{"id":862,"date":"2019-03-06T23:13:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T23:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=862"},"modified":"2019-03-06T23:13:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T23:13:49","slug":"the-liberian-crisis-in-perspective","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/the-liberian-crisis-in-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liberian crisis in perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (September 2003), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century rendered slaves in America\n redundant. Mechanised production methods turned slave labour into a \nfetter on production and consequently a drag on the profits of slave \nowners. To solve the problem, the slave owners and their representatives\n (US government) formed an NGO called the American Colonisation Society \nwhose task was to ship slaves to their original home of Africa. This is \nhow the American slaves came to be dumped in present-day Liberia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nToday this small country is deeply embroiled in a senseless internecine \nwar that has seen thousands killed and many more maimed or displaced; \nthis mainly because of the abundant natural resources found there. The \nGuinea Coast of West Africa has recently been found to be replete with \noil deposits and natural gas and Liberia is said to possess one of the \nlargest reserves of these. It is also generously endowed with precious \nminerals (gold, diamonds and quite recently 8 kymbalyte sites have been \ndiscovered). Its dense forest cover harbours timber, rubber, etc in \naddition there are abundant maritime resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSome people unfortunately seek to explain the problem in Liberia as \nbeing tribal in character. But like the ones in Congo, Ivory Coast and \nindeed all conflicts the world over, the tribal\/ethnic element is a mere\n smokescreen. The real causes are found in the economic interests of the\n warlords and their sponsors and financiers in the big business \ncommunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe wealth and resources of the region are owned and controlled by \nwestern business companies and the local leadership to the exclusion of \nthe people. However, bereft of any revolutionary solution to this state \nof affairs, some seek to constitute themselves into a force that would \nreplace the puppet local leadership and in turn control these resources \nnot in the interests of the masses but for themselves. Thus they aspire \nto shift the balance of forces in favour mainly of new capitalist groups\n abroad that are also seeking to break the monopoly of the existing \n(mostly ex-colonial) business companies. But as the whole sordid affair \nresolves around personal monetary interests and profits, the alliances \nare not always as sincere and smooth as expected and loyalties easily \nshift. In an interview Charles Taylor granted Baffour Ankomah, the \neditor of New African magazine on 20 June 2002, this particular Liberian\n leader said \u201cduring the war there was full cooperation between me and \nWashington, and then we got into a different phase. And God willing, \nwe’ve got to get back to the original place where I want to do business \nwith America, I want to engage it\u201d.

Arms industry<\/strong>
\nProminent among the business interests deeply involved in the Liberian \ncrisis and indeed all wars are those in the arms industry. Arms dealers \ndo not only find warlords great partners, they actually instigate them \nand then stoke the fires of conflict. Even where countries are under UN \narms embargo, the sanctions are circumvented through various means the \nmost common being done through forging the end-user certificate. In the \ncase of Liberia a 64-page UN report released at the end of October 2002 \nrevealed that Liberia clandestinely bought and received more than 200 \ntons of weapons between June and August 2002 in spite of the 1992 UN \narms embargo which was strengthened in 2001. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAs for the rebels, it is no secret that weapons are openly sold to them \nby the almighty gunrunners, sometimes with the tacit connivance of UN \n\u201cin the field\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe immediate cause of the carnage is that the US, UK, Guinea and Sierra\n Leonean Kamajors (traditional hunter\/warriors) have ganged up with a \nfew Liberian rebels called LURD to cause havoc. The idea is to wage a \nproxy rebel war, get the Liberians to become fed up and rise up against \nthe government. This fact was revealed by a confidential report of an \nEcowas Military Mission to Liberia dated 14 June 2002.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Charles Taylor \u201cescaped\u201d from prison in the US and went to \nLiberia and launched his rebel war in December 1989, he was in the good \nbooks of the US capitalists. The reason for his incarceration was an \nalleged embezzlement of some $900,000 which Samuel Doe’s government \naccused him of. At that time Taylor was the Director General of the \nstate-owned General Services Agency. But at the same time Doe’s \ndictatorial rule had become so unpopular that change was imminent. The \nAmericans knew this and actually needed a replacement. Thus the apparent\n orchestration of the jailbreak by the US authorities. He flew to Ghana \nfrom Boston but was immediately arrested by the Ghanaian authorities, as\n they believed it was impossible for an African to escape from a top \nsecurity prison in the US. Needless to say the Americans in all \nlikelihood got the Ghanaians to set him free. But before he captured \nMonrovia after years of fighting, he had a falling out with the \nAmericans. It is believed that NPLF rebel fighters had cornered and \nwiped out President Doe’s Israeli commandos and the Israeli government \nvehemently protested to the US. And that was it.

\nThat partly explains the breaking away from Taylor of Prince Y Johnson \nto form the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). It \nis interesting to note that no sooner had the UN Special Court on Sierra\n Leone been constituted than Prince Johnson intimated from his exile \nhome in Nigeria that Liberians including Taylor be brought in to face \nwar crime charges. This sour relation with US drew Taylor more and more \nclose to the French capitalists who looted Liberian timber and other \nresources in return for an unflinching and consistent support in the war\n effort.

\nBut things got worse with the Americans when Taylor began castigating \nthe US for not having done anything meaningful to Liberia throughout its\n life as an American satellite state. He claimed for instance that the \n1926 Firestone factory was only set up to rip off Liberian rubber and \nthat Lamco situated at Bomi Hills only succeeded in creating a deep hole\n in the ground as the iron was depleted. But the straw to break the \ncamel’s back was Taylor’s rejection of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton oil \ndeals. Desmond Davies, editor of West Africa magazine writes in the 26th\n May \u2013 1st June 2002 issue:
\n
\n\u201cLiberia is another country in which Halliburton (once operated by US \nvice president Dick Cheney) was keen to do business. This may come as a \nsurprise, given the antagonistic stance the Bush administration has \ntaken towards President Charles Taylor’s government. But Halliburton \nknows how to apply pressure on embattled governments in the hope of \ngetting concessions.

\nIt seems that a couple of years ago Halliburton’s representatives made \nCharles Taylor an offer he could not refuse: \u201cgive us oil-drilling \nrights and we will help remove the international pariah status of the \nLiberian government\u201d. (By the way, there is oil in Liberia as in the \ncase of neighbouring Sierra Leone.) Taylor, who was keen to see UN \nsanctions removed, agreed and Halliburton was asked to draw up an \nagreement.

\nThe company’s representatives duly returned with an agreement. But one \nwise head at the Central Bank in Monrovia asked for a second opinion. \nThe agreement was referred to a Canadian oil lawyer, who is based in the\n US, to go through it with a fine-tooth comb.

\nAfter serious perusal of the agreement, the lawyer came back with his \nverdict: the deal was not in the interest of Liberia and, therefore, the\n government should not sign. That was it. And that’s how Taylor came up \nwith \u201cLiberia is not for sale\u201d.
\n
\nGiven the failure of Halliburton to secure a deal in Liberia, it is not \nsurprising that the US administration wants to see the back of Taylor.

\nIn fact as far back as 1997 when Taylor won the elections CNN’s \nDiplomatic Licence programme \u201cpredicted\u201d that his government would not \nlast a year or six months. So desperate was the US in seeing Taylor out \nthat while he was away attending the peace talks in Ghana last June the \nUS embassy in Monrovia unsuccessfully attempted to oust him through vice\n president Blah.

\nUN experts (under US control), who in spite of the untold suffering and \nthe countless deaths, recently described the effect of the UN sanctions \non the people as \u201cnegligible\u201d, explicitly expressed that the crisis in \nLiberia is according to the agenda of the powers that be. The UN also \nshowed its involvement in the affair when it demanded financial reports \nhow Liberia spends its income.

\nIn November 2002 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf admitted in an interview with a \nlocal newspaper the Analyst that the opposition was not prepared to \nassume leadership. And yet the US, as reported by Radio France \nInternational on 6 August, is pushing for Johnson-Sirleaf to step in as \ninterim president when Taylor is finally pushed away. On the other hand \nit was clear at the Ecowas-led summit in Ghana that both rebel groups \n(LURD and MODEL) do not have any know-how to deal with the issues that \ngo beyond waging a war of terror. They do not have a political agenda, \nnot a policy document to guide them.

\nBut perhaps the last card for the US is the indictment by David M Crane,\n the American chief prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone.\n The Americans feared that the peace talks in Ghana could abate or even \nhalt hostilities altogether in Liberia. In that case general election, \ndue to be held in October 2003 would go ahead peacefully. Now, in spite \nof Taylor’s \u201cproblems\u201d (which many Liberians seem to understand were \nimposed by some outside forces) he would win. So to forestall such an \nunwanted possibility, the indictment that was judicially approved on 7 \nMarch was finally slapped on Taylor on 4 June in time to prevent \ncessation of the massacres.\nFinally it was instructive to hear the South African authorities \nclaiming rather naively that the stepping down of Taylor would be an \nexample of an African solution to an African problem. But what else \ncould they say as loyal sycophantic servants of US-led capitalist \ninterests? The problem in Liberia is not African; it is not western; it \nis a global, profits-making issue! It is big business. But above all the\n solution is not Taylor stepping down. It is the profit system getting \nout.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Author: Suhuyini\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the Politics Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-862","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}