This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (September 2003), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain.
The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century rendered slaves in America redundant. Mechanised production methods turned slave labour into a fetter on production and consequently a drag on the profits of slave owners. To solve the problem, the slave owners and their representatives (US government) formed an NGO called the American Colonisation Society whose task was to ship slaves to their original home of Africa. This is how the American slaves came to be dumped in present-day Liberia.
Today this small country is deeply embroiled in a senseless internecine war that has seen thousands killed and many more maimed or displaced; this mainly because of the abundant natural resources found there. The Guinea Coast of West Africa has recently been found to be replete with oil deposits and natural gas and Liberia is said to possess one of the largest reserves of these. It is also generously endowed with precious minerals (gold, diamonds and quite recently 8 kymbalyte sites have been discovered). Its dense forest cover harbours timber, rubber, etc in addition there are abundant maritime resources.
Some people unfortunately seek to explain the problem in Liberia as being tribal in character. But like the ones in Congo, Ivory Coast and indeed all conflicts the world over, the tribal/ethnic element is a mere smokescreen. The real causes are found in the economic interests of the warlords and their sponsors and financiers in the big business community.
The wealth and resources of the region are owned and controlled by
western business companies and the local leadership to the exclusion of
the people. However, bereft of any revolutionary solution to this state
of affairs, some seek to constitute themselves into a force that would
replace the puppet local leadership and in turn control these resources
not in the interests of the masses but for themselves. Thus they aspire
to shift the balance of forces in favour mainly of new capitalist groups
abroad that are also seeking to break the monopoly of the existing
(mostly ex-colonial) business companies. But as the whole sordid affair
resolves around personal monetary interests and profits, the alliances
are not always as sincere and smooth as expected and loyalties easily
shift. In an interview Charles Taylor granted Baffour Ankomah, the
editor of New African magazine on 20 June 2002, this particular Liberian
leader said “during the war there was full cooperation between me and
Washington, and then we got into a different phase. And God willing,
we’ve got to get back to the original place where I want to do business
with America, I want to engage it”.
Arms industry
Prominent among the business interests deeply involved in the Liberian
crisis and indeed all wars are those in the arms industry. Arms dealers
do not only find warlords great partners, they actually instigate them
and then stoke the fires of conflict. Even where countries are under UN
arms embargo, the sanctions are circumvented through various means the
most common being done through forging the end-user certificate. In the
case of Liberia a 64-page UN report released at the end of October 2002
revealed that Liberia clandestinely bought and received more than 200
tons of weapons between June and August 2002 in spite of the 1992 UN
arms embargo which was strengthened in 2001.
As for the rebels, it is no secret that weapons are openly sold to them by the almighty gunrunners, sometimes with the tacit connivance of UN “in the field”.
The immediate cause of the carnage is that the US, UK, Guinea and Sierra Leonean Kamajors (traditional hunter/warriors) have ganged up with a few Liberian rebels called LURD to cause havoc. The idea is to wage a proxy rebel war, get the Liberians to become fed up and rise up against the government. This fact was revealed by a confidential report of an Ecowas Military Mission to Liberia dated 14 June 2002.
When Charles Taylor “escaped” from prison in the US and went to
Liberia and launched his rebel war in December 1989, he was in the good
books of the US capitalists. The reason for his incarceration was an
alleged embezzlement of some $900,000 which Samuel Doe’s government
accused him of. At that time Taylor was the Director General of the
state-owned General Services Agency. But at the same time Doe’s
dictatorial rule had become so unpopular that change was imminent. The
Americans knew this and actually needed a replacement. Thus the apparent
orchestration of the jailbreak by the US authorities. He flew to Ghana
from Boston but was immediately arrested by the Ghanaian authorities, as
they believed it was impossible for an African to escape from a top
security prison in the US. Needless to say the Americans in all
likelihood got the Ghanaians to set him free. But before he captured
Monrovia after years of fighting, he had a falling out with the
Americans. It is believed that NPLF rebel fighters had cornered and
wiped out President Doe’s Israeli commandos and the Israeli government
vehemently protested to the US. And that was it.
That partly explains the breaking away from Taylor of Prince Y Johnson
to form the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). It
is interesting to note that no sooner had the UN Special Court on Sierra
Leone been constituted than Prince Johnson intimated from his exile
home in Nigeria that Liberians including Taylor be brought in to face
war crime charges. This sour relation with US drew Taylor more and more
close to the French capitalists who looted Liberian timber and other
resources in return for an unflinching and consistent support in the war
effort.
But things got worse with the Americans when Taylor began castigating
the US for not having done anything meaningful to Liberia throughout its
life as an American satellite state. He claimed for instance that the
1926 Firestone factory was only set up to rip off Liberian rubber and
that Lamco situated at Bomi Hills only succeeded in creating a deep hole
in the ground as the iron was depleted. But the straw to break the
camel’s back was Taylor’s rejection of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton oil
deals. Desmond Davies, editor of West Africa magazine writes in the 26th
May – 1st June 2002 issue:
“Liberia is another country in which Halliburton (once operated by US
vice president Dick Cheney) was keen to do business. This may come as a
surprise, given the antagonistic stance the Bush administration has
taken towards President Charles Taylor’s government. But Halliburton
knows how to apply pressure on embattled governments in the hope of
getting concessions.
It seems that a couple of years ago Halliburton’s representatives made
Charles Taylor an offer he could not refuse: “give us oil-drilling
rights and we will help remove the international pariah status of the
Liberian government”. (By the way, there is oil in Liberia as in the
case of neighbouring Sierra Leone.) Taylor, who was keen to see UN
sanctions removed, agreed and Halliburton was asked to draw up an
agreement.
The company’s representatives duly returned with an agreement. But one
wise head at the Central Bank in Monrovia asked for a second opinion.
The agreement was referred to a Canadian oil lawyer, who is based in the
US, to go through it with a fine-tooth comb.
After serious perusal of the agreement, the lawyer came back with his
verdict: the deal was not in the interest of Liberia and, therefore, the
government should not sign. That was it. And that’s how Taylor came up
with “Liberia is not for sale”.
Given the failure of Halliburton to secure a deal in Liberia, it is not
surprising that the US administration wants to see the back of Taylor.
In fact as far back as 1997 when Taylor won the elections CNN’s
Diplomatic Licence programme “predicted” that his government would not
last a year or six months. So desperate was the US in seeing Taylor out
that while he was away attending the peace talks in Ghana last June the
US embassy in Monrovia unsuccessfully attempted to oust him through vice
president Blah.
UN experts (under US control), who in spite of the untold suffering and
the countless deaths, recently described the effect of the UN sanctions
on the people as “negligible”, explicitly expressed that the crisis in
Liberia is according to the agenda of the powers that be. The UN also
showed its involvement in the affair when it demanded financial reports
how Liberia spends its income.
In November 2002 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf admitted in an interview with a
local newspaper the Analyst that the opposition was not prepared to
assume leadership. And yet the US, as reported by Radio France
International on 6 August, is pushing for Johnson-Sirleaf to step in as
interim president when Taylor is finally pushed away. On the other hand
it was clear at the Ecowas-led summit in Ghana that both rebel groups
(LURD and MODEL) do not have any know-how to deal with the issues that
go beyond waging a war of terror. They do not have a political agenda,
not a policy document to guide them.
But perhaps the last card for the US is the indictment by David M Crane,
the American chief prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone.
The Americans feared that the peace talks in Ghana could abate or even
halt hostilities altogether in Liberia. In that case general election,
due to be held in October 2003 would go ahead peacefully. Now, in spite
of Taylor’s “problems” (which many Liberians seem to understand were
imposed by some outside forces) he would win. So to forestall such an
unwanted possibility, the indictment that was judicially approved on 7
March was finally slapped on Taylor on 4 June in time to prevent
cessation of the massacres.
Finally it was instructive to hear the South African authorities
claiming rather naively that the stepping down of Taylor would be an
example of an African solution to an African problem. But what else
could they say as loyal sycophantic servants of US-led capitalist
interests? The problem in Liberia is not African; it is not western; it
is a global, profits-making issue! It is big business. But above all the
solution is not Taylor stepping down. It is the profit system getting
out.
Author: Suhuyini
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