Guinean Coup a threat to Liberia

I spent most of December 23 with an injured ankle up no the railing, mourning the fact that I would not be fit to travel to Guinea, to cover the coup emerging from the death of former president Lansana Conté.

This, however, allowed plans of five magical days camping along Liberia’s remote southern coast (walking assistance included). Readjusting to the snarling life of Monrovia, this is the news on Guinea.

Full details on whose support falls where in Guinea still remain scarce, but this article from Al-Jazeera gives a fairly decent overview. BBC has this article, which highlights the African Union’s (AU) decision to place a temporary ban on Guinea, following its protocol to not recognize coup’s as a legitimate means of changing government. South African Star has just reported there will be Guinean elections in 2010, and 1 hour ago, BBC reported that a new PM has been named. (No other reports have confirmed either of these as of yet.)

This news has captured much interest in Liberia, where violence along its borders have brought much violence to the country.

Liberia and its West African neighbours have a shaky history of border control. Mercenary activity and border incursions have been common instigators of conflict. Charles Taylor launched an international group of fighters from beyond the border of Ivory Coast over Christmas 1989, putting into progress 14 years of civil war; 2001 saw the Guinean-backed (and harboured) Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) launch an offensive on Taylor-held Liberia ; and Taylor himself remains on trial in the Hague for supplying Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) with weapons and fighters in exchange for diamonds.

Governments ignoring, sympathizing, or encouraging military activity within their borders has had real consequences throughout the Manu River Union (MRU) of Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Liberian leaders know very well the importance of securing peace along the borders, and that avoiding any escalation of conflict in neighbouring countries remains in their best interest.

“Our appeal to all Liberians is to stay out of Guinea and let them resolve [the situation] in a peaceful way, and don’t get involved in it” the New Democrat Newspaper quoted President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as saying on the weekend, in reference to reports that Liberian mercenaries had begun trawling for job offers along the country’s northwestern borders, hoping to find interest in the current interim government.

Increased border control has been instated at Sirleaf’s request, with all main entries to Guinea reported to be more or less closed to all traffic. The Liberian government have requested the UN’s mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to assist in tightening up what Sirleaf and others call a ‘porous’ border.

Peace, like violence, as been contagious in the region. Preventing ex-fighters from entering Guinea will be essential to allowing the peacebuilding process to continue in the MRU.

Charles Taylor's Former Party Reunites

This post is a bit overdue. I had been hoping that a publication I had pitched to would have picked it up. But they didn't, so an unfinished fragment I now offer here.





Liberia’s National Patriotic Party (NPP), the party loyal to Charles Taylor, came together this past Saturday for the first time in five years to officially declare their return to the nation’s political scene, the party’s continued support of Taylor, and the NPP’s ambition to move towards a win in the 2011 elections.

“If there was a time when we needed to believe again, to hope again, to be renewed again, to call on each other again, to show loyalty to NPP again, to love Liberia again, and to pledge allegiance to the indivisibility of our one republic, that time is now,” exclaimed Lewis Brown, a former minister under Taylor, to rounds of loud applause.

“Today I join my voice to the chorus of many across the country, and across the world in an unequivocal declaration: We Are Back!” Brown shouted to a standing ovation.

Senator Jewel Taylor, the estranged wife of Charles, emphasized the party’s need to move beyond the difficulties it has experienced since the removal of Taylor in 2003, and prepare for the future.

“We need to gear up again for 2011, we need to re-establish again in our counties. We need to be seen, we need to be part of the political landscape,” she assured following the speeches.

“This [event] is just the beginning of the process.”

Though still on trial at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Charles Taylor remains wildly popular in Liberia, and the indisputable figurehead of the party. From party executives, to youth members, to ex-combatants, wounded while fighting under Taylor, the undercurrent of support for Taylor’s acquittal, and for his eventual return, runs strong amongst the NPP partisans in attendance.

Despite international condemnation, Taylor remains wildly popular in the country. “If they brought Taylor back from the Hague, right now, and they ran an election, man, he would win it, almost for sure,” asserts a seasoned Liberian reporter from his office, who asked to remain nameless.

He is not alone in this belief. While some point to the power of propaganda in a country with a 70 % illiteracy rate, others suggest the years of Taylor’s intimidation and the charismatic power he held over Liberia as reasons for the lingering popularity despite his atrocious track record in the country.

Taylor’s election slogan in 1997 stated “He killed you ma, he killed your pa, but you will vote for him.” This neither explains nor justifies how his popularity can remain, but does offer a reference point for the complex forces that inculcate his continuing popularity.

Should Hague prosecutors fail to produce a conviction of Taylor, the fact that his former party stands waiting to welcome his return would present a major embarrassment.
As highlighted by a party executive, “Mr Taylor is going come here and sit by us and guide the process as we rejuvenate the new Liberia,” a comment met by nods and shouts of approval by his collected entourage.

Sliding Liberia

For surfers and non-surfers alike, 'Sliding Liberia' offers an aesthetically beautiful trip along the coast of this West African nation. Set shortly after the end of Liberia's 14-year civil war, the directors do well to juxtapose the nation's brutal history against its hopeful future. Using surfing as the medium, a beautiful montage of shots shape the captivating cinematography for story that is as much about surfing as it is about humanity.

The website offers an enticing peak at the trailer, along with beautiful photo essays - well worth checking out.

Still suffering from a herniated disk in my lower back, this film has made it even harder to wait patiently on Liberia's shores until I can safely return to the water.

Look for my full review on this film in the upcoming issue of SBC Surf, but in the meantime, check out some 'sliding'.

Liberian ex-Soldiers Demand Payment

a protesting soldier running with his battalion mimics the shooting of an AK-47


Hundreds of former soldiers of the disbanded Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) held Monrovia’s United Nations (UN) Drive to a standstill yesterday as they demanded several months of back pay.

Withholding pay from poor soldiers is a notoriously dangerous practice - especially in a country just recently emerged from a 14 years of civil war - and threats of the gathering boiling over remained constant.

“We don’t want trouble, we are peaceful today,” shouted one retired officer, who wished to remain anonymous, “but if trouble comes, we are prepared. We will shed our blood in the street if we have to.”

Please see the full article, with C.Y. Kwanue, at www.jhr.ca/fieldnotes/view.php?aid=1518


UN soldier regulates the crowd

Liberia Peace And Culture Festival, 2008

Find a full article about the festival here



Peace remains fragile in Liberia. The fourth annual Peace and Cultural Festival, held this year in Monrovia, plays an important stepping stone in the slow process
of rebuilding this society.



Cultural traditions supressed by 2 decades of conflict and repression are put on display to help encourage the growth of the society. But peace remains carefully patrolled here, and armed guards control public gatherings.

60 Years of Human Rights

December 10, 2008 marks 60 years since the release of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Birthed out of the horrors of World War II, the Declaration aims to assert a basic level of rights and freedoms to all peoples of the world. Civil, political, labour, and economic rights are all considered, and the document’s design strives to be applicable and relevant to societies around the world.

Arguments still brew regarding the ‘universality’ of the document, but it is the minority who believe the dialogue that has emerged from the UDHR has had a negative overall effect. However, detractors from the Declaration have raised valid critiques that should not be overlooked.

However, these criticisms generally focus on only one or two of the articles in the Declaration. The majority of UDHR articles are promoted by the international community, with governments of every religious, ethnic and economic makeup taking sincere efforts to uphold their commitments to the UDHR.

Liberia, like many nations, suffers this plight. As a country rebounding from a 14-year civil war, Liberia continues to be crippled by institutional problems that prevent its citizens from enjoying full access to their rights. Prisons are packed with people still awaiting trial (over 90% not having seen a judge); unemployment hovers around 75 %; children work selling goods in the streets instead of attending school; and a fractured health system makes access to even a nurse sporadic, difficult or impossible for swaths of the population.

Poverty, corruption, lack of infrastructure, and civil strife make an even greater challenge out of fulfilling their commitment to human rights. Environmental degradation shows signs of compounding some of these problems, as does the depletion of resources –unforeseen factors during the original drafting of the UDHR.

These problems are echoed around the world in countries. In some places, the amount of work, effort and money needed to alleviate such issues requires shockingly little money. In others, the amount is staggering.

Sixty years later, tangible progress has been made, and, increasingly, awareness grows that abusing the basic rights and freedoms of anyone, anywhere, is no longer acceptable. Continuing work to promote this will be naturally slow, and non-linear; such changes cannot happen overnight.

Heated Shade

Sun beats down everywhere. Teaming hot shade only forms under the palm-frond cubed cabanas, constructed only hours earlier, just for today’s events.

This shade comes at a price, though this price will never be listed, nor made clear. It rises and falls in relation to the temperaments of the hut managers, the degree to which shade-seekers know these purveyors and – most importantly – the ability to read these moods and negotiate accordingly. Trying to hide the desperation to exit the scalding hot sand is an essential part of the bargaining process.

Edging is the only way to move through the crowd. Every hundred steps a new soundsystem dominates the airwaves. People shake effortlessly in front of the various sound systems, unperturbed by the constant trickle of people ambling around.

Vendors pop out of the crowd with constancy, an assortment of wares on offer. Photos from the roving men with cameras and receipts that will allow your film to be picked up later in the week; fried meatsticks sticking out from the charcoal grills, the grimace of their chefs suggesting discontent with a job that only brings more heat to the day; stacks of bikinis, spread on towels in front of cross-legged woman; cold drinks from coolers balanced atop the heads of children. Take your pick.

The ‘in motion’ dimension of the crowd pulls us around the thick armed men of the bench press exhibit. It herds people out to the cooling of the Atlantic or to the ‘not-so-cooling’ of the shallow lagoon. Out to the main beach area, or back towards the huts; the choice not often more a ‘choice’ of crowd dynamics than personal agency. This movement has its own life. It can catch you up in its direction and pace. Pull you along with it like an older brother, or a rip tide, or stop you dead in your tracks.

That latter option, in fact, is how we finally score our own piece of palapa real estate. The crowd comes to a halt, and we end up in front of the rarity of an open hut; our place to sit amongst the mass of bodies forever moving around us. Hut Maker 14 – as his apropos neck ID card reads – frequently reminds of our luck to have found this spot, passing by for the third time to hint at the inhospitably exposed sand, and our luck to have found such solace. He receives due his compensation.


- - -

Like Holidays everywhere, Tubman day in Liberia marks the birthday of a once eminent figure that hardly anyone today lived under. The almost exclusively youthful crowd on the beach makes this fact especially true; William S. Tubman died in 1971, while still president.

Tubman remains an anomaly in the country’s recent history. Liberia elected Tubman to office in 1944, allowing him to stay there for 27 years. He remains one of the longest standing leaders of an African nation. Though not without his criticisms and adversaries, stacked against long-term rulers on the continent (Mobutu Sese Soko, 32 years and Robert Mugabe, 28 years, for example ), Tubman comes off as decidedly less ruthless.

More relevant perhaps is how Tubman fits into the recent political history of the nation. Since the bloody arrival of Samuel Doe in 1980, Liberia saw mainly greed, repression and violence from its rulers up until the removal of Charles Taylor from office in 2003. Tubman's years in office characterize a different era, one free of the governmental atrocities that have been common in the lives of contemporary Liberians.

Thus, Tubman’s day of birth means cause to celebrate. It also serves as the unofficial opener to beach season, and with that, the theoretical terminus of months filled with daily downpour; a time for change.

If this connection can be described as symbolic to a nation struggling to make positive strides towards a new future, no one regards it as such. Today, it is just a holiday, and days without work are for having fun.