1970, most of the Africans immigrating to the U.S. up to 1970 were mostly white Africans from Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. It is from the mid 1970s that Liberian (and black African) immigration to the U.S. began its dramatic increase (U.S. Immigration & Naturalization service, 1990). The total Liberian population residing in the U.S. has been rising dramatically since the 1970s. Before 1960, there were only 238 Liberians living in the U.S. In 1970, 1980, and 1990, the numbers of Liberians living in the U.S. were respectively 1062, 3728, and 11,455 (Campbell and Baum, 1984). Another way to view the phenomenal growth in the Liberian born population residing in the U.S. is to examine the rise in the immigrant population alone. For example, before 1980, there were only 608 Liberian immigrants living in the U.S. In the 1981 to 1990 decade, 8,484 new Liberian immigrants were added, and in the five year period from 1991 to 1995, 7,032 new Liberians were added to the Liberian immigrant population in the U.S. (U.S. Immigration & Naturalization service, 1990). Stated otherwise, of the 16, 124 Liberian immigrants in the U.S. by 1995, 44 percent of them arrived in only the five year period between 1991 and 1995. The general pattern of African immigration has been quite similar to that of Liberians. For example, slightly over half (53%) of the 334,145 Africans who immigrated to the U.S. between 1820 and 1990 were admitted in the 1981 to 1990 decade alone (U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 1990).

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Why did Liberian immigration in particular and black African immigration in general begin to rise so dramatically in recent decades? A number of internal (push) and external (pull) factors account for the rapid increase in Liberian and African immigration to the U.S. in recent years (see Gordon, 1998 for a more detailed discussion of these and other internal and external factors accounting for the increase in African immigration to the U.S.). Among the major internal/push factors are Africa's political instability/military conflicts and economic stagnation/deterioration. These factors are especially applicable to the Liberian context. As is common knowledge, in a bloody coup d'etat in 1980, a group of Liberian soldiers overthrew the government of the True Whig Party, bringing to an end 133 years of Americo-Liberian' domination of Liberian politics. However, this coup d'etat ushered in a decade long political instability that culminated with the devastating civil war which essentially destroyed the Liberian economy and civil society. Amid this anarchy, thousands of Liberians fled the country, with many of them ending up in the U.S. Liberal U.S. immigration and refugee policies as well as the long historical ties between Liberia and the U.S. pulled many Liberians to the U.S. during the turbulent decades of 1980 to 2000 in Liberia. The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act replaced national origins quotas with hemispheric quotas and instituted a preference system for skilled professionals. These changes significantly opened the doors to Third World (especially African and Asian) immigration, which had hitherto been largely closed by the national origins quota Acts. The 1980 Refugee Act broadened the scope of the definition of refugees and the 1990 Immigration Act increased the number of skilled, professional immigrants admitted relative to those admitted for family reunification. Such changes have enabled more skilled, professional immigrants and refugees, especially those from Third World regions like Africa, to immigrate to the U.S. More recently, the Diversity Immigration Program (known more popularly among immigrants as the Immigration Lottery) has also increased the number of Liberians/Africans immigrating to the U.S. For example, of the 2,216 Liberian immigrants admitted in fiscal year 1997, 37 percent was admitted as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens; almost a quarter (24 percent) was admitted under the Immigration Diversity program, 23 percent was admitted as refugees/asylees; 11 percent was admitted under the general family sponsored preferences; while four percent was admitted under the employment-based preference.

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Similarly, a high percentage of African immigrants was admitted under the Diversity Immigration Program. In fiscal year 1997, of the 47,791 African immigrants admitted into the U.S., 34 percent was admitted under the Diversity program, another 34 percent was admitted as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, 16 percent was admitted as refugees/asylees; eight percent was admitted under the general family sponsored preferences, while the remaining eight percent was admitted under the employment based preference. In sum, these "push" and "pull" factors, linked by networks of histories of political, economic, cultural, and military ties between Liberia and the U.S., account for the fact that despite its relatively small population-about 3 million in 2000(Population Reference Bureau, 2000), Liberia has a significantly large immigrant and nonimmigrant populations in the U.S. How well (or poorly) are these Liberians doing, relative to each other, to other Africans/foreign-born groups, and to the native-born U.S. population?. Well, let us find out. But before we do so, we should first provide a brief discussion of the data-their source and quality, rationale for the selection of variables, operational definitions of these variables, and the analytic method employed to address the research questions.

DATA AND METHODS The data for this study come from the public use microdata sample (PUMS) of the 1990 U.S. census of population and housing. The data for the African foreign- born come from the five percent 1990 pums, while the data for the U.S. native-born and all other foreign born come from the one percent 1990 pums. Since the sampling procedures for both the five and one percent samples are identical, the comparative nature of our study is not affected by the use of different samples. Responses to the place of birth question are used to delineate the three subsamples: Africans-persons who reported their place of birth specifically or generally as Africa; U.S. native- born-persons who reported their place of birth as one of the 50 states of the U.S. (persons born in U.S. territories/commonwealth, persons born abroad of U.S. parents, and those born aboard ships were excluded from the study); and all other foreign- born-persons who reported their place of birth as other than Africa or the U.S. In order to maintain comparability with previous studies, we restrict the subsamples to persons aged 25 to 64, who reported themselves working in 1989, and received positive earnings. We also exclude from the samples persons who were attending school or were in the military, since such activities have been found to temporarily depress earnings (see Neidert and Tienda, 1984; Poston, 1994 ). In order

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to make the samples more representative of the populations from which they were drawn, we stipulate that in order to be included in the study, each national/regional subgroup must have at least 100 members within each sex. It should also be pointed out that while we refer to the Liberian/African foreign born some times as immigrants, they are not all immigrants in the immigration definition of the concept. The U.S. census data on which this analysis is based does not distinguish between immigrants, nonimmigrants, refugees, asylees, or illegal aliens. The dependent variable of the study, Socioeconomic Attainment, has two dimensions: respondents' total 1989 gross hourly earnings and the occupational status score of respondents' 1990 occupation. The independent variables are: NationaURegional origin and race. We also include in tables 2 and 3 a number of socio-demographic variables that have been found in previous studies to affect earnings and/or occupational status: educational attainment, occupational grouping, hours/weeks worked in 1989, age, proficiency in English, marital status, duration of stay (years in the U.S.), and place/region of work, which is used as a proxy for region

of residence (see Table 1 for operational definitions of these variables). In addition to presenting the means, medians, and standard deviations of the variables in the study for men in Table 2 and for women in Table 3, the analysis will essentially consist of describing the earnings and occupational status attainment of the various national/regional and racial groups within the context of the major questions posed earlier in the introduction. Of the three different measures of earnings: mean annual earnings, mean hourly earnings, and median hourly earnings, I will use the mean hourly earnings to describe/compare the various groups, because it incorporates time worked (see operational definitions in Table 1).

Table 1. Operational Definitions of Variables in the Study

Variables Operational Definitions/Coding Scheme

1989 Hourly Respondent's 1989 Hourly Earnings are computed by dividing Earnings Total Persons' Yearly earnings (consisting of wage, salary, and nonfarm self-employment income) by the product of the number of usual hours worked per week in 1989 and the number of weeks worked in 1989). Outliers exceeding $100. per hour are topcoded to $100.

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Table 1. Operational Definitions of Variables in the Study

Variables Operational Definitions/Coding Scheme

1990 Occupational Occupational status has been operationally defined by using the Status Scores 1990 Nams-Powers-Terrie Occupational status scores for each of the detailed occupations in the 1990 census. The scores, ranging from 0 to 100, are for both sexes combined, because of the "increasing similarity of scores for men and women" (Terrie and Nam, 1994:3)

Race Self-reported measure of respondents' race.

National/Regional Based on self-identification of respondents' nation or region of Origin birth.

Educational Highest level of formal schooling completed. Because the 1990 Attainment U.S. census measured educational attainment as attained level, rather than years of schooling completed, in computing mean years of schooling completed (in Tables 2 and 3), I follow Kalminjn's (1996) example by assigning the number of years it takes to attain a particular grade level.

Proficiency in Refers to ability to speak English. This variable has been dummy English coded 1 for proficient (ability to speak English well or very well) and 0 for not proficient (inability to speak English well or not at all).

Marital Status This variable has been dummy coded 1 for now married and 0 for other marital statuses.

Age Refers to respondent's actual age in complete years as of April 1, 1990

Place/Region of Based on U.S. Census classification of the country. into four Work regions: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. Because the variable, region of residence, is lacking in the person records data that are used here, I use region of work as a proxy.

Year of entry This ordinal varia:;1,. LiC:T.otes years of US residence. However, in order to compute the mean numbers of years in the U.S. in Tables 2 and 3, I follow Dodoo's (1997) example, by imputing year of arrival as the midpoint for each respondent's assign range.

U.S. Citizenship This variable has been dummy coded 1 (for naturalized U.S. citizen) and 0 (for Others).

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Table 1. Operational Definitions of Variables in the Study

Variables Operational Definitions/Coding Scheme

Occupational This variable has been dummy coded 1 for MPS (managerial, Grouping professional specialty) occupations and 0 for all other occupational categories.

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS This study is guided by a number of important questions. We begin our analysis by addressing the first, more general question: how are black immigrants like Liberians adapting to U.S. society? Among men from the four West African countries, we find that while Liberian men have slightly higher mean hourly earnings than the others, Nigerian men tend to work at more prestigious jobs and have higher levels and years of educational attainment. Liberian and Ghanaian men are somewhat roughly comparable with respect to educational and occupational status attainment, while Cape Verdian men have the lowest levels of educational and occupational status attainment. Men from the four West African countries generally worked similar hours/weeks in 1989, and are somewhat comparable in average age, with Nigerian men slightly younger on the average. As would be expected, men from the three English-speaking West African countries have significantly higher levels of English proficiency than men from Portuguese speaking Cape Verde. While a higher percentage of Nigerian men are currently married, Ethiopian men have the lowest percentage of those who are married. Men from the four West African countries have been in the U.S. roughly about the same number of years, with Cape Verdiean and Ghanaian men having slightly longer durations of stay in the U.S. In fact, Cape Verdians have been immigrating to the U.S. continuously since the late 17th century (Foy,1988 ). In terms of where they work and presumably live, Liberian and Nigerian men are heavily concentrated in the South, while Ghanaian, and especially Cape Verdian, men tend to work mostly in the northeast of the U.S. We should also note in passing that while a slight majority (60 percent) of Cape Verdian men belong to Other races, the overwhelming majority of Liberian2 (94 percent), Nigerian (96 percent), Ghanaian (99 percent) and Ethiopian men (92 percent) are black. The predominantly black Ethiopians of East Africa are in some ways like their counterparts from Liberia, Nigeria, and Ghana, except that they are generally slightly lower in socioeconomic attainment.

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Table 2. Mean, Standard Deviation (in parentheses), and Percentage Distributions of Selected Variables for Foreign and Native Born Men, aged 25 to 64; U.S.:1990 0 1989 Hourly BA/BSc Hours Place Of Work (Region) N Of Groups Annual Earnings in S Occup MPS' Ethic Degree Worked Weeks Age Eng. Yrs. Cases 1989 Status Ocro (Yrs) .or per week Worked Prof' Married In (Percentages) Earning Score Higher in 1989 In 19149 U.S sin S Mean Median NE MW South West

Liberians 24,705 14 10 56 32 15 .55 43 47 37 100 .61 12 35 10 39 104 rri (17,391) (13) (27) (.47) (3) (.50) (10) (II) (7) (.00) (.49) (6) jd

Nigerians 24,619 13 10 61 .42 17 .74 43 46 35 1.00 .67 II 20 II 42 15 727 (19,502) (11) (27) (.49) (3) (.44) (12) (II) (6) (.05) (.47) (6)

Ghanians 26,348 13 12 57 36 16 .56 44 47 39 .99 .59 13 38 16 30 11 295 (19,106) (11) (27) (.48) (3) (.50) (13) (I I ) (7) (.10) (.49) (7) 0

Cape 22,070 12 9 41 .0 9 10 .9 42 46 38 .74 .64 13 84 _ _ 181 Verdians (13,292) (10) (22) (.29) (5) (.29) (10) (1 I ) (10) (.44) (.48) (9)

Ethiopians 23,915 12 10 52 .29 14 .42 42 46 37 .96 .53 10 12 12 42 25 371

(21,368) (115) (30) (.45) (4) (.49) (12) (I 1 ) (7) (.18) (.50) (7)

Egyptians 44,197 20 14 67 .49 16 .67 46 47 43 .97 .77 15 42 8 17 26 1216 (43,598) (18) (27) (.50) (4) (.47) (12) (10) (10) (.17) (.42) (9)

South 66,052 27 21 77 .65 17 .65 49 49 41 .99 .78 12 20 II 25 38 487 Africans (54,977) (21) (21) (.48) (4) (.48) (13) (9) (10) (.07) (.41) (10)

Africans 36,633 17 12 63 .43 16 .58 45 47 39 .97 .71 13 32 10 27 23 5015

(All) (37.732) (16) (28) (.49) (4) (.49) (12) (1 1 ) (9) (.17) (.45) (9)

U.S.A 32,233 15 12 57 26 13 .25 44 48 41 1.00 .74 15 25 30 18 459,866 (28,561) (13) (25) (.44) (3) (.43) (II) (10) (II) (.05) (.44)

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Table 2. Mean, Standard Deviation (in parentheses), and Percentage Distributions of Selected Variables for Foreign and Native Born Men, aged 25 to 64; U.S.:1990 (Continued)

1989 Hourly BA/BSc Hours Place Of Work (Region) N Of Groups Annual Earnings in S Occup MPS' Educ Degree Worked Weeks Age Eag. Yrs. Cases 1989 Status Ores (Yrs) or per week Worked Prof` Married In (Percentages) Earning Score Higher In 1989 In 1989 U.S In S Mesa Median NE MW South West

White 33,409 16 12 58 .27 13 .27 45 48 42 1.00 .75 16 26 28 18 411,774

(29,291) (13) (25) (.45) (3) (.44) (II) (10) (1 1 ) ( 05) (.43)

Black 21,260 I I 9 44 .14 12 .12 41 45 40 1.00 .56 10 14 48 9 35,760

(17,307) (10) (24) (.34) (3) (.32) (II) (13) (I 1 ) (.06) (.50)

Asian 36,685 17 14 64 .36 14 42 43 49 41 .99 .62 6 4 6 78 2422 (29,904) (14) (26) (.48) (3) (.49) (II) (9) (1 I ) (.12) (.49)

Foreign 29,033 I4 10 49 .24 I 1 .26 44 46 41 .76 .69 17 22 9 22 37 46,228 Born' (29,992) (14) (28) (.42) (5) (.44) (II) (II) (II) (.42) (.46) (12) a For this and other nominal level variables, the mean values are essentially percentages in decimal form(i.e., 32% of Liberian men are employed in professional, specialty occupations). b Eng. Prof. refers to proficiency in English or Ability to speak English) c Foreign Born refers to all other foreign born men. Not applicable/Fewer than 10 respondents

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1989 Hourly BA/BSc Hours Place Of Work (Region) N Of Groups Annual Earnings in S Occup Educ Degree Worked Weeks Age Eng. Yrs. Cases 1989 Status MPS' (Yrs) or per week Worked Prof' Married in (Percentages) Z Earnings Score Occu Higher in 1989 in 1989 U.S 0 in S Mean Median NE MS South West

Liberians 15,107 10 7 44 .21 13 .26 39 43 36 99 .53 13 43 27 10 100 (11,733) (II) (26) (.41) (3) (.44) (14) (14) (9) (.01) (.50) (9)

Nigerians 18,571 12 9 53 .39 15 .57 38 42 33 .98 .71 10 22 6 38 10 250 ea (17,639) (14) (29) (.49) (3) (.50) (I I) (14) (6) (.15) (.45) (6)

Ghanians . 1 16,661 10 8 40 8 14 21 39 43 36 1.00 .69 I I 39 8 31 136 y (10,343) (6) (26) (.39) (3) (.41) (10) (13) (7) (.00) (.46) (6)

Cape 16,818 9 7 35 .05 8 .03 39 46 40 .61 .68 14 84 148 Vcrdians (14,408) (9) (20) (.21) (5) (.18) (9) (13) (10) (.49) (.47) (9) 2 Ethiopians 16,786 10 8 47 .26 13 .35 39 44 34 .94 .58 II 13 6 40 27 223 (15,461) (10) (28) (.44) (4) (.48) (I I) (13) (8) (.23) (.49) (7)

Egyptians 22,739 14 10 61 .40 15 .52 38 43 42 .96 .80 17 33 6 15 29 523 (20,136) (13) (26) (.49) (3) (.50) (I I) (14) (10) (.20) (.40) (9)

South 20,744 13 10 63 .48 15 .47 36 43 41 .99 .70 14 23 7 24 32 308 tri Africans (20,812) (12) (23) (.50) (3) (.50) (13) (13) (10) (.08) (.46) (10)

Africans 19,772 12 9 54 34 14 .39 38 43 39 .95 .72 14 30 7 25 21 2585 (All) (18,741) (12) (27) (.47) (4) (.49) (12) (14) (9) (.22) (.45) (10)

U.S.A 16,795 10 8 52 .29 13 .22 37 44 41 1.00 .67 15 23 29 17 391,742 (14,738) (9) (26) (.45) (3) (.41) (12) (13) (II) (.05) (.47)

White 16,932 10 8 53 .30 13 .23 37 44 41 1.00 .70 16 24 27 17 341,744 (15,015) (9) (25) (.45) (3) (.42) (12) (13) (115) (.05) (.46) tn

Black 15,858 9 7 44 21 13 15 38 44 40 1.00 .43 10 14 49 8 39,569 -.) (12,294) (9) (27) (.40) (3) (.36) (I I) (13) (10) (.05) (.50)

1989 Hourly BA/BSc Hours Place Of Work (Region) N Of Groups Annual Earnings in S Occup Educ Degree Worked Weeks Age Eng. Yrs. Cases 1989 Status MPS' (Yrs) or per week Worked Prof Married in (Percentages) Earnings Score Occu Higher In 1989 In 1989 U.S in S Mean Median NE MS South West

Asian 23,677 1 3 I I 60 37 14 .42 39 46 40 98 .66 6 4 5 76 2,082

(18,097) (10 (25) (.48) (3) (.49) ( 1 I ) (12) (II) (.15) (.47)

Foreign 16,817 10 7 44 .22 12 .22 311 43 41 .79 .66 19 22 9 20 32 35,463 Born' (16,330) (10) (28) (.42) (5) (.41) (12) (14) (10) (.41) (.48) (12)

a For this and other nominal level variables, the mean values arc essentially percentages in decimal form(i.c., 21% of Liberian women are employed in managerial, professional specialty occupations). b Eng. Prof. refers to proficiency in English or Ability to speak English) c Foreign Born refers to all other foreign born women. Not applicable /Fewer than 10 respondents

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The second research question inquires into whether the socioeconomic attainment patterns of predominantly black African immigrant men are similar to or different from those of predominantly white African immigrant men like Egyptians (99 percent of whom are white) and South Africans (90 percent of whom are white).

An examination of the data in Table 1 clearly shows that Egyptian and especially South African men differ significantly from Liberian and the other predominantly black African immigrant men in their patterns of socioeconomic attainment. In fact, among all of the groups considered in this study, South African men have the highest mean hourly earnings and occupational status scores. South African men generally tend to work more hours and weeks, are highly proficient in English, have the highest percentage of those who are married, and work mostly in the western U.S. While South African and Nigerian men have the highest mean numbers of years of schooling completed, a higher percentage of Nigerian than South African men have Bachelors degree or higher. Third, how does the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians compare with those of U.S. natives more generally, and with African/black Americans in particular? Among men, we find in Table 2 that while the mean hourly earnings and occupational status scores of Liberian men are slightly lower than those of Americans, especially Asian and white Americans, the mean hourly earnings and occupational status scores of Liberian men are higher than those of black American men. In fact, with the exception of Nigerian men whose mean occupational status scores are higher than those of white Americans, the mean hourly earnings and occupational status scores of the predominantly black African groups are generally lower than those of Asian and white Americans. But, the mean hourly earnings and occupational status scores of the predominantly white South Africans and Egyptians are higher than those of Americans, regardless of race. With the exception of Cape Verdian men who have the lowest educational attainment, the educational attainment of each of the African nationality is significantly higher than that of each of the U.S. racial group in this study. Compared to all other foreign-born men, Liberian men have comparable mean hourly earnings, higher occupational status scores and educational attainment, similar mean hours/weeks worked in 1989, are younger, more proficient in English, and have been in the U.S. for fewer numbers of years, on average. We turn next to an examination of the socioeconomic attainment patterns of the women in this study.

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With respect to Liberian and other West African women, it is safe to say briefly that, with few exceptions, Nigerian women have the highest level of socioeconomic attainment while Cape Verdian women generally have the lowest. Liberian and Ghanaian women are somewhat more comparable in their patterns of socioeconomic attainment. More specifically, Nigerian women have the highest average hourly earnings, occupational status scores, level and years of educational attainment, as well as the highest percentage of those in managerial, professional specialty (MPS) occupations. While women from these four West African countries worked similar numbers of hours and weeks in 1989, we find Cape Verdian women to have the highest average age, while Nigerian women have the lowest. Again, like their male counterparts, we find a higher percentage of the women from the three English speaking West African countries to be more proficient in English than women from Portuguese speaking Cape Verde. Of the various groups considered in this study, with the exception of black American women, Liberian women are least likely to be married. Unlike Liberian men who tend to work and presumably live mostly in the South, Liberian women work and presumably live mostly in the northeast of the U.S.. In comparison to women from North and Southern Africa, we find that Egyptian women (99 percent of whom are white) and South African women (88 percent of whom are white) have higher hourly earnings, occupational status scores, and educational attainment than Liberian women. The earnings, educational, and occupational attainment patterns of Liberian women (94 percent of whom are black) slightly resemble those of Ethiopian women (92 percent of whom are black), with some exceptions. Among the African subsample, we find that Egyptian women have the highest percentage of those who are married, while Liberian women have the lowest. Egyptian, South African, and Cape Verdian women have been in the U.S., on average, longer than Liberian and other West African women. In comparison to native born Americans, we find some similarities and differences with Liberian women. While the mean hourly earnings and occupational status scores of Liberian women are lower than those of Asian Americans, Liberian women are somewhat more comparable to black American in these respects.. In terms of educational attainment, Liberian women are somewhat comparable to white Americans, have slightly higher level of educational attainment than Black Americans, but lower levels than Asian Americans.

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In comparison to all other foreign born women, Liberian women have somewhat comparable hourly earnings and occupational status scores, slightly higher levels of educational attainment, similar numbers of hours/weeks worked in 1989, are younger, more proficient in English, and have been in the U.S. for fewer numbers of years, on the average. Needless to say, gender inequality in earnings is quite pronounced among most groups; although it is much less so among the predominantly black African nationalities. For example, the gender gap, which refers to women's earnings as a percentage of men's earnings, in mean hourly earnings for Liberians is .69. This indicates that, on average, a Liberian woman earned only 69 cents for every dollar that a Liberian man earned in 1989. The gender gap in mean hourly earnings is widest among South Africans (.48) and narrowest among Nigerians (.95). We should also note in passing that the various groups also differ with respect to other variables used in the study which, because of space limitations, are not shown in these tables. For example, men and women from predominantly black African countries are less likely to be naturalized U.S. citizens. This may be due in part to the recentness of their arrival in the U.S. Only 23 percent of Liberian and Nigerian men are naturalized U.S. citizens, in contrast to 66 percent of Egyptian and 46 percent of South African men. The comparable figures for women are 25 percent of Liberians, 17 percent of Nigerians, 74 percent of Egyptians, and 51 percent of South Africans. Cape Verdian men (42%) and women (43%) are more likely to be naturalized U.S. citizens than other West Africans. Fertility (that is, the number of children ever born) tends to be higher among Liberian and black American women (average of 3.3 children ever born) and lowest among Ethiopian women (average of 2.2 children ever born). The findings from this study also reflect the very high sex ratio (number of men for every 100 women) that is typical of the African foreign born. Just as in previous studies (see Campbell and Baum, 1984 ), Nigerians continue to have the highest sex ratio of 291 in 1990, while the sex ratio of Liberians is among the lowest-104. Of all of the groups considered in this study, black Americans have the lowest sex ratio of 90, while Nigerians have the highest.

SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, AND CONCLUSION In terms of socioeconomic attainment, Liberians are adapting rather well to U.S. society. In other words, Liberian men and women are adapting as well as most other West Africans and predominantly black Africans groups considered in this

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study. The socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians are clearly higher than those of Cape Verdians, somewhat comparable to those of Ghanaians, and slightly lower than those of Nigerians, with few exceptions. In comparison to the predominantly white Egyptians and South Africans, the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians and most other Africans from predominantly black African countries are significantly lower. While the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians and most other Africans from predominantly black Africa are lower than those of white and Asian Americans, Liberian men (as well as men from the other predominantly black African countries) generally tend to have a higher level of socioeconomic attainment than black Americans. With few exceptions, the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberian women are generally comparable to those black American women. Of the various national and racial groups considered in this study, South African men tend to have the highest level of socioeconomic attainment while Cape Verdians have the lowest. Gender inequality in earnings (much less so in occupational status) is quite pronounced among the various groups, although it is highest among South Africans and lowest among Nigerians. The various national/racial groups considered in this study also tend to differ with respect to other variables used in the study. While the purpose of this study is primarily descriptive (and not explanatory), I however wish to venture few tentative explanations for some of the patterns found thus far; so as not to leave the reader in suspense. First, the lower socioeconomic attainment of Liberians and other black Africans relative to the predominantly white South Africans and Egyptians may be due in part to the generally higher human capital endowment of the latter than the former group. South African men, for example, have more formal education and tend to work more hours/weeks than most other black African groups in this study. Furthermore, the discrepancy in socioeconomic attainment between the predominantly black and predominantly white African groups may be due partly to the recentness of the immigration of the former than the latter group. Given the recentness of their immigration, predominantly black African groups may not have as much access to the opportunity structures and social networks (what is known in Liberia as "who you know rather than what you know") as the predominantly white Africans who have been immigrating to the U.S. for a much longer period of time. Also, the tenuous immigration status of many post 1980 Liberians makes them quite vulnerable to employer exploitation and underemployment.

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The higher socioeconomic attainment of the predominantly white South Africans and Egyptians may also be due partly to greater labor market discrimination against black than white Africans. Given the current reality of racial discrimination in the U.S., such an explanation seems to be quite plausible. The case of Nigerian men seems to buttress this line of reasoning. Nigerian men have about as much (if not more) formal education as/than South African men; yet, the mean hourly earnings of Nigerian men is less than half (only 48 percent) that of South African men. Clearly, while Nigerian and South African men differ with respect to many other earnings-related variables, including some of those used in this study, it is inconceivable that such differences in compositional factors alone can adequately explain this vast earnings gap between the two groups of African men. The generally lower socioeconomic attainment of these first generation Liberians and other predominantly black Africans relative to the majority white Americans and the "model" minority Asian Americans seems to be quite understandable. It seems as though most of the post 1980 Liberian foreign born (as well as a sizeable number from the other predominantly black African countries) are political (and not economic) immigrants; and hence, are generally more negatively selected with respect to human capital and other assets. For example, as noted earlier, only four percent of Liberian immigrants admitted into the U.S. in fiscal year 1977 was admitted under the employment-based preference. Almost a quarter (23 percent) of the 1977 Liberian immigrants was admitted as refugees/asylees. In light of the generally negative selectivity of political immigrants, the dual status of Liberians and other black immigrants (which may expose them to both racism and xenophobia), and the recentness of their immigration, it is understandable why Liberians and other black Africans tend to have lower socioeconomic attainment than white and Asian Americans. The relatively lower socioeconomic attainment of Cape Verdians relative to other Africans may be due in part to their much longer history of immigration to the U.S. There is a tendency over time for such immigration pool to become less positively selected, as more recent immigrants are admitted under the family reunification preference system. Also, Cape Verdian immigration to the U.S. has followed a pattern of chain migration based primarily on kinship ties. Over time, many Cape Verdians found themselves concentrated in a few manual occupations, working almost exclusively in the cranberry industry, textile, and maritime related works in the U.S. northeast (see Halter, 1993).

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The pronounced gender gaps in earnings and, to a lesser extent, occupational status, suggest the persistence and salience of gender inequality in the U.S. labor market. Women, like other minority group members, clearly do not have equal access to the "old boys" network. And being a foreign, black woman appears to be a triple jeopardy which can only exacerbate conditions for these women. Apart from the disruptive effects of the political unrest which pushed many post 1980 Liberians into the U.S., it is unclear why Liberian women are least likely to be married, among the African groups, given the moderately balanced sex ratio of 104 of Liberians. Since most people tend to marry endogamously, the sex ratio of a group can significantly affect the marriage rate. Given the extremely high sex ratio of Nigerians and the low sex ratio of black Americans, one would expect the marriage rate of each group to be low; and in the case of black Americans, that is so The findings of this study, especially those regarding the higher educational attainment of the African foreign born, tend to be quite consistent with those of previous studies (Campbell and Baum, 1984; Poston, 1994; Butcher, 1996; Dodoo, 1997; Wong, 1995; Cross, 1994). Moreover, the findings of this study regarding the significantly higher earnings of South African men clearly corroborates that of Poston (1994), who found South African men to have the highest average earnings in 1980, in a study of men from 92 countries of the world. The earnings, educational, and occupational attainment of these first generation Liberians and other Africans relative to white Americans, clearly show that they have achieved substantial cultural assimilation into U.S. society. But, if the history and experiences of racial minorities, especially Black Americans, in the U.S. are any guides for the future, it is clear that the acquisition of cultural assimilation will not necessarily guarantee the acquisition of primary/secondary structural assimilation.. As for the future of Liberian and African immigration, it appears that Liberian immigration in particular and African immigration in general, will continue and may even increase, if conditions continue to deteriorate in SubSaharan Africa and if U.S. immigration policies remain as liberal as they currently are. The irony in all of this is that while the human capital and other assets that Liberians and other Africans bring with them (or acquire in the West) clearly facilitates their relatively high socioeconomic attainment, the loss of these assets to the African motherland constitutes the brain drain that is contributing to the underdevelopment of Sub Saharan Africa. Further research on this topic, which I intend to undertake shortly, needs to compare the socioeconomic attainment patterns of these various groups, while statistically controlling for a number of compositional variables.

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How Are Liberians Doing in the United States? Summary Using data from the public use microdata sample of the 1990 U.S. census, this study describes the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians (and other Africans in the U.S.). Liberian men and women are adapting rather well to U.S. society. With few exceptions, the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians are higher than those of Cape Verdians, comparable to those of Ghanaians, but slightly lower than those of Nigerians. However, the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Liberians and other black Africans are lower than those of white Africans, white Americans, and Asian Americans. South African men tend to have the highest level of socioeconomic attainment, while Cape Verdians have the lowest. Overall, the study finds significant differences in earnings and occupational status by race, nationality, and sex.

NOTES 'Americo-Liberians are descendants of African Americans who founded the modern Liberian state in the early 19th century. 2As noted in the Introduction, Liberia denies citizenship to non-Negroes; as such, the racial composition of the Liberian foreign-born in the U.S.(or anywhere for that matter) should be 100 percent Negroes/Blacks (not 94 percent as found in the data). The discrepancy may be related to the variable, place of birth, from which the respondents in this study were derived. The census takes into account all persons born in a particular country, regardless of their race. So that although persons born abroad of U.S. parents were excluded from the subsamples, it is quite possible that other non Negroes/Blacks (i.e., Lebanese, Germans, Swedes, Indians, etc.)may have been born in Liberia and eventually immigrated to the U.S. and were enumerated in the 1990 U.S. census. While it is quite possible to exclude non Blacks from the Liberian subsample, I decided against doing that because the percentage of non Blacks (six percent) is very small and probably inconsequential in the overall findings, as well as to maintain comparability with the other groups.

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REFERENCES

Brimelow, Peter. 1995. Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster. New York: Random House. Butcher, Kristin F.1994. "Black Immigrants in the United States: A Comparison With Native Blacks and Other Immigrants." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 47 (2): 265-284. Campbell, Paul and Samuel Baum. 1984. "Recent Immigration from Africa to the United States." Paper presented at the Southern Regional Demographic Group Meeting; Orlando, Florida (Oct. 17-19). Constitution of the Republic of Liberia. 1986. Monrovia, Liberia. Cross, Theodore. 1994. "Black Africans Now the Most Highly Educated Group in British Society." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. (Spring): 92- 93. Dodoo, F. Nii-Amoo. "Assimilation Differences Among Africans in America." Social Forces 76(2):527-546. Farley, Reynolds. 1996. The New American Reality: Who We Are, How We Got Here, Where We Are Going. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Foy, Colm. 1998. Cape Verde: Politics, Economics, and Society. New York: Pinter Publishers. Gordon, April. 1998. "The New Diaspora African Immigration to the United States." Journal of Third World Studies. 15: 79-103. Halter, Marilyn. 1993. Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdian-American Immigrants, 1860-1976. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. Kalmijn, Matthijs. 1996. "The Socioeconomic Assimilation of Caribbean American Blacks." Social Forces 74(3): 911-930. Luttwak, Edwin. "The Third-Worldization of America." New York Times. Jan 10. Neidert, Lisa J. and Marta Tienda. 1984. "Converting Education into Earnings: The Patterns Among Hispanic Origin Men." Social Science Research. 13: 303- 320. Porte, Alejandro and Ruben Rumbaut. 1990. Immigrant America: A Portrait. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Poston, Dudley. 1994. "Patterns of Economic Attainment of Foreign-Born Male Workers in the United States." International Migration Review. 28: 478-500. Population Reference Bureau. 2000.

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Puente, Maria. 1995. "Is Latest Wave a Drain or Boom to Society?" USA Today. June 30. Rubin, Lillian. 1994. Families on the Fault Line. New York: Harper Collins. Terrie, E. Walter and Charles B. Nam. 1994. "1990 and 1980 Nam-Powers-Terrie Occupational Status Scores." Working Paper Series 94-118. Florida State University: Center for the Study of Population. U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service. 1990. 1990 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Justice.

. 1997. 1997 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Justice. Wong, Morrison G. 1985. "Post 1965 Immigrants: Demographic and Socioeconomic Profile." Pp. 51 -71 in Urban Ethnicity in the United States: New Immigrants and Old Minorities, edited by Lionel Maldonalds and Joan Moore3. Vol. 29. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor The Strange Career of John Cocke: Contextualizing American Colonization Society Manumissions

Eric Burin*

In December 1816, whites who wanted to remove blacks from the United States established the American Colonization Society (ACS). The new organization enjoyed the patronage of many prominent public figures, including James Madison, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and Francis Scott Key. It also received funding from several state legislatures and the federal government. With President Monroe's aid, the ACS founded the colony of Liberia in 1822.1 The ACS's initial appeal stemmed from the malleability of its program. Proslavery advocates supported the organization, believing that it would remove free blacks and thereby strengthen slavery. Conversely, antislavery individuals also endorsed colonization, hoping that the ACS would help facilitate the peaceful and gradual demise of black bondage. As one Society member boasted, colonization was a "platform broad enough to hold up men of every religious creed and of every political faith."2 The unity dissolved quickly. Proslavery partisans soon abandoned the ACS; abolitionists likewise forsook the organization. Attacked by militants on both sides of the slavery debate, and further weakened by internal divisions, the ACS sent relatively few blacks to Africa. Between 1820 and 1860, only 10,654 African Americans went to Liberia, with the majority departing in the decade before the Civil War. Fifty-seven percent of all ACS emigrants were former slaves liberated on the condition that they move to Africa. The individuals who freed their bondpersons-hereafter termed "ACS slaveholders"-numbered about 550.3 John Hartwell Cocke was one such emancipator. As an older, wealthy, religious male from the Upper South, Cocke typified ACS slaveholders. Several scholars have written about this Virginia planter, focusing primarily on his antislavery beliefs and his elaborate plans for sending bondpersons to Liberia.4 What these works generally fail to address, though, is the myriad influences that affected

*Dr. Burin earned his Ph.D. degree in nineteenth century American History from the University of Illinois in 1999. His area of research interests include: The American Colonization Society and the abolition of slavery in America; U.S. South; comparative race relations; colonial and the early national period. He is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Dakota.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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Cocke's endeavors. He was a remarkably ambitious, strong-willed, and intelligent man, but his labors on behalf of the ACS nevertheless hinged on factors beyond his control. Simply put, John Hartwell Cocke did not operate in a social vacuum. As shall be seen, Cocke's efforts were advanced by jurists' rulings, newspaper editorials, and familial cooperation. Conversely, his activities were impeded by other forces: Cocke was physically accosted for his actions; financial and logistical problems greatly circumscribed ACS manumissions; and finally, whatever misgivings whites had about slavery, bondpersons had their own reservations about moving to Liberia. Born in 1780, John Hartwell Cocke was the eldest son of an affluent Virginia family. As a young man, Cocke attended William and Mary College and, upon reaching the age of majority, inherited thousands of acres of land and over one hundred slaves. A tall, imposing individual, Cocke served as general in the War of 1812. Thereafter, he retired to his plantation in Fluvanna County, Virginia, and commenced a life-long dedication to scientific agricultural practices.' In the last week of December 1816-the same week that the ACS was being established in Washington, D.C.-Cocke's wife, Anne "Nancy" Barraud Cocke, passed away after a prolonged illness. The episode prompted Cocke to ponder the meaning and purpose of his life. Heretofore, his understanding of social obligations came from his sense of noblese oblige. But with his wife's demise, Cocke became spiritually enlivened. He redoubled his own religious commitments and began promoting Christianity in the public sphere. The planter continued to eschew electoral politics, but his new-found convictions led him to crusade for temperance and against tobacco. Cocke's passion, however, became remedying slavery, which he deemed "the great cause of all the...evils of our land, individual as well as national."' At the time, other southerners shared Cocke's aversion to slavery. Black bondage was a firmly entrenched institution, of course, but during the early years of the republic, sundry ideas about slavery's virtues had not yet coalesced into a coherent proslavery ideology. Years later, ideologues would attempt to prove that African Americans lacked the capacity to enjoy freedom, that they were natural slaves. In Cocke's formative years, however, most intellectuals contended that physical and cultural conditions dictated the behavior of blacks (as well as whites). Dubbed "social environmentalism" by historian George Fredrickson, this philosophy had antislavery implications. After all, it was difficult to justify enslaving a person who, under different circumstances, might become a statesmen, philosopher, or composer.'

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Exemplars of "social environmentalism," ACS officials argued that blacks were capable of mental and moral "progress" but they also believed that this regeneration could not occur amid white racism in America. According to one colonization publication, There is nothing in the physical, or moral nature of the African, which condemns him to a state of ignorance and degradation. Extraneous causes press him to the earth. Light and liberty, can, and do, under fair circumstances, raise him to the rank of a virtuous and intelligent being.' ACS leaders insisted that African Americans could escape racial oppression only in Liberia; there, the emigrants would realize their full potential; there, the natives would be civilized; there, blacks would establish a great Christian republic. This nation-building began in February 1820, when the Elizabeth, the first vessel to be chartered by the ACS, sailed from New York harbor. In the years that followed, ACS emigrant parties consisted primarily of southern free blacks who were fleeing proscriptive laws and social repression. All totaled, over 1,500 southern free blacks moved to Liberia between 1820 and 1833. Often possessing capital and entrepreneurial experience, these emigrants dominated the Liberian economy and government for decades.9 These early free black colonists were soon joined by a growing number of ex-slaves who had been manumitted on the condition that they move to Africa. For his part, John Hartwell Cocke had joined the ACS and had taken steps toward liberating his bondpersons. Believing that slaves needed to be prepared for freedom in Liberia, Cocke insisted that they be educated in both secular and religious matters. Cocke's second wife, the stern and untiring Louisa Maxwell Holmes, taught slave children daily; when plantation work did not interfere, she took on adult students too. The slaves would soon be pious, honest, and diligent, thought Cocke. They would be talented artisans and efficient farmers. They would be capable of self- government and, even more, ready to spread civilization and Christianity throughout Africa.1° As to when the moment of manumission would arrive, Cocke wasn't sure. Some slaves were progressing quickly; others seemed oblivious to his implorations. The behavior George Skipwith, for one, was entirely unpredictable. In 1830, Cocke had named Skipwith, just twenty years old, overseer of one of his plantations. At times, Skipwith fulfilled Cocke's expectations. At other times, the bondman indulged in alcohol, an egregious sin in Cocke's mind. Despite such setbacks, Cocke maintained faith in his manumission plan. It was founded, he steadfastly believed,

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on a single, divine truth: The idea that all people, regardless of race, were endowed by God with the capacity to improve. Even George Skipwith, after his transgression, had pledged sobriety and regained Cocke's confidence. So, sure, there would be occasional backsliding. But as a group, Cocke ruminated, the slaves were inching closer to freedom." During the early 1830s, a growing number of masters were entertaining similar plans for freeing their slaves. Like Cocke, these ACS slaveholders' antislavery beliefs stemmed from natural rights philosophy and Christian egalitarianism:2 Chafing between their beliefs and their behavior, over one hundred slaveholders had, by 1835, sent bondpersons to Liberia. With ACS manumissions rising steadily throughout the South, colonization officials felt sanguine about their program's future. That optimism faded quickly, for the ACS was beset by a host of problems in the mid-1830s. The rise of militant abolitionism, hostility from the Jackson Administration, and heightened opposition from free blacks all undermined the colonization movement. Internal factionalism and financial woes further weakened the ACS. Worst still, an ominous campaign appeared in the South, one that threatened to choke the remaining life out of the struggling organization.13 In the mid-1830s, southerners intensified and systematized proslavery arguments. With slavery under attack from abroad (e.g. northern abolitionists) and at home (e.g. Nat Turner's Rebellion and the Virginia legislature's deliberations on emancipation), southern intellectuals rallied to the defense of black bondage. Thomas R. Dew inaugurated the new proslavery movement with his Review of the Debates in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832. According to Dew, the recent discussions of emancipation were injudicious. Antislavery schemes were wildly impractical, even dangerous. African colonization, in particular, was a "stupendous piece offolly."14 Dew admitted that slavery also had shortcomings, but history, law, political economy, and the Bible all demonstrated that it was a legitimate and laudable form of social relations. He thus called on southerners to abandon the antislavery liberalism of the Revolutionary era. Human inequality was an obvious and incontrovertible fact, and Providential societies consisted of the lower classes serving benevolent masters. Other apologists later refined and expanded Dew's arguments. By the late 1840s, historian Drew Gilpin Faust has demonstrated, "the truths of science, religion, and history united to offer proslavery southerners ready support for their position."'

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Southern men of letters had little trouble convincing northern whites that blacks' mental, moral, and physical endowments were of a lesser grade. Yet inferiority alone did not justify slavery. As some abolitionists pointed out, if blacks labored under disabilities, whites had an obligation to uplift rather than enslave them. The only plausible response for slavery's supporters was that blacks were incapable of amelioration. Thus, the mainstream proslavery argument rested heavily on the idea that blacks were a permanently debased group. If African Americans were capable of "improvement," whites could not justify paternalist enslavement or bondage of a meaner sort. The new proslavery theories were reflected in changes in manumission laws. Since slavery benefited blacks, southern legislators reasoned, masters should be discouraged from freeing their bondpersons. The lawmakers proceeded to transform what had once been a relatively simple and private matter into a more cumbersome, public process.16 Would-be emancipators were required, for example, to send freedpersons outside the state. By the late 1850s, only Missouri, Delaware, and Arkansas permitted newly-liberated blacks to remain in their territories." The advent of proslavery ideologies, and the codification of these theories into law, alarmed antislavery southerners, including John Hartwell Cocke. Cocke himself staged a counter-attack. In private correspondence, he explained the myriad advantages promised by the demise of slavery. He also voiced his opinions in the Richmond newspapers, where he published a rejoinder to Thomas R. Dew's proslavery treatise. Writing under the nom de plume "Wilberforce," Cocke contended that slavery had had a pernicious effect on the South, both morally and economically. Slavery was no blessing; it was no "positive good." Rather, this institution had been a bane on the South, and its removal, he insisted, would be "great & glorious."' Indeed, the sooner it was gone, the better. In Cocke's mind, the southern situation was growing more dangerous everyday. For social environmentalists like Cocke, humans could ascend to ever-higher levels of piety and diligence, but they could also sink deeper into debauchery and indolence. If some conditions facilitated the amelioration of blacks, others invited further degradation. The state of affairs in the South was certainly enervating, explained Cocke, for soil depletion and sagging profits were rendering slaves idle and vicious. But even during boom times, slavery did little to encourage thrift, honesty, or hard work among bondpersons. By affixing such a large, debased, and resentful population on the region, slavery had become

a "cancer eating upon the vitals of our commonwealth." 19

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Cocke denounced slavery without advocating abolitionism. He thought that African Americans were capable of improvement and worthy of freedom, but like most whites, he also believed that racial equality was simply impossible in the United States. Masters should send their slaves to Liberia, contended Cocke. And they should do so quickly, for whites could not subjugate blacks indefinitely. If the two races continued to live together, he warned, one would inevitably destroy the other. Girded by such thoughts, Cocke searched for a bondman to prove that manumission and colonization was both practical and wise.2° In Peyton Skipwith, Cocke found his man. The brother of the erratic overseer George Skipwith, Peyton was a literate stonemason who, in Cocke's opinion, testified against the proslavery notion that blacks were hopelessly degraded. According to Cocke, Peyton Skipwith's intelligence, vocational skills, religious devotion, and temperance entitled him to freedom. Consequently, Cocke offered to liberate Peyton and his family on the condition that they move to Africa.21 The agreement had profound repercussions for both men. For Cocke, the affair jeopardized his reputation and personal safety. He had once believed that ACS supporters who spoke "above their breath...would have their throats cut." By 1831, that danger had passed, or so he thought. In the mid-1830s, the fifty-five year old planter suffered a "frightful beating" at the hands of unknown persons. Cocke survived assault, though, and remained committed to the colonization cause.22 One might expect that brutalities befell southerners who opposed slavery, but Cocke's experience was exceptional. Among the hundreds of ACS slaveholders, only Cocke claimed to have been physically accosted for espousing colonization. For most ACS slaveholders, manumission did not occasion such intense ostracism. In fact, there is evidence which shows that ACS events received some popular support. The sailing of the Jupiter, the vessel that conveyed Peyton Skipwith to Africa, is a case in point. Departing Norfolk on 5 November 1833, the Jupiter embarked just months after the Virginia legislature had appropriated $150,000 for African colonization. Fifty-two emigrants were on board the vessel; all but three were former slaves manumitted on the condition that they go to Liberia. Many others wanted to go, but ACS officials could not accommodate them. Local colonizationists trumpeted the expedition, as did religious organizations that raised funds for missionaries who accompanied the emigrants. The editors of the city's two newspapers, the Beacon and the Herald, also chimed in with praise for colonization, the latter calling it "the best device of philanthropy and benevolence...whose benefits

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are every day becoming more and more manifest."23 So Cocke may have suffered for his antislavery beliefs, but as accounts of the Jupiter and, as shall be seen, several other ACS expeditions suggest, colonization activities could also be characterized by cooperation, approbation, and even generosity. The risks that Peyton Skipwith and other ACS emigrants assumed are much easier to verify, in part because they were far greater. African colonization was so perilous that many slaves refused their masters' offers of freedom in Liberia. Peyton Skipwith himself hesitated before agreeing to go to Africa. We will never know how many bondpersons declined emigration to Liberia, but judging how frequently colonizationists bemoaned the issue, it is clear that slaves' intractability was no small impediment to the ACS's program. The society's leaders, already weary of battling abolitionists and proslavery ideologues, grew frustrated at slaves' recalcitrance. "There may be those among the colored population in the United States," seethed the ACS Board of Managers in 1849, "who are incapable of fully appreciating the blessing of colonization."' Slaves' hesitancy partially stemmed from their mixed feelings about Africa. On one hand, the continent represented independence and power. African-born slaves were often revered on southern plantations, especially if their religious practices were thought to hold special powers over the master. On the other hand, American slaves frequently construed Africans' clothes, language, food, and customs as heathen and barbaric. Peyton Skipwith certainly regarded them as savages. After spending several years in Liberia, Skipwith asserted that "if we have any ancestors, they could not have been liked [sic] these hostile tribes in this part of africa."25 Yet emigration entailed more than abstract speculations about Africa and Africans. It also required exchanging family and community relationships for a land plagued by poverty and disease. According to demographer Antonio McDaniel, between 1820 and 1843, the Liberian population suffered "the highest rate of mortality ever reliably recorded." The survivors did not fare well either. "We never knew what slavery was until we came to this country," wrote the ex-slaves Jesse and Mars Lucas from Liberia in 1830, "& that is the cry of every living man in the colony."26 The Lucas's hyperbole notwithstanding, potential emigrants were generally aware of Liberia's problems. Many learned about the colony from traveling ACS officers; others listened to reports presented by their masters. These accounts,

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however, were regarded with suspicion. As ACS agent William Starr lamented, for blacks, "there is little trust to be placed in a white man."27 Slaves were much more receptive to blacks' reports of Liberia. Some knew individuals who had been sent to the colony to report on conditions there; others befriended bondpersons who had returned to America of their own volition. Slaves could also consult free blacks who had visited Liberia, or who had acquaintances that were familiar with the colony. Additionally, a discarded newspaper or colonization pamphlet might provide information to slaves who were either literate themselves, or who knew someone that could read. Acknowledging slaves' preference for blacks' testimonials, ACS officials included such accounts in their promotional literature and even invited some emigrants back to the United States to persuade the skeptics. Yet whether they listened to the reports of ACS agents, their owners, or fellow blacks, one thing seemed clear: Moving to Liberia could be a dangerous and possibly deadly endeavor.28 Even with this advance knowledge, the situation in Liberia startled the Skipwiths. Since 1820, the ACS had sent 3,050 emigrants to Africa. Yet when Peyton and his family arrived in December 1833, only 2,000 remained. The Skipwiths now joined the struggle for survival. Shortly after arriving in Liberia, Peyton lost his six- year-old daughter to the "African fever"; his wife perished soon thereafter. Skipwith also endured various maladies, including dysentery and night blindness. Even when healthy, he had trouble finding work. A stonemason by trade, he tried farming, but with little success. After just six weeks in Liberia, Skipwith had suffered enough: "Let me [k]no[w] on what terms I can come back," he wrote to Cocke, "for I intend on coming back as Soon as I can."' Skipwith's oldest child, twelve-year old Diana, also loathed Liberia. "I hav not Seen any place but monrovia but do not like it," she confessed to Cocke's daughter. The colony's sickliness was particularly distressing. "We...hav all had the fever," she complained, "and I hav lost my Dear Sister Fleicia." From Diana's perspective, Liberia was a land of infinite adversity, and she admitted simply, "I hav often wish my Self back in virginia."30 Despite that hardships borne by the Skipwiths and other ACS emigrants, many southern whites continued to champion Africa colonization. Among those who remained resolute was John Hartwell Cocke's sister, Sally Faulcon. According to Faulcon's will, her bondpersons could choose between freedom in Liberia and slavery in America. She hoped the slaves would opt for Liberia, and offered them incentives to do so. Aware of the problems that impaired ACS voyages, Faulcon

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requested that her slaves' journey to Africa be as comfortable as possible. She also bequeathed one bondwoman $400, collectable upon embarkation-unless the bondwoman stayed in Virginia, in which case she would have to wait another five years to collect the money. Faulcon thus gently encouraged the bondpersons to emigrate. The final decision, however, was the slaves' alone.31 As the Faulcon slaves slowly mulled over their options, they received mixed messages about Liberia from those who knew the colony best-Peyton Skipwith and his family. The Skipwiths may have equivocated because they knew that their reports would be scrutinized by the prying eyes of whites, John Hartwell Cocke's in particular. Still, the Skipwiths and the Faulcon slaves were close kin, and the former wanted to provide their cousins and siblings with an accurate assessment of Liberia. After three years in Africa, Peyton Skipwith had recovered from his initial malaise, a period he called "that day of awful gloom." He now liked Liberia. "I feel satisfied with my present home and desire no other," he announced in 1836.32 Peyton's daughter Diana was still skeptical. Misery continued to overwhelm the adolescent; it even intruded her sleep: "Sometimes I think I am thire [in Virginia]," she explained to Cocke's daughter, "and when I awake I am here in Liberia & how that dos greave me."33 She believed that her father secretly wanted to return to America, and felt that Faulcon's slaves in Virginia were "better [off]...thire [than] here Sufferin En lest they had some money to start with."' Presented with such conflicting reviews of the colony, the Faulcon slaves grappled with that perplexing decision-freedom in Liberia or slavery in America. Bondpersons were not the only ones to be vexed by testamentary manumissions. Emancipations by will also proved problematic for southern jurists who had to decide whether their courts would sanction bondpersons' decisions concerning colonization. Slaves were chattel; they had no civil status. Could they make legally-binding decisions, ones that the state would recognize and uphold? Southern judges acknowledged slaves' humanity and agency in some ways-bondpersons were liable for criminal acts and masters could not indiscriminately murder slaves, for example. But these were necessary and beneficial concessions that improved both the South's control over bondpersons and its image in an antislavery world. The matters raised in ACS cases were not as advantageous to the slave regime. Indeed, some proslavery intellectuals argued that allowing slaves to pick freedom in Liberia gave bondpersons the power of self-emancipation. The question came before the Virginia high court in one of the first and most important colonization cases, Elder v. Elder (Va., 1833). Like Sally Faulcon, Herbert

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Elder willed his bondpersons the option of freedom in Liberia or slavery in America. The Virginia jurists saw nothing improper with the will. "Every instrument conferring freedom," wrote Judge Cabell in a concurring opinion, "should be construed liberally, in favor of freedom."35 The Elder ruling established a precedent for "slave election" cases, and jurists followed it for the next twenty-five years. Most southern states acknowledged bondpersons' right to choose freedom in Liberia, and adhered to this policy until the mid-1850s.36 The Elder case presented a second legal conundrum: When Herbert Elder died, his estate was in arrears. The plaintiff's lawyers argued that sending the slaves to Liberia would injure the interests of Elder's creditors. The Virginia court disagreed, and offered a compromise solution. Writing for the majority, Judge Carr noted that the executor who encountered the debts "could not discharge them without selling some of the negroes, or hiring them out. He very properly preferred the latter."' In the minds of the judges, their verdict satisfied the interests of the testator, creditors, and bondpersons. Deemed a fair and flexible policy, jurists throughout the South allowed slave's hire to reimburse creditors and defray the costs of emigration to Liberia. Thus on two critical issues in colonization cases-"slave elections" and the use of slaves' hire to transport bondpersons to Africa-judges' rulings usually favored the ACS.38 Several of Sally Faulcon's slaves took advantage of the judicial liberalism and accepted their mistress's testamentary offer of freedom in Liberia. Two brothers, Richard and Peter Cannon, were among those who agreed to make the voyage; so did their cousin, Leander Sturdivant, and his three children, Diana, Rosetta, and Leander. John Hartwell Cocke was familiar with all of these individuals. He was especially fond of the elder Leander Sturdivant, deeming him "a young man of constant character" who headed "one of the best, color'd families, I ever knew."39 The final member of the Faulcon party was Peyton Skipwith's brother, Erasmus Nicholas. Nicholas was owned by John Hartwell Cocke's son, Phillip St. George Cocke. The latter was less enthused about colonization than his father, but nevertheless agreed to free Nicholas so that he could be with his kin in Liberia. The emigration of the Faulcon freedpersons highlights several important aspects of the colonization movement. First, Virginia jurisprudence conceded slaves' right to choose freedom in Liberia. Second, bondpersons' decisions regarding emigration were influenced by the reports of previous colonists. Third, moving to Africa was often a familial affair. Fourth, bondpersons' requests to emigrate with their relatives could induce southern whites who disfavored colonization to send

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their slaves to Liberia. Fifth, as discussed below, newspaper accounts of ACS expeditions were surprisingly amicable. The Faulcon party expected to sail to Liberia aboard the Mariposa in summer 1842. The vessel was scheduled to pick up emigrants at New Orleans, sail to Norfolk, Virginia (where it would take on additional colonists), and then proceed to Liberia. As ACS officials outfitted the vessel in the Crescent City, the press praised the upcoming expedition. Two religious publications, the Presbyterian Herald and the Christian Advocate, announced that the Mariposa's passengers were the most intelligent and promising company to date. Both papers extolled the talents and bravery of the colonists, and applauded the slaveholders who liberated them.° A secular newspaper, the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, also covered the affair. The paper focused its stories on a local ACS slaveholder, John McDonogh, who was sending seventy-nine bondpersons to Liberia. It even published a pro- colonization letter by McDonogh, wherein the planter encouraged his readers to follow his elaborate, but inexpensive, manumission scheme. "What master will refuse to do so much good," McDonogh asked after explaining his plan, "when it cost[s] him nothing...and afford[s] him...such high gratification in knowing that he has contributed to the making [of] many human beings happy[?]" McDonogh himself may have felt genuine joy, but his bondpersons aboard the Mariposa had less cause for cheer.41 Even before embarking, the enterprise encountered problems. The ship's water supply had been drawn from a canal, and most of the passengers fell sick. Already weakened, several succumbed to the fever in Liberia. Luckily, the entire Faulcon contingent survived the ordeal. Yet like Peyton Skipwith ten years earlier, they avoided death but not disappointment. James Nicholas left Liberia almost immediately, first traveling to Sierra Leone and then relocating in Philadelphia. Nicholas's cousin Richard made an unsuccessful attempt at farming, signed on a U.S. naval vessel, and eventually moved to Jamaica. Richard's brother, Peter Cannon, was ill from the moment he arrived in Liberia. He lingered on, unable to walk, for several years, before finally passing away in the late 1840s.42 Despite the deaths and departures, some of the remaining Faulcon freedpersons did not regret emigrating. Upon arriving in Liberia, Erasmus Nicholas was happy to be reunited with his brother Peyton Skipwith and described Liberia as "the only Place for the man of Color."43 Another member of the Faulcon party, Leander Sturdivant, expressed similar sentiments. "I deem it a g[r]eat blessing from god that he has sent me to this plac[e]," he wrote to Cocke in 1846.4 Both men's

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pluck faded over time. By the mid-1840s, Nicholas had left for the northern United States; shortly thereafter, Sturdivant joined the American Navy. But during their first few years in Liberia, both seemed satisfied with the colony.45 Sturdivant's and Nicholas's early letters inspired Cocke, as did other missives from Africa. After ten years in Liberia, Peyton Skipwith's faith in the colony was stronger than ever. Conflicts with the indigenous population had subsided, he informed Cocke, and both agriculture and trade were growing. Personally, Skipwith regarded Liberia as a "country were I can speak for myself like a man & show myself to be a man, so fair [sic] as my ability, allows me."' Encouraged by such epistles, Cocke took steps to demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale manumission and colonization. In the early 1840s, around the time he was sending his sister's slaves to Liberia, Cocke purchased land in Greene County, Alabama. He established the plantations of New Hope and Hopewell there, and sent his best prospects for manumission to these sites. Cocke provided his bondpersons with educational and religious instruction and demanded exemplary moral conduct. Profits from cotton sales would be used to purchase the slaves' freedom (at $1400 per bondperson), and Cocke reckoned that they could secure their liberty in five to seven years. Cocke hired an overseer, Elam Tanner, to manage the plantations. He also named a slave driver, selecting for this important position George Skipwith, the ambitious, astute, and occasionally inebriated brother of Peyton Skipwith.47 Upon entering the manumission agreement with the Alabama slaves, Cocke spoke of their "high duty to their race and themselves." His solemnity, however, failed to resonate with the bondpersons. Disorder pervaded the plantations, and incidents of infidelity and miscegenation horrified Cocke. Overseer Tanner tried to establish control, but the slaves disregarded his ineffectual efforts. Some left without passes; others entertained visitors without permission; one stole goods and sold them in town; another ate dirt to avoid work. One bondperson accused Tanner of purposely miscalculating the amount of cotton picked, while another refused to be flogged. The slaves muddled Cocke's investigations with lies and innuendoes. Cocke was especially disappointed with George Skipwith, who took to alcohol, carousing, and fisticuffs. During an 1848 visit, an exasperated Cocke accused Skipwith of transforming Hopewell into "a Plantation Brothel."48 Not surprisingly, Cocke felt that few of the Alabama slaves deserved to be liberated. Yet amid the discomfiture, one bondwoman, Ann "Sucky" Faulcon, somehow found Cocke's favor. Faulcon herself was hardly free of sin, but she had

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avoided George Skipwith's machinations. Familial affinities also played a role in her emancipation: Back in 1838, Cocke had manumitted Faulcon's son John, who went to Liberia to serve as an apprentice to Peyton Skipwith. Now, fourteen years later, Sucky Faulcon would be reunited with her son. With her two other children beside her, she boarded the Zebra at New Orleans and readied herself for the transatlantic journey. Once again, the local newspapers heralded the expedition. The Daily Picayune discussed the embarkation, published extracts from the Liberian Herald, and carried a story about the Hon. William E. Kennedy, a Tennesseean who had liberated thirty slaves that were in high spirits and ready to enjoy "perfect freedom" in Africa.' As it turned out, the freedpersons' optimism was short-lived. Cholera swept through the Zebra, killing thirty-five emigrants. Among the departed was Sucky Faulcon's daughter Agnes.5° Over the next few years, Cocke permitted a few more bondpersons to emigrate to Liberia. Yet the Alabama venture had clearly not gone as planned. When the army worm ravaged the cotton crop in the late 1850s, the project virtually collapsed. In the end, only a handful the Alabama slaves went to Liberia.' From Cocke's point of view, the experiment was a fiasco which soured his views on emancipation. His faith in colonization slowly withered away during the 1850s. With the Alabama debacle still fresh in his mind, Cocke changed his will and stipulated that only one family, in lieu of their "excellent deportment," retained the option of moving to Liberia. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Cocke was a proslavery convert.' During the war, Cocke expressed his new views in a diary. He wrote that the Civil War was a pre-millennial, moral battle between money-worshipping northerners and God-worshipping southerners. He then paid tribute to slavery's virtues. After denouncing absentee owners and abusive masters, Cocke insisted that a slave society headed by patriarchal masters represented "the highest state of human existence." Slavery was the perfect system of social relations, according to Cocke, and it was a "monstrous absurdity to be regarded as otherwise."53 Yet Cocke himself seemed reluctant to fully embrace the proslavery position. Several times he extolled slavery's attributes, but hesitated when approaching the linchpin of the proslavery argument: that blacks were permanently degraded beings. His uncertainty is understandable. After all, Cocke had spent over thirty years and a small fortune demonstrating that blacks were capable of improvement. He possessed Peyton Skipwith's certificate of emancipation, which

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Cocke had written with his own hand, lauding the bondman's intelligence, industry, and piety. He owned correspondence from Liberian President J.J. Roberts and ACS officials which praised Cocke's former slaves. He even had dozens of affectionate letters from the emigrants themselves. Could Cocke unequivocally insist that blacks were innately and invariably degraded? "The Slave is naturally indolent & idle..." he acquiesced, "and eminently deficient in the qualifications for free & prosperous society."54 In the next journal entry, however, Cocke began speculating on the merits of a "free peasantry" of blacks. Although he thought that such an arrangement might benefit both races, he ultimately rejected the idea, concluding that it would be cruel to blacks. Cocke did not claim that it would be unjust because blacks' inherent qualities prevented them from enjoying freedom, as proslavery intellectuals would have argued. Instead, he approached the issue as he always had, as a believer in social environmentalism. A black peasantry was unfeasible, he contended, because slavery did not prepare African Americans for liberty. In other words, blacks' condition-not their color-barred them from freedom. Once again, Cocke could not justify slavery on the basis of race. Like the Confederacy he supported, Cocke fought a losing battle against his own conscience.' Cocke was not alone in this struggle, for hundreds of ACS slaveholders believed they could escape moral uncertainty by sending their bondpersons to Liberia. Colonization records suggest that many other masters considered doing likewise. Indeed, ACS emigration actually peaked during the 1850s. Cocke story's illustrates why colonization sentiment became embedded in the South, and how it survived there throughout the antebellum era. Despite the emergence of proslavery orthodoxy, there were slaveholders who could not see black bondage as a "positive good." Such persons instead advocated colonization, and they received support from some jurists, newspaper editors, and, on occasion, fellow slaveholders in their family or community. To ACS officials, these small signs of countenance were harbingers of slavery's ultimate extinction. Yet only 550 slaveholders sent their bondpersons to Liberia. Why didn't more masters follow suit? Obviously, many never questioned slavery's morality and thus spurned the ACS. But for those who did harbor doubts, several forces obstructed participation in the colonization program, as Cocke's tale demonstrates: First, the dreadful conditions in Liberia could make even the most guilt-ridden masters to forgo emancipation. Second, after slaveholders convinced themselves of colonization's wisdom, they were sometimes unable to persuade their bondpersons

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to move to Africa. Third, although jurists tended to side with colonizationists, suits by heirs and creditors could impede the emancipation and emigration of slaves. Finally, even if all the parties consented to the enterprise, financial and logistical problems still saddled ACS manumissions. Many factors thus undermined the colonization of bondpersons. Masters besieged by guilt wrestled with anxiety and ambivalence, with financial concerns and racial fears, and with the independent ambitions of their slaves. In this maelstrom of emotions and interests, manumission plans rarely came to fruition. Even so, as Cocke's tortured Civil War diary suggests, the desire to emancipate and colonize slaves could continue to live in latency.

ENDNOTES

1 Philip J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 48-58, 104-150, 164-187; Early Lee Fox, The American Colonization Society, 1817-1840 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1919), pp. 46-124; and Amos J. Beyan, The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America), pp. 1-15.

2 ACS, Annual Reports Vol. 38 (1855), p. 49.

3. In order to explore the demographic dimensions of colonization, I have used ACS ship registers to compile a data base of all 10,939 blacks who emigrated to Liberia during the antebellum period. This figure includes the 285 "recaptured Africans" (i.e. illegally-imported slaves) transported to Liberia by the ACS. The ship registers are published in the ACS's The African Repository and Annual Reports, as well as the U.S. Congress's Roll of Emigrants that have been sent to the colony of Liberia, Western Africa, by the American Colonization Society and its Auxiliaries, to September, 1843, & c. (28th Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. 150). I would like to thank Antonio McDaniel for generously sharing his work on the Liberian emigrant population with me.

4. Randall M. Miller, ed., "Dear Master": Letters of a Slave Family (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978); Clement Eaton, The Mind of the Old South (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), pp. 3-20; Bell I. Wiley, ed., Slaves No More: Letters from Liberia. 1833-1869 (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1980), pp. 33-99; M. Boyd Coyner, Jr., "John Hartwell Cocke of Bremo: Agriculture and Slavery in the Antebellum South," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1961); Muriel B. Rogers, "John Hartwell Cocke's Bremo Recess: The Romantic Colonial

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Revival Comes to Ante-Bellum Virginia," Bulletin of the Fluvanna County Historical Society 1996 (61), pp. i-iii, 1-40.

5. Miller, "Dear Master", pp. 23-27.

6. Melinda S. Buza, "'Pledges of Our Love': Friendship, Love, and Marriage among the Virginia Gentry, 1800-1825," in The Edge of the South: Life in Nineteenth-Century Virginia, eds., Edward L. Ayers and John C. Willis (Charlottesville, Va: The University of Virginia Press, 1991), pp. 25-29; Eaton, The Mind of the Old South, pp. 3-20; Bell I. Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 33 (quotation). George W. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971), pp. 2, 12-16.

8. Massachusetts Colonization Society, American Colonization Society and the Colony at Liberia (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1832), p.11. 9. Dwight N. Syfert, "The Origins of Privilege: Liberian Merchants, 1822- 1847," Liberian Studies Journal Vol. VI, No. 2 (1975), 109-128. HI Diana Scott, "Louisa Maxwell Holmes Cocke, 1788-1843," Bulletin of the Fluvanna County Historical Society 1992 (53), pp.1-40; Miller, "Dear Master", pp. 33-34; Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 33. 11- Miller, "Dear Master", p. 140.

12. See, for example, Edward B. Randolph, "Autobiography of Edward B. Randolph," (23 June 1846), Randolph-Sherman Papers, Mississippi State University. 13. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, pp. 224-239. 14. Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), p. 46.

15. Faust, The Ideology of Slavery, p. 14. 16. Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: The New York Press, 1974), pp. 29-50. FT Late in the antebellum era, a few legislatures banned testamentary emancipations while others prohibited manumission entirely. Mississippi prohibited testamentary liberations in 1842; Georgia did likewise in 1859, as did North Carolina in 1861. Mississippi and Louisiana made freeing one's slaves illegal in 1857; Alabama and Maryland followed suit in 1860. South Carolina made manumission a legislative prerogative in 1820. In 1841, lawmakers there

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enacted statutes which prohibited slaveholders from emancipating their bondpersons outside the state. In 1859, Arkansas enacted legislation prohibiting all future emancipations, but the only case under the statute was "inconclusive, reflecting doubt as to whether the law should be given a retroactive effect or not." Robert B. Shaw, A Legal History of Slavery in the United States (Potsdam, New York: Northern Press, 1991), pp. 76-105; Berlin, Slaves Without Masters, pp. 138-139; Thomas D. Morris, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 379. 18. Randall M. Miller and John R. McKivigan, eds., The Moment of Decision: Biographical Essays on American Character and Regional Identity (Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 6; John Hartwell Cocke, "Plan for Gradual Emancipation," (c. 1831), John Hartwell Cocke Papers, Box 184, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (hereafter JHC Papers, UVA). 19. Cocke, "Plan for Gradual Emancipation," JHC Papers, UVA, Box 184. 20. Cocke, "Plan for Gradual Emancipation," JHC Papers, UVA, Box 184. 21' John Hartwell Cocke, "Certificate of Emancipation for Peyton Skipwith," JHC Papers, UVA; M. Boyd Coyner, Jr., "John Hartwell Cocke of Bremo," pp. 352, 353. 21 John Hartwell Cocke, "Plan for Gradual Emancipation," JHC Papers, UVA, Box 184; M. Boyd Coyner, Jr., "John Hartwell Cocke of Bremo," pp. 350-352; Miller, "Dear Master," p. 32. 23. James Wesley Smith, Sojourners in Search ofFreedom: The Settlement of Liberia by Black Americans (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), p. 125; American Beacon and Norfolk Daily Advertiser, 24 October 1833, pp. 2, 3; American Beacon and Norfolk Daily Advertiser, 5 November 1833, p. 2; Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald, 6 November 1833, p. 2. 24. Memory F. Mitchell and Thornton W. Mitchell, "The Philanthropic Bequests of John Rex of Raleigh, Part I," The North Carolina Historical Review Vol. XLIX No. 3 (July 1972), pp. 260, 268, 271; W. McKenny to C. Harper, et al, 29 April 1835, W. McKenny to C. Howard, 28 May 1835, and W. McKenny to Charles Howard 1 June 1835, all in Papers of the Maryland State Colonization Society, Microfilm Edition, Reel 27, University of Southern Mississippi; L. Minor Blackford, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Story of a Virginia Lady Mary Berkeley Minor Blackford, 1802-1896, Who taught her son to hate Slavery, and to love the Union. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

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1954), pp. 20, 45, 31; C. W. Andrews, Memoir of Ann R. Page (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987) [org. 1856], p.52;.Margaret Mercer to Martha Fenton Hunter, 12 November 1835, and Margaret Mercer to Martha Fenton Hunter, 8 January n.d., both in Hunter Family Papers, Box 22, Folder 14, Virginia Historical Society; Miller, "Dear Master", p. 39; ACS, Annual Reports of the American Colonization Society, Vol. 32 (1849), p.17 (quotation). 25' Lawernce W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro- American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 86-88; Peyton Skiptwith to John Hartwell Cocke, 22 April 1840, in Miller, "Dear Master", 75. 26. Antonio McDaniel, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 104; Jesse and Mars Lucas to "Dear Friends", 24 April 24 1836, in Lucas-Heaton Letters, Manuscript Division, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 27. William Starr to William McLain, 30 April 1855, American Colonization Society Records, Reel 76. 28. See, for example, Charles Raymond Bennett, "All Things to All People: The American Colonization Society in Kentucky, 1829-1860" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1980), pp. 96-101; William C. Burke to Mary C. Lee, 2 February 1859, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 204; Hannibal Ross to Dr. John Ker, 16 March 16 1848, in Franklin L. Riley, ed., "A Contribution to the History of the Colonization Movement in Mississippi," Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society Vol. IX (1906), p. 400. 29. Peyton Skipwith to John Hartwell Cocke, 2 February 1834, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 37. Diana Skipwith to Sally (Cocke) Brent, 12 February 1834, in Miller, "Dear Master," [2nd ed., 1990], p. 269.

31. Will of Mrs. Sally Faulcon, 1831, ACS Papers, Reel 313. 32. Peyton Skipwith to John Hartwell Cocke, 27 April 1836, in Miller, "Dear Master", p. 61 (both quotations). 31 Diana Skipwith to Sally Cocke, 7 May 1838, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 42. 34. Diana Skipwith to Louisa H. Cocke, 8 May 1838, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 43; Diana Skipwith to Sally Cocke, 7 May 1838, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 42 (quotation). 35. Elder v. Elder 4 Leigh 260 (Va., 1833).

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36. Late in the antebellum era, some southern judges receded from this permissive jurisprudence. In Virginia, for example, the court ruled in Bailey v. Poindexter (Va., 1858) that slaves who opted for liberty performed "an uncontrollable and irrevocable" act of self-emancipation. Bailey v. Poindexter (Va., 1858) in Helen T. Catterall, ed., Judicial Cases Concerning the Negro (New York: Octagon Books, 1968). v. 1, pp. 243-244. See also, Curry v. Curry (Ga., 1860) in Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning the Negro v. 3, pp. 76-77; Carrol v. Brumby (Al., 1848) in Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning the Negro v. 3, pp. 127, 166; Miller v. Gaskins (Fl., 1864-1865) in Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning the Negro v. 3, pp. 123-124.

37 Elder v. Elder 4 Leigh 256 (Va., 1833). 38' In the mid-1850s, Georgia jurists overturned a long-standing precedent and ruled that bondpersons could not labor for emigration funds, explaining in an 1857 case, "can it be denied, that...these slaves are working for themselves?" Drane v. Bea ll (Ga., 1857) in Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning the Negro v. 3, pp. 52-54. 39' Miller, "Dear Master", pp. 69, 84 (quotation). 40. Christian Advocate, 20 July 1842, reprinted in the African Repository (August 1842), pp. 262-263; Presbyterian Herald, (n.d.) reprinted in the African Repository (August 1842), pp. 263-264. 41' New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, 24 June 1842, reprinted in the African Repository (July 1842), pp. 234-235. 42. Wiley, Slaves No More, pp. 119-120; Miller, "Dear Master", pp. 83, 84, 80, 104. 43. Erasmus Nicholas to Lucy Nicholas Skipwith, 5 March 1843, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 56. 44. Robert Leander Sturdivant to John Hartwell Cocke, 11 June 1846, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 62. 45- Miller, "Dear Master", pp. 84, 103. 46' Peyton Skipwith to John Hartwell Cocke, 29 September 1844, in Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 60. 47- Miller, "Dear Master", p. 142. 48' Ibid, pp. 142-143. 49. New Orleans Daily Picayune, 1 January 1853 [evening edition], pp. 2-3.

5°- Miller, "Dear Master", p. 111. 51' Wiley, Slaves No More, p. 34.

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52' Last Will and Testament of John Hartwell Cocke, 20 April 20 1859, JHC Papers, UVA, Box 157; Will of John Hartwell Cocke, 24 June 1865, JHC Papers, UVA. 53' "Journal or Commonplace Book kept by John Hartwell Cocke," August 1863-September 1863, JHC Papers, UVA, Box 170, pp. 55, 21, 71, 18 (first quotation), 69 (second quotation) (hereafter JHC Journal). 54- Cocke had always regarded slaves as "naturally indolent & idle." However, given the context of journal, it seems clear that although Cocke wrote "slaves" in this passage, he really meant "blacks." J.J. Roberts to John Hartwell Cocke, 19 July 1858, JHC Papers, UVA, Box 155; JHC Journal, p. 58, JHC Papers, UVA, Box 170 (italics added). 55. JHC Journal, pp. 58-59, JHC Papers, UVA, Box 170.

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Werner Korte and Robert Kappel*

There are various points of view discussed in political science literature with regard to the military intervention undertaken in 1990 by the Economic Organisation of West African States (ECOWAS) in the Liberian civil war. In general, affirmative critical standpoints can be detected, but there are also views that hold a negative assessment of intervention as leading to a continuation of the civil war, as well as views that carry a positive assessment of the same, as leading to an end of the civil war. Further to debates on juridical and moral justification, as well as the significance of Nigerian hegemonic endeavours within a West-African security system there has been over the past several years been an interest with regard to the contribution made by ECOWAS intervention towards the political and economic reconstruction of Liberian society under democratic principles. In this essay, we will attempt to discuss ECOWAS intervention in the Liberian civil war, the end to the long autocratic rule, and what needs to be done to institute democracy in Liberia.

Thesis 1: Prerequisite for ECOWAS intervention is the destruction of the Liberian state which took place between the April 1980 military coup and the beginning of the civil war in December 1989.

Within a decade after the 1980 military coup, Liberia developed from an authoritative presidential system into a military dictatorship, with former chairman of the People's Redemption Council (PRC) Samuel K. Doe, establishing himself as its focal point. Even the 1985 (rigged) elections, as well as Samuel Doe's inauguration to president, did nothing to change the character of despotic presidential rule that was in essence backed by the military. Particularly after the failed coup in October 1985, Liberia experienced an accelerated decay in economic, political, state and social structures, accompanied by lost confidencenot only in persons, but also in the legitimacy of actually all state and political institutions. Mass unemployment caused by

*Professors Werner Korte and Robert Kappel are Liberianists. They both teach at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXV, 2 (2000)

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the stop in iron-ore production, particularly among the youth, political repression and evictions, even the murder of opposition members, ethnisation and the militarisation of politics into power preservation, also as a means to enrich a selected clique of American-Liberians, Krahn, Mandingo and other people around Samuel Doe; these were the characteristics of far-reaching economic, political and social crisis within Liberian society, to which there seemed to be no internal solution, e.g. by way of elections that were due in 1991, or by way of efforts made by the opposition abroad. Following the loss in state revenue sources and employment opportunities in legal production, Liberia saw the triumph of cleptocracy, speculation capital and money laundering, drug traffic, diamond smuggle and the destruction of non-renewable resources (rain forests) (comp. a. o. Liebenow 1987; Dunn/Tarr 1988; Kappel/Korte 1990; Sawyer 1992; Franz 1994). It was within this crisis context that the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) countered the Doe government by way of military action that had for years been planned mainly in foreign African countries, above all by Dan politicians, among them the American-Liberian Charles Taylor. During its preliminary phase, the action was politically and logistically (training of cadres, provision of supplies and illegal trade routes) backed by Libya and Burkina Faso, or at least tolerated by Ivory Coast (in partial secrecy).'

Thesis 2: ECOWAS intervention was based on particular political constellations, as well as various expectations and fears and was legally controversial.

Despite massive repressive military action in Nimba County by the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), ethnic persecution of Dan, Mano and Mandingo, the first half of 1990 saw the government's defeat in the face of an ever-strengthening NPFL. Thereafter began hectic political-diplomatic activity on a national, regional and international level, in a bid to put an end to the invasion that had since turned into civil war. The inner-political initiative started by Christian and Moslem personalities within the Inter-Faith Mediation Committee, and which was aimed at mediating between the civil war parties, was unsuccessful.

See expositions on this from Fahnbulleh (1994) and Dunn (1998) among others, as well as the results of intensive research by Huband (1998) and Ellis (1999).

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In spite of demands from various quarters, the USA refused military intervention. The reason given by the American president at the time, Bush, was that this was an internal-Liberian conflict. Essential grounds for US refusal probably lie in Liberia's post-cold war economic, political and geo-strategic insignificance, as well as the massive criticism that went against the USA for backing the military dictatorship during the 1980s, together with the USA's interest concentration in the Gulf region during the course of the 90s. An early intervention on the part of the USA would probably have been successful and would have at least shortened the duration of the civil war. This assumption remains speculative. No-one knows what inner-political consequences US intervention would have had, or whether democratic political structures would really have developed thereafter.2 Furthermore, no UN Security Council resolution materialised, owing to the common opinion that this was a civil war, where no regional or international interests seemed to be affected. For this same reason, an OAU initiative was also out of the question. Solely ECOWAS, under Nigerian and Ghanaian impetus, took up the initiative to act, a move that was however controversial right from the beginning. The ECOWAS summit in May 1990, set up an ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee (ESMC), aimed at negotiating peace between the warring parties. Finally, as Liberia's neighbouring countries (Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast) were overrun by refugees, rumours spread as to the planned destabilisation of West Africa by the NFPL and Doe's government was finally defeated, Nigeria and Ghana took up the initiative and established a Committee of Five (Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone) which, despite protest from almost all francophone ECOWAS members, resolved to implement military intervention. Reasons given by Nigeria and Ghana were: the ethnic persecution, annihilation and eviction of innocent people practised by all warring parties, all had to come to an end, particularly since the NFPL' s military aggression was also directed against Nigerian and Ghanaian nationalists, the clearer the intervening intentions of the two governments became.3

2 Comp. Alao (1998, 7th chapter), who describes and comments in detail the role and position of the USA during the war.

3 Comp. for example eye witness reports by Brehun 1991 and Njoh 1996, as well as the annual reports published by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

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Fears that other parts of West Africa could be politically and economically destabilised by the multinational conglomeration of initial NFPL centres, also played a role. From the beginning, suspicions were voiced both on the part of francophone countries as well as the NFPL that Nigeria in particular was out to back Doe's government for political and economic reasons, and was thus interested in eliminating the NPFL. The 1975 ECOWAS Agreement, the 1978 Non-Offensive Protocol, the 1981 Assistance Protocol and the Declaration for Democracy and Human Rights were put forward as the legal basis for military intervention.4 Within this context, Korner for example, describes the ESMC decision as having over-stretched its mandate, as well as having occupied itself with Nigeria's particularistic interests.' This action lead to open polarisation between francophone and anglophone ECOWAS members. With legal reservations, the Ivory Coast in particular took on an anti-interventionary position. In as much as the cited humanistic and security-political considerations seemed to justify military intervention, it was on the other hand already impossible to accomplish the task of mediating peace, since there was no peace in Liberia, and the ECOWAS Cease Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) had to fight its way into Liberia against heavy counter-fire from the NPFL (see Vogt, ed., 1992). Korner even speaks of an "instrumentalisation of the regional organisation through Nigeria's regional power" (111). He, however, cannot avoid noting that it is precisely West Africa's francophone countries Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, the greatest critics of intervention, who, due to their own particularistic interests, backed Taylor's NPFL, with Burkina Faso also providing soldiers at the beginning of the war.

Nwokedi (1994, 1997); Aning (1996); Korner (1996); Alao (1998). The above, among others, deal intensively with these legal bases. 5 Comp. e.g. Korner (1996, 5th chapter); Alao (1998, 3rd chapter). Nwokedi (1992) is more sceptical and Adekele (1995) rejects bias as an explanation for Nigerian intervention. Vogt (1992, 1994) and Jonah (1993) among others, argue for ECOWAS intervention in the same justifying and approving manner. They clearly subordinate Nigeria's undoubtedly existent particular, perhaps even hegemonic interests to the security interests of all west African countries. Nigeria's dominant role within the ECOMOG is acknowledged as security management. The discussion surrounding Nigeria's role wsa certainly also fuelled by the fact that Nigeria had provided the most troops since intervention up to 1998, coupled by the fact that she had made the largest financial contribution and had throughout laid claim to the position of Field Commander right from the beginning.

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Furthermore, even Libya, France and the USA also "used" ECOWAS intervention to cover up their respective entanglements, also a form of ECOWAS "instrumentalisation" to disguise their respective political intentions and interests. Depending on their interests and perspectives, the discussion thus goes no further than the authors using legal grounds to either politically justify the intervention or declare it controversial, even illegal. From an African perspective in particular, ECOWAS intervention is discussed within the aspect of African self-help and a precedence case for a future (West)-African security system. The legal basis for intervention plays a more subordinate role as a causal or encouraging factor to war, as opposed to the role played by West African security interests, the USA, the UN, as well as African and European States, in conjunction with the internal Liberian conflicts (comp. a. o. Adeleke 1995; Vogt 1994; Jonah 1993; Ailing 1997; Nwokedi 1992, 1994, 1997). An exceptional case is M. Sesay (1996) who holds a balance between analyzing ECOMOG critically without uninetentionally supporting Taylor's cause. Special mention must be made that the USA diplomatically promoted the initial success brought about by ECOMOG intervention by preventing Taylor's attack on Monrovia in May/June 1990. After ECOMOG landed, he in turn understood this as opposition to his interests and goals. The establishment of an intervention troop meant to secure peace was finally sanctioned by the 1991 ECOWAS General Assembly. Following ECOMOG' s establishment at the port of Monrovia in August, Doe's murder by the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), the emergence of an NPFL splitter group led by Prince Johnson, as well as the destruction orgy carried out by the remaining AFL members, an Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU) led by Amos Sawyer was established in Monrovia under the protection of ECOMOG. This interim government had-under the patronage of the Committee of Five-already been chosen in July 1990 by an assembly with representatives from Liberia's civil society (exile groups, political parties, political representatives of warring parties, except the NPFL), a group that was however not catered for within Liberia's constitution. Following the November 1990 Cease Fire Agreement and Peace Plan signed between ECOMOG, IGNU, the NPFL and INPFL in Bamako, the following status-quo emerged: IGNU governed in Monrovia under ECOMOG protection, the INPFL resided in Caldwell (a Monrovian suburb) under Prince Johnson, while the rest of Liberia was ruled by Taylor's NPFL. This actually meant the collapse of the Liberian State.

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Thesis 3: Following the establishment of this status quo, ECOWAS was for years unable to persuade Taylor's NPFL to adhere to cease fires and peace resolutions.6

It was, however, impossible to draw Taylor into an inner-Liberian peace process following the Bamako Agreement. Directly after Taylor withdrew from an All-Liberia Conference called in Bamako in March 1991, the Liberian civil war spread to Sierra Leone: flanked and protected by the NPFL, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, began a guerrilla war against the Momoh government, which, as was the case in Liberia, was geared to seize state power and control over economic resources. 7 After the Bamako Agreement failed and the Sierra Leone war began, a series of negotiations went underway between June 1991 and April 1992 (the so-called Yamoussoukro I-V) under the patronage of Ivory Coast president Houphouet-Boigny. Using the participation of the francophone group within ECOWAS, the negotiations were aimed at persuading Taylor to cease fire and adopt an agenda towards disarming soldiers and towards a democratic new beginning by way of general presidential and parliamentary elections. Without the guarantee of future presidency-this was always the unspoken condition to ending war-, Taylor would not be convinced; quite the contrary. He established a form of sham state in his "capital city" Gbarnga, the so-called "Greater Liberia", with representatives to carry out functions similar to those of government. Claims made to rudimentary administration structures and the provision of education, health and employment services, could not be proved beyond the status of rumours. The facade of state structures only served to disguise the brusque and uncivilised form of government exercised by a warlord, who however knew how to portray himself effectively in the media. Instead of state structures, Taylor set up a personal ruling system in which he pillaged the economy for his own benefit and that of a small group of close confidants: protected and shielded by his mainly youth gangs, whose task was external territorial deterrence and internal terrorisation of the remaining population, he went about plundering natural resources (iron ore, wood, gold) and trading in smuggled diamonds (most of which came from Sierra Leone). Income accrued from these private businesses went partly to Taylor's wealth hoarded in foreign accounts, and partly to the

6 A documentation of the most significant peace agreements is contained in the collection published by Armon and Carl in the Journal Accord (1996). See Richards (1996) and Abdullah among others (1999) on the Sierra Leone war, its emergence and interpretation and its relationship to the Liberian civil war.

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acquisition of weapons. Taylor is supposed to have had $2.8 billion at his disposal in 1999, according to a British newspaper. As subsistence production was limited and unprofitable, the population lived on aid from abroad, while armed bandits lived off what they could extort from aid organisations and /or the population. Pillage economy, as practised in stateless territories ruled and secured using pure coercion, served to enrich rulers and secure the soldiers' survival. This economy was characteristic, not only of Taylor's "Greater Liberia", but also of territories ruled by an ever-increasing number of rival warlords, even when this was much less evident in these territories (comp. on this Reno 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998; also Ellis 1999, Chap. 3; Korte 1997). By invading Sierra Leone and making a further attack on Monrovia (Operation Octopus) in October 1992, Taylor was able to relieve immediate pressure to make peace, a constant condition that went contrary to one of his interests. At the time, Taylor, however, still expected to resolve the civil war through the military and not by way of negotiations. This was despite, or precisely because of the fact that in May 1991, backed by AFL soldiers, a coalition with the name United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (Ulimo) had emerged between Mandingo and Krahn refugees in Guinea and Sierra Leone, and set about intervening in the civil war from the West. Taylor boycotted the Agreement reached by the final Yamoussoukrou negotiations held in Geneva. One of the reasons given was that Ulimo had not participated in the negotiations and would thus neither adhere to cease fire, nor fulfil the agreement.

Thesis 4: From peacekeeping to peace enforcement: ECOMOG developed into a partial war party caught in a net of various interests, not only those of Liberian war fractions, but also of African and European powers, together with the inability to achieve peace by way of negotiations.

Unfavourable circumstances and a contradictory beginning surrounded ECOMOG intervention. Taylor perceived ECOMOG to be a Nigerian instrument aimed at protecting Doe, and thereby an impediment to his claims on power in Liberia, power to which in his opinion he alone was entitled on account of his military action especially

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with regard to the IGNU "cowards", as he titled the members of the Monorovia government.8 ECOMOG was meant to achieve peace, which was against the wishes of at least the NPFL right from the beginning. The majority of the population had fled abroad and to Monrovia. Following the establishment of Ulimo in 1991 and that of the Liberia Peace Council (LPC) in 1993, together with the emergence of war fractions, some of whom existed only on paper, as well divisions and power struggles within the NPFL, 1995 saw Liberia turned into a strife-torn country, ruled by war fractions. State functions were carried out to a modest extent solely by the civil government in Monrovia, under the protection of ECOMOG. Foreign organisations distributed aid goods and monies from the international community which were necessary for the survival of the population and that of refugees. Taylor never intended to establish his own state on new territory. Spreading the war to Sierra Leone essentially served his economic interests in smuggling diamonds, even though the war had developed its own destructive dynamism there since 1991. Taylor wanted to be president of Liberia right from the very beginning. He perceived the US diplomatic initiative and ECOMOG military intervention, as holding him back from this goal. Taylor's forceful attempt at becoming president reached a further climax following the failed implementation of the Geneva April 1992 Yamoussoukrou V Agreement and NFPL and ULIMO reluctance to find a peaceful solution. As Taylor finally started a further attempt to conquer Monrovia in October 1992 (Operation Octopus), the ECOMOG felt itself obliged to co-operate with the rest of the AFL and ULIMO, in order to drive Taylor's gangs from Monrovia. The ECOMOG offensive that took place in the following months, with the bombing of Kakata and Gbamga, lead to recapturing the Buchanan port, thus expanding the relatively secure region at the coast between Monrovia and Buchanan. In a parallel action, ULIMO advanced on Tubmanburg and Lofa County from the west, forcing the NPFL back to the hinterland. The events that took place in 1992/93 clearly point out and verify the frequently expressed conviction that ECOMOG had turned from its initial mission to attain and secure peace (which however could not be fulfilled), into a party within the Liberian civil war, geared at coercing peace using military methods (comp. Korner 1996, 171 ff.).

8 Comp. Dunn on the civil war in Monrovia under Sawyer (IGNU), Kpormakpor, Sankawulo and Perry (LNTG Ito III) and the internal contradictions and conflicts of Monrovian politics; as well as Liberty's last publication (1998), which however almost embarrassingly courts Taylor.

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Ambivalent circumstances surrounded ECOWAS intervention right from the beginning. Controversial juridical grounds and one-sided alignment (anglophone states with Guinea led by an emergent regional power Nigeria) with initial oral support from the international community and organisations, as well as opposition from Taylor's NPFL, all made it impossible for ECOMOG to develop an identity as a peace-keeping or peace-making intervention power, without actively defending itself against attacks from Taylor and his political supporters in West Africa. Peace that was non-existent, could not be kept. Neither political, nor military means could however be used to achieve peace that could then be secured. The prerequisite for securing peace was the signing of a peace pact, which would first have had to be negotiated by ECOWAS (or the intervening states). IGNU efforts to achieve conditional peace pointed to ECOWAS or ECOMOG as being the only effective power factor against Taylor's NPFL. This frequently contradictory and ambiguous position taken by ECOWAS -participation in war versus a peace-making or peace-keeping mission; internal discrepancies between francophone and anglophone states, each with their own national and /or regional interests; various international interconnections (Ivory Coast/France) and insecure/unclear international support of or even criticism against ECOMOG- gave Taylor again and again the pretext under which to breach contracts. He was thus able to follow his own interests for years, while simultaneously holding to his claims to power. The continued war constantly required renewed efforts to keep the negotiation process alive or going. These efforts finally brought about increased USA support (financing the Senegalese contingent up to its withdrawal at the beginning of 1993, see Mortimer 1998), the (November 1992) UN Security Council Resolution for a weapon embargo for all Liberian war parties except ECOMOG and the UN observer initiative (UNOMIL). All these developments could, however, not prevent ECOMOG from being increasingly forced to take on the role of a peace-coercing intervention power under Nigerian leadership. Under these circumstances, accusing ECOWAS or ECOMOG of partiality and inadequate neutrality and declaring intervention for dubious, implausible and aggravating to Nigeria, is to under-estimate the threatening alternative posed by the unrestricted aggression of unscrupulous warlords: e. g. the ruandalisation or somalisation of a country (comp. for example Dunn, 1998, 103). A (large) part of the Liberian population perceived intervention to mean help (comp. for example Kulah, 1999).

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Thesis 5: The Cotonou (1993), Akosombo and Accra (1994) Agreements, opened the way for Liberian war parties into the Monrovia government.

UN participation at peace efforts and Ghana's attempt to set the peace process back in motion, gave war parties the opportunity to gain influence within Monrovia's civil transition government. The period between the Geneva and Cotonou (July 1993) Agreements and the ECOWAS Abuja Summit (May 1995), is characterised by numerous attempts by ECOWAS and the UN to bring about peace, as well as by internal splits within Liberian war parties, and the rebuilding of the Monrovian transition government. This however did not lead to an end to the war, nor did it bring about a viable agreement as to the country's future. Efforts by UN official Gordon-Somers to increase chances of adherence to the Cotonou Agreement by way of direct negotiations, failed owing to Taylor's accusations of being partisan. It was only after Ghana took over ECOWAS presidency that the wheels of negotiation were set in motion again. The Akosombo Agreement (September 1994) and the Accra Accord (December 1994) brought the participation of old and new war and interest parties in negotiations, even when the Agreement was intensely disputed in various ways and by various opponents. Effects on the political situation in Monrovia were considerable. However, there was little change in the rural areas and refugee camps outside the country, ruled by war parties; although carried out to a much lesser extent, Taylor and other warlords-despite the shrunken sphere of territorial influence-continued to pillage economy and the country's resources, war gangs tortured and robbed the local population, while fights to consolidate claimed territories occasionally took place between war parties, even between groups that had since split apart. In addition to established war parties and representatives of the Monrovian civil society, newly-emerged war parties (the LPC, a division of ULIMO into U-K (for Kromah) and U-J (for Johnson), the LDF, a group from north-western Liberia intended to defend the Lorma interests against the Mandingo, the CRC-NPFL, a splitter group of transition government (LNTG) politicians close to Taylor) sought political participation or representation in a new transition state council, or at least in a government that was to be rebuilt anew. The important aspect in these processes-the real power of a state council was extremely little, the government practically non-influential due to lacking resources-lay in legalising the interests of the war parties within the government in Monrovia. Using the mechanisms of the transition process, warlords gained the opportunity of directly influencing further developments even politically. They no longer

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had to rely solely on the military success that each respectively strove for-Taylor's goal remained leadership in Liberia, while that of most other parties was to prevent this-, rather they were now in a position, depending on their military strength, to continue putting pressure behind their political claims, while simultaneously pursuing their private economic interests. Further events clearly show that Taylor's NPFL was able to exercise the most sustained influence despite internal conflicts and its weakened position. By this time, Taylor had managed to change from a military threat to the civil change process, to an actor-even when initially external in nature, with regard to his person-within the political process in Monrovia. His ambitions to become the country's president, whether forcefully or not, gained impetus towards non-military means. He continued to stick to this option, without, however, neglecting that of force.

Thesis 6: An end to the civil war was only reached after Taylor finally yielded to a solution by way of non -military negotiation in 1995/6 (Abuja I and II).

Since the beginning of ECOWAS intervention, the military events stood against numerous efforts to end the civil war and bring about sustained peace and a democratic new beginning to political life, goals which, owing to the progressing war and extreme destruction of economic and social infrastructure, included disarming soldiers, reintegration, reconciliation, and rebuilding the country. As logical and unavoidable as it may be to call for and formulate such political goals, the jungle of particular, national and regional economic and political interests makes it difficult to come to a consensus and settle a modus operandi that would at all open up chances of realising these goals. The fact that war and negotiation diplomacy ran parallel to each other, was probably insignificant in as far as the result is concerned: it was not the military success achieved by the one or other side that in the main influenced successful negotiations, neither was it is the involvement of more and more actors in negotiations (e. g. the UN since 1992, president Houphouet-Boigny (until 1992), new war fractions). Decisive steps took the form of admitting warlords' representatives into the LING presidium that replaced the first transition government IGNU led by Amos Sawyer, as well as the bilateral team-up that took place between Nigeria and Taylor for unknown reasons, and finally the admission of warlords themselves into the Council of State in 1995. These factors, and only at the price of Monrovia's destruction in April/May 1996, finally led to the end of the war, the disarmament of soldiers and to the July 1997 elections. What reasons may have led Taylor to change his mind? One of the most essential grounds seems to have been the fact that not much was left for NPFL bandits

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to plunder, while Taylor's territory continued to grow smaller and his lucrative diamond smuggle threatened to slip from grasp. There are also suspicions that Houphouet-Boigny's death caused Taylor growing concern regarding political and logistical support/tolerance on the part of the Ivory Coast. He was thus finally convinced that winning presidency through political unity with Nigeria would be preferable to the military success that was becoming more and more uncertain. A further factor that turned Taylor's attitude in favour of negotiations was Abacha's coup following failed Nigerian elections in 1995, and his attempt at lessening international pressure on Nigeria. Taylor finally symbolised his serious willingness to enter into negotiations by announcing religious conversion for Liberians, a fact that did nothing to alter the rational purpose behind his change of heart. This form of legitimising politics through religious symbolism, is nothing extraordinary for Liberia.

Thesis 7: Partial failure: ECOWAS intervention was faced with the necessity, not only to end war and bring about peace, but also to overcome the authoritarian structures of a de facto military dictatorship and state destruction, by redeveloping democratic structures.

The transition from a military-backed presidential dictatorship during the 1980's, followed by the civil war that lasted from 1987 to 1997, to the 3rd. Republic as it is euphorically referred to in Liberia, was not the result of victory by a civil war party, nor was it brought about by a foreign power. The 1997 elections that saw a number of political parties and several presidential candidates participate, is more a product of peace brought about by arduous negotiations between ECOWAS/ECOMOG, civil war parties (NPFL, ULIMO-J, ULIMO-K, LPC, and a number of smaller groupings), the LNTG that encompassed several civil parties and groups that were not a product of the civil war, and the UNOMIL, as well as a number of states that supported the peace process at least verbally and financially (among them USA, EU). In addition to Nigeria's interest to finally end the war due to financial reasons, calculations, particularly by Taylor and the NPFL, also played a large role within the transition process, not only in creating the prerequisites for winning presidential and parliamentary elections, but also in pursuing-as free as possible from ECOMOG/Nigerian influence-internal and foreign policies within the newly regained sovereignty, that promoted NPFL and Taylor's interests-a continuation of warlord battles under the seal of a newly-founded legality and state sovereignty.

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In addition to personal factors, Renda (1999) also cites several other aspects as significant for the success of the Abuja Accord. These include Abacha and Taylor teaming up, UNOMIL and ECOMOG uniting to disarm soldiers, Victor Malu's appointment to Field Commander and his energetic advocacy for the peace treaty, and especially the sanction threats against leading representatives of war parties if agreements were not adhered to. As opposed to the other war fractions and civil actors who were substantially less-equipped in material terms, Taylor knew how to go about creating the conditions needed for success in elections. Between 1995 and 1997, he went about transforming his civil war hoards and followers into something of a party and gearing his activities early enough towards winning the elections. This was in contrast to the other actors who, true to Liberian tradition, had been in completely bad terms since the military coup, and hence dealt more on their enmities, as well as minimal political and personal differences, as opposed to the common goal of preventing Taylor's presidency (comp also Liberty, 1998) Even Taylor had apparently realised, slowly at first but still earlier than his opponents that victory finally achieved through elections, was less cumbersome than using military means. The destructive consequences of the military conflict raged by his and Kromah's (ULIMO-K) hoards against Roosevelt Johnson's Krahn militias in April/May 1996 in Monrovia, apparently finally convinced him of the senselessness in continuing the war, as well as the potential danger to his own future base in Monrovia. Taylor was also apparently much faster than his all his military and civilian opponents in realising that secretly going around peace treaties (disarmament, quartering in barracks, preparing for elections) took up too much energy and decreased one's own chances to win elections; or he and his troops were much better than the others in concealing equipment. Although Taylor had been elected president by the "overwhelming majority" of the population, he, however, remained inflexible on one point as far the peace pact and ECOMOG were concerned: The Abuja peace agreement (1995, confirmed 1996) designated ECOMOG with the task of structuring and supervising the rebuilding of the Liberian army ("capacity building"), before withdrawing from Liberia. Taylor flatly denied ECOMOG any influence in assembling or training the new Liberian army. Dissolving AFL remnants consisting of old Krahn units is certainly still a difficult undertaking even today. But for Taylor, it was a matter of filling not only the army and police force posts, but also Liberia's security forces -infamous since Tubman- with members of the NPFL. This was to be done without any outside control and was meant to ensure that they carry out his instructions. From his point of view, this was indispensable if the corporate interests of his former NPFL soldiers were to be

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satisfied. On the other hand, using his own coercion that was now at least partly legitimised and controlled by the state, he would -further to interests in repressing the opposition-, be in a position to keep up his economic interests particularly with regard to diamond smuggling from Sierra Leone. To date, the price for this "victory of sovereignty" remains the considerable doubts in the democratic character of the 3rd Republic, coupled with never ending accusations and suspicions of continued human rights violations. This has forced the country to make do without foreign investment on account of the precarious security situation, while stifled resignation makes its rounds within the population due to the promised economic, political and social rebuilding of society, which has, however, failed to materialise (comp. here the annual reports published by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch Africa, the American foreign ministry, as well as current press reports).

Thesis 8: The main successes achieved by ECOWAS intervention were the peace pact, as well as the presidential and parliamentary elections.

One of the most significant results generally acknowledged with regard to the 1990 ECOWAS intervention, is the official end of the war in 1996, with extensive disarmament of soldiers, together with the 1997 general presidential and parliamentary elections that marked the attempt at a political new beginning. Taylor's seizure of power without legitimisation by way of elections, would have had unforeseeable political and social consequences. Faced with the historical alternative of this eventuality, coupled with an early NPFL victory, it seemed that electing Taylor to president under international supervision, with the National Patriotic Front (NPP) succeeding the NPFL to become the strongest party, would guarantee a certain protection mechanism for the population, as well as tougher external control on the future politics of a warlord. As elected president, Taylor would have to assert himself not only against a critical public within the country, but also against the international community, by adhering to acceptable codes of conduct. This would force him to practice greater caution and accountability, than would have been the case if he had seized power solely by way of military success over and on the remnants of Doe's tyranny.9

9 Magyar (1998) reckons that without external intervention, Taylor would have broken AFL resistance within one year. He is also of the opinion that without the destruction caused by the consequent war, the start to Taylor's rule would at least not have been much worse than that of Doe.

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It is thus futile to ask whether it would or would not have meant that the future living conditions of the Liberian population would improve or worsen, had Taylor taken over power earlier without legitimisation by way of elections. Following his election, Taylor not only had to face comparison with Doe's rule during the 1980's, rather he also had to face up to the expectations made of him (as well as his own repeated promises) with regard to (re)building the country's economy, logistic and social infrastructure, as well as integrating a population greatly divided even due to the war (just to name a few future problems). This is not the place to make an analysis of his hitherto three years reign. There are, however, increased signs and criticism that not only question the claims to fairness and relative equality of opportunity during the 1997 elections (positive e. g. Lyons, 1998, Wegemund, 1997, critical e. g. 'Camara, 1999), but which also ascertain the continued existence of warlord politics within the boarders of the Liberian state (no longer those of "Greater Liberia"), in the masquerade of a president (no longer that of a self-named military liberation hero). This has above all been prompted by the following: the (re)building of the economy has not materialised, while Taylor continues to enrich himself by plundering the country's resources. At the same time, the security situation in the country is precarious due to the existence of armed groups of former NPFL soldiers ("security forces"), and there is the ever-recurring suspicion that Taylor is involved in smuggling diamonds, hence his causal involvement in the continued civil

war in Sierra Leone. This is to name just a few factors. 10 It is however to be taken seriously, if objections raised against ECOWAS intervention are based on the argument of intervention itself having prolonged the war, which was certainly not the initial intention. This also applies to arguments which refer to a cost-benefit analysis of intervention, as well as those that endeavour to draw consequences for a future African security policy.

I° Seyon (1998) analyzes in detail the Abuja Accords (1995/1996) and the election process of 1997 and asks, whether these are suitable to solve the basic problems of Liberian society. He preliminarily concludes that this is doubtful.

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Thesis 9: A cost-benefit analysis of ECOMOG intervention cannot lead to the comprehension of the war's causes, rather it only serves to point out the problem of war's results more clearly, leading to the acknowledgement that it would be more beneficial to prevent civil war in the first place, by taking preventative measures.

The preceding assessment given by authors already pre-forms the answer to this question: depending on the author's position for or against the civil war (and hence against NPFL's actions that triggered it off), or for or against ECOWAS intervention (particularly against Nigeria), the analysis encompasses various dimensions which are not always all significant and which are above all not all political and social in nature. Someone who rejects the legitimacy of Taylorian intervention would have to judge the costs of ECOWAS intervention differently from someone who "realistically" acknowledges the various forms of "power seizure" in African states and concentrates mainly on the material consequences of external intervention. Emphasis is hence laid differently, with the causes and effects of actions being accorded various relationships, and the interaction between warring parties and peace endeavours being evaluated in a variety of ways. It, however, seems like the ECOWAS' intervention did take place -regardless of whether or not this was legally irreproachable. It was determined by the unwillingness of the international institutions and organisations, particularly the UN and the USA, to act. This intervention set a precedence effect for regional security and intervention politics, in view of the future restraint suspected of the international community even in other unavoidable African civil wars." In acknowledging this termination, Magyar (1998, 173 ff) describes ECOWAS' intervention as having caused the war's "unintended prolongation" (174). At another point, he generally formulates the fears that "the prospects that peacekeeping operations might well result in totally counterproductive results" (175); it could lead to a lasting experience of intervention under the etiquette of the "Liberian Dilemma" (175). Magyar's cost-benefit considerations of peace initiatives in third world countries distinguishes the material and political-social effects of shorter or longer military intervention at least on the short and longer term. He is thus able to distil a number of factors from the Liberian experience, whereby the civil war in itself seems for him to be an episode within a longer process of state decay. As such, the "costs"

11 The majority of authors accord no great significance to the UN's late participation in the peace process or the politically supportive measures on the part of the USA with regard to the terminating the civil war; Pitts (1999, 59 ff.) in contrast however, is positive.

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should not be blamed solely on the adequately prepared and implemented ECOWAS intervention. With regard to Liberia, Magyar maintains that the destruction of Liberia will have a lasting impact on that country. He also refers to the population's flight, eviction, and death, as well as deepening social contrasts particularly in urban-rural differences, which had all grown out of the war's duration. Considering the degree of destruction largely caused by the duration of the war, Magyar claims that, "short wars can be productive" (178). Other authors refer to further consequences of war-prolonging intervention, although they are not always clear in differentiating its causes and results. Pitts (1999, 62) categorically states: "Ecomog's ...intervention only delayed the inevitable: Taylor's ascension to the presidency". In so doing, one could be led to estimate the material and social costs of intervention as being a disproportionately high price for Taylor's presidency, a costs attribute that could only be justified by the fulfilment of a belated prophecy. Tan (1998, p. 169) on the other hand argues with a certain plausibility that France's initial support of Taylor constituted to the prolongation of the war. Or, what would one have been able to spare in Liberia in terms of destruction costs, if Taylor had stopped his war after Doe's death and agreed to a political new beginning by way of elections? This consideration points to the imminent difficulty posed by a cost-benefit analysis of the "Liberian dilemma", whichever way it is undertaken. It is not only the difficulty of attributing motives and intentions that are destructive and which cannot be expressed in cost terms to the causes and effects of war on the one hand, to losses that can be expressed in cost terms on the other. Magyar is also faced with the dilemma of attributing costs when he for example identifies ECOWAS problems in implementing the intervention as being the reason for prolonging war (182/3). These include a long list of inadequacies: intervention was decided on and prepared much to hastily, it was inadequately equipped, it was opposed by the NPFL, while other significant actors viewed it with suspicion, in some cases heavily criticising it, it received insufficient support and it failed to live up to its intended aim as a military action geared towards enforcing peace. Levitt (1999) adds to the failure of ECOMOG ist neglect of thrust-building prior to the intervention in August 1990.12 In contrast, the advantages or benefits of intervention are rather the modest exception, when one disregards the above mentioned political circumstances in respect

12 Comp also the problems identified by Dunn (1998) from the perspective of the Monrovian civil government.

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of international restraint, as well as the success of a political new beginning legitimised by elections for a society destroyed by war. The opinion expressed by several ECOWAS critics, that intervention had been sufficient to delay Taylor's ascent to power for years but had in the end not sufficed to prevent it, is to miss the point. Putting down the costs of war unilaterally on the actions of one actor (ECOWAS), probably reduced to Nigeria's national interests, is to underestimate the numerous intertwined interactions between all (and not only those directly involved) warring parties, who-like Taylor- were only interested in terminating the war under their own conditions. It is not the rights of most people in third world countries affected by eviction, injury, rape, and death that is the point of reference in the analysis, rather, it is the (relative) power of concerned actors. As such, it would still be debatable as to whether one actor such as ECOWAS (or Nigeria), though significant, but not sufficiently powerful, can alone be held accountable for the costs of a war prolonged non-intentionally. Would it not be more appropriate to also hold those other actors accountable, who had began the war, failed to end it, continued it and restarted it time and again, often without any moral, political or social justification. To hold a "prolonged war" as accountable for the costs without naming the actors, is a hackneyed cliché geared at exonerating those responsible from the consequences of their interactive deeds, from covering up the fact that it is not war but people that have always been and will continue to be the makers of war. Hopelessness in the quest for peace, as well as the civil wars instigated time and again in poor countries finally appear to Magyar as "natural phenomena", although he does not discuss any reasons for this. This opinion, together with that of a regional "standing force" (178) that comes to the help of the "beleaguered government side" ending the war with a short effective intervention, reveal order and stability as being the cost-favourable variant of a common interest that should be binding beyond particular national interests. By naming the capacity to prevent or minimise violence and human suffering as the a criterion for armed intervention, Renda (1999, 73) provides the moral variant of order politics. Order-political and moral reasons could be supported, in as far as those attacked were democratically legitimate governments, which on their part were undoubtedly under obligation to the common good of their populations. It is from such prerequisites that precisely a large number of poor, war-torn African societies are far removed, as demonstrated in the case of Sierra Leone, or Liberia which, following the 1997 elections, was under constant threat of the civil war flaring up again. Magyar himself, however, compares the costs and benefits of short and prolonged wars to those of war-preventing measures and comes to the conclusion that in view of destruction and reconstruction, every avoidance of civil war is not only

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cheaper but peace and continuos development are also more humane and moral. One, however, does not need a cost-benefit analysis to realise this, simply a healthy human understanding. But reality is not governed by this, instead it is governed by the logic of capital development and the power and wealth interests of those actors in poor countries, who are best able to put this logic and their law at their service all over the world, even beyond the bounds of democratic ideas of order, or human moral.

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Select Bibliography Adeleke, Ademola. The politics and diplomacy of peacekeeping in West Africa: The Ecowas operation in Liberia, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 33, 4, 1995, 569-593. Africa Development Special Issue. Lumpenculture and political violence: The Sierra Leone civil war, XXII, 3/4, 1997. Mao, Abiodun. The burden of collective goodwill. The international involvement in the Liberian civil war, Aldershot/ Brookfield USA: Ashgate 1998. Ailing, Emmanuel Kwesi. Managing regional security in West Africa: Ecowas, Ecomog and Liberia, Kopenhagen: Centre for Development Research Working Paper 94.2, February 1994.

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Jonah, James. 0.C., ECOMOG: A successful example ofpeacemaking and peacekeeping by a regional organization in the third world. In: Kuhne, Winrich, Hrsg., Blauhelme in einer turbulenten Welt, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1993, 303-327. Kamara, Tom. Elections and stability in postwar Liberia, Institut fur Afrikanistik: University of Leipzig Papers on Africa (ULPA), Politics and Economics No.22, 1999. Kappel, Robert and Korte, Werner. 10 Jahre Militarherrschaft in Liberia: Zwischen Kleptokratie und internationalen Verpflichtungen, Afrika-Spektrum, 25, 90/1, 1990, 35-63. Korner, Peter. Macht- und Interessenpolitik in der Ecowas-Region und der Krieg in Liberia, Hamburg: Institut fur Afrika-Kunde, Hamburger Beitrage zur Afrika-Kunde 51, Hamburg 1996. Korte, Werner. Prozesse des Staatszerfalls in Liberia, Welt Trends, 14, 1997, 55-80.

. Liberia. A bibliography (1988-1998) with special references to the civil war,Institut ftir Afrikanistik: University of Leipzig Papers on Africa (ULPA), Politics and Economics No. 23, 1999. Kulah, Arthur F. Liberia will rise again, Nashville: Abingdon Press 1999. Levitt, Jeremy. Pre-intervention trust-building, African states and enforcing the peace: The case of ECOWAS in Liberia and Sierra Leone, LSJ, XXIV, 1, 1999, 1-26. Liberty, C.E. Zamba. Butuo: A lliliputanian testament to a struggle - The NPFL journey to state-power: How Charles Taylor upset the bowl of rice and took home the whole hog, LSJ, XXIII, 1, 1998, 135-207. Liebenow, J. Gus. Liberia: The quest for democracy, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1987. Lyons, Terrence. Voting for peace. Postconflict elections in Liberia, Washington, D.C.: Brooking Instutions Press 1998. Magyar, Karl P. ECOMOG' s operations: Lessons for peacekeeping, In: Magyar, Karl P. and Conteh-Morgan, Earl (eds.), 1998, 52-75.

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Nwokedi, Emeka. Regional integration and regional security: ECOMOG, Nigeria and the Liberian crisis, Travaux et Documents, No 35, Centre d'Etude d'Afrique Noire, Institut d'Etudes Politique, Universite de Bordeaux 1992, 1-19. Pitts, Michelle. Sub-regional solution for African conflict: The ECOMOG Experiment, The Journal of Conflict Studies, Spring 1999, 49-68. Renda, Luca. Ending civil wars: The Case of Liberia, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 23, 2, 1999, 59-76. Reno, William. Foreign firms and the financing of Charles Taylor's NPFL, LSJ, XVIII, 2, 1993, 175-188.

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. The business of war in Liberia, Current History, May 1996, 211-215.

. Warlord politics and African states, Boulder, CO/London: Lynne Rienner Publishers 1998 Richards, Paul. Fighting for the rain forest: War, youth and resources in Sierra Leone, London: Villiers Publications 1996. Riley, Stephen and Sesay, Max A. Liberia: After Abuja, ROAPE, No.69, 1996, 429-458. Sawyer, Amos. The emergence of autocracy in Liberia, Washington, D.C.: Insitute for Contemporary Studies 1992. Sesay, Max A. Civil war and collective intervention in Liberia, ROAPE, 67, 1996, 35-52. Seyon, Patrick N.L. A quick fix for the Liberian "Humpty Dumpty": Will it work? State Transformation and Democratization in Africa: A lesson from Liberia, LSJ, XXIII, 2, 1998, 1-60. Tarr, Byron. Extra-Africa interests in the Liberian conflict. In: Magyar, Karl P.and Conteh-Morgan, Earl, eds., 1998, 150-172. Vogt, Margaret A. (ed.). The Liberian crisis and ECOMOG: A bold attempt at regional peace keeping, Lagos: Gabumo Publishing Co. Ltd. 1992.

. An introduction. In: Vogt, Margaret A., ed., 1992, 1-10.

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Weissman, Fabrice. Liberia: Derriere le chaos, crises et interventions internationales, Relations internationales et strategiques, 23, 1996, 82-99. Weller, Marc (ed.). Regional peace-keeping and international enforcement: The Liberian crisis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge International Documents Series Vol.6, 1994.

(Abbreviations: LSJ = Liberian Studies Journal; ROAPE = Review of African Political Economy)

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

Burin, Eric. "If the rest stay, I will stay-if they go, I will go: How Slaves' Familial Bonds Affected American Colonization Manumission," in Jack Green, Randy Spark, and Rosemary Brana-Shute, eds., Manumission in the Atlantic. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, forthcoming.

Dunn, Elwood D., Amos J. Beyan, and Patrick Burrowes. Historical Dictionary ofLiberia. Second Edition, Lanham. Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001.

Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families. London, UK: Picador, 1999.

Holloway, Joseph E. An Introduction to Classical African Civilization. Northridge, CA: Boniface I. Obichere Research Center, California State University, 1999.

. African American History: A Brief Outline. Northridge, CA: Boniface I. Obichere Research Center, California State University, 1999.

Kamara, Tom. "Elections and Stability in Postwar Liberia." University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Politics and Economics Series No. 22, (1999), pp. 1-14.

Kaplan, Robert. The Ends of the Earth: From Togo, Turkmenistan, From Tran to Cambodia, a Journey to Frontiers of Anarchy. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

Korte, Werner. "Liberia: A Bibliography, 1988-1998 with Special References to the Civil War." University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Politics and Economics Series No. 23, (1999), pp. 1-76.

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Kulah, Arthur F. Liberia Will Rise Again: Reflections on the Liberian Civil Crisis. New York: Abingdon Press, 1999.

Lewis, Peter, ed., Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998.

Liberty, Clarence E. Zamba. Growth of the Liberian State: An Analysis of Its Historiography. Northridge, CA: Boniface I. Obichere Research Center, California State University, 1999.

Lindquist, Sven. Exterminate All the Brutes. London: Granta Books, 1998.

Minow, Martha. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. New York: Beacon Press, 1998.

Reno, William S. K. Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998.

Saillant, John D. ed., "Circular Addressed to the Colored Brethren and Friends: An Unpublished Essay by Lott Carey Sent from Liberia to Virginia, 1827," The Virginia Magazine ofHistory and Biography. vol. 100, 1996.

Soyinka, Wole. The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness. (W.E.B. Du Bois Institute Series). New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Temperley, Howard. "African-American Aspiration and Settlement of Liberia," Slavery and Abolition. Vol. 21, 2000.

Tyler-McGraw. "The Hues and Uses of Liberia," in Maria Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen eds., Black Imagination and the Middle Passage. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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USA, Amnesty International. Getting Away with Murder: Political Killings and Disappearances in the 1990s. New York: Amnesty International USA, 1993.

Weschler, Lawrence. A Miracle a Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

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Documents

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices -2000 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor February 2001

LIBERIA Liberia is a centralized republic, dominated by a strong presidency. The Constitution provides for three branches of government, but no effective system of checks and balances, and presidents traditionally have wielded extraordinary power. Americo-Liberians, descendants of freed slaves from the United States and the Caribbean, who make up approximately 5 percent of the population, dominated the country's government through the True Whig party until 1980. In 1980 Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, a member of the indigenous Krahn ethnic group, seized power in a military coup. Doe was killed by rebels in 1990 early in the 7-year-long, ethnically divisive civil war, which was ended by the Abuja Peace Accords in 1996. Forces led by Charles G. Taylor, who is ofboth indigenous and Americo-Liberian ancestry, emerged dominant. In 1997, Taylor won the presidential election, and his National Patriotic Party (NPP) won three-quarters of the seats in the legislature. The elections were administratively free and transparent, but were conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation, as most voters believed that Taylor's forces would have resumed fighting if he had lost. Most other leaders of the former warring factions subsequently left the country. The bicameral legislature exercised little independence from the executive branch. The judiciary is subject to political influence, economic pressure, and corruption. The regular security forces include: The Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL); the Liberia National Police (LNP), which has primary responsibility for internal security; the Antiterrorist Brigade (ATB) created in 1999, composed of an elite special forces group; and the Special Security Service (SSS), a large, heavily armed executive protective force. There also are numerous irregular security services attached to certain key ministries and parastatal corporations, the responsibilities of which appear to be defined poorly. The national army, which fought against Taylor's faction during the civil war, has yet to be downsized and restructured as required by the Abuja Peace Accords, due primarily to a lack of funding. By year's end, a commission had been formed with

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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funding allocated at approximately $100,000. Only a few contingents have been deployed to maintain security in parts of rural areas. The ATB absorbed Taylor's most experienced civil war fighters, including undisciplined and untrained loyalists. During the year, the Government revived the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which had become defunct during the civil war. Security forces frequently acted independently of government authority, particularly in rural areas. Members of the security forces committed numerous, serious human rights abuses. Liberia is a very poor country with a market-based economy that has yet to recover from the ravages of the civil war. Average per capita income is estimated at $171, only a small fraction of the prewar level. Prior to 1990, the cash economy was based primarily on iron ore, rubber, timber, diamond, and gold exports. An unemployment rate of 85 percent, a 25 percent literacy rate, the internal displacement of civilians in Lofa and Nimba counties, and the absence of infrastructure throughout the country continued to depress productive capacity, despite the country's rich natural resources and potential self-sufficiency in food. Government officials and former combatants continued to exploit the country's natural resources for personal benefit. Extortion is widespread in all levels of society. The Government's human rights record remained poor, and there were numerous, serious abuses in many areas. The security forces committed many extrajudicial killings, and they were accused of killing or causing the disappearance of persons. Security forces tortured, beat, and otherwise abused or humiliated citizens. The Government investigated some of the alleged abuses by the security forces; however, offenders were rarely charged or disciplined. Prison conditions remained harsh and sometimes life threatening. Security forces continued at times to use arbitrary arrest and detention, and lengthy pretrial detention remained common. The judicial system, hampered by political influence, economic pressure, inefficiency, corruption, and a lack of resources, was unable to ensure citizens' rights to due process and a fair trial. In some rural areas where the judiciary had not been reestablished, clan chieftains administered criminal justice through the traditional practice of trial-by-ordeal; authorities tacitly condoned this practice. More than 20 political prisoners remained in jail. Security forces violated citizens' privacy rights, conducted warrantless searches, harassment, illegal surveillance, and looted homes. The Government restricted freedom of the press; it detained, threatened, and intimidated journalists into self-censorship and shut down two radio stations, one temporarily. Security forces restricted freedom of movement, using roadblocks to extort money from travelers and returning refugees. Security forces frequently harassed human rights monitors. Violence and discrimination against women

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remained problems. The welfare of children remained widely neglected, and female genital mutilation (FGM) continued to increase. Societal ethnic discrimination remained widespread, ethnic differences continued to generate violence and political tensions, and the Government continued to discriminate against indigenous ethnic groups that had opposed Taylor in the civil war, especially the Mandingo and the Krahn ethnic groups. Forced labor persisted in rural areas. Child labor remained widespread, and there were reports of forced child labor. Ritualistic killings also persisted.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From: a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing Security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings. Human rights organizations estimate the number of such killings to have increased to several hundred during the year. Many of the abuses were linked to ongoing violence in Lofa county between security forces and antigovernment dissidents who launched a series of crossborder incursions from Guinea. No perpetrators were arrested or convicted for any of these killings. In February the police shot and killed Nyanqui Luoh, an accused armed robber. The police reported that they acted in self-defense. A human rights organization called for an investigation of the incident, but none had been undertaken by year's end. There were credible reports that government forces as well as members of the Lorma ethnic group continued to harass, intimidate, and, on occasion, kill members of the Mandingo ethnic group in Lofa county. For example, in January armed men reportedly killed 18 Mandingos in the town of Bawon. In March security forces arrested and killed five Mandingos on a road linking Voinjama, Lofa County with Guinea. Human rights monitors reported that hundreds of Mandingos were killed during the year. There was no investigation into nor action taken in the May 1999 death of a security officer allegedly while in detention. At year's end, the Government had not released a report on its November 1999 investigation of the reported killing of as many as 30 Mandingos in Lofa county in August 1999. In that incident, the authorities initially arrested 19 persons, but they did not charge anyone with a crime. The trial of nine Krahn AFL soldiers accused of involvement in 1998 violence ended in February; four soldiers were convicted of sedition and sentenced to 10 years in prison; the other five were acquitted and released.

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There was no further action taken in the 1998 extrajudicial killings of Mannah Zekay, John Nimely, or others reported during that year. In 1999 the President Pro Tempore of the Senate told the Interparliamentary Union that the investigation into the 1997 killings of opposition political leader Samuel Saye Dokie and three family members continued. However, there was no active investigation into the case during the year, and the case essentially was dropped. Since September there were reports of attacks by fighters based in Liberia on the Guinean border towns, which caused several deaths. These attacks generally are perpetuated by a combination of Revolutionary Front United (RUF) rebels from Sierra Leone, Liberian military, and some Guinean rebels; however, some attacks also were perpetuated by armed Liberian dissidents based in Guinea. There was at least one attack reported on a Guinean town close to the Sierra Leonean border. In November attacks were reported in northeastern Nimba, which resulted in numerous deaths, but it was unclear whether the rebel incursion was from Guinea or Cote d'Ivoire. In October in Nimba county, a property dispute between Mandigos and members of the Mano and Gio ethnic groups led to rioting, which reportedly killed four persons (see Section 5). A mosque and five other buildings were burned. Police arrested 12 persons in connection with this violence and charged them with arson. The 12 remained in detention pending a trial at year's end. Incidents of ritualistic killings, in which human body parts used in traditional rituals are removed from the victim, continued to be reported (see Section 5). The number of such killings is difficult to ascertain, since police often described deaths as accidents even when body parts have been removed. Deaths that appear to be natural or accidental sometimes are rumored to have been the work of ritualistic killers (see Section 5). In February there was a riot in the town of Ganta, Nimba county when police released on parole two suspects in the death and mutilation of a 10-year-old girl. The two suspects eventually were charged with her killing. A police investigation launched in August 1999 into alleged ritual killings in Harper resulted in the acquittal of one of four defendants; no information was available on the status of the three remaining defendants. b. Disappearance Security forces were responsible for disappearances. In June security personnel arrested seven refugees returning from Guinea in an UNHCR vehicle after discovering that one of them carried a photograph of a former faction leader who opposed President Taylor during the civil war. The authorities claimed they were dissidents plotting to overthrow the Government. The detainees were charged with treason; however, their

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whereabouts were unknown at year's end despite legal challenges to the Government to produce them. Security forces produced suspects whom they had held without charge when the courts issued writs of habeas corpus on the applications of human rights organizations. Their disappearances often were the result ofprolonged illegal detention at the Gbartala base (see Section l.c.). There were no indications by year's end that the Government carried out its promised investigation of the reported disappearance of Mandingos following the violence in Lofa county in 1999. There were no developments in the 1998 disappearance case of market woman Nowai Flomo. c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment The Constitution prohibits torture and other degrading treatment; however, government police and security forces frequently tortured, beat, and otherwise abused and humiliated citizens. In some cases, security forces produced suspects whom they had held without charge when the courts issued writs of habeas corpus on the applications of human rights organizations. Detainees continued to charge that they were tortured while in detention, especially at a security training base in Gbatala. Victims and witnesses reported beatings, torture, killings, and sexual abuse at the base. In October 1999, human rights organizations called for the closure of the base because of a number of credible reports of torture there; however, the base remained opened. A local NGO, the Catholic Affiliated Justice and Peace Commission, tried to investigate claims; however, the Government blocked their efforts. On several occasions, government security personnel harassed, assaulted, and arrested journalists (see Section 2.a.). Law enforcement personnel, including the security forces, were implicated in numerous reports ofharassment, intimidation, and looting. For example, in February SSS members carried out a series of armed robberies and shot and injured an LNP officer in the West Point area of Monrovia. In April armed soldiers clashed with marketers in Monrovia; they confiscated goods and harassed the marketers. There was a series of incidents involving harassment or looting and assault of foreign diplomats and local embassy employees. In February LNP officers pulled a foreign diplomat from his car in Monrovia and assaulted him. In March LNP officers demanded money from an embassy security guard and beat him with metal pipes. After various complaints in March from members of diplomatic corps, the Government called for investigations and punishment

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for offenders. Meetings with security agencies also were organized to brief them on diplomatic immunity; however, in June another local embassy employee was assaulted, searched for weapons, and robbed by AFL officers. Paul Mulbah, who was appointed director of the LNP in August 1999, took some steps in 1999 to curb abuse of the LNP; however, in general his efforts were unsuccessful and made no difference in the situation by year's end. In February Mulbah ordered that off-duty armed security men be removed from the streets. However, a human rights organization criticized Mulbah's order to police, issued early in the year, to shoot on sight any robbers resisting arrest. There were credible reports that government forces as well as members of the Lorma ethnic group continued to harass, intimidate, and, on occasion, kill members of the Mandingo ethnic group in Lofa county (see Section 1.a.). Rival security personnel occasionally clashed violently. In March there was gunfire at Roberts International Airport between personnel of the antiterrorist brigade and the LNP's special operations division prior to President Taylor's arrival from an official visit abroad. A few persons were injured. There also was shooting between AFL and LNP personnel in downtown Monrovia in March, resulting in injuries to two bystanders. Security force personnel in rural areas were paid and provisioned inadequately and often extorted money and goods. For example, in March a special task force commander reportedly robbed an army payroll truck in Lofa county. There were many credible reports that security forces harassed returning refugees and displaced persons, especially in the border areas. The international community publicly criticized the Government's support for the RUF rebels in the civil war in Sierra Leone. Clan chieftains continued to use the traditional practice of trial-by-ordeal to resolve criminal cases in rural areas. The Supreme Court ruled that trial-by-ordeal-commonly the placement of a heated metal object on a suspect's body in an attempt to determine whether the defendant is telling the truth-is unconstitutional; however, the practice continued under an executive order. A local human rights organization sponsored a conference in March to urge that trial-by-ordeal be abolished throughout the country. A 1994 lawsuit for injuries resulting from a trial-by-ordeal that was pending before the Supreme Court was suspended indefinitely. Prison conditions remained harsh and in some cases life-threatening. There were credible reports of unofficial detention facilities, including one at the executive mansion, in which detainees were held without charge and in some cases tortured. The

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Government did not provide detainees or prisoners with adequate food or medical care. Cells at Monrovia Central Prison are overcrowded, mostly with detainees awaiting trial. Only about 10 percent of the total prison population has been convicted of criminal offenses. Convicted prisoners and detainees awaiting trial are not confined in separate facilities. Similar conditions exist in the Barclay Training Center military stockade. In some counties, the structure that serves as a jail is a containers with bars at one end. In May the wives of 13 Krahn political prisoners held at Monrovia's Central Prison publicly complained about denial of medical care and other abuse of the detainees. The Government did not respond to these complaints by year's end. Women, who constituted about 5 percent of the prison population, are held in separate cells. Their conditions are comparable to those of the male prisoners and detainees. There were no separate facilities for juvenile offenders. Women and particularly juveniles were subject to abuse by guards or other inmates. In a number of cases, human rights groups and interested individuals achieved the release of detainees and prisoners. However, for the most part, these cases tended to be nonpolitical in nature. The Government generally permits the independent monitoring of prison conditions by local human rights groups, the media, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); however, visits to unofficial detention centers often are denied. For example, despite requests made by NGO's to the Defense Ministry, no independent monitor has been allowed to visit the Gbatala base where victims have been detained and tortured. The ICRC is allowed to visit persons held in prison facilities and police detention centers without third parties present and to make regular repeat visits. d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile The Constitution prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention; however, security forces continued at times to arrest and detain persons arbitrarily. The Constitution provides for the rights of the accused, including warrants for arrests and the right of detainees either to be charged or released within 48 hours. Although the Government generally adheres to these standards, warrants were not always based on sufficient evidence, and detainees, especially those without the means to hire a lawyer, often were held for more than 48 hours without charge. In some cases, persons were detained secretly at unofficial detention centers including one at the executive mansion (see Section l.c.). The Constitution provides for the right of a person who is charged to receive an expeditious trial; however, lengthy pretrial and prearraignment detention remained a serious problem. In some cases, the length of the pre-trial detention equaled or exceeded

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the length of sentence for the crime in question. Five detained soldiers awaiting court-martial for desertion during the September 1998 incident have been incarcerated in the stockade since November 1998. Their courts-martials still are pending; should they be convicted, the maximum sentence would be 6 months' imprisonment. The police only have limited logistics and forensic capabilities and cannot adequately investigate many crimes, including murder cases. When the courts release known criminals for lack of evidence, police officers often rearrest them on specious charges. In August the Government arrested Auditor General Raleigh Seekie and charged him with treason. Police searched Seekie's home and office for subversive documents, arms, and ammunition but did not find anything. Nevertheless, he is charged with aiding armed dissidents trying to overthrow the Government. Security forces arrested and detained a number of journalists during the year (see Section 2.a.). For example, in August the Government arrested four foreign journalists and charged them with espionage (see Section 2.a.). The four were denied bail but were released a week later in response to international pressure. The Government did not use forced exile; however, as a result of frequent harassment and threats by the security forces, a number of opposition figures and human rights activists fled the country due to fear for their personal safety or that of their families. These included human rights activist James Torh and Muslim organization leader Lartin Konneh (see Sections 2.e. and 5). During the year, President Taylor publicly alleged that some of these opposition figures had gone abroad to conspire in the overthrow of his Government, which kept numerous prominent opposition figures and former warlords out of the country throughout the year. e. Denial of Fair Public Trial Although the Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, judges are subjected to political, social, familial, and financial pressures, leading to the corruption of the judiciary. Some judges and magistrates are not lawyers. The judiciary has determined that it is not feasible to retire all judicial personnel who are not legally trained, but intends to replace those currently sitting with lawyers as they retire. By statute members of the bar must be graduates of a law school and pass the bar examination. The executive branch continued to exert undue influence on the judiciary. For example, in response to an appeal of the 1999 treason convictions of 13 ethnic Krahn AFL members, the Government demanded in 1999 that their sentences be changed from 10 years' imprisonment to death. In December 10 years was added to their sentences for a total of 20 years' imprisonment.

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The judiciary is divided into four levels, with the Supreme Court at the apex. All levels of the court system in Monrovia, including the Supreme Court, functioned sporadically. The Government's efforts to revitalize the court system outside of Monrovia continued to be troubled by lack of trained personnel, infrastructure, and a lack of adequate funding. Although judges were assigned throughout the country, in some cases they were unable to hold court due to lack of supplies and equipment. Traditional forms of justice administered by clan chieftains remained prevalent in some localities (see Section 1.c.). Under the Constitution, defendants have due process rights that conform to internationally accepted standards; however, in practice these rights are not always observed. Defendants have the right to a public trial and timely consultation with an attorney; however, there is no effective system to provide public defenders, especially in rural areas. Some NGO's provide legal services to indigents and others who have no free representation. Courts regularly received bribes or other illegal gifts out of damages that they awarded in civil cases. Defense attorneys often suggested that their clients pay a gratuity to appease judges, prosecutors, and police officers to secure favorable rulings. In October the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court stated publicly that delays in salary payments to judicial personnel contributed to corruption in the judiciary. Human rights organizations reported that 24 political prisoners, including AFL personnel, were sentenced for treason in February and in April 1999; however, this number reportedly includes a few political detainees who have not yet been convicted of a crime (see Section 1.a.). The Government permits access to political prisoners by international humanitarian organizations. f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence The Constitution provides for the right of privacy and the sanctity of the home; however, authorities regularly infringed on these rights. The Constitution provides that the police must obtain a warrant, or have a reasonable belief that a crime is in progress, or is about to be committed, before entering a private dwelling. In practice police and paramilitary officers frequently entered private homes and churches without warrants to carry out arrests and investigations. The security forces harassed and threatened perceived opposition figures and their families by conducting illegal surveillance. In some cases, they entered the homes of opposition figures, usually at night. For example, security personnel watched the homes of activists James Torh and Lartin Konneh for several weeks (see Section 2.a.). Fearing for their safety, both activists fled the country. Several student leaders remained

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under surveillance at year's end (see Section 2.a.). Several journalists and human rights activists resided in the homes of friends or relatives for months at a time due to fear that the security forces might follow through with their threats against them. Incidents of harassment and threats increased with the continuing violence in Lofa county. In rural areas, particularly in remote parts of Lofa county, armed security forces illegally entered homes, most often to steal food, money, or other property (see Section 1.c.).

Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties, Including: a. Freedom of Speech and Press The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the Government restricted this right in practice. Security agents threatened, detained, and assaulted journalists and intimidated many journalists into practicing self-censorship. In January human rights activist James Torh's sedition trial for criticizing President Taylor began. Decisions made on motions during his trial indicated that an impartial judgement was not possible and, fearing for his safety, Torh fled the country in March. Muslim organization leader Lartin Konneh, charged with treason for calling on Muslim government officials to resign their positions, also fled the country. With some notable exceptions, government officials are reluctantly tolerant of the press; however, they frequently rebuked the media publicly for what they considered negative reporting of events. Security personnel sometimes interpreted such criticism as a license to harass, threaten, and even assault targeted persons. Reporting that criticized the Government brought threats of violence, closure, or directives from powerful government figures to advertisers that they should discontinue business with that media outlet. For example, another respected newspaper ceased publication, and most of the management left the country after repeated threats were made against them because of editorials written by the newspaper's publisher from his home abroad. Nevertheless, in general journalists are outspoken and even provocative. However, journalists also practice self-censorship, especially in regard to information about the President and his immediate family members and particularly after being threatened or harassed. In April the LNP briefly detained broadcast journalist Isaac Redd of the Liberia Communication Network (LCN) for allegedly making inflammatory remarks against the President. In August the Government arrested four foreign journalists from Britain's Channel Four network who visited the country to gather material for a documentary about countries in post-conflict stages in West Africa, and charged them with espionage;

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while in detention, security personnel beat and threatened them. They also were denied bail because the charge was considered a capital offense by the prosecution, although the law did not require such a ruling. The journalists were released a week later after the international community criticized the Government. In October security forces arrested and briefly detained newspaper reporter Philip Moore for alleged treasonous remarks. In March security forces detained the president of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), Suah Deddeh, after the organization planned a mass meeting to respond to the closing of two radio stations. The meeting never happened, and nonmembers of the PUL were threatened with arrest. Deddeh was released after spending a night in jail. In May police detained Deddeh a second time when the Press Union, in celebration of World Press Freedom, was planning a march through the center of Monrovia. Security forces also threatened other activists who opposed the radio closings. No action was taken during the year in the case of the police forces' 1998 flogging of journalist Hassan Bility or the 1999 assault on the editor of the Inquirer newspaper, Philip Wesseh. In Monrovia eight newspapers were published during the year, although some publish very irregularly. Two are independent dailies and five generally appeared once or more a week; they vary in their political balance. The Public Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism publishes one newspaper, and the communications network owned by the President publishes one weekly newspaper. Several newspapers that had not published regularly, and an alternative press organization became active following the news blackout in March organized by the press union in response to the closure of two radio stations. There were numerous reports that government officials funded these newspapers, and that they generally reported only pro-government news. The ruling party also published a newspaper that circulated frequently during the period following the closures of the radio stations; however, the frequency of its publishing lessened later in the year. Newspaper availability fluctuated during the year. The two leading independent dailies continued to publish despite being labeled as dissident newspapers after they participated in the news blackout following the closure of two radio stations and after subsequently being criticized by the Government and the ruling party. The Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism did not accept late license payment from two newspapers with the result that they had to cease publication. The Ministry did not renew the annual licenses of two newspapers because the Government believed that they were supported by "agent provocateurs"-persons whom, in the government's view, want to overthrow the Government.

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Management of the one printing facility capable of producing newspapers is subject to pressure from the Government. To meet costs of production, the typical newspaper's eight pages include two or three pages of advertisements or paid announcements, further reducing the amount of news reported. Some articles included are the result of "cadeaux," gifts or money that supplement reporters' meager salaries. Due to the high price of newspapers, the high rate of illiteracy, (estimated at 75 percent), high transportation costs, and the poor state of roads elsewhere in the country, newspaper distribution generally is limited to the Monrovia area. As a result, radio is the primary means of mass communication. A number of independent radio stations existed at the beginning of the year in Monrovia including Star Radio, Radio Monrovia, two commercial stations (DC- 101 and Radio Monrovia), and Radio Veritas, which operated under the Catholic Archdiocese. Radio Monrovia closed in January due to insufficient funding. There also is the national station, and FM and short-wave stations operated by President Taylor's private LCN. The President's radio station is the only station with a short-wave frequency strong enough to reach all parts of the country. Radio Veritas has short-wave frequency but a limited broadcast area and antiquated equipment. There is a French broadcast through the national radio facility, a religious station, and a growing number of small local stations in cities around the country. Media practitioners believe that the ruling party funds many of these stations. Call-in radio talk shows are popular and frequently a forum for both government and opposition viewpoints; however, they sometimes resulted in threats generally from the Government, party leaders and security agents to the radio hosts and station managers. Interviews with prominent persons are broadcast frequently. Due to the economic situation in the country and the dependence on generators requiring expensive fuel purchases, most of the stations limited broadcasting hours and in some cases ceased operation for short periods. In March the Government closed two radio stations (Star Radio and Radio Veritas) without due process. Shortly before their closure, both stations had been relicensed by the Ministry of Information. The order to close them came from the President, who said that the two stations' broadcasts threatened the security of the State. Radio Veritas, owned by the Catholic Church, was allowed to reopen a week after its closing, but Star Radio, which was a politically neutral FM station funded primarily through international organizations, remained closed at year's end. Television is limited to those who can purchase sets, the generators, and fuel to provide electricity. For those persons and businesses with satellite capability, the Cable News Network is available. There are two television stations: the LCN owned by

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President Taylor, and the Ducor Broadcasting Corporation which is privately owned but assisted by President Taylor's generator. Government officials criticized journalists who used the Internet to express opinions that the authorities considered too critical of the Government. For much of the year, there was no direct access to information through the Internet. Star Radio's internet operations also were closed in March. Star Radio had supplied daily news summaries to its parent foundation, which put these on the Internet. Copies also were provided to the Ministry of Information, and the Government demanded (contrary to international practice) a special licensing fee for Star Radio's transmission of news on the Internet. During a press conference in March following the Government's closure of Radio Veritas and Star Radio, President Taylor indicated that he believed "cyber-warfare" was being waged as part of an international conspiracy against the country. Many observers believe that the Government blocked the operation of potential Internet providers. When the closure of Star Radio did not stop the negative propaganda about the country on the Internet, which was generated primarily by opposition figures abroad, the Government and the ruling party began to use the Internet to provide news and sponsored several websites. An Internet provider reemerged mid-year and opened a cybercafe that the few persons with sufficient funds can access. Because of the ties between the provider and the Government, some potential patrons believed that their use of the Internet was monitored by government security personnel and choose not to use it. The Government generally respects academic freedom at the University of Liberia; however, on occasion the Government detained students who criticized the Government. University administrators were concerned about the militancy of student groups on campus, whose memberships include a high percentage of former combatants; however, actual physical violence was rare. At times students, whom observers believe to be paid informants, reported professors' opinions to various government officials. In July student leaders issued a statement questioning the official accounts of the seriousness of the fighting in Lofa county. In response security forces entered the Monrovia campus, took the student leaders in custody, and offered to fly them to Lofa to tour the conflict area and forced them to visit wounded soldiers hospitalized in Monrovia. The media was urged to cover this visit, after which the students were compelled to offer apologies and were released. In November student leaders released a press statement that strongly criticized the economy and urged the government to forge ties with countries that could assist national growth. They also called for the expulsion of RUF leader Sam Bockarie and for the Government to break ties with Libya and Burkina Faso. LNP director Mulbah subsequently visited the campus with armed police

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to convince the students they should meet with President Taylor to discuss their complaints and stated publicly that they would not be detained; however, fearing arrests, the students went into hiding. After continued public declarations by Mulbah and President Taylor that the students would not be arrested, the students came out of hiding and met with President Taylor at the end of November to discuss their complaints. The student leaders continued to be under surveillance and received warnings on a regular basis about speaking out. Students occasionally protested the lack of resources, which they blamed more on central government appropriation practices than on the university administration. b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association The Constitution provides for the right of peaceful assembly, and the Government generally respected this right in practice. In May the LNP, citing security concerns, abruptly stopped a march through downtown Monrovia sponsored by PUL in observance of World Press Freedom Day. The police allowed the commemoration to continue indoors. In November President Taylor warned that while the Government would tolerate different views, it would not tolerate anarchic demonstrations in the streets; however, this warning did not result in the subsequent dispersal of any demonstrations during the year. The Constitution provides for the right of association, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. c. Freedom of Religion The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. There is no established state religion. However, government ceremonies invariably open and close with prayer and may include hymn singing. The prayers and hymns are usually Christian but occasionally are Muslim. All organizations, including religious groups, must register their articles of incorporation with the Government, along with a statement of the purpose of the organization. However, traditional indigenous religious groups generally need not and do not register. The registration is routine, and there have been no reports that the registration process is either burdensome or discriminatory in its administration. The law prohibits religious discrimination; however, Islamic leaders complained of discrimination against Muslims. Although there are some Muslims in senior government positions, many Muslims believe that they are bypassed for desirable jobs. Many Muslim business proprietors believe that the Government's decision to enforce an old statute prohibiting business on Sunday discriminated against them. Most

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Mandingos, and hence most Muslims, allied with factions that opposed Taylor during the civil war and still belong to opposition parties. In March the Government suspended Radio Veritas broadcasts, pending assurances that the station would confine itself to "purely religious matters." The station reopened a week later and resumed its previous broadcast programming. The closure was believed to be politically motivated rather than prompted by religious discrimination (see Section 2.a.). There were no Islamic-oriented radio stations and little radio broadcasting of any kind in the northern and eastern counties where the Muslim population is concentrated. In February Muslim activist Lartin Konneh was arrested on charges of treason after he called upon Muslims to resign their government jobs in protest of the Government's inaction since the burning of five mosques in Lofa county in January (see Section 5). Konneh went into hiding and subsequently fled the country. While the Government has not taken actions openly against Muslims, its inaction over reports of abuses in Lofa county contributed to ethnic tension between Muslim and non-Muslim ethnic groups in that area of the country. d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation The Constitution provides for freedom of movement throughout the country as well as the right to leave or enter; however, the Government restricted this right in practice. Security forces maintained checkpoints where travelers routinely were subjected to arbitrary searches and petty extortion. Security forces also extorted money from returning refugees. In February and October, units of the ATB, citing security concerns, set up temporary checkpoints that interdicted traffic and visitors to a foreign embassy in Monrovia. In June, ostensibly in order to curtail the illegal use of national travel documents, President Taylor issued an executive order that required passport applicants to obtain clearance from the National Security Agency (NSA). Opposition parties and human rights organizations criticized this directive, arguing that it violated the constitutional right of freedom of travel. Reportedly this executive order was not enforced during the year. In November the Government announced that it would no longer accept Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) safe conduct documents as valid travel documents for entering the country; however, reportedly this was not enforced. As a result of the civil war, there were 157,000 IDP 's in approximately 36 camps in 1997. International agencies and the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and

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Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) have been able to resettle approximately 126,243 displaced persons since 1998. In October the fighting in northern Lofa county further increased the number of displaced persons. There were an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 IDP's in the country at year's end. International and local NGO's faced limited funding and resources to assist these IDP's. In October after some delays approximately 400 Liberian refugees in Guinea were repatriated to the country. By year's end, a total of 5,000 Liberians were repatriated. These refugees, who are mostly Mandingos, were resettled in the Lofa or Nimba counties where political and ethnic clashes still occurred (see Section 5). The law provides for the granting of refugee and asylee status in accordance with the provisions of the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The Government continued to provide first asylum to nearly 86,000 refugees, the vast majority of whom were from Sierra Leone towards the end of the year. The Government generally cooperated with the Office of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees. In June security personnel arrested seven Liberians who were returning from Guinea in a UNHCR truck (see Section 1.b.). The Government claimed that the men were members of a dissident armed faction based in Guinea. The men have not been seen since their arrest, and NGO's and relatives believe that they were killed. In October the UNHCR protested the recruitment of refugees by security personnel on behalf of the RUF rebels from Sierra Leone. UNHCR reported that such recruitment ceased after its protest. Former RUF leader, Sam Bockarie, and several hundred of his supporters took refuge in Liberia early in December 1999. President Taylor denied that the Government was training the RUF fighters or that it has been supplying them with arms. He claimed that the ECOWAS leadership permitted these arrangements in order to advance the implementation of the Sierra Leone peace process. A coalition of civic, religious, and political groups repeatedly have asked for President Taylor to expel the RUF rebels and disassociate the Government from them. In 1999 after a series of raids and attacks by security forces and dissidents bases in Guinea, a group of Sierra Leonean refugees migrated south from northern Lofa county towards another established refugee camp in Sinje. The Government cooperated with the UNHCR's efforts to assist the migration to the new location. International donors remained unwilling to send any further assistance to Lofa county, and the international and domestic NGO's are reluctant to resume operations there because of security concerns. The Government and the UNHCR established a second refugee camp

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in Sinje, a location easily accessible from Monrovia, to accommodate the refugees from Lofa county. There were no reports of the forced return of persons to a country where they feared persecution.

Section 3. Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government The Constitution provides for the right to vote in free and fair elections, and citizens exercised this right in 1997 in elections that international observers deemed free and transparent; however, the elections were conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation, as most voters believed that military forces loyal to Charles Taylor would have resumed the civil war if Taylor lost the election. Since the legislative elections were held on the basis of proportional representation, Taylor's National Patriotic Party won control of the legislature by the same 75 percent majority that he received in the popular vote for the presidency. The 1997 legislative and presidential elections were held under a special election law in accordance with the terms of the Abuja Peace Process. The legislature did not exercise genuine independence from the executive branch. There were 16 opposition parties, most of which had little popular support outside of the capital, and opposition legislators, who held only one-quarter of the seats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, generally were more passive than members of the ruling NPP. Congressional committees failed to develop expertise in their respective areas of responsibility. No major legislation was enacted during the year. However, during the year, the House of Representatives refused to vote in favor of a government-sponsored rural property tax and strategic commodities act. In August the Government indicted an opposition leader residing abroad, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, for treason for alleged ties to armed dissidents operating in Lofa county. In June Vice President Enoch Dogolea died, and in July President Taylor selected Moses Z. Blah, a founding member of the ruling party, to fill the position. The State is highly centralized. The President appoints the superintendents (governors) of the 13 counties. Municipalities and chieftaincies are supposed to elect their own officials, but elections, postponed in 1998 due to lack of funds and disorganization, were not held during the year for the same reason. Local governments at all levels have no independent revenue base and rely entirely on the central

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government for funds. Education, health services, and public works are provided by the central government. Local officials serve mainly to lobby the central Government. There are no restrictions on the participation of women in politics; however, women remained underrepresented in government and politics. The number of women in high-ranking positions in the Government and in the various political parties is low. Only 5 of the 26 senators and 5 of the 64 members of the House of Representatives are female. Of the 20 cabinet positions, 4 are held by women. A woman serves as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and another chairs the National Reconciliation Commission. There are no women's caucuses, but the ruling party has a women's organization. There are relatively few Muslims in government and politics; only one cabinet minister is a Muslim.

Section 4. Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights The Government permitted domestic and international human rights groups to operate largely without interference; however, members of the security forces often harassed domestic democracy and human rights activists. During the year, the Government blocked efforts by a local NGO, the Catholic Affiliated Justice and Peace Commission, to investigate claims of torture at Gbatala security training base (see Section 1.c.). Government officials frequently criticized domestic human rights groups publicly. For example, in December at a pro-government rally, President Taylor criticized democracy and human rights activists and opposition leaders of destabilizing the government, and he warned that these individuals would be punished. In November about 100 men ransacked the offices of the Center for Democratic Empowerment (CEDE) and beat former interim president and human rights defender, Amos Sawyer, and executive director of CEDE, Conmany Wesseh. Preliminary investigation by the Government revealed that former combatants were responsible; however, only seven or eight persons were arrested, and reportedly they were not the primary assailants. Numerous sources reported that the attack commenced from NPP headquarters, and that those arrested were paid by the NPP after they were released on bond. Prosecution still was pending at year's end. In 1999 legislators from southeast counties sued a child rights advocacy group for defaming the counties reputation in its report on forced child labor (see Section 6.c.). The suit was dropped when the child rights activist who brought the suit fled the country.

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Domestic human rights organizations are underfunded, understaffed, and their personnel lacked adequate training. There are three coalitions of human rights groups: The National Human Rights Center of Liberia has eight member organizations; eight other groups comprise the Network of Human Rights Chapters; and four belong to the Federation of Human Rights Organizations. All of these organizations sought to increase public discussion of human rights problems. Some human rights groups paid regular visits to detainees at police headquarters and prisoners at the Monrovia Central Prison (see Section 1.c.). Several domestic human rights organizations have established branches outside of the capital and perform similar monitoring functions there. No discernible pattern of government interference with these activities emerged. The Government permits international NGO's and human rights organizations to operate in the country, and a few international organizations did so during the year. In November an international democracy and human rights organization, the Carter Center, terminated its programs in the country and stated in a letter to President Taylor that it was leaving the country because of conditions in the country and the Government's poor human rights record. The Government's Human Rights Commission, created in 1997, remained largely inactive throughout the year. It received no funding from the Government, and the Senate again failed to confirm the appointments of three of its five commissioners. The chairman of the Commission fled the country in August 1999 and is seeking asylum in another country.

Section 5. Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion, Disability, Language, or Social Status The Constitution prohibits discrimination based on ethnic background, race, sex, creed, place of origin, or political opinion; however, discrimination exists. There are no laws against gender discrimination, ethnic discrimination, or female genital mutilation. Differences involving ethnic groups, notably the Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups, continued to contribute to serious political violence and abuses. Women Domestic violence against women is extensive; however, it was not addressed seriously as a problem by the Government, the courts, or the media. Several NGO's in Monrovia and Buchanan continued programs to treat abused women and girls and increase awareness of their rights.

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The status of women varies by region, ethnic group, and religion. Before the outbreak of the civil war, women held one-fourth of the professional and technical jobs in Monrovia. On the whole, women have not recovered from the setbacks caused by the civil war, when most schools were closed, and they could not carry out their traditional roles in the production, allocation, and sale of food. Women married under civil law can inherit land and property; however, women married under traditional laws are considered the properties of their husbands and are not entitled to inherit from their husbands or retain custody of their children if their husbands die. Women's organizations continued to press for legislation on behalf of inheritance rights in traditional marriages. There continued to be few programs to help former combatants reintegrate into society, and there were none specifically to benefit former female combatants. However, several women's organizations advanced family welfare issues, helped promote political reconciliation, and assisted in rehabilitating both former female combatants and women who were victims of the civil war. Throughout the year, professional women's groups-including lawyers, market women, and businesswomen-remained vocal about their concerns regarding government corruption, the economy, security abuses, rape, domestic violence and children's rights. Government officials often responded negatively to public criticism. There were credible reports of harassment and possible surveillance of outspoken critics (see Section 1.f.). In August the Justice Ministry granted power to the Association of Female Lawyers in Liberia (AFELL) to assist in the prosecution of rape cases. Children The Government generally was unable to provide for the education and health of children, although it continued its nationwide anti-polio vaccination campaign during the year. Due to the poor condition of government schools, most children who attended school went to private institutions. Since many private schools still need to be refurbished due to wartime damage, school fees were increased significantly, thereby making education unattainable for many school-age children. In both public and private schools, families of children often were asked to provide their own books, pencils, and paper. At the end of 1999, 622,645 out of an estimated 1.4 million school age children were enrolled in primary and secondary schools, 263,556 of which were girls. Expenditures on education were estimated at $6.4 million (288 million 1d). In 1995 the literacy rate for boys was at 53.9 percent and girls at 22.4 percent. Young persons were victimized seriously during the civil war. An estimated 50,000 children were killed; many more were wounded, orphaned, or abandoned. Approximately 100 underfunded orphanages operate in and around Monrovia; however

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many orphans live outside these institutions. The National Military Families Association of Liberia (NAMFA) tries to provide for orphaned military children; it has registered 650 street children. These institutions do not receive any government funding, but rely on public donations. Nearly all youths witnessed terrible atrocities, and some committed atrocities themselves. Approximately 21 percent (4,306) of the combatants who disarmed under the provisions of the Abuja Peace Accords were child soldiers under the age of 17. Many youths remain traumatized, and some still are addicted to drugs. The number of street children in Monrovia and the number of abandoned infants increased significantly following disarmament. NGO's and the U.N. Children's Fund continued retraining and rehabilitation programs for a limited number of former child fighters; however these children were vulnerable to being recruited in subregional conflicts, since most had no other means of support. Children continued to be incarcerated with adults, and there were long delays in deciding cases involving minors (see Sections 1.c. and 1.e.). Child advocacy groups reported forced child labor in the rural areas of the country (see Section 6.c.). Female genital mutilation, which is widely condemned by international public health experts as damaging to both physical and psychological health, traditionally was performed on young girls in northern, western, and central ethnic groups, particularly in rural areas. Prior to the onset of the civil war in 1989, approximately 50 percent of women in rural areas between the ages of 8 and 18 were subjected to FGM. A local organization, Human Rights Watch Women and Children, which does not receive government funding, launched a campaign during the year to eradicate FGM. AFELL also has spoken out against FGM. Social structures and traditional institutions, such as the secret societies that often performed FGM as an initiation rite, were undermined by the war. While many experts believe that the incidence of FGM dropped to as low as 10 percent by the end of the war, traditional societies are reestablishing themselves throughout the country, and the increase in the incidence of FGM continued. The most extreme form of FGM, infibulation, reportedly is not practiced. The Government has taken no action against FGM. In January a well-known 17-year-old child rights activist fled the country to escape persistent harassment of himself, his family, teachers, and high school classmates by security personnel (see Section 1.f.). He remained in self-imposed exile at year's end.

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People with Disabilities As a result of the civil war, a large number of persons have permanent disabilities, in addition to those disabled by accident or illness. It is illegal to discriminate against the disabled; however, in practice they do not enjoy equal access to public buildings. No laws mandate accessibility to public buildings or services. Disabled persons face discrimination particularly in rural areas. Deformed babies often are abandoned. Religious Minorities Some tensions exist between the major religious communities. The law prohibits religious discrimination; however, Islamic leaders complained of societal discrimination against Muslims. The private sector in urban areas, particularly in the capital, gives preference to Christianity in civic ceremonies and observances, and discrimination against followers of other organized religion spills over into areas of individual opportunity and employment. There is an interfaith council that brings together leaders of the Christian and Islamic faiths. Ethnic tensions continued in Lofa County between the predominantly Muslim Mandingo ethnic group and the Lorma ethnic group. In January five mosques were burned. There was no report of a government investigation or action taken against the arsonists. Ritual killings, in which body parts used in traditional indigenous rituals are removed from the victim, continue to occur. The number of such killings is difficult to ascertain, since police often describe deaths as accidents even when body parts have been removed. Deaths that appear to be natural or accidental sometimes are rumored to be the work of ritual killers. Little reliable information is readily available about traditions associated with ritual killings. It is believed that practitioners of traditional indigenous religions among the Grebo and Krahn ethnic groups concentrated in the southeastern counties most commonly engage in ritual killings. The victims are usually members of the religious group performing the ritual. The underlying religious beliefs may be related to incidents during the civil war in which faction leaders sometimes ate (and in which one faction leader had himself filmed eating) body parts of former leaders of rival factions. Removal of body parts for use in traditional rituals is believed to be the motive for ritual killings, rather than an abuse incidental to killings committed by religious group members called "heart men." Since the civil war, common criminals inured to killing also may sell body parts.

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In August 1999, the Government sent a high-level delegation of the National Police to the southeastern counties to investigate reports of ritual killings. There were no reports released from this investigation. National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities Although the Constitution bans ethnic discrimination, it also provides that only "persons who are Negroes or of Negro descent" may be citizens or own land. Many persons of Lebanese and Asian descent who were born or lived most of their lives in the country are denied full rights as a result of this racial distinction. The country is ethnically diverse. The population of about 3 million is made up of 16 indigenous ethnic groups and the Americo-Liberian minority- descendants of freed slaves from the United States and the Caribbean-which until 1980 dominated the government and the public sector through the True Whig party. The indigenous ethnic groups generally speak distinct primary languages, and they are concentrated regionally. No ethnic group constitutes a majority of the population. Many members of the predominantly Muslim Mandingo minority encountered hostility when they sought to return, after the end of the civil war, to their villages in Lofa, Bong, and Nimba counties. Many Mandingos were unable to reoccupy their homes, which had been taken over by squatters. Members of the Lorma, Gio, and Mano minorities generally held all Mandingos responsible for atrocities committed by the Ulimo-Mandingo faction during the civil war. The lack of competent security forces and a fully functioning judiciary in these areas prevented many Mandingos from seeking redress. The continuing cross-border violence in Lofa county exacerbated ethnic tensions between the Mandingos and the Lormas (see Section l.a.). Recent tension with the Guinean government aggravated unrest in Nimba between the Manos and Mandingos (see Section l.a.). For example, in October in Nimbia, a property dispute between the Mandingos and members of Mano and Gio ethnic groups led to rioting, which reportedly killed four persons (see Section 1.a.).

Section 6. Worker Rights a. The Right of Association The Constitution provides that workers, except members of the military and police, have the right to associate in trade unions, and workers are allowed to join unions in practice. The Constitution also provides that unions are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity. However, government interference in union activities,

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especially union elections and leaderships struggles, was common both before and during the civil war. Although most economic activity was interrupted by the war, unions proliferated. There are 32 functioning unions organized loosely under two umbrella groups-the Federation of Liberian Trade Unions and the Congress of Liberian Trade Unions-with the common objective of protecting the rights of their 60,000 members, who largely were unemployed. The actual power that the unions exercise was extremely limited. Since the country's work force is largely illiterate, economic activities beyond the subsistence level were very limited, and the labor laws tend to favor management. During the year, the Government strictly enforced the union registration requirements that fell into disuse during the war. Labor laws provide for the right to strike. A decree passed by the People's Redemption Council in 1984 outlawed strikes, but it was not enforced during the year. Due to the destruction of the economy and the estimated 85 percent unemployment rate, strikes were infrequent. In a wage dispute in February, workers at a rubber plantation in Bomi county burned some property. The dispute was settled later that month when the management of the plantation agreed to increase wages and to provide other benefits. Labor unions traditionally have been affiliated with international labor groups such as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively With the exception of civil servants, workers (including employees of public corporations and autonomous agencies) have the right to organize and bargain collectively. In the past, agreements were negotiated freely between workers and their employers without government interference; however, these rights were largely moot during the year because of the lack of economic activity. There are no export processing zones. All of those previously existing were destroyed during the civil war. c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor The Constitution prohibits forced labor; however, this prohibition was ignored widely in many parts of the country, such as rural areas where farmers were pressured into providing free labor on "community projects" that often benefitted only local leaders. The Government denied allegations that unpaid laborers were forced to harvest crops on President Taylor's private farm. The Constitution prohibits forced child labor; however, there were reports that it occurred (see Section 5). Some former combatants, including some in the security

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forces, were accused of forcing children to work in the mining industry. In 1999 a child rights advocacy group released a report on forced child labor in the southeastern counties. The advocacy group's report and that of another prominent human rights group contradicted an earlier government report that failed to find any conclusive evidence of forced child labor. Subsequently legislators from three counties sued the child rights advocacy group for defaming the counties' reputations. At year's end, the case still was pending. d. Status of Child Labor Practices and Minimum Age for Employment The law prohibits the employment of children under the age of 16 during school hours in the wage sector, but enforcement traditionally is lax. The Ministry of Labor did not make any inspections during the year and lacks the resources to carry out its mandate. Throughout rural areas-particularly where there were no schools-small children continued to assist their parents as vendors in local markets or on the streets, to take care of younger brothers and sisters, and to work on family subsistence farms. The Government has not ratified ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor. The Constitution prohibits forced and bonded labor by children; however, there were reports that it occurred (see Section 6.c.). e. Acceptable Conditions of Work The Labor Law provides for a minimum wage, paid leave, severance benefits, and safety standards, but enforcement was targeted solely against profitable firms that generally observed these standards. Due to the country's continued economic problems, most citizens were forced to accept any work they could find regardless of wages or working conditions. The 1977 Labor Law requires a minimum wage of approximately $0.25 (10 Id) per hour not exceeding 8 hours per day, excluding benefits, for unskilled laborers. The law requires that agricultural workers are to be paid $1.50 (60 1d) for an 8-hour day, excluding benefits. Skilled labor has no minimum fixed wage, but industrial workers usually received three or four times the wage paid to agricultural workers. The much-sought-after minimum wage jobs provided a minimal standard of living for a worker and family; however, there were very few such jobs. Families dependent on minimum wage incomes also engage in subsistence farming, small-scale marketing, petty extortion, and begging. The Ministry of Labor did not have the resources to monitor compliance with labor laws.

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The Labor Law provides for a 48-hour, 6-day regular workweek with a 30-minute rest period per 5 hours of work. The 6-day workweek may extend to 56 hours for service occupations and to 72 hours for miners, with overtime pay beyond 48 hours. Prior to 1990, there were government-established health and safety standards, enforced in theory by the Ministry of Labor. During the war, these regulations were not enforced. Even under the Labor Law, workers did not have a specific right to remove themselves from dangerous situations without risking loss of employment. f. Trafficking in Persons The law does not prohibit trafficking in persons; however, there were no reports that persons were trafficked to, from, through, or within the country.

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Documents

Of Promises and Reality: Putting the Chicago Conference in Perspective, One Year After By M. Tarnue Mawolo

David Dorado, a former security assigned to opposition politician, Counselor J. Lave li Supuwood, is no more. On one fateful December evening last year, it was yet another sunset in Taylor's Liberia, and as darkness fell, for David it was to be a final sunset. Like many in Liberia today, David was abducted from the quietude of his home in Paynesville, brutally tortured and murdered in cold blood (gestapo style) by members of Taylor's security forces. When David died, I was driven to writing a tribute to the memory of a young man who I knew just so well had died in the fullness of his innocence. Poor boy. Then I asked myself what about the countless other victims of the on-going state sponsored terror, brutality and murder who I did not have the privilege of knowing personally? As a more fitting tribute to the memory of those who have passed at the hands of the Taylor tyranny, I, therefore, decided to peel off the facade and propaganda that masks the truth of the Liberian tragedy, and in so doing take a more critical look at the government's much-vaunted commitment to reconciliation, peace and the general question of human rights in Taylor's Liberia. In so doing, I reasonably reckoned then, as I do now, that the best place to begin is to take a retrospective view of the truthfulness of the Liberian Government's biggest peace extravaganza yet-the CHICAGO CONFERENCE. It still looks like yesterday at about this time last year when scores of Liberian Government functionaries trooped in droves to Chicago to attend what turned out to be yet another carnival. In the midst of grandeur and pageantry, they tried as hard as they could to win over new converts to the gospel of the new Liberian "liberation"-Taylor style. For these cheer leaders, a renaissance was under way in Liberia and they needed to showcase it for the rest of the world to see. What better place to do so than in the heartland of the great United States from where you can stage a bombastic charade, justify a sumptuous per diem and get maximum media attention? Branded as a public relations supremo for the Taylor regime, Rev. Jesse Jackson along with the Government of Liberia had organized what became known as the

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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"CHICAGO CONFERENCE ON RECONCILIATION IN LIBERIA." The objective? What else but to seek reconciliation and healing for the Liberian nation. Aside from the astronomical cost in financial resources to a looted nation, the mere idea of hosting a Liberian reconciliation conference over six thousand miles away form Liberia was clearly an exercise in irony and a manifestation of twisted logic, that only served the appetite of a regime forever hungry for publicity and posturing. Be that as it may, the conference was held. But one year after Chicago, this crazy expenditure of meager dollars is yet to be justified. Liberia is still a divided nation caught in the awesome burning fire of a grotesque tyranny and the callous disregard for the dignity of life and the rule of law. Due process has taken to flight. The judicial system is undoubtedly a showcase of ineptitude and executive manipulations; at least so says Milton Teahjay, the Liberian Government's newly acquired mouthpiece. The law no longer proceeds on inquiry, nor does it hear before it condemns. In Taylor's "big dream" Liberia, the presumption of guilt is the rule, as justice is dispensed according to the whims, caprices and sheer benevolence of an imperial President and his host of bodyguards; the press is bamboozled, intimidated and muzzled, key opposition figures are murdered, while others are thrown into exile. Before our very eyes, a wholesale campaign of genocide is planned and executed against a group of people simply because the President was uncomfortable with the fact that they live on Camp Johnson Road, in close proximity to the Executive Mansion, seat of a government whose inadequacy leaves it perpetually paranoid. In the aftermath of this blood bath, a mock trial was staged that landed virtually every Krahn opinion leader in prison. Cavalier thieves are on the loose and buffoons parade every corridor of bureaucracy as the nation sinks deeper into poverty, deprivation and socio-economic decline, all in the name of protecting "national security". My God, what an era! Seeing the buffoonery and looking back at yesterday makes Doe looks like a saint. Worst of all, Charles Taylor and his goons seem to have decided that it is in their best interest to keep things that way. Why not, any way? Can there be a better policy for a regime that thrives on violence and chaos, and rules by a combination of hate and a strategy of divide and conquer? No doubt, in an organized society where there is peace and the rule of law, the people are bound to demand accountability from a government that has neither the resources nor the vision, foresight and capacity to deliver. Hasn't it been said that it is only in a state of normalcy when expectations are high and exceed the capacity to deliver that revolutions are born? I defmitely believe so. Confronted with this burning prospect, Taylor and his cohorts can not do otherwise than keep the Liberian people divided and in a state ofperpetual crisis and turmoil. This is certainly a nightmare

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scenario involving what Samuel Woods, former Director of Liberia's Catholic Justice & Peace Commission called a stranded government and a "stranded people." The fact of the matter, however, is that it was pathetically unreasonable for anyone to have expected that Taylor and his praise singers could deliver on the agenda set at the Chicago Conference. They never intended to do so, and never will. A review of a couple of facts is in order here. Didn't Taylor's messengers of peace come to the Chicago Conference with their hands soiled in the blood of opposition politician Samuel Dokie, his wife, Janet, sister Serena, and a bodyguard? Obviously, he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. So says the old maxim. The Dokies were arrested upon orders of the Director of Taylor's Special Security Service, Col. Benjamin Yeaten, detained at a local police station, spirited away under the cover of darkness, gruesomely murdered, decapitated and their charred remains dumped on remote dusty roads in the heartland of Taylor's rural Liberia. To date, the killers of the Dokies are yet to be brought to justice. They roam free in Liberia with license to kill, and seeking their next victims to butcher. But what else can we expect in a society where criminals have turned judges, and the docket is reserved for the honest? Liberia's moment of truth is coming the hard way. Facts are rudely coming to life as reality comes calling. It is becoming crystal clear to all that simply mounting a campaign helicopter and making earth-moving promises of peace, prosperity and reconciliation is, indeed, easy especially for a group ofpeople who are not bound by the standards of morality imposed by principles. But, like always, the difficult part, after all, is delivering the goods promised. No doubt in Liberia, Charles Taylor and his men are teaming the hard way the lesson of how not to pay lip service to the business of a nation's future. Of course, like an elder Liberian once told me, this is what happens in the University of life, where one is forced to take a test and then learn the lesson later. The tragedy, however, is that in the midst of this unfolding saga, the people are the victims while the regime thrives on lies, endless subterfuge and deceit. But you see, you can do what you may and say what you will, history will always remember and look back in the sands of time at the footprints you leave behind. That is why almost two years after Taylor's rise to power, we are compelled to look back at the so-called "Chicago Reconciliation Conference On Liberia" and a chain of other meaningless maneuvers and then ask the pointed question: what have we achieved so far, and what is in store for the Liberian nation and people as we move into the twenty-first century, which is fast approaching. Empty promises of reconciliation and prosperity, coupled with a sense of desperation for peace and the fatigue of a whole nation battered by war, ravaged by

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anarchy and destituted by institutionalized looting catapulted Taylor to the helm of power in Liberia. This was aided in part by the confused and oftentimes miscalculated policy choices of the Abacha regime in Nigeria, the dominant West African sub-regional power. It is quite evident now that almost two years after coming to power, little if anything, has changed in the devastated West African nation except the transformation of Taylor and his band of former wig-wearing thugs and praise singers from guerrilla warlords to new masters of the Liberian state; free as it were, to perpetuate terror and plunder cloaked beneath a thin veneer of legality and officialdom. Indeed, in Liberia today, its simply business as usual. Poverty and deprivation rule supreme as babies cry, go to bed hungry and die in their misery and lack of care. Worse still, there is no promise of things getting better any sooner as long as the status quo remains the same. The promise of reconciliation and healing has evaporated in thin air leaving behind nothing but a litany of empty commissions and panels that serve very little purpose besides creating offices and staff for more bureaucrats in a society that is becoming increasingly less busy with matters of substance. As we move into the new millennium, the prospects for peace, progress and socioeconomic development in Liberia is bleak if current arrangements are pointers to the future. Some will have doubt about what I say. To them I can only say, don't bother believing what I say. Let's just sit and watch. Time will tell; for tomorrow is yet to come.

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Documents

Letter to Her Excellency Rachel Gbenyon-Diggs From The Liberian Democratic Feature April 20, 1998

The Liberian Democratic Future P. 0. Box 2824 Smyrna, GA 30081 (770)435-4829/(404)761-2874 - Fax(404)257-1047

April 20, 1998

Her Excellency Rachel Gbenyon-Diggs Ambassador, Republic of Liberia Embassy of the Republic of Liberia 5303 Colorado Avenue Washington, DC 20011

Dear Madam Ambassador:

I recently received your letter in which you requested that a copy of the tape recording from which you were quoted in the Jan./Mar.1998 edition of The Perspective be made available to you. Please accept my apology for not responding to your request in a timely fashion. There was some confusion as to whether the letter was a private communication addressed to The Perspective seeking certain source information or for the general public, since the letter was already available on the Internet before reaching the magazine.

Madam Ambassador, as a matter of policy, The Perspective does not release notes, recordings and other documents it uses in making editorial decisions or judgments. I

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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strongly believe that this policy is in congruence with the guarantees of the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. As such, I regret to inform your excellency that The Perspective will adhere to this policy.

In order to ensure accuracy of content, fairness to the individuals we featured, and maintain credibility and objectivity for the magazine, it is our policy to transcribe and listen carefully to all recorded materials and double check all quotes. This process was followed prior to publication of the article and after we received your letter. And from all indications, the editorial board agrees that the quotes attributed to you are accurate.

The Perspective will be pleased to work with Mr. Kenneth Best in organizing a symposium on press freedom in Liberia. Kindly make our relevant information available to him. Many thanks, Madam Ambassador, for the consideration.

Yours truly,

Abraham M. Williams Editor/The Perspective

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Documents

Testimonies from Sierra Leonean Refugees in Conakry, Guinea Documented by Human Rights Watch, September 11 and 12, 2000

Cases of rape, sexual assault and humiliation

Woman, 19, raped and baby kidnaped

"Late on Saturday night, three armed soldiers . . . in camouflage and with red berets, and a lot of civilians broke into our house in two directions; some from the back and some through the front.. I lived there with my mother and 9 brothers and sister. I just had a little baby which I had on my back when the soldiers entered. One of the soldiers pushed me hard and I fell onto the TV then another soldiers grabbed my baby off my

back. Then the first soldier pushed me down and raped me . . . I cried, but I'm a brand new mother. I've just had a baby. Then one of the civilians raped me. They roughed me up and scraped me on my arm. They called me a bastard child and kicked me hard after using me

. . . they said you people only like your Sierra Leones for boyfriends, don't you? Then

I heard one of the soldiers give a command to take everything . . . so they started taking the TV, clothes and as they were taking apart one of the beds they found my mother

hiding there . . . so they pushed her and forced her at gunpoint to give them money . . .

she had about 250 US dollars hidden on her. They stayed there for about three hours . .

. as they stole our things they loaded them onto carts that were waiting out front. But all I could think of was my baby. After they'd left I gave my uncle a picture of my baby and they went from place to place until they found him. The soldiers had left him at one of the detention centers. They even stole all his little clothes." (Testimony taken Monday, September 11, Conakry).

Woman, 45, witnessed rape of 14 year old daughter "On Saturday at 5:00 am five soldiers and many civilians knocked at the door saying;

police, police . . . if you don't open we'll shoot you all. When we heard them cock their guns we felt we had to open. Then they all rushed in and one of the soldiers says, you're

all rebels, and you have dollars, pull out the dollars or we'll kill you all. . . . the soldiers

had their guns pointed at us. The civilians were with iron bars, knives, sticks . . . they

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started looting, they took the fans, chairs, freezers, tape, clothes, they opened all the boxes looking for the best of everything. They took all the new clothes and the kids' good shoes and clothes and left a few rags for us. Then one of those civilians who knew my daughter from the neighborhood grabbed her saying 'you're the rebels, you're bringing the fight to our country. We'll kill you.' Fearing they were going to rape her I fell down at the foot of one of the soldiers but he just kicked me and I fell at the feet of another one. Then they pulled my daughter away and started raping. One of them grabbed

me by the hair and said I should watch . . . two soldiers and one civilians raped her. I struggled to stop them but they beat me and pushed my little 6 year old son in the process. He fell and broke his front tooth. We don't have anything. We're just trying to

make ends meet here in Guinea. We've been here for five years . . . we fled the violence in Kambia district. After the rape my daughter was bleeding. They even stole 350,000

Guinea francs [about 200 US dollars] . . . all I had saved for along time. After they left

our landlord came and said we had to leave . . . then we fled to the Sierra Leonean embassy." (Testimony taken Monday, September 11, Conakry)

Woman, 19, gang raped

"I've been living in Guinea since1998 . . I live with four other family members. We'd been able to avoid this trouble till last night (Monday) when at around 10 AM

people came . . . some in uniforms with those green caps and one escuadron with a blue uniform and black cap. Our gate was locked so they jumped over the gate and came in. There were about 10 youths with them; they had sticks, axes and machetes and used them to break into our house. as I was trying to run a soldier grabbed hold of me and slapped

me once, hard on the face . . . then a few civilian youths held me by my shirt at the neck.

Then they started looking for the others . . . they found my two cousins and my sister and pushed them into a blue truck . . . as they were doing this others started loading our

possessions into a van . . . they took our clothes, suitcases and other things. They left me

saying it was the others they were after. Now alone in the house . . . they came back at

8:00 pm last night. They banged at the door . . I went and hid under the bed but they got in and four of them-all in military dress-entered. They pulled me out from under the bed and then used me just there one after the other. I begged them but they said they'd kill me. one of them sat on a chair with his gun pointed at me while two others held my

legs and the other one used me . . . . Then they took their turn. After they left I waited till the morning and borrowed money for transport then ran to the embassy." (Testimony taken Tuesday September 12, Conakry)

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Woman, 24, gang raped at Seratay police station (one of two rape reports from this station) "They came for us on Sunday night. Soldiers and gangs of youths came to our

neighborhood and all started shouting . . . 'all Sierra Leoneans must come out.' My husband was away that night so I came out with my two small children. Then they started looking; they carried out our fridge, suitcases clothes and other things and loaded them in a green military van. Then they took us to the Seratay police station where me and my kids were put into a cell with up to 100 people. After a few hours soldiers came and called a woman ....they took her into a room and then she came back. She was limping and she said they'd raped her. Then they came for me. I said I can't go I have my children but one of the soldier men grabbed my 10 month baby out of my arms, flung him and ordered me inside a room. Then they used me on the ground. All for of them did it. They

were all soldier men in uniforms and two had two stripes . . . like they were the big men there. After they left me they took a few other women as well. I begged them but they

said 'Shut up . . . we '11 kill you . . . our president has announced that all you people must leave. You're all rebels.'" (Testimony taken Tuesday September 12)

Woman, 18, gang raped at Seratay police station

"At 11 pm on Sunday, several police in blue uniforms came . . . they all had guns

and there were civilians among them . . . they had sticks and machetes. My brother had hidden money in our mattress and they started searching and found it. Then they pushed

me and my neighbors into a blue van . . . it was full up with people. Then they took us to Hamdalai police station and then on to Seratay police station. I saw them take one lady

form our group and she came back limping . . . I knew what happened so when they came to get me I really fought them. But they slapped me and took me to a room. There were

five police there . . . then one of them said, 'If you have money, we'll leave you' but how could I pay them? They'd taken all the money we had from that mattress. So they told put me on the ground and one of them used me while the others watched. When he was done I got up but they said, 'You think we're finished?' and one of them hit me hard on the hip with the but of his gun. I fell down and then the second and third and then other others used me. I said, 'leave me, leave me now' but they threatened to kill me. One was an

older pa with buttons on his uniform . . . they said if we didn't leave the country they'd

kill me . . . I was finally released form the prison on Monday at 2 pm . . . then I came to the embassy." (Testimony taken, Tuesday September 12).

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Woman, 26, sexually abused "I was apprehended at 6 pm on Friday by three soldiers and carried to Hamdalai police station. From there many of us were taken to Rotoma commune. they called us out and wrote all our names down. Then around noon on Saturday, they called me to a small room. I had my little baby in my arms. There were 5 or 6 of them. Then they grabbed my baby (10 months old) and flung him in the corner. He started screaming but they ordered me to strip off all my clothes. Then they told me to spread my legs and bend over and

four of them put their fingers inside me saying they were looking for money . . . after the fourth one I couldn't bear it and I said no more so they kicked me with their soldier boots

and hit me hard with the but of their rifle. What interrogation . . . they hardly asked me any questions. How can they do that. We're not rebels." (Testimony taken Tuesday September 12, Conakry)

Woman, 27 years old, beaten and witnessed attempted rape of 16 year old niece "On late Saturday night the landlord came and said he'd heard the government

announcement on the TV . . . and that we'd have leave. Then at 12:15 on Sunday morning a two soldiers and so many civilians, it was a huge gang, came to our place. The men in my family had jumped over the gate because we thought they were going to kill them.

They screamed at us to show them our papers . . . we all have the proper papers. So we

showed them and then they screamed . . . we don't care what papers you have just get out of our country. They said the chief of the section has authorized all of you to leave. Some of the civilians, who we recognized as being the street boys from our neighborhood started carrying our things out of the house. They took furniture and

clothes and our money . . . after they were finished they'd taken more than what they left there. en two of the civilian from the gang grabbed my 16 year old niece and tried pulling her into the parlor. I think they were going to rape her. But I fought with them and said you'll have to kill me first. One of them bit me but I screamed 'you're not taking her.'

They said 'The government has given us this order . . . go back to you're rebels.'" (Testimony taken Monday September 11, Conakry)

Elderly grandmotherforced to strip in front of soldiers "A 25 year old woman told Human Rights Watch how the local district officer accompanied by civilians searched the house where she lives with her elderly

grandmother and 6 other family members early Saturday morning. At 1 am on Sunday, 15 heavily armed soldiers came back to the house. They demanded money. When they didn't find any they accused the grandmother of hiding money and of lying. They asked her,

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"what would you prefer-your money or your life?", she replied-"my life". Then they forced her to undress in front of them and under her clothes she was hiding 300,000 francs guinea [about 175 US dollars]. The soldiers threatened to rape the other women in the house, but the landlord pleaded on their behalf. After this the gang handcuffed the landlord and beat the nine year old boy in the house. The family escaped to the Sierra Leonean embassy." (Testimony taken Monday September 11, Conakry)

Death in detention

Man, 27, arrested, witnessed death of refugee in detention

"I live in Rotoma . . . on Saturday night after the speech we're sitting with friends around my house when we heard a knock and five soldiers with AK-47's in blue police uniforms came in asking for our papers. They said we're refugees and they have to search our place. They started searching but in the process took my watch, 300 US

dollars and other valuables . . I didn't see them searching for any arms. I don't have guns

hidden in my pocket. Then they loaded three of us . . . my my brother and a friend to Rotoma commune. At the station we saw about 35 more Sierra Leones. We were put in a tiny, tiny little cubicle. Then on Sunday at around 3:00 am they took us to a place called

Hamdalai Station . . . there were hundreds of us in there. Some were inside the cells and others were being kept outside but we were everywhere and packed in like sardines. Then

sometime later from inside one of the rooms I heard people shouting . . . 'someone's

dying, someone is dying.' They were screaming for minutes . . . they they yelled . . . 'oh my god, he's died, he's dead.' Then around 4:00, about an hour or a little less after they'd been yelling, two police in civilian dress (I knew they were police because they'd been

interrogating us), went in and came out carrying the body of a young 18 year old boy . .

. as they passed in front of us people started crying and a few shouted, 'we're dying in here.'" (Testimony taken Monday September 11, Conakry)

Denial of medical care

Woman, 21, forced to leave hospital. HRW researcher found her lying on Sierra Leonean Embassy grounds.

"I'd been in hospital for over two weeks. I'm from Rotoma area of Conakry.. .

. On Saturday night about 8 soldiers in combat and many youths-I don't know how many-came into the hospital and said, 'all those Sierra Leoneans should go die in your own land.' This was about 9:00. They stayed for about half an hour. The nurses and doctor

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came to me and said they couldn't guarantee my protection so I had to go. Then they removed my drip and by this time my brother had arrived so he carried me away. We couldn't go home because my brother told me another group were attacking our house, so we spent the night on the ground in an unfinished house. Then he carried me to the

Sierra Leonean embassy. I feel very weak . . . I haven't had any medicine since I left." (Testimony taken Monday September 11, Conakry)

House raids, round-ups, looting and beating following government announcement to halt attacks Man, 26, family robbed andforced from home "My whole family, all of us 27 in number, headed back to our house in the Hamdalai neighborhood. When we arrived, by car, we were met by two soldier men-one in combats and the other in a black suit, and about 20 civilians armed with sticks with nails in them, and iron clubs. Even our landlord was there among them. They said 'you

go no, you're not coming here, all Sierra Leoneans are rebels' . . . they physically stopped our car from proceeding. My auntie, she's the eldest among us, got out to try to talk with them but they pushed her and grabbed her purse. One of them cut the strap and

then grabbed it from her . . . and hit her. She had $450 in her purse. We'd heard it was safe to go back and didn't expect this." (Testimony taken Tuesday September 12, Conakry)

50 year old victim, forced from home "At around 7:15 this morning, my cousin and I went to our house at Petit Simbaya . . . we were walking towards our house, almost at the entrance by our gate when we were approached by 4 civilians and two soldiers in combats and red berets. They said

we aren't allowed in . . . one of the civilians threatened us with on of those sticks with nails in it. One of the soldiers told us to halt; pointing his weapon at us. He said he'd kill us if we moved. But I took off running and was able to get away. I didn't look back. I don't know where my cousin is. I ran straight back to the Sierra Leonean embassy. They said it was ok to go now; that they weren't going to harass us anymore but it's not true." (Testimony taken Tuesday September 12, Conakry)

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Documents

Liberians Thrown Out of Heaven and Hell By George H. Nubo

Liberians everywhere, unfortunately, are now realizing, the hard way, how Taylor's victory is beginning to adversely affect them. Those Liberians who were ready-set to go home after the elections, are beginning to unpack their bags to seek other alternatives. This includes those Liberians who supported Taylor throughout the senseless Liberian civil war. Caution has become their guiding principle as they join the wait-and-see game once more. What compounded the problems for Liberians overseas is one of Taylor's thank you messages to them. In August, few weeks after his election, president Taylor said that effective December 31st Liberians will have to travel to Monrovia to renew their passports. He said many Liberian passports were being misused by some people trafficking drugs, while some were obtained illegally by non-Liberians. Though the war is over, there are Liberians overseas who are probably on Taylor's black list. So, some Liberians consider the president's message as a gimmick designed to lure the so-called "troublemakers" to Liberia so that he will get rid of them, as was in the case of Sam Dokie. "How will a warlord, who drugged teenagers to make them fight for him during the course of the past seven years for his so-called revolution, now be a policeman?" "Why aren't Liberian embassies charged with this responsibility?" One concerned Liberian asked. As expected, no Liberian is willing to oblige. But it is illegal for Liberians to carry invalid, expired passports. In another development, the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) program for Liberia that enables Liberians to live and work legally in the United States runs out in April, 1998. Most Liberians who do not have green cards have benefitted from the Temporary Protective Status. But many Liberians have voiced concern that the U. S. government may decide not to renew the program, since Liberia has just had a democratic election which ushered in Charles Taylor as the president. When the temporary protective status expires next April, the stay of Liberians benefitting from the mandate in this country will not be "legit", and they can not go home because of fear of being liquidated by the Taylor government.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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To make things worse, certain provisions of the new immigration act that U.S. President Clinton signed into law on Sept 30, 1996 have started taking effect. The new law is considered the most drastic anti-immigrants law passed in the United since the early 1920s. It will adversely affect the lives of immigrants in the U. S. and those who choose to migrate to this country. Meanwhile, Liberians across this nation were warned in the Feb/Mar '97 issue of The Perspective. The paper carried a letter sent by the then Liberian Consul General of New York, Mr. C. Hne Wilson, to all Liberians. In the letter, Mr. Wilson advised Liberians to regularize their stay in the United States to avoid the harassment of the immigration law that was to take effect on April 1, 1997. According to the new immigration law, "People "unlawfully present" in the U.S., i.e., those who stay in the U. S. beyond the expiration date of their temporary visa or who entered without inspection by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for more than 180 days, but less than one year, are barred from reentering the United States for three years. People "unlawfully present" in the U. S. for (1) year or more are barred from reentering for 10 years. This includes people who are trying to comply with the law, but whose application to extend or change their visa is significantly delayed. "Exceptions exist to both three or ten years bar for minors, people granted asylum, beneficiaries under the INS "family unity" program, and battered spouses and children." It is not clear as to whether Liberians overlooked Mr. Wilson's caution. The whole immigration concerns hit home after some sections of the immigration law began to take effect recently. I would caution Liberians who fall in the "unlawfully present" category to seek legal advice from their respective immigration lawyers. The question now is what can Liberians do to assist their brothers and sisters who find themselves in the middle of nowhere? In effect, these Liberians cannot live in this country, nor go to Liberia. In other words, they have been thrown out of heaven and hell. One of the Liberian organizations that belatedly started finding some solutions is the Union Of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA). The Union wants for the Clinton administration to offer green cards to Liberians who are currently benefitting from the TPS program and those whose political asylum applications are pending. When members of the Liberian Community Association of Georgia (LCAG) heard that the President of ULAA, Joseph Korto, had drafted a letter to be presented to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, they were all smiling.

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But after the community meeting I decided to take a bird's eye view of the ULAA's letter which was presented to The Perspective. I amazingly noticed that the Union only advanced the following points in the letter:

1. Although relative peace and stability have returned to Liberia, the society still remains largely devastated from the seven years of war, and it will take a considerable period of time to restore total normalcy in the country. In this respect, immediate repatriation by the respective families will expose our young children being raised in America to the current inadequate human conditions in Liberia. These young people, those born in America, as well as those brought over at young ages, are well adjusted to life in America. Exposure to the current conditions in Liberia will not only bring extreme cultural shocks; more importantly, it has the potential to cause serious social and psychological adjustment problems for these growing children. 2. Most of us are engaged in the practice of our respective professions, meaning that we are contributing to the American Economy as workers and taxpayers."

I wonder how many Liberians are practicing their professions in the U.S.? If it is true that Liberians are practicing their professions as Dr. Korto wants us to believe, wouldn't it be in the best interest of our country for these Liberian professionals to go back home and practice their professions in order to contribute to the economy and development of Liberia? ULAA's argument is not persuasive enough. It lacks the requisite cogent ingredients that would persuade the U. S. government to grant Liberians the green card status. I feel that the letter should have pointed out some reasons why Liberians don't want to rush home. Those reasons should have included human rights abuses by the Taylor government, the lack of freedom of the press and due process of the law. These are values that Americans and most Liberians feel strongly about. As a concerned Liberian, I immediately called one of ULAA's local board members, Mrs. Mabel Green, so that ULAA would incorporate suggestions from others. Mrs. Green advised that I communicate directly with Dr. Korto since the letter was to be presented on November 7. Surprisingly, I was told days later (Oct 20th to be exact) by Mrs. Green that Dr. Korto had already sent the letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. I was taken aback by the information because I wanted the letter to chronicle reasons why Liberians in this country are not prepared to go home, at least for now.

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While ULAA's effort is commendable, it is sad to say, the effort is perhaps little too late. Critics of ULAA contend that the best time for this kind of effort was during the war. They feel that during the past seven years the Union did not make any meaningful efforts to transfer Liberians from TPS to legal resident status. They also pointed out that "the new immigration law is as old as the Korto administration." But Korto's primary concern during his campaign was the renovation of the Liberian Embassy. When he later realized that ULAA does not have the wherewithal to defray the renovation cost, he decided to undertake something that he would call achievement. So he decided to push for green cards for all Liberians, knowing fully well that the timing is wrong and his argument feeble and substandard. Some Liberians feel that ULAA does not want to do anything that would anger the Taylor government because the Union has become an extended arm of the Taylor government. These observers believe ULAA's immigration effort is mere public posturing by a discredited organization, whose officers are poised to join the Taylor government. Critics' suspicion that there is an alliance between the Union and the Taylor government was reinforced on Oct 9, 1997, by a post in the Liberian chat room on the world wide web purportedly submitted by Tom Woewiyu. Mr. Woewiyu had this to say to his fellow Liberians in the Liberian chat room: "Is there anyone in this chat room that may be interested in a job in our government? Contact Dr. Joseph Korto or Gus Major directly. Our time has come. This is our time to enjoy. And I make no apologies for whatever may have happened lately. To err is human. We need to forget our immediate past to start with the reconstruction process." The post outraged most Liberians in the chat room. George Fahnbulleh, one of the outraged Liberians, wrote: "What is even more frightening is that Woewiyu and his band of murderers show no contrition for the death and destruction they have brought to Liberia by dismissing it all by saying 'I make no apologies.'" The Union officials will serve, at least according to Tom Woewiyu's post in the Liberia Chat room, as employment officers of the Liberian Government. Some Liberians suspect that this apparent alliance dictated the weak and poor language Dr. Korto used in his so-called petition to the U.S. Government. Another example of the marriage between the Union and the Taylor government is the one involving the chairman of ULAA Board of Directors, Mr. Gus Major. On Nov 19, 1997, Mr. Major informed Star Radio that "many Liberians in the U.S. are desirous of returning home to contribute to the reconstruction process. But he pointed out many Liberians, however, doubt whether they will be welcomed by their countrymen at home."

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The question is, who are the countrymen who will not welcome Liberians back home? Is Augustus Major talking about the Taylor government or the ordinary Liberians? If ULAA feels that Liberians will not be welcomed by the Taylor government or will be harassed upon return, why is it that the Union did not say that in its letter to the U. S. Government requesting for green card status for Liberians? Besides, Mr. Major did not inform Star Radio about ULAA's efforts here to get Green cards for Liberians living in this country so that they will become permanent residents of the United States. The duplicity by Union officials is clear. As one observer put it, "Union officials will go to bed with Taylor's government (seeking gravy), on one hand, while they attempt to appease Liberians in this country, on the other." The attempt of helping Liberians to gain permanent legal status is a good undertaking, but we must put more efforts into it if we are sincere in helping our brothers and sisters. ULAA's weak and poorly written letter has started this essential endeavor to assist Liberians who have not regularized their stay in this country. Now, all Liberians and friends of Liberia should join the initiative in asking the Clinton administration to give favorable consideration to this matter. Efforts by Liberian-Americans could have a greater impact.

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Lofa, Money Grabbers and Jesus Christ By H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Jr.

The recent fracas in Voinjama, Lofa County remains an enigma. The ruling clique, with its penchant for exaggerated fudge and political comedy has said that the town was attacked by invaders from neighboring Guinea. Many observers doubt this version and have intimated that there was a shoot-out between different security units over the right to control areas where money could be easily extorted from traders. Others feel that the incident was an orchestration by the clique to divert people's attention from the deplorable social, economic and political situation in the country. One thing is certain and that is the looters went about their vocation of maiming, plundering and killing as was done in Monrovia in April of 1996. One can safely dismiss the accusation against Guinea as a desperate attempt by the clique to deflect the criticisms against it for becoming embroiled in the crisis in Sierra Leone. The government of Guinea has demonstrated maturity and responsibility throughout the Liberian crisis by not yielding to any provocation from the NPFL/NPP. Guinea, with its professional and disciplined army will not send a handful ofdisorganized boys to go on a shooting spree in Voinjama. What would be the purpose? Would it be to frighten the NPFL/NPP and the motley collection of mercenary units from the RUF/AFRC bandit alliance and the Ukrainian misfits who use Lofa County as sanctuary? This is highly improbable. One does not frighten ruthless thugs with a few stragglers. Guinean security services must know that opposition elements from their country are waiting in Liberia under the command of Gbago Zoumanigue and therefore if the Guineans are looking for a pretext to rout these fifth columnists, they would do so with much professionalism. The accusations against Guinea show the reckless behavior of the flamboyant nonentity who was given power in Liberia through the futile misconception of the late Sani Abacha. In tandem with the accusations against Guinea is the one which deals with the ULIMO-Kgroup and the suspicion that elements of this movement invaded Lofa County. It is known to all that this movement is paralyzed. The cadres have been abandoned by those who pushed them into battle alongside the NPFL/NPP in 1996. The leader of this movement periodically makes outlandish claims to attract attention and that is all. This

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movement does not have the resources, the manpower nor the commitment to engage in adventurism any more. It has suffered the fate of all movements without ideological clarity. The Guinean authorities know more about this movement and its chronic inadequacies and it is inconceivable that they would allow elements from this movement to compromise their security. The other two possibilities-infighting among security units and orchestration by the clique-would seem more likely considering the background of the NPFL/NPP and the character of the rascal who heads this syndicate. The NPFL/NPP has a history of looting and inflicting mayhem whenever there is a need for quick wealth. From the inception of the banditry in December 1989, to the attack on Monrovia duped "Operation Octopus" in 1992, to the bloody skirmishes in the Capital in 1996, there is a pattern of creating chaos in order to loot and pillage. This shows the mind-set of Taylor and his venal inclinations. His primary objective is to make money, whether through blood, murder, dirty deals or fraud. Thus, one does not have to stretch one's imagination very far to see how the recent situation in Voinjama could have occurred. The economy in Liberia has collapsed. The people are living in dire poverty. The clique cannot meet the basic needs of the thousand of gun-toting boys who protect the privileges of these greedy parasites. Gangsters and crooks have come in masquerading as businessmen when in reality they are nothing but unscrupulous carpetbaggers. The international financial institutions are not convinced that the clique has any meaningful program for economic reconstruction. The examples of national swindling -viz. the cutting and exporting of all timber resources by a few; the labor camps where the children of the peasants are press-ganged to work for members of the clique and their business partners; the shameless selling of national assets like embassies and passports to racketeers, and the brazen corruption and venality-are factors which have undermined international confidence in this macabre construction which goes by the name of a government in Liberia. Even the Libyans who were so generous with their arms during the seven year carnage have become niggardly with their funds. Against this background, we see the sending of hungry and desperate boys with guns to areas where the people are still struggling to rebuild their lives. These little boys, who should have been put in vocational schools are keen to get what their masters in Monrovia have achieved through brutal violence and trickery. Thus the people are at the mercy of these unruly boys. Taylor understands this only too well. These are his marauding disciples who are sent out for booty whenever he feels the need. The people of Monrovia saw this glaringly during the chaos of 1996 orchestrated by this little greedy thug. There were cases where he himself supervised the looting of supermarkets and the confiscation of

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private cars. Many of these cars were sold in La Cote D'Ivoire where the little rascal has business interests. In the recent case in Voinjama, the victims were the Mandingo traders who have been building up their businesses since their return from Guinea. Does one need to ask why this rampage took place in Lofa and nowhere else? If one does, the answer is simple: Voinjama is the place the Mandingo traders have decided to make their base because in the light of the insecurity in Liberia, they can escape across the border if there is a need. Against the background of the sordid developments in Lofa, there have been pleas from many people in the country that they do not want any more violence. One can understand when poor and starving masses make such pleas. Poverty does not allow for reflection on political developments and thus the more destitute the people are, the more they have fanciful notions of deliverance be it through God, quacks or conmen. But there is another category of men and women who have made such pleas also. These men and women are educated; they are not poor and thus have the time and leisure to reflect on developments in this pitiful country. Have they investigated the situation in Lofa? Do they really believe that an invasion took place and that Liberian dissidents were responsible? We have our doubts about the honesty of these people. Some of them have become public relations officers of the regime. Others pretend to be neutral in the brutal terror which has been unleashed by the Taylor government since it took office in 1997, but in reality they are mercenaries of a different kind. They do not carry guns. They carry deception and propaganda to the outside world. These walking lies are the most contemptible because they sell their conscience for a few dollars. They are nothing but money grabbers who delude themselves that because they did not commit murder and mayhem, they cannot be condemned for receiving blood money. So is the logic of fools and schemers! Those who yesterday condemned injustice in the name of a higher moral authority are today being sent on hopeless escapades by the butchers in Monrovia to attract financial aid from the international community. This is such a pitiful farce that were it not tragic for the country and people, it would be dismissed as a grotesque comedy. International aid agencies these days give out financial assistance depending on the caliber of the leaders of a country and the seriousness of that leadership. The days of dishing out millions of dollars to irresponsible buffoons like the Joseph Mobutus, the Jean Bedel Bokassas, the Idi Amins and the Samuel Does are over. The cold war has ended and there is no more use for such irresponsible lackeys. Thus the international financial institutions have devised new criteria for assisting all developing nations. Who is going to give financial aid to a regime where the leader wears suits costing ten

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thousand dollars (U.S.) a piece and engages in tawdry extravagance while his people scavenge for food like animals? Which responsible financier is going to recommend financial aid to a country where the leader and his cronies indulge in vulgar luxury while the hospitals remain cesspools of diseases, the war orphans have become street urchins, the survivors of the war have become beggars and the institutions of state have become private fiefdoms of thieves and Mafiosi? And then political hustlers are sent around the world to convince intelligent economists and financiers to aid Liberia and you don't expect people to question the sanity of the cocaine "sniffers" who now rule Liberia? The stupidity of the ruling clique in Liberia is so glaring that each day this parasitic imposition remains in place, the deeper the nation sinks into paralysis. After ten years of banditry, one would think that this clique would crave stability in the sub-region. But because of greed, the clique has involved itself in the crisis in Sierra Leone. Liberia is today condemned by many as a destabilizing force in West Africa. Then there are the international criminals who now use Liberia as a safe haven, effectively turning the nation into gangster-country. The erosion of national confidence has led to the introduction of senseless terror to hold onto power. Violence against the people is naked and callous. It is no wonder that we hear the refrain of "no more violence, no more war" from those who have been pushed down in the dirt by the terror-machine of the regime. It is scandalous and hypocritical to preach restraint to the victims of terror while the perpetrators of murder, butchery and mayhem are applauded and praised as symbols of order and decency simply because they hide behind a dubious legality. In most cases, the counter-violence of the people and their organized vanguard is always a response to the brutality and insensitivity of backward ruling cliques. This regime of social degenerates, misfits and perverts is a thousand times worse than the Tolbert and Doe regimes. And yet the latter two were removed through violence simply because at some stage they relied on violence and not national confidence to hold onto power. No one has the right to prescribe to a people what method they should use in fighting injustice! Governments must rely on the willing consent of the governed and not on terror. Wherever the people are oppressed, history and justice demand that they react! Thus it is said: "The tree of liberty only grows when watered with the blood of tyrants." Some of our religious leaders have fallen prey to the cunning and deceit of Taylor. They believe him simply because they feel he has taken an oath on the Holy Book and is not capable of certain things. It is this kind of illusion that has been responsible for horrors throughout history. An evil man uses the Scriptures as he uses his fellow man. One only has to watch Taylor praying to realize that this rascal

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profanes everything he touches. He calls on God to use him as if the Lord in His Heavenly Majesty uses idiots and fools. The Scriptures say: "A fool finds pleasure in evil conduct, but a man of understanding delights in wisdom. What the wicked dreads will overtake him; what the righteous desire will be granted." (Proverbs 10:23-24). Thus the cry of invasion and rebellion coming out of the mouth of this evil rascal will one day come true to haunt him and his cronies. The blood of the thousands they have slaughtered will drown them! This national calamity cannot go on forever. Our religious leaders must be the protectors of the weak and innocent who are persecuted and not allies of those who use strength to oppress and humiliate the people. One would have expected some religious leaders to have gone to Voinjama on their own and investigate the situation before commenting. Those who are shepherds of the Lords must thread the path of truth and honesty. Those who are the rightful followers of Jesus Christ are not known to be cowards. The defilement of the name of Jesus Christ has gone so far in Liberia that Taylor takes pleasure in mocking the sanctity of the Christian religion. There are many hiding behind the Bible who encourage him in this act of blasphemy. Now he brings international scorn and mockery on the Nation by dismissing his officials for not attending a prayer meeting! In the absence of policies to alleviate the sufferings of the people, he comes up with ridiculous gimmicks to attract headlines around the world. He has attracted headlines not because he has impressed anyone, but simply because of the childish stupidity of the exercise. Why would any sane leader dismiss competent officials of a government simply because they keep away from a prayer meeting? What happens if these officials were working on critical matters germane to the welfare of the starving and wretched people? What manner of leader is this who dismisses people without inquiring as to the reasons for their absence from a prayer meeting? And to think that some of our religious leaders are blind to this insanity! Every honest man/woman who sells himself/herself to this evil because of the economic hardship in the country defiles the spirit of Jesus Christ and the trust of the people he shed His blood to redeem. One cannot be a follower of the Lord if one is not willing to follow His footsteps on the path to Cavalry. This country of ours has become a land of anguish and tears. We pray for men of courage and wisdom to protect the widows, the orphans, the poor and the downtrodden. As for us humble men who have chosen the path of exile rather than silence and connivance in the land of our fathers, we will take our prayers, our hopes and our defiance and fight for justice in the filament of the tyrant's lair.

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Documents

A Liberian Group in Minnesota Decries Conditions in Liberia October 3, 2000

Nearly ten years ago, the masses of the Liberian people participated in a military campaign that brought down the leadership of the country. The government of Samuel Kanyon Doe was overthrown following an intense resistance that claimed the lives of over two hundred and fifty thousand people in Liberia. The country remained in a state of chaos with factional leaders laying claim to every facet of land that make up the Liberian Republic. As a direct consequence of the civil strife that filled the void of authority, more than seventy-five percent of the Liberian population was either displaced internally or within the sub-region of West Africa. The period that characterized the transition from war to peace and stability in Liberia unearthed a number of hidden phenomena. Taylor's intransigence to peace gave birth to a number of warring factions all of which demonstrated a desperation for power, which magnitude can be measured by the massive human and property loss sustained by the people of Liberia. Long before entering the capital, Monrovia, Taylor had himself crowned President. In order to preserve his crown, Taylor was prepared to preside over Liberian corpses than cease the persecution of the war and await elections. On July 15, 1997, Liberians who had nowhere to escape decided between Taylor's ambition and their lives. They made a conscious decision to give-in to Taylor's ambition in order that their lives may be spared. At the end of the day, Liberians elected Charles G. Taylor President of Liberia. This action was a humane calculation aimed at cutting the losses of all Liberians. In a nation where people are disillusioned and traumatized by war, they will jump and embrace the angel they had never seen even at the peril of their life. Liberia did just that. In the West African Sub-region, countries that were hosting Liberian refugees and those providing troops to the West African Peace Monitoring Force, ECOMOG, observed our move as one that would ease the burden on their fragile economies. The International community, on the other hand embraced the result of our elections, and termed it as a Liberian success for reunification and reconstruction. Given the massive support for our resolve to deliver on Taylor's ambitions as a necessary pre-condition for the preservation of life in Liberia, the comity of nations

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was left with the belief that Liberia was back on track and ready to once again assume the mantle of enlightenment for democratic pluralism and empowerment in Africa. Since we stepped out of our slumber believing that all was well, the practice of "JUNGLE DEMOCRACY"-a system in which might makes right, is the modus a operandi for civil administration under Taylor. The tyranny of Taylor and his cronies in the governance of Liberia is so vivid that one does not need to use a binocular to capture the full effect of its magnitude on the country. Individual and civil liberties have been trampled on. The interest and welfare of those who govern is put first, and at worst the interest of the Liberian people who echo slogans like "you kill my pa, you kill my ma, I will vote for you" have yet to make it on Taylor's priority list. Corruption, mismanagement and misuse ofpublic funds is rampant. Tax-exempted concession rights are handed out to foreign companies under dubious agreements. For example the Oriental Timber Company is pillaging the timber reserved of Liberia under the guise that it will build roads in the hinterlands of Liberia. But to the contrary, the forest is being cut without any implementation of a plan for reforestation to preserve the environment. It is the interest of these international pirates most of who bank rolled Taylor's killing machines of child soldiers and mercenaries that is placed second to none. It is their interest that President Taylor and his small band of hustlers are serving in Liberia, and not the Liberian people.

TAYLOR'S PLAN FOR CIVIL ADMINISTRATION IN LIBERIA Since the advent of the Taylor's administration numerous calls have paraded the corridor of Liberia and the international community for the development of A PLAN OF CIVIL ADMINISTRATION FOR LIBERIA. The anxiety of Liberians in the American Diaspora was answered by the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, which organized the ALL- LIBERIAN MEETING of Chicago, Illinois, under the leadership of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. The success of the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition effort culminated into the All- Liberian Conference of 1998 held at the Unity Conference Center in Virginia, Liberia. It must be noted here that since the Banjul Conference of 1990, which give birth to the Liberian Interim Government of National Unity, the Virginia all Liberia Conference convened one of the largest assembly of Liberians from different political and social persuasions. In spite of the venue of the discussions, the quality of the resolution that emerged out of the Virginia-Liberia conference underscored Liberians uncompromising commitment to national reconciliation, social justice, national development and progress. The people of Liberia clearly defined the way in which they would wish to be governed. However, the masses of the Liberian people have endured more than two years

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waiting for an implementation that has yet to make it from words to deeds. Mr. Taylor is busy trying to establish a connection between the people's interest and his agenda. But, conventional wisdom is cleared. The best interpretation of what has become of the conference resolution can be vividly described as an economic waste and another failed public relation campaign. The hope of Liberians is still being held in abeyance. It will interest you to delve into the psychic of the man, Taylor. The Virginia plan intended for Liberia absolutely conflicted with Taylor's agenda. Reconciliation in the view of Mr. Taylor means reconciling his obligation to external interest for bankrolling the terror that was rained on the Liberian people. The clash of interest between the Liberian people and the Taylor regime has obscured the historic achievements of the Virginia, All-Liberian Conference. This clash is undesirably affecting the lives of Liberians. For example the rate of unemployment in country is raising daily. The Liberian Government, which is the single largest employer in the country, has been incapable of meeting salary arrears to its employees. The best it has done so far is to pay one-month salary for every other four months of work. Qualified and able body Liberians is forced into making begging an occupation, just to feed their families and send their children to school. Public services like water supply and electricity are in woeful need of reconstruction. The medical facilitates, including hospitals and clinics lack the basic supplies and equipment needed to treat even the most common illness, like headache. Liberian schools are graduating students that can neither read nor write. Obtaining the basic skills necessary for survival in Liberia is a total illusion. In spite of the prevailing hardship and the wanton loss of properties sustained by nearly all Liberians, the Taylor Government has wage a war of eviction on property owners and petit businesses. For example, property owners in the Buzzi Quarter area were violently uprooted by President Taylor's special security forces without legal notices. This action makes the government insensitive to the human sufferings experienced by nearly all Liberians. It is symptomatic of the decomposition of national government of the Republic of Liberia, led by President Charles G. Taylor. When a government performs in such a callous manner, it is recklessly playing blind to the need for housing and shelter for people internally displaced. Additionally, the rising rate of unemployment has undermined the capacities of the local citizenry to rehabilitate properties damaged during the civil war. The need for reconstructing the lives of Liberians remains but a fleeting illusion. Instead of redressing these hardships, the Taylor regime has demonstrated an inclination toward building all forms of security apparatus that will shield him and his cronies from the hardship and human sufferings he engineered against Liberians. Liberians must realize that their

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security is endangered by the lack of any safety net. The trigger-happy thugs that brandish U-Z's and AK-47's in the Liberian community are there to protect Taylor, not the Liberian people, while the government is there to shield itself from those it governed. While the hardship persist, Taylor and his followers are immersed in the pump and pageantry of erecting new homes and displaying flashy luxury vehicles in a city where motorists and pedestrians compete for space and right-away. At worse in a country where access to the interior villages are impassable by roads. The Taylor regime has treated the demands of the Liberian people for such basic social services as electricity and sanitary drinking water supply with hilarious reactions. In one of his many public comedies (so-called press conferences), President Taylor, who had promised the Liberian people a new Liberia, later declared that if anyone wanted power supply in his/her home, he/she will have to purchase a power generator. A remark of this sort emanating from a leader who promised everythingjust to steal away the vote of the people spells disaster for a country just out of war. When the Taylor government reduces basic services that enhances the comfort and security of the Liberian people to a level that is less deserving of any significant importance, the government is forcing its people to believe that the provision of public services are not the business of government. When a government promises its people justice as in the case of General Benjamin Yeaten, President Taylor's chief of security, who was charged and never tried in the murder of Mr. Samuel Dokie and his family, that government is telling its people that the justice system is no longer blind folded or impartial. It is bad government to know that currently, General Yeaten is a freed man, roaming the streets of Monrovia with impunity, perhaps looking for his next victim. Guess who? It could be you, somebody you love or me. When a government promises public information on issues of concern and fails to provide it as in the case of the autopsy report surrounding the mysterious death of the late Vice President of Liberia, Enoch Dogolea, that government has eroded public confidence in its ability to administer. When a government invites its citizens to return home, and in turn accord them a reception that make them feel like a threat to their own government, that government is playing politics and is engaged in scare tactics with the lives of its people. When a government reduces its people to bystanders who watch a privileged few parade the city of Monrovia showing off the spoils of their loot, that government is not connecting with its people. It has lost their support and is now on its Own. When a government surrenders the resources of a country to foreign concessions who pillage the resources and pay no taxes under the guise that the concession will construct roads in the country, that government is not concern about the

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future of the country and its children. That government is lawless and indifferent to any significant development and reconstruction effort. When a government can only afford to pay its employees a month's salary after six months of work, that government is fiscally and monetarily incompetent. When a sitting government presides over the massive exodus of its people from the country, in the face of a heavily government sponsored "back to Liberia crusade", that government is deceptive, despotic and only waving fear in the faces of returnees and residents. When the Executive Branch of the Liberian government tries to run the country alone, usurping the powers of the other two branches of government, the Judiciary and Legislature, that government has absconded people's power. It is lawless and undemocratic. This style of governance is in sharp contrast to the principle of democracy, which allows for a government for the people, of the people and by the people. When Liberians at home and abroad demonstrate preference for permanent residential status in the United States and other parts of the world above returning home, it renders the election of 1997 as a hopeless exercise that has yet to bring closure to the institution of fear erected by the Taylor government. When a government behaves so irresponsibly, it is in essence giving birth and reason to the rise of dissident forces in the country, such as the Liberian United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), and many more to come if Taylor continues with business as usual. We have come to inform the international community and remind ourselves here and at home that the Taylor led NPP government is not the best recipe for reconciliation, peace, stability and progress in Liberia. Once a beacon of hope for all people of color, that experiment has been proven wrong. Liberia is no longer that place of refuge or that symbol of Black liberation. We have surrendered our power into the hands of a kleptomaniac who reminds us of Cambodia under Pol Pot. The question of where we go from here as a people rest with Liberians. As for us Liberians residing in Minnesota, the Taylor Government has lost our confidence and trust. Issued by Concerned Liberians in Minnesota on the state of affairs in Liberia on Saturday, September 30th, 2000, Capitol Square, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Signed: Jenkins Johnson, Chair

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Summary of Recommendations Repatriation and Reintegration in Liberia: USCR Site Visit to Liberia, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire (October 1999) By Jeff Drumtra. Published November 18, 1999

A. Security Conditions 1. Liberian government leaders, including the President, should conduct regular visits to upper Lofa County to discipline government soldiers and help resolve continued population displacement. 2. The UN Special Representative in Liberia should work with the Liberian government to facilitate regular UN assessment trips to upper Lofa county to monitor humanitarian and human rights conditions there. The UN should support similar assessments by local NGOs and human rights organizations. 3. International aid agencies in Liberia should maintain updated evacuation plans. 4. The international community should provide financial or logistical support to facilitate regular reporting by local journalists and human rights groups on events in rural counties. 5. The Liberian government should allow local independent radio stations to broadcast news and information nationwide. The international community should provide support for these broadcasts. 6. The Liberian government, particularly President Charles Taylor, should impose proper accountability on the country's various security forces and should rapidly and publicly punish abuses by security personnel. 7. UNHCR programs in Liberia, Guinea, and Cote d'Ivoire require substantially larger protection staffs to monitor and, if possible, help prevent incidents that aggravate insecurity in Liberia and its border areas. [See Section H below for elaboration on UNHCR protection needs.]

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B. Politics and Human Rights 8. The U.S. ambassador should maintain a high public profile in consistently emphasizing the need for political reform, accountability, and human rights. The new U.S. ambassador in Liberia should seek to create "political space" for proper civic debate in Liberia. The American ambassador should pointedly reach out to all sectors of society, including those few departments in Liberia's national and local government that make a serious effort to govern responsibly. The U.S. ambassador should regularly specify, publicly, reform steps the Liberian government must take to attract additional international support. 9. The U.S. government should resume full funding for "democracy and governance" programs by the Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute, and other qualified organizations. Congressional opposition to these programs in Liberia is unwise and counterproductive to Liberia's future stability. 10. The U.S. government and other international donors should provide funding to strengthen the Justice and Peace Commission, as well as other credible human rights organizations. JPC should remain a bell-weather for human rights in Liberia.

C. Reintegration 11. Liberia's national leaders, including President Charles Taylor, should regularly visit all counties "up country" to foster reconciliation and demonstrate support for the efforts of residents to rebuild their local communities. Such visits might also encourage voluntary repatriation. 12. The Liberian government should ensure that local officials remain at their posts in rural areas and are responsive to the needs of local residents. 13. International NGOs and funders should seek to expand development programs outside the capital and strengthen indigenous NGOs operating "up country." 14. International donors should provide resources to UNHCR/Liberia and the Liberian government's Refugee Repatriation and Rehabilitation Commission to investigate and address the problem Mandingo returnees have encountered when trying to re-occupy their homes in Lofa and Nimba counties. The problem appears to be occurring in some areas that are otherwise secure and accessible. 15. The governments of Liberia and Guinea should agree to open the border and take steps to address security concerns on both sides of the border.

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D. Liberian Society 16. Liberian refugees, exiles, and other Liberians living abroad should continue to consider the feasibility of returning to live in Liberia to help repair the economic and political damage in their country. Liberia's recovery is handicapped by their absence from the country. 17. Liberian political, religious, and civic leaders should continue to stress the necessity of Liberians trying to find their own solutions to the country's difficult political, economic, and social reintegration problems. 18. Liberian schools, with support from international aid donors, should incorporate themes of human rights, reconciliation, and basic civics into all levels of curriculum. Schools and churches should receive support to provide special counseling and training programs to address the post-war needs of Liberia's youth population.

E. International Assistance Strategies 19. The development aid strategy of the United States and other donors should be cautious, but not negligent. Carefully chosen projects should receive adequate financial and diplomatic support. Aid strategies should strengthen indigenous organizations while circumventing corrupt or unreliable departments of the Liberian government. 20. In order to use limited aid dollars most effectively to support reintegration and development in Liberia, USAID should coordinate a special assessment mission to Liberia with Friends of Liberia, an organization composed of former Peace Corps volunteers and others with expert knowledge of Liberia. The purpose of the collaboration should be to identify and recommend grassroots projects worth funding throughout the country. USAID officials have been unable to travel extensively in Liberia because of security restrictions during much of 1999. They might lack sufficient information about the full range of reintegration and development projects that merit funding. Friends of Liberia would bring intimate knowledge of Liberia and unique grassroots access to this assessment project. 21. Aid projects that address "democracy and governance" issues warrant priority, including programs that emphasize civic education, the rule of law, government accountability, and press independence. 22. Flinders and NGOs should gradually expand micro-credit programs, drawing on the lessons of current loan projects operating in Liberia. Properly operated micro- loan programs should seek to diversify business activity beyond the usual soap-making

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and tie-dye enterprises. Small loan programs should provide special training for loan recipients to improve skills, business operation, and adult literacy. 23. International funders should support at least modest road repairs and maintenance in important returnee areas such as Grand Gedah, Sinoe, and Maryland counties. Food-for-work programs should include road repair projects. 24. Donors should support construction of classrooms despite shortages of school equipment.

F. Current Liberian Refugees: Demographics 25. UNHCR should continue to conduct verification exercises at selected sites in Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire to refine estimates of refugee numbers. Donors should support continued census efforts planned by UNHCR.

G. Current Liberian Refugees: Repatriation/International Resettlement 26. Guinea authorities should re-open their border with Liberia so that voluntary repatriations of Liberian refugees can resume and new Liberian refugees can reach safety in Guinea if necessary. The Guinean government has a responsibility under international refugee law to open its border for refugees seeking protection. If the border remains officially closed, Guinean officials should establish clearly defined "repatriation corridors" to allow Liberian refugees to return home in organized convoys or in spontaneous fashion. 27. UNHCR/Guinea and international donors should be prepared to extend the deadline for organized repatriation beyond December 1999. 28. UNHCR/Guinea and donors should push ahead with plans to reduce care and maintenance assistance for most old caseload Liberian refugees (those who arrived pre- 1999) in favor of programs that facilitate refugees' self-sufficiency and local integration. UNHCR/Guinea should be prepared to extend local integration programs beyond the current July 2000 deadline if the border closure continues to block repatriation. 29. UNHCR/Guinea should be prepared to delay scheduled staff reductions in areas of Guinea that contain substantial Liberian refugee populations, such as the Nzerekore and Macenta areas. The border closure and insecurity in northern Liberia might keep Liberian refugees in Guinea longer than expected, necessitating larger staffs than planned.

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While maintaining adequate staffing for Liberian refugees, UNHCR and donors should add additional staff posts to improve protection and assistance for Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea. 30. The U.S. government and other donors to UNHCR/Guinea should increase funding so that UNHCR/Guinea can deploy adequate staff to monitor and assist some 400,000 Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees. 31. A reduced number of refugee schools should re-open in Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. Re-opening too many schools, however, might act as a magnet for Liberians who have already repatriated and will probably discourage repatriation by some refugees who otherwise could return home safely. 32. The current school year for Liberian refugee children should serve as a transition to eventual integration with local educational systems. Refugee schools should emphasize French language instruction (the official language in Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire) to prepare refugee students for eventual integrationinto the educational systems of Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. 33. The U.S. government, specifically the State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM), should make more resources available to UNHCR to help UNHCR's staff on the ground understand and implement proper procedures for U.S. resettlement of Liberian refugees. U.S. officials should initiate an information campaign in refugee zones to help refugees achieve a realistic understanding of limited eligibilities for the U.S. resettlement program.

H. Current Liberian Refugees: Protection Concerns 34. UNHCR should immediately triple its protection staff in Liberia, Guinea, and Cote d'Ivoire. UNHCR headquarters in Geneva should issue a special appeal to fund more protection officers. The United States and other international donors should respond quickly to redress a protection situation that is fundamentally unethical and would not be tolerated in refugee crises in most other regions of the world. 35. Guinean authorities should cease harassment and arbitrary detentions of Liberian refugees and should discipline security personnel who persist in such practices. Guinean officials should publicly remind the Guinean population and local authorities that bona fide Liberian refugees are welcome in Guinea. 36. The Guinean government should not withhold assistance to future new refugees from Liberia, as it did with new refugee arrivals in August. UNHCR should work aggressively to identify and offer assistance to refugees who have arrived in Guinea since August.

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37. Transfer of Daro camp residents to a new location should be a priority. UNHCR/Guinea should complete the relocation as rapidly as possible.

I. Current Liberian Refugees: Assistance Issues 38. UNHCR should continue to encourage voluntary repatriation by most Liberian refugees, except those who originate from Liberia's troubled upper Lofa county. Despite difficult conditions in Liberia, safe repatriation is feasible for many current refugees. UNHCR should continue to promote local integration of old caseload Liberian refugees who are unable or unwilling to repatriate. 39. With the largest refugee caseload in Africa and difficult working conditions, Guinea should be a top priority within the UNHCR system. UNHCR/Guinea needs significantly stronger support from UNHCR/Geneva and from international donors. UNHCR/Guinea is a traditionally weak program that has recently improved. It continues to face immense obstacles with meager resources. 40. The U.S. government should ensure that the U.S. refugee resettlement program reinforces rather than overwhelms UNHCR activities in Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. The United States has a special responsibility to ensure that UNHCR programs in these two countries are not forced to divert staff from other important responsibilities in order to administer the U.S. resettlement program.

J. Sierra Leonean Refugees in Liberia 41. UNHCR/Liberia should complete the transfer of Sierra Leonean refugees from Tarvey to Sinje camp as rapidly as possible. 42. Sierra Leonean refugees transferring to Sinje camp cannot be expected to become half self-sufficient by January. New refugees at Sinje camp require full food rations for several additional months before donors can reasonably expect them to support themselves.

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Taylor's Millions Target US Politicians By Tom Kamara Sept. 19, 2000

The Liberian Government, currently on a PR crusade to win vital converts in countering and reversing its pariah image, has launched a new lobby group to complement dozens others already in operation. The group's aim is to intensify the campaign of influencing American elections and politicians. The team, Liberia Support Network, says one of its immediate objectives is to initiate an avalanche of legal and other actions against Liberians opposed to President Taylor and allegedly destabilizing the country from the United States. A man called Sam Jackson heads the group. Sam Jackson was one of the young recruits of Samuel Doe's 1980 military junta that violently toppled the oligarchy of the Americo-Liberians, descendants of freed slaves who ruled the country from 1822 to 1980. Sam Jackson served as the junta's Deputy Minister of Commerce, but was sacked for alleged misappropriation, just as Taylor was and arrested and jailed in the US on similar charges, although he escaped to wage the Liberian civil war, which made him president. Both men deny the theft charges levied against them by the junta. Like many Liberians, Jackson fled to the US after his dismissal, later admitting having problems with drugs from which he said he has now recovered. Since Taylor's election, Jackson has been shuttling between Liberia and the US, purportedly advising the Government on policy and strategy. Prior to the formation of the lobby group, President Taylor asked US-based Liberians to initiate legal actions against the American Government for allegedly demonizing him through accusations of stealing Sierra Leone's diamonds and backing that country's ruthless rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Another case Taylor has filed in London against Dr. Stephen Ellis, author of The Mask of Anarchy, in which the writer detailed Taylor's alleged cannibalism, still hangs. Sources say prosecution of the case would require Taylor's presence in a British court. He was deported from London in the 1980s. With Britain's campaign against him for allegedly acerbating the Sierra Leone war, along with London's successful campaign that suspended $48m of aid to Liberia, the likelihood of Taylor's presence in a British court

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)

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is slim, particularly with the Pinochet factor still looming. Taylor's failure to attend the OAU conference in Lome, Togo this year, it has been hinted, was due to fears of possible arrest in connection with the Sierra Leone war. The former warlord has unsuccessfully tried to visit the US since his election, but mass protests by human rights groups and Liberian community organizations, including a letter reminding US authorities of the 5 American Catholic nuns Taylor's rebels killed in 1991, canceled the visit despite sustained efforts by his PR teams. But their PR campaign led to the dropping of charges against the Liberian President for breaking jail in Boston, Massachusetts. Many Liberians, now facing mass deportation and scrambling for political asylum since their Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) will expire this year, laughed off Taylor's request for their collective legal action against America on his behalf. "If anything, we would like to take him to court a million times over, skin him alive, for the humiliation, suffering, bondage he has subjected us to for almost a decade with no indication of an end. Sue America? If visas were available, the whole of Liberia would migrate to America, leaving, Taylor and his hoodlums to roam around in the forests eating one another," said a former University professor now in exile in New Jersey. However, the task before Jackson's lobby group, believed to be financed by Taylor, is to change minds where other giants in the American political arena have virtually failed. Their challenge is to convince the world that Taylor has been unnecessarily and unfairly maligned in the Sierra Leone war and the resulting orgy of child amputations which have hit world TV screens. More than that, the group faces an uphill battle in presenting convincing evidence that their President, now dubbed by the British as "the Milosevic of Africa," is serious about regional peace, human rights, democratization, and therefore development," said a former politician who now lives in Germany. But Taylor's problem is far from a shortage of fans and promoters in America. To the contrary, it is the catalogue of crimes hanging over him that has overshadowed whatever goodwill there is amongst his many influential admirers. Their job is made more tedious by the fact that there are no indications of a letup in the deterioration of human rights conditions. From the beginning and perhaps now, he benefitted immensely from the backing of some leading figures in the Democratic Party and American politics. Says Jon Lee Anderson, who lived in Liberia in his youth, in an earlier article in The New Yorker, "The Devil They Know": "Despite the fact that during the civil war Charles Taylor commanded one of the most vicious armies of modern times, and is widely believed to have abused his power

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for personal enrichment on a grand scale, he has an impressive roster of liberal American friends and acquaintances that includes the Reverend Jesse Jackson and former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Taylor enjoys an especially close relationship with former President Jimmy Carter, a fellow-Baptist, who travels frequently to Liberia to oversee 'democracy building' and human rights programs that the Carter Center foundation operates there. Taylor's lawyer and PR man in Washington, D.C., is Lester Hyman, a Kennedy protege and the former chairman of the Democratic Party of Massachusetts. Hyman says that when President Clinton was in Africa this spring he telephoned Taylor from Air Force One and gave him a 'pep talk that was very encouraging. '" As can be seen, outcries against horrendous abuses, along with detailed, factual reports by the US State Department, have not dented the enthusiasm of some leading Americans from seeing him as a man with redeeming values. Key among his friends is African-American Congressman Donald Payne with whom he has cultivated strong ties. Ryan Lizza writes in The New Republic: "Indeed, Payne's relationship with Taylor goes back to the early '80s, when Taylor was in jail in Massachusetts and Payne, then a member of the Newark municipal council, spoke out against his extradition to Liberia. Payne says he was simply helping Taylor at the behest of a friend and didn't actually meet the Liberian until 1997, when he attended Taylor's presidential inauguration in Monrovia. But since then the two men have clearly become friends. One visitor to Payne's office tells of watching the congressman hang up the phone with Taylor and remark that the Liberian president had just told him he was tired of dealing with Jeter, the U.S. envoy for Liberia. (Taylor is known to dislike Jeter, once referring to him as a `burnt -out' diplomat.) Taylor suggested that Payne become the U.S. envoy instead. 'What surprised me was that Payne didn't say anything,' says the visitor. 'He seemed flattered.' Payne says he does not remember any such conversation. At one point, according to an associate of Payne's, the New Jersey congressman jokingly complained that he was getting so many calls from Taylor that he was tired of talking to him. Payne insists he has talked on the phone to Taylor no more than half a dozen times."

Similarly, Lizza tells us that the relationship between Taylor and the Rev. Jackson actually solidified after Taylor's 1997 presidential victory: "[Jesse] Jackson first met the Liberian dictator on an official trip to West Africa in February 1998. Taylor, worried that Jackson, like prior American diplomats, would hector him about human rights, invited an old Liberian friend of Jackson's named

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Romeo Horton to brief him on America's new envoy. Horton says Jackson and Taylor's meeting went extremely well. 'Instead of meeting an adversary,' says Horton, Taylor `met a friend.' The following month, when Clinton toured Africa, Jackson arranged a 30-minute phone call between the two leaders from Air Force One. Upon returning home, Jackson organized a conference on 'reconciliation' for Liberians at his PUSH headquarters in Chicago. According to Harry Greaves Jr., co-founder of a Liberian opposition party, who attended the Chicago conference, 'The message was, ' [Taylor's] been elected, and let's give him a chance.' It's all about p.r., and Jackson is part of that campaign.' As Leslie Cole, an old friend of Taylor's, wrote to the new president soon after Jackson's conference, 'Getting Jesse on the bandwagon was a good and smart idea.'" Other contacts include Black Congressional leaders, and the goodwill Taylor has enjoyed amongst them has filtered down to his RUF allies. The rebel's former spokesman, Omrie Golley, was often presented on CNN as a suave and polished politician determined to end the war. Lizza's findings throws light on the forces that influenced the now collapsed Lome Agreement, one of Rev. Jackson's achievements in Africa. Writes Lizza: "Within three months of Golley's February 1999 visit to the State Department and the congressional offices of Donald Payne, the phone call initiated by Howard Jeter had led to a government/RUF cease-fire. With striking unanimity, Sierra Leonean intellectuals believe that Kabbah, a rather weak president, agreed to the cease-fire under pressure from Jackson and against the advice of some of his ministers and prominent members of civil society. Days before the cease-fire, Jackson and Kabbah met up in Ghana, where both were attending a conference. From Ghana, Jackson abruptly flew Kabbah to the talks in Lome, Togo, where the cease-fire agreement was signed. One Freetown newspaper even reported that Kabbah was 'kidnapped' by Jackson. 'The story was,' explains Zainab Bangura, 'that he was kidnapped, because [Kabbah] went [to the conference in Ghana] with his finance minister and information minister'-at the time both men were thought to be against signing the agreement-'and they all went to the airport to go to fly to Lome, and Jesse Jackson said there were no seats for them. So they didn't go.'" The difficulty of Taylor's PR men no matter how much they get paid is polishing a rugged image that from all indications cannot absorb polish no matter how hard they rub. Years of continuing atrocities have left their indelible marks on the minds of many that the man is simply irredeemable. Anderson:

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"More Western diplomats, relief workers, and businessmen in Liberia say that the pattern of 'pillage and plunder' instituted by Taylor during the war years has continued during his tenure in office. 'He is very corrupt,' said one diplomat, who charges Taylor with operating a 'dual system': the official one and the private system based on profits from illegal extraction of timber, gold and diamonds. Taylor is also believed to be receiving a cut of rice and other necessities. The diplomat calculates

Taylor private revenues to be 'possibly equal . . .'" But Taylor's drive to woo American politicians and influentials has been unrelenting because of his belief that Washington holds the key to funding his corrupt regime. Not satisfied with the performance of Rev. Jackson and others of the Black Caucus, he hired former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman Cohen as his PR, hoping that Cohen's influence would lead to much needed US aid with the opening of doors in Washington for the type of massive aid Doe received. Frustrated over US snub, he complained on Dutch TV that while his predecessor operated with US$500m budget, he was stuck with $50m. But according to reports, Taylor was earning about US$500m from Sierra Leone diamonds alone by 1995, two years before he became President. His ambition to enter the US as a conqueror (since he was imprisoned here for alleged theft) and make a grandstanding at the UN faltered due to the mass protests from many human rights groups and individuals. But he has been successful in wooing the Congressional Black Caucus and Civil Rights leaders. Ties between him and the Rev. Jackson remain strong, evidenced by Rev. Jackson's defense of, "He [Taylor] is not encouraging the [Sierra Leone] war." Rev. Jackson and Taylor's household maintain close ties. For example, the reverend's goddaughter was seriously wounded, and the former Executive Director of the NAACP, Earl Shinhoster, killed in a car accident as Alabama State Police were providing VIP courtesy to Mrs. Jewel Taylor, then on a tour of Alabama, Montgomery, Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Dallas. According to Donna Muhammad, "Mr. Shinhoster was serving as one of the Atlanta hosts to the Reconstruction & Revitalization Tour for Liberia. The tour, designed to raise international awareness of Liberia's internal reconstruction and economic revitalization, included Her Excellency Madame Jewel Howard Taylor, the First Lady of the Republic of Liberia; Honorable Dunbar Jenkins, minister of Lands, Mines and Energy; Mrs. Sandra Howard, advisor to the President on Economic Affairs; and Mr. Sam Ricks, consultant to the minister of Energy." Mrs. Taylor's "Reconstruction & Revitalization Tour" was to be followed by the "goodwill tour," arranged by Rev. John Gimenez, bishop of Virginia Beach-based Rock

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Church, with eight congregations in Liberia. The "goodwill tour" bungled when reports emerged ofher husband's implications in the death of his vice president. The scandal led to the cancellation of the tour and her immediate return home, according to the Virginia Pilot. But like many Americans, Rev. Gimenez seems not to have been informed about Taylor's horrible human rights abuses. He told the Virginia Pilot, after hearing of the execution and mutilation of some of his Liberian flock, opposition politician Samuel Dokie and his wife and two others: "It was terrible what happened to Dokie," Gimenez said. "His wife, who was a wonderful lady-they just chopped her up in pieces. Even Dokie's children believe Taylor did it. I don't know one way or the other. It could have been him. I'm not saying he didn't do it. Dokie was very vocal against Taylor in the elections. If Taylor was behind it, nobody knows." But in spite of this, the cleric has been so impressed with Liberia's current political setup that he has initiated plans to build a TV and radio station in the country (among his many projects) regardless of abundant evidence of clampdown on independent media and journalists. According to Liz Szabo of the Virginia Pilot, the genesis of Rev. Gimenez's links to Liberia's corrupt and callous warlords turned born again Christians in search of money began at the time when they were storming the world in search of funding for their holocaust. It was then that one of their fundraisers, Gene Cox, met Rev. Gimenez. The story is one of a web of con artists capitalizing on what seems to be the sincere zeal of a man (Gimenez) determined to spread the "Word". It is evident that with little more information such as the bogus New Jersey-based business which "Church Elder" Woewiyu and Taylor ran during Doe's reign that siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars from Liberia, Rev. Gimenez would have "saved" this "Church elder" from coming any where near money. From indications, Woewiyu's prime objective in establishing Gimenez's Liberian "congregations" in multiplying numbers was money before God. The tale of Woewiyu, Cox, and their clans encounter with Gimenez is wrapped in greed and graft. Liz Szabo writes: Gimenez said he had never even heard ofthe West African country before 1996. Then, a man named Gene Cox approached him about donating money to Taylor's rebel army. Gimenez said he wasn't interested. 'I told him, 'What you need is Jesus, not guns,'" Gimenez recollected: "Cox came to Rock Church and was saved, Gimenez said. Cox then called Taylor's defense minister, Thomas Woewiyu, who was in the United States raising funds,

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and invited him to the Kempsville church. Woewiyu received the Lord and was baptized, Gimenez said. "Woewiyu told Gimenez he should start a church in Liberia. Cox's sister, the Rev. Rosetta Cox, agreed to go. But she had only been in Africa a short time when fighting became so intense that she and other Americans had to be evacuated to safety. "Months later, Cox and Gimenez returned to Liberia, meeting transitional leaders and eventually Taylor, who was elected president in 1997. Although the State Department says the elections were free, officials add that they were conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation. "Woewiyu, an elder in a Liberian Rock Church, was promoted to labor minister in Taylor's government and has since been elected senator, Gimenez said. The wife of the country's new vice president is a member, too, he said. "It was Woewiyu who suggested that Rock Church play host to Taylor and the first lady during their trips here, said Gimenez, who added that he had little to do with arranging the visits. 'I'm not close with him,' Gimenez said of Taylor. 'I'm not his buddy. He's got to answer to God one day."' The paper said although Rev. Gimenez acknowledged that Taylor is a former warlord, he concluded with available information that: "Taylor also is a huge improvement over Liberia's previous president, Samuel Doe, who was widely known to be corrupt and vicious." Here lies the power and evil of misinformation. Had the Rev. Gimenez known the real difference between Doe's and Taylor's Liberia, and that Taylor and Doe were partners who fell off over sharing of the booty, he would have been more careful in reaching such clearly erroneous conclusions. What would have happened if Rev. Gimenez knew the real stories behind the death of 250,000 people, 45,000 of them children from the war and its related causes is now guesswork. It is highly unlikely that Rev. Gimenez knew of Taylor's active participation in the coup that brought Doe to power and that he was one of the most corrupt officials in the junta. Nor was he told that according to Church figures, over 10,000 women were raped by competing rebel factions, including Taylor's NPFL which murdered 5 Catholic nuns. But Rev. Gimenez admits that: "You hear a lot of things about Charles Taylor," adding to the amazement of many Liberians and others familiar with the country, "But he has done a marvelous job. If you had seen the country after the civil war, you'd see. He's brought in a lot of business." Other American Church figures more informed on the country find such statements baffling.

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Says Rev. Jeri Bishop of the Methodist Church, one of Liberia's mainstream churches. "The people there, they're scared to death of him," Bishop said of Taylor. "I find it difficult that the (Rock) church is going to hail this man who began such a brutal war in Liberia," The Virginian Pilot reported. It added that: "Binaifer Nowrojee of Human Rights Watch returned from Liberia in May. Her research found many cases of civil rights abuses, including the silencing of media outlets such as Star Radio and The New Democrat newspaper. Nowrojee recommended that Norfolk limit its involvement with Liberia to humanitarian aid such as food, books or medicine." It quoted human rights worker as saying, "A church that would really have the welfare of Liberians at heart would not support this government, or Taylor He charted the course of modern warfare." Thus, the rhetoric of human rights, transparency in government and adherence to moral values led many to conclude that Taylor, perhaps the worst warlord West Africa has produced in recent times, would have been denied legitimacy by world opinion. To the contrary, he became and remains a darling of many within America. "Every society indeed has its disciples that preach, promote and protect its lunatic fringes," says a Liberian political activist in Europe. President Taylor's best PR is to do the right thing in Liberia. Perceptions about the country will not change by pouring money on American politicians. It only exposes the naivete of the Government. Good luck to the Liberia Support Network. The country needs all the support it can get, something difficult in view of prevailing conditions fostered and encouraged by President Taylor.

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Liberian President Charles Taylor Planned to Visit Morehouse College During U.S. Trip A Statement Issued by Elisher M. Ferrell Director of Public Relations

Liberian President Charles Taylor, whose visit to the United States has been postponed, will not visit Morehouse College on Friday, Sept. 24, as had been planned. While at Morehouse, President Taylor was to address a group of students and faculty. As an institution of higher learning, the College is committed to the principle of academic freedom, and fosters a climate of free inquiry and expression in order to serve its students, staff, faculty, other institutions and society. As a result, Morehouse encourages open discourse and the exchange of ideas on a wide range of topics, even those that maybe viewed as controversial. Several newspapers recently reported that Morehouse College was planning to confer an honorary degree on President Taylor during his visit. This information is incorrect. Morehouse College had no plans to confer an honorary degree on President Taylor. The College's policy on conferring honorary degrees dictates that, during its semi-annual meetings in November and April, the Morehouse College Board of Trustees considers honorary degree candidates submitted on the recommendation of the faculty. The faculty has not recommended President Taylor for an honorary degree. Founded in 1867, Morehouse College is the nation's only historically black, private liberal arts college for men. The College enrolls approximately 3,000 students and confers bachelor's degrees on more black men than any other institution in the world. Prominent alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize laureate and civil rights leader; Julius Coles, director of the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs, and former U.S. ambassador to Senegal; George W. Haley, U.S. ambassador to Gambia, and former U.S. postal rate commissioner; and Howard F. Jeter, former U.S. ambassador to Botswana.

Liberian Studies Journal, XXVI, 2 (2000)