Liberia:
Rewriting History
by William Bowles
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"Another day, another atrocity in Liberia's blood-soaked capital Monrovia"
is how the Independent tells it to us (26/07/03). And of course, the
predictable pleas for 'intervention' by the "world's superpower" from
liberal commentators. The entire history of how Liberia got to be where it
is today, and especially the role of the US, the IMF and the World Bank in
creating the current situation, has been erased from our consciousness by
the corporate media.
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Either the current chaos is presented as being 'typical' for an African
country or, as one in need of 'humanitarian' assistance from the West. The
current situation being the result of foreign intervention and manipulation
is rarely touched upon by the mass media. In an article by Fergal Keane also
in the Independent [UK newspaper], the best Keane could come up with is to advocate the
recolonisation of the country, when he says that,
"Only by turning Liberia into an international protectorate, à la Bosnia,
can the country be saved."
There's not much likelihood of this happening, given the lack of strategic
or economic significance of a country, which since the beginning of the
1980s has been pretty well destroyed as a result primarily of US policies.
Challenging the economic and political policies of the West as being at the
root of Liberia's dilemma is not raised. Instead, Keane and his ilk retreat
into an apolitical world, determined by some kind of vague 'moralistic'
position where the West, no longer having any interest in the region, has
better things to do.
US interest in 'saving' the country can be best summed up by this comment
from Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, who said he hasn't been convinced of the need for
troops.
"I think it's premature, and I would think a strong case would have to be
made that this is necessary to protect America's vital interests," he
said."
Vital interests? How many times have I heard this phrase? So much for US and
UK mouthings about their desire for freedom and democracy around the world.
A nation founded by freed slaves?
Much of the 'liberal' press commentary that urges US intervention in Liberia
is based upon the entirely false claim that Liberia was "founded by freed US
slaves" (eg Washington Post, 01/07/03). It backs up this entirely false
claim by citing the opinions of individuals in Liberia. But of course
desperate people resort to desperate measures.
Yet even a brief analysis of the history of Liberia reveals the reactionary
and racist role of the US in its creation and US economic and political
interests vested in the country from its foundation in 1822 to the
present-day as being the cause of the current situation.
"The doctrines of [the American Colonization] Society... should be regarded
by every man of color in these United States, as an evil for magnitude,
unexcelled, and whose doctrines aim at the entire extinction of the free
colored population and the riviting of Slavery."
Thus spoke the Philadelphia Convention of the Free People of Colour in 1832
about the activities of the American Colonization Society, an organisation
formed mainly by rich Southern slave owners (Thomas Jefferson was also a
member) that created the country we know today as Liberia.
'Repatriation', a word the West knows well
In 1822, the society established, on the West Coast of Africa a colony that
in 1847 became the 'independent' nation of Liberia. Repatriation, it was
proposed, was the best way to avoid emancipation of African-Americans in the
United States and thus avoid integration and the recognition of
African-Americans as equal citizens. But the idea of 'repatriating' several
million African-Americans, many of whom were already second or third
generation descendents, was in any case, unrealistic. By 1867 the society
had sent no more than 13,000 emigrants, and it was to send no more. In its
early days, white administrators from the American Colonization Society ran
the Liberian colony.
English-speaking Liberians, descendants of the former American slaves, make
up only 5% of the population, but have historically dominated the
intellectual and ruling class. Liberia's indigenous population is primarily
composed of Mande, Kwa, and Mel peoples. Liberia's constitution denied the
indigenous Liberians equal rights with the immigrants from America and their
descendents, and under their US-created constitution of 1847, didn't even
the achieve the right to vote until 1951.
"Supported by US Navy firepower, the newcomers settled on the coast and
occupied the best lands. For a long time, they refused to mix with the
junglemals, whom they considered 'savages'. Even today only 15 per cent of
the population speak English and practice Christianity.
In 1841, the US Government approved a constitution for the African
territory. It was written by Harvard academics, which called the country
Liberia. Washington also appointed Liberia's first African governor: Joseph
J Roberts. In July 1847, a Liberian Congress representing only the
repatriates from the US proclaimed independence. Roberts was appointed
President and the Harvard-made constitution was kept, along with a flag
which resembled that of the United States.
The emblem on the Liberian coat of arms reads: "Love of liberty brought us
here". However, independence brought little freedom for the original
population. For a long time, only landowners were able to vote. Today, the
45,000 descendants of the former US slaves form the core of the local ruling
class and are closely linked with transnational capital. Firestone and
Goodrich control one of the principal exports, rubber, under 99-year
concessions granted in 1926. The same is true of oil, iron ore and diamonds.
Resistance to this situation has been suppressed on several occasions by US
Marine interventions to "defend democracy". [See: GBGM-UMC]
So much for the fiction that Liberia was "founded by freed US slaves."
From Tubman to Taylor
The history of Liberia over the past fifty years is little different from
that of the preceeding one hundred. With its economy totally under the
control of US capital, it has been ruled by a series of oligarchies of one
kind or another. Oligarchies which have been only too willing to comply with
schemes initiated by the US during the Cold War period and of course, to
maintain a system conducive to the continued exploitation of the country's
resources by US corporations.
Dictators, first William V.S. Tubman and then William R. Tolbert, Jr. of the
True Whig Party (both of whom had been backed by the US) suppressed all
political opposition. But under Tolbert in the 1970s, the country moved to
strengthen ties with the Soviet Union. In 1980, the army (backed by the CIA)
engineered a coup d'etat that brought Master Sergeant Samuel Doe to power.
With Tolbert executed, Doe suspended the constitution and consolidated his
power.
Doe, trained by the US Green Berets, not surprisingly, signed an agreement
with the International Monetary Fund, on the condition of cuts in public
spending and the privatisation of state owned companies. The result? Falling
exports, increasing unemployment, the reduction of salaries in both public
and private sectors, and spiraling foreign debt, drove the country to the
verge of bankruptcy.
By 1987, virtually all Government financing came directly from the US, a
fact not unrelated to the vast North American business interests in Liberia
which included $450 million in direct investments, military bases, a
regional Voice of America station, and a communications center for all US
diplomatic missions in Africa which included CIA and NSA listening stations.
The Reagan years
From 1981, under the Reagan government, Liberia became a centre for US
covert actions against Libya, Chad and Angola. Doe started by closing the
Libyan mission in Monrovia, as Reagan had done in Washington and ordered
reductions in the size of the Soviet embassy staff. Doe also granted staging
rights on 24-hour notice at Liberia's sea and airports for the U.S. Rapid
Deployment Force. In 1982 the CIA, under the direction of William J. Casey,
initiated a large-scale covert operation against Libya with Liberia as its
centre of operations. Next was a covert operation in support of Chadian
leader Hissene Habre, who had successfully ousted his Libyan-backed rival,
Goukouni Oueddei in June.
Reagan's support for the dictatorship of Samuel Doe increased throughout the
1980s. In 1984, Doe changed the laws to make himself eligible for election,
closed down newspapers, banned opposition parties and got himself elected in
what was acknowledged to be a rigged election. But this didn't stop the US
from continuing to back Doe.
"This performance established a beginning,
however imperfect," Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker told
Congress two months later. After the election results were announced, the
House and Senate each passed nonbinding resolutions calling for an end to
U.S. assistance, but the Reagan administration continued to supply aid to
Doe.
Doe's regime also played a significant role in supplying weapons to UNITA
after the repeal of of the Clark Amendment in 1985, which banned covert
assistance to Jonas Savimbi's Apartheid government supported war against the
MPLA in Angola. This was the period of 'Low Intensity Warfare' first tested
in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas.
CIA activity in Liberia increased.
"We were prepared to use every lever
against Tripoli, and Monrovia had an important part," said a US intelligence
official with field experience in West Africa.
But by 1989, it seemed that Doe's time was up and a rebel force, the NPFL,
led by Charles Taylor marched on the capital, Monrovia. The US was reluctant
to let go of its 'asset', after all, millions of dollars had been invested
in the Doe dictatorship in creating an anti-Qaddafi, anti-MPLA base in West
Africa. And in any case, Taylor was an unknown quantity.
Things fall apart
By July 1990 the situation was deteriorating rapidly with the emergence of
yet another 'pretender to the throne,' led by 'Prince' Johnson whose
Independent Patriotic Front (INPFL), a splinter of the NPFL, in September
captured and executed Samuel Doe.
US dithering contributed directly to the resulting chaos and mayhem. But
aside from sending ships to evacuate US citizens and although the US
negotiated a cease-fire with Taylor (which the US later renéged on), as with
the current situation, the US clearly preferred to sacrifice African lives
instead of its own in the cause of 'democracy'.
The US did a deal with the Nigerians and the ECOWAS force entered Liberia
and forestalled a complete takeover of the country by Taylor's NPFL, but the
damage had already been done: 150,000 dead and the almost complete
dismemberment of the country. It's estimated that the ECOWAS occupation cost
West African countries $500 million toward which the US contributed nothing
except words.
But by now, the Cold War was over and the region no longer had the same
strategic significance. US African policy could now better be described as
one of benign neglect.
From this point on, the situation deteriorated even further, with at least
two other factions entering the fray and the civil war spilled over into
neighbouring Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone rebel army, the RUF, entered the
war in Liberia, allegedly on the side of Taylor's NPFL with the Sierra Leone
government accusing Taylor of aiding the RUF.
Elections were held in July 1997 under the auspices of the UN that Charles
Taylor won convincingly, but by now the machinery of the state was in
tatters. With no effective mechanisms in place, under the circumstances it
was inevitable that the situation would spiral out of control, and although
Taylor formed a government, it was never able to consolidate its power and
reconstitute an effective central state. Further meddling from the West only
complicated the situation, resulting in Taylor being indicted for war
crimes, a situation which made it impossible for Taylor rule with any kind
of mandate regardless of his ability to do so. It was only a question time
before Taylor's rule was challenged.
Revising history
The current revisionist history peddled by the West is that 'aid' has led to
the current list of 'failed' states in Africa, encouraged corruption and
created a situation of 'dependency' on the West. In addition, the West
claims that because there is no 'tradition' of democracy in African
countries, they are prey to 'tribal' divisions. Implicit in this claim is
the idea that somehow Africans are 'different' than people in the West. But
at the root of the problem is the West's policy of Structural Adjustment
which has impoverished the continent. And the West conveniently forgets that
many, if not all of the continent's dictators have been propped up for
decades by the West, of which Liberia is a textbook example.
And whilst I don't defend the actions of the Taylors and Tubmans, it's
important to recognise that it is the lack of developed economies, which in
turn forms the basis for the creation of viable civil societies, that is the
root cause of the current chaos in Africa. The crocodile tears currently
being shed in the West over the plight of much of Africa is yet again, a
case of 'blaming the victim.'
It's all very well Western countries calling for democratic accountability
and fiscal rsponsibility, but the majority of sub-Saharan countries have
seen their economies increasingly impoverished by the economic policies
imposed on them by the developed world since the 1970s.
Unable to compete on an equal footing, with mounting debts and forced to cut
back on health, education, housing and job creation in order to pay them:
their economies distorted by the need to export to Western markets in order
to earn dollars to buy imports for products they are no longer able to
produce for themselves: they are caught in a viscious spiral that invariably
ends in total collapse.
It is the height of hypocrisy (not to mention the inherent racism) to read
in the Western media, tales of terror that paint a picture of barbarism in
Africa, as if it's the product of the 'African mentality,' without
recognising the role and responsibilty of the West in the creation of
'failed' states.
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– William Bowles
In the seventies I worked in electronic publishing (SouthScan), radio production (WBAI FM), television (South Africa Now) and ultimately on to Africa. During this period I [became] involve[d] with the African National Congress and later SWAPO in Namibia and work in Central America, again using computers as tools of communication and change.
For the past ten years I’ve been working in Johannesburg, South Africa, firstly for the ANC where I set up the Election Information Unit for the 1994 democratic elections. I then directed the development of the first digital multi-media centre in Africa in COSATU’s headquarters, the Centre for Democratic Communications.
But writing, which has always been a passion and a talent I was fortunate to possess, led me back into the world of words, although I continued to work in the world of information technology but with the focus less on the technology than on the skills needed to harness it in the transformation of society. I lectured and developed courses at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism at Wits University in the online environment as well workshops on the role of IT in the transformation of government for the School of Public Development Management. Amongst the last projects I completed in South Africa were three scripts for television, for a young, black-owned film production company, Fuzebox Productions on Freedom Day, Youth Day and the National Anthem, Nkosi Sikilel i’Africa for the SA government.
But after 27 years abroad, I find myself back in the city of my birth, London, and where I spent the first 30 years of my life, contemplating my future and the direction I would like my life to take. Since coming back to London I have been involved in a number of projects including developing the brief and business plan for city-based broad band wireless network with the focus on marketing/distribution of digitally based cultural products and home and office based connectivity (still on-going) and spending a lot of time writing, both fiction (one novel completed and a second in the works) and current affairs essays.
Web site: http://www.williambowles.info/
This article was first run on http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-068.html
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