Category Archives: liberia

Conflict in Côte d’Ivoire keeps Liberians hungry

A version of this article was originally published at Journalists for Human Rights on October 25, 2012.

Zwedru, Liberia – Joseph Tahyor recalled one day last August when he and some 600 other residents of B’hai Jozon were asked to leave their homes. Men, women, and children, set out first-thing in the morning, and travelled from the Liberian side of the border with Côte d’Ivoire to the relative-safety of Toe Town, some 10 kilometers east.

“They all walked on foot,” Tahyor recounted. “We left for three days before we came back here….when it was no-longer serious fighting.”

Tahyor said that soldiers with the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) facilitated the move, and that everything went smoothly enough. But he noted that roughly a quarter of those who left have yet to return to B’hai, afraid of another outbreak of violence related to ongoing unrest in Côte d’Ivoire.

Security has returned to the area, residents agreed. But life is more difficult than it was before. It’s the conflict’s impact on trade that is felt most acutely. Even basic staples have become scarce, residents reported. “We have children who are suffering,” one woman complained. “No food.”

The situation is the same in many villages in Liberia’s eastern border region. The Government has stated that it is aware of such complaints. But most crossings have remained closed for more than four months now, since a June 8 attack killed seven UN Peacekeepers and eight civilians.

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Ivorian refugees forgotten in Liberia in no rush to leave

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on October 12, 2012.

Zwedru, Liberia – Djéwé L’or Gueï was bathing her infant daughter when the explosion of gunfire burst out in her Côte d’Ivoire village in August. She didn’t know who was shooting or why. Everybody just ran.

With her one-year-old girl and two other young children, she bolted one way while, in the confusion, her husband ran another.

Gueï became a refugee when she escaped Côte d’Ivoire and crossed the border into eastern Liberia, fleeing a conflict declared over by her government more than a year earlier.

At Duogee Refugee Camp, Gueï recounted her ordeal. Speaking through a translator, she described how they spent the next five days walking through thick forest, surviving on water and raw cassava, a type of root. On August 18, she reached Duogee and found members of her extended family there – but no sign of her husband.

Since then, delays in registering with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) have prevented her and her three children from receiving monthly food rations. Gueï said for the first time in her life, she’s been reduced to begging.

“She had her own farm and did everything by herself back home,” the translator explained. “She says this makes her think too much. The only thing that she is happy about is she has her life.”

In November 2010, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede that he had lost an election that was internationally recognised as free, fair, and won by his opponent Alassane Ouattara. For the next five months, a civil war claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people, until Gbagbo was finally apprehended in April 2011.

While the world has moved on, some of Gbagbo’s supports have not.

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False promises of Liberian gold

A version of this article was originally published at Journalists for Human Rights on September 23, 2012.

Gbessey Musa is a long way from home. Three years ago, he left Sierra Leone in search of a job that could provide for his family. Chasing rumours of wealth, the young man eventually found himself at a gold mine deep in the forest of western Liberia. There, he recounted a story of false promises and disappointment.

“I’m looking for money,” he said. “This work is by luck; sometimes you get the gold, sometimes you don’t.”

Unable to find any sort of meaningful employment in Freetown, the plan, Musa continued, was to try mining in Liberia, which he heard could quickly make a person rich. Three years later, Musa conceded that he’s yet to send a penny back to his wife and four children. He explained that he makes enough to pay for food and rent a small room. But that’s it. There’s never been anything extra to send to his family. Even a ticket home has remained beyond his reach.

Some two dozen men working the mine with Musa told similar stories. They earn enough to survive and work another day. But seldom anything more. And just like Musa, many travelled great distances – most, from Monrovia, some 160 kilometers southeast – and now find themselves unable to pay for transport home.

“We live at the mercy of the dirt,” Musa concluded. “Digging a pit to get our daily bread.”

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Liberia’s logging loophole: Selling off the forest

A version of this article was originally published at Think Africa Press on September 7, 2012.

Anthony Kamara stands at the end of a long mud road rendered all but impassable by heavy logging equipment. In a vast expanse cut from the forest around him, he’s surrounded by piles of logs marked for transport out of the country.

“Our resources are gone and our people will not benefit,” he says. “The road is appalling. There is no development – nothing.”

Kamara speaks as a resident of Korninga Chiefdom, Gbarpolu County. The community’s elders claim their land was taken from them illegally and leased to a private company for logging.

More than 60% of Liberia’s forests – comprising one-third of the country – have been signed over to logging companies since President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took office in 2006 according to statistics compiled by Global Witness. A September 4 report – drafted by Global Witness along with Liberian NGOs Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) and the Sustainable Development Institute – calls specific attention to “an explosion in the use of secretive and often illegal logging permits” issued by the government’s Forestry Development Authority (FDA) over the last two years.

“These new licenses – termed private use permits [PUPs] – contain no sustainability requirements and therefore would essentially allow companies to clear 40% of Liberia’s forests, including almost half of Liberia’s primary intact forests,” it states. The report also details cases of forged documents and “systematic neglect for due process in the allocation of private use permits”.

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Rush of illegal logging contracts endangers Liberia’s forests

An alternate version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on September 4, 2012.

Environmental organisations operating in Liberia have alleged that there has been “an explosion in the use of secretive and often illegal logging permits” issued by the government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

A September 4 report states that in the past two years, control over a quarter of all of Liberia – including 40 per cent of the country’s forests – has been handed over to private corporations for the purpose of logging.

The document outlines the troubling nature of these contracts and the manner in which the government’s Forestry Development Authority (FDA) has conducted many of these land deals.

“These new licenses – termed private use permits [PUPs] – contain no sustainability requirements and therefore would essentially allow companies to clear 40 per cent of Liberia’s forests, including almost half of Liberia’s primary intact forests,” it states. Detailed are cases of allegedly forged documents and “systematic neglect for due process in the allocation of private use permits”.

According to additional information provided by one of the report’s authors, PUPs and other categories of logging contracts now cover more than 36,000 square kilometres – approximately a third of Liberia’s landmass (and an area larger than the state of Maryland) – allowing for the felling of more than 60 per cent of the country’s forests, some of the richest in Africa.

Alerted to such concerns, the FDA board of directors ordered a moratorium on PUPs in February 2012. Since then, evidence has emerged indicating that that directive has been ignored, that PUPs have continued to be issued, and that logging companies have defied orders forbidding new operations.

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Liberia’s Mental Health Services: Building from the Ground Up

A version of this article was originally published at Think Africa Press on August 29, 2012.

One day in 1989, Sidney Flomo started walking.

He says he didn’t have a purpose or even a direction. He simply travelled aimlessly, sometimes boarding buses, but usually moving on foot.

Nearly two decades passed that way.

“So many years lost,” reflects Flomo at a health centre in Liberia’s capital Monrovia.

At roughly the same time Flomo fell ill with schizophrenia – the diagnosis that was finally made in 2007 – Liberia entered 14 years of civil conflict that left 250,000 people dead and the country’s infrastructure destroyed. The few mental health services that did exist before the war were lost. Mentally ill people such as Flomo – who are often ostracised by their communities on account of stigma associated with diseases people don’t understand – were largely left to fend for themselves.

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Rain in Liberia and how weather becomes an issue of health, and even life or death

A version of this article was originally published at the Georgia Straight on August 11, 2012.

Living in Liberia through the country’s wet season, I find myself nostalgic for the relatively dry climate of Vancouver. To witness a true West African monsoon is to realize that western Canada is seldom inconvenienced by more than a drizzle.

A couple of statistics to explain my point: downtown Vancouver receives an average annual rainfall of 1,590 millimetres. Monrovia: 5,300 millimetres. The capital of Liberia sees almost as much rain during the month of July (1,150 millimetres) as Vancouver does in an entire year.

For many in Liberia, weather is an issue of health, and even life or death.

On a recent visit to Monrovia’s West Point neighbourhood, Thomas Tweh, head of the community’s sanitation committee, explained the problems that come with the wet season.

“When it rains, the water flows through the streets and into the wells,” he said. “Water with feces goes into the wells.”

Lacking access to the city’s water supply, Tweh estimated that West Point relies on wells for 95 percent of its water needs.

He said that residents know that water from the wells is not safe to drink. But for many, the cost of clean drinking water leaves them no choice.

“And the little ones, they drink the well water unknowingly,” Tweh added. “This is how they become sick with waterborne diseases.”

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Demolitions ravage Liberia neighbourhoods

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on August 2, 2012.

Pastor Justice Nyonsiea fondly recalled the time he spent as principal of a primary school that was part of a squatter settlement in Monrovia’s Mamba Point neighbourhood.

“The school was relatively free,” he said proudly. “The majority of the children’s parents were people who lived on below a dollar a day.”

Standing on the edge of the slum, as such areas are commonly referred, a vast expanse of concrete rubble spread out behind him. The school, as well as some 60 homes that surrounded it, were all demolished in May 2012, just as the students were preparing to take their final exams.

“We compressed the curriculum so that the students could finish the school year,” Nyonsiea said. “But now we don’t even have a place to sit to correct their papers. And the children, they no longer have a school to go to.”

The destruction of the informal settlement – called Coconut Plantation – scattered the students’ families around Monrovia and its surrounding environs. Nyonsiea complained that delivering his former pupils’ report cards will be all but impossible.

Problematic procedures

It’s not the destruction of the neighbourhood that bothered him, Nyonsiea emphasised. Everybody living in Coconut Plantation knew that their homes were built on private land, though the plot had remained neglected for decades, he noted. “The procedure is what I have a problem with. The children could have finished their time in school.”

Interviewed over a period of several months, dozens of people from various demolished communities around Monrovia told similar stories. Many said they were forced to move from dwellings their families had occupied for generations. Some acknowledged that they were given fair warning by the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC), the government body initiating these demolitions. Others told dramatic stories of having to run from bulldozers backed by armed police officers.

Nearly a decade after 14 years of civil conflict ended in 2003, construction around Liberia’s capital city is happening at a feverish pace. Monrovia Mayor Mary Broh describes this as progress. But critics note that the rehabilitation of dilapidated areas has brought demolitions that are displacing thousands of people.

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Liberia’s long wait to turn on the lights

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on June 22, 2012.

Bessi Marshall sits outside her home in near-total darkness. Around her, four young grandchildren huddle close, never venturing more than an arm’s length into the surrounding shadows. Despite living just a few houses back from the main road in Jallah Town, in central Monrovia, Marsha’s family has no electricity. The only light comes from a small cooking fire.

During the night, Marshall fears for her family’s safety. “I can’t sleep,” she says. “I stand at that window and am very afraid.”

In addition to security, Marshall, says that electricity – or current, as it is colloquially called – would let her children devote more time to their studies. In the evenings, one of her older sons, Sekou, goes to the main road to do his homework under a street light connected to the city’s electrical grid. But the traffic there is constant, making the area noisy and unsafe for younger children.

The family owns one small LED flashlight – a “China light”, as Liberians call them. But it doesn’t shine brightly enough to let everybody study at once, and Marshall complains that its dim-white glow is painful on her eyes.

“I pray to God for help, for us to get current here,” she says.

Only 0.58 per cent of the residents of this West African country have access to public electricity, according to a 2011World Bank report. Outside the capital city, public power is practically unheard of. Those who do have access to the Liberian capital’s electrical grid pay $0.43 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), likely the highest rate in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of businesses and some private homes run on diesel generators that carry a price of $3.96/kWh.

Liberia’s energy sector was devastated by 14 years of civil conflict that only ended in 2003.

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Liberia heading to Rio+20 looking for a sustainable economic future

A version of this article was originally published at Inter Press Service on June 15, 2012.

Deep in the forest in Gbarpolu County, northwest Liberia, a group of men working a surface gold mine are asked what will happen to the land when they are finished with it.

They laugh, and shoot each other confused glances.

Gbessay Musa, who says he left Sierra Leone in search of work three years ago, delivers a cheerful response.

“We will leave the place when there is nothing left,” he exclaims. “We will find another site where there is money. The land here, it will just be here.”

Happy for a break from digging under the day’s hot sun, the young men are in good spirits, and more laughter follows. Musa is asked if he cares about the land, or just his gold.

“The people down here, they are getting by,” he answers, not fully understanding the question. His only consideration is for the livelihoods of the men who work with him.

The miners’ indifference is understandable. After 14 years of civil conflict that only ended in 2003, opportunities for education and meaningful employment in Liberia remain limited. The war devastated this West African nation.

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