In the early 19th century, Paul Cuffe, a wealthy African-American merchant from Massachusetts, became convinced that the only way that American blacks could become self-governing was to emigrate to Africa. To this end, he created a transportation company called the American Colonization Society. With the U.S. government's approval, the Society began to resettle free American blacks in Liberia.
Those pioneers were the original Americo-Liberians. In the small tropical nation, they quickly became the ruling group, assuming all positions of power and influence. Soon they constituted a U.S.-friendly elite. (It was also an elite whose skin color was typically lighter than that of the original Liberians. Sadly, then, the Americo-Liberians created a hierarchy that, in this respect, mirrored the racial hierarchy they had endured in the U.S..)
In the 1920's - in large part because of the presence of this friendly elite, and that of a considerable U.S. naval fleet just offshore - the U.S.-based Firestone Tire and Rubber Company founded the largest rubber plantation in the world in Liberia. The company installed Americo-Liberians in positions of power, and the small elite rose to economic prominence.
Subsequently, Liberia's president, William Tubman - who ruled from 1944 to 1971 - allowed the CIA to build the largest spy station in all of Africa within his borders. During the Cold War, the U.S. sank billions of dollars into developing surveillance equipment in Liberia. Liberia also functioned as a U.S. outpost from which the U.S. sought to undermine national liberation movements throughout the continent.
After Tubman's death, his successor, President William Tolbert, angered the U.S. by courting favor with China and Cuba. Tolbert also angered most Liberians by showering privileges on his fellow Americo-Liberians. The ethnic and class conflicts between the Americo-Liberians and the darker Liberians grew.
In 1980, Tolbert was murdered by Samuel Doe - an illiterate warlord trained by the U.S. Green Berets. Doe became the first "true" Liberian to rule the country. Doe assassinated most of the former cabinet members as well as his fellow insurgents, and unleashed a wave of ethnic-based terror.
Doe also exploited America's Cold War fears concerning Africa. Famously, President Reagan - who handed Liberia more than $5 billion during the early 1980s - invited Doe to the White House, addressing him as "Chairman Moe."
Around the same time, Charles Taylor - an Americo-Liberian who had graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts, and was in prison there on charges of embezzling part of the Liberian national budget - escaped, and returned to Liberia.
Taylor quickly became Doe's main adversary. He led a group of boy soldiers who for years hounded Doe's army and the civilian population from their countryside hideouts. By the mid-1990s, that protracted civil war had claimed more than 200,000 lives. In 1997 - as a result of national presidential elections that international observers concluded were essentially open and fair - Taylor won, garnering more than 75 % of the vote of the war-weary population.
Taylor used his new power to foment instability in neighboring Sierra Leone, in large part so he could mine diamonds there to fund other regional military insurgencies. Indeed, over the past decade, Liberia has been at the center of a complex web of regional battles in West Africa -one that has also consumed Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Nigeria - that has involved not only such diamonds, but also illegal arms sales, massive refugee flows, the use of child soldiers and unspeakable human rights abuses.
When the world became aware of the problems of "conflict diamonds" - illegally mined and traded diamonds that could fund arms trade and terrorism - Taylor diversified his business interests, in ominous ways.
Recently, the Center for Investigative Reporting detailed the links between illegal harvesting of Liberia's tropical rain forests and illegal arms smuggling in the area. The report noted that U.S. consumers are buying large volumes of wood products from Liberia - though it has been repeatedly sanctioned by the UN because of these sales. The report also noted that, unlike many other countries, the U.S. has failed to ban the import of Liberian wood, and thus to comply with the UN sanctions.
Currently, the United States is particularly interested in the arms/wood trade in Liberia because Al Qaeda has been funding many of its activities through income sources such as diamonds and timber. Accordingly, Liberian intelligence may offer some help in tracking the financial dealings of Al Qaeda.
In addition, the U.S. fears that a destabilized Liberia could become a training ground for other terrorist groups. Its porous borders, excellent natural wealth and lack of any sort of government or other control make Liberia, in some ways, a perfect base of operations for terrorists. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice recently told the Washington Post that the September 11 attacks showed that such failed states can spawn "so much instability that you begin to see greater sources of terrorism."
| And there's more to consider, says Noah Leavitt in "Understanding America's Obligations in Africa's Newest Trouble Zone: The Representations the U.S. Made, and How Liberia Relied on Them" for FindLaw's Writ
posted in articles on July 23, 2003 11:24 PM | t (0)
« Previous phile: I am on the inside making laws.
» Next phile: Race gap in drug coverage.
Return to top of page