Hillary Clinton's Africa Visit & Fate of Corrupt Liberia

-Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

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US Secretary State Hillary Clinton is on her seven-nation tour of Africa. The visits included a troubled Liberia and a corrupt Kenya, where President Obama's father was born, Clinton used his local standing to drive home the anti-corruption, good governance message that the Obama administration has made a pillar of its approach to Africa. A rival of Obama until she lost the Democratic Party's nomination for president last year, Clinton used her own personal example of joining his cabinet to encourage reconciliation in Liberia and in Democratic Republic of Congo. In Liberia, groups of women trailed her every move, carrying a banner that said: "Hillary Clinton. Our Iron Lady." Everything in Liberia, which was founded by free slaves from America more than 150 years ago, draws its inspiration from the US "motherland" - including the flag, the government and local architecture.

Africa is known for horrors, terrors, rampant corruption and unanswered questions. It is not just human labor is cheap there but, above all, generally speaking, the humanity has no dignity in that continent. Many countries in Africa are still coming to terms with their bloody pasts. Truth and reconciliation commissions in Sierra Leone and South Africa have already completed their work. Kenya is struggling to find resolution after its bloody unrest in 2008. And, in Rwanda, village tribunals have been used to try those responsible for the genocidal murders of up to 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994. Similar efforts might also be made in Sudan, Zimbabwe, the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and perhaps even Somalia to cope with and hopefully resolve bloody events in each of these countries' pasts.

Corruption and crime are not unown in human history and even Muslim nations sufer from this immoral meance this remians a lacunae in the practice of Islamc system.  Liberia is Africa's oldest republic, but it became better known in the 1990s for its long-running, ruinous civil war and its role in a rebellion in neighboring Sierra Leone. Although founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, Liberia is mostly made up of indigenous Africans, with the slaves' descendants comprising 5% of the population. The West African nation was relatively calm until 1980 when William Tolbert was overthrown by Sergeant Samuel Doe after food price riots. The coup marked the end of dominance by the minority Americo-Liberians, who had ruled since independence, but heralded a period of instability. By the late 1980s, arbitrary rule and economic collapse culminated in civil war when Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) militia overran much of the countryside, entering the capital in 1990. In 1995 a peace agreement was signed, leading to the election of Taylor as president. The respite was brief, with anti-government fighting breaking out in the north in 1999. Taylor accused Guinea of supporting the rebellion. Meanwhile Ghana, Nigeria and others accused Taylor of backing rebels in Sierra Leone.

The word Liberia should sound like library which is linked to knowledge, but Liberia as a nation is known for anti-human activities both at state and private levels. A transitional government steered the country towards elections in 2005. Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil war and many thousands more fled the fighting. The conflict left the country in economic ruin and overrun with weapons. The capital remains without mains electricity and running water. The UN maintains some 15,000 soldiers in Liberia. It is one of the organization's most expensive peacekeeping operations. Corruption is rife and unemployment and illiteracy are endemic.

The entire political, administrative classes in Liberia are corruption ridden and inefficient. According to a recent report by the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), he figures prominently among the country's war criminals. The panel spent three years investigating the atrocities of the civil war waged between 1989 and 2003, which cost roughly 250,000 Liberians their lives. The conflict displaced well over a million people, more than half the country's women were raped and 700,000 refugees fled to other countries. It was a devastating act of bloodletting for a country with a current population of only about 3.5 million people. Finding evidence to indict Johnson was not difficult. A video that shows what he is capable of has long been available in Monrovia.. The tape shows Johnson's soldiers cutting off former President Samuel Doe's ears and shoving the bloody pieces of flesh into their victim's mouth, while Johnson looks on, calmly sipping his beer. Although the video is 19 years old, there is evidence of many other atrocities Prince Johnson is alleged to have committed.

The TRC's 380-page report names a number of politicians and businessmen, including the country's current president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The commission has recommended that, after completing their current terms, she and 49 others be banned from holding public office for 30 years. A hard core of eight warlords is to be brought before a special tribunal. Among them are Johnson and Charles Taylor, who is already on trial before the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague for war crimes he allegedly committed in that country, a neighbor of Liberia. Members of the commission have received death threats, the former warlords are saying they'll oppose its recommendations, and the president -- who has been celebrated around the world as a peacemaker -- is working behind the scenes to find a way to save face and stay in office. 

Liberia's history is unique. Founded by freed American slaves in 1847, the country -- which is about the size of Bulgaria -- was long one of only a handful of independent countries in Africa. It was also an anchor of stability -- at least until 1980. In that year, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe murdered the sitting president -- probably with American support -- and transformed Liberia into a repressive dictatorship. In 1989, Charles Taylor began his march on Monrovia. And, in September 1990, Prince Johnson -- who had parted ways with Taylor a short time earlier -- deposed Doe.

That was the beginning of a civil war that transformed Liberia into a slaughterhouse. It was only in 2003 that all the parties involved in the conflict signed a peace treaty. Charles Taylor, who had been elected president in 1997, yielded to international pressure and left the country. Two years later, in 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was voted into office as Liberia's new president in an uncontested democratic election. Johnson Sirleaf, who was 67 at the time, got off to an impressive start. She made fighting corruption one of her top priorities, reduced the country's debts and encouraged foreign investment. Likewise, she was also one of only a handful of African leaders to call for the resignation of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.

Ellen was successful some ways. The economy grew, inflation finally started to drop, investors became interested in Liberia and more than 200,000 soldiers -- including countless children -- were successfully demobilized. Although 11,400 United Nations troops are still in the country to provide security, peace seems to have returned to Liberia -- at least for now. Johnson Sirleaf was the continent's squeaky-clean politician.

What happens behind the scenes in every country is difficult to apprehend and report. In the name of "national interests" the leaders swindle resources and share the booty among other state components. Not many know that Ellen had played hidden roles at  home and abroad. Johnson Sirleaf stands accused of misconduct during the civil war years, among other allegations.  Sirleaf's case has also been hurt by what Charles Taylor recently who said in The Hague that Johnson Sirleaf had been his party's international coordinator as recently as the mid-1990s. With a view to keeping safe, the president is not the only one resisting the commission's recommendations. Seven former warlords, who had been openly feuding until recently, issued a joint statement in which they announced that the report "sought to undermine democratic government and stability in Liberia." she has made it clear that she intends to ignore the commission's recommendations and run for a second term, in 2011. The controversy has triggered uproar in Liberia and around. Human rights organizations and 60 other civil rights groups are demanding that the commission's recommendations be implemented. But the warlords have announced that they will do everything they can to resist them.  

Hillary Clinton has commended Liberia for its post-conflict progress on the latest stage of her seven-nation African tour. Despite rain, crowds lined the streets to welcome Mrs. Clinton to Monrovia, where she held talks with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She said she was impressed how the Liberian economy is being rebuilt since the end of years of conflict in 2003 and she supports Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

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Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

Specialist on State Terrorism

Independent Researcher in International Affairs, The only Indian to have gone through entire India, a fraud and terror nation in South Asia.