Liberia Journal

2006-07-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

Quietly, life in Monrovia has become routine. A week goes something like this. Monday evening: Mongolian barbeque at the Mamba Point Hotel. Tuesday evening: usually at home, drinking a Club beer, reading, watching a movie, or playing cards. Wednesday: Lebanese pies at the Mamba Point Hotel. Thursday: home again, perhaps a jog, or maybe beers at the casino next door (more frequently the latter now that Rich, our casino patron par excellence, has returned). Friday: party-hopping. There’s always a party, as somebody here is always coming or going, sometimes permanently, sometimes on extended leave, but regardless providing a never-ending stream of pretexts for revelry. Saturday: out to a bar or nightclub, maybe The Pepper Bush, Taboo, Agenda, or Zanzibar Blue. Sunday: sleep in, perhaps a breakfast of homemade oatmeal pancakes, and then to Silver Beach for an afternoon of sunning, swimming, football and euchre, followed by a large bowl of mango and pineapple gelato at a restaurant in Sinkor. And then the week begins again …

Now, I don't mean to suggest that life here is monotonous or repetitive. Far from it. I simply mention its regularity to note how easily and unconsciously you acquire customs and habits no matter where you find yourself, whether in the American suburbs, in the city of Manhattan, or in a tiny, tropical country on the edge of West Africa. Of course, there is variance to our Liberian routine. There are afternoons shopping in Waterside’s markets for lengths of cloth known as lappa, later to be sewn into African clothing; explorations of the city and its neighborhoods on foot; walks along the beach in Congo Town; night swimming in the ocean; field trips to leeward counties; a day at Robertsport beach in the north; a visit to an orphanage; or the launching ceremony of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But, by and large, the weeks here pass consistently and predictably.

Always looking to shake things up, we jumped at the chance to attend the 2006 Miss Liberia Pageant this weekend. A necessary caveat: If I was anywhere else in the world, I would have scoffed at the idea of attending a beauty pageant, and I'd certainly never pay US$25 for a cheap seat. But in Liberia the idea of the pageant seemed altogether novel, and the price tag didn’t even make me blink. It was, simply, an event not to be missed. So, on Saturday night, six of us piled into two cars and drove across the Mesurado River and past the Monrovia Freeport stoplights (the only two working traffic lights in Liberia) to a conference center in the suburb of Virginia, originally built for the 1979 summit of the Organization for African Unity.

Less than half of the seats were filled when we arrived at 10pm, and the program didn’t get underway until well after midnight. We divvied up the contestants beforehand for our entertainment. I laid a quick claim on Miss Bong County. She didn’t let me down. At around 12:30am she debuted covered in ivy from head to toe (above, looking rather like a thicket of kudzu), with her front covered in a breastplate resembling the puffed chest of a cobra. Another contestant apparently took her cue from Björk’s infamous Oscar appearance as she did her runway walk wearing the full-fledged plumage of a peacock, as well as its neck and head (below).

The pageant's pace was excruciatingly slow. By 2am only the the first phase—-the ‘traditional’ African costume competition—-was completed. Our stamina caved mid-morning, and we left with three quarters of the show to go despite the magnificence of our seats (we snuck backstage to inhabit three dusty and abandoned press boxes positioned above and just to the right of the runway). I will therefore leave a more thorough description of the contest to the fine reportage of the Monrovia newspaper, The Analyst, below.

On Miss Bong County, Patrice Juah, crowned Miss Liberia 2006: ‘The judges did not say the basis of their decision, whether for her majestic steps, eloquence or beauty, but she was declared the winner.’

On Miss Lofa County (1st runner-up): ‘No one knows why she came to this point because the judges did not say it, but she performed her talent in a traditional Sande dance.’

On Miss Maryland County (2nd runner-up): ‘She pushed for the kill with a contemporary traditional folk dance. Many in the audience described it as superb and classical.’

On Miss Bomi County’s talent: ‘Her talent was about putting Liberia's broken pieces together. By that, she reorganized the Liberian map on a beautifully designed piece of plywood.’

On Miss Grand Gedeh County’s talent: ‘Miss Kulo Turay of Grand Gedeh displayed her talent in karate. She was garbed in long karate attire, and displayed a Konfu. She climaxed her talent by breaking a block, apparently made out of sand into pieces. She had no explanation for it.’

On Miss Montserrado County’s talent: ‘She perfectly cut a piece of lace and manually sewed it to perfection, much to the applause of the audience.’

On Miss Grand Cape Mount County’s talent: She ‘stunned the audience with a perfect Vai traditional dance, much to the taste of the audience.’

On Miss Sinoe County’s talent: She ‘displayed in full military attire and marched with the Liberian flag posted on her shoulder.’

On the ceremony in general: ‘It started rather slow-pace, with a docile mood and dangling enthusiasm. The musical band tried to cover up, but efforts were measly.’

On the program’s delays: ‘The recess was somehow ephemeral; the audience grew impatient because time was taking away.’

On the President: ‘Already, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has expressed unhappiness with the exercise.’

A quote from a representative of a sponsor, Today's Woman, Inc.: Monologues were discouraged because ‘Liberians tend to overuse monologues at these kind of events.’

A quote from ‘a male’ on the swimwear competition: ‘Real buttocks and slimy skin and sparkling tights I have seen in public now for the first time.’

2006-07-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

If you walk to the far northwestern end of the peninsula that is Monrovia, you will climb a hill known as Mamba Point. From its heights you can watch the Atlantic Ocean crash against its western shores, and to the east you can see the marshes and estuaries of the Mesurado River. It is a strategic spot, and several brutal battles for control of the city were fought there during the war. At the top of Mamba Point you’ll find an old lighthouse and a worn statue of Liberia’s first president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts. And towering over it all--over the whole of Monrovia--is the tall, decaying shell of the once glamorous Dukor Intercontinental Hotel.

The Dukor Hotel was once synonymous with luxury in Monrovia. It was one of sub-Saharan Africa’s few five-star hotels during the 1960s and 1970s. Only Hotel Africa across the bay could offer comparable lodging in Liberia. Sadly, both the Dukor and Hotel Africa suffered heavy damage and looting during the war. Hotel Africa now stands in ruin near an encampment of UN troops. The Dukor, however, still accommodates guests, albeit no longer the rubber and timber barons and expatriates of Liberia’s more prosperous past. Instead, the Dukor’s clientele is now a colony of several hundred squatters and IDPs living in makeshift living quarters throughout the hotel’s nine floors.

Before the war, Liberia was an African success story. It was widely regarded as one of sub-Saharan Africa’s wealthiest and most stable nations. The Dukor's cousin, Hotel Africa, was built in 1979, right before Liberia began its destructive slide. Former President William Tolbert was chairman of the Organization of African Unity at the time, and he had 52 beach villas built at Hotel Africa--one for each African president--as well as a swimming pool in the shape of the African continent. It was a symbol of Liberia's success and prosperity, and perhaps also of the hubris of the ruling (and minority) Americo-Liberian elite. Beneath a veneer of stability was a nation of great inequality and simmering ethnic tensions. In April 1980, Liberia's hidden demons began to surface, and the slaying of President Tolbert by Master Sgt. Samuel Doe that month brought the country's era of relative prosperity to a close and ushered in a quarter century of tragedy.

The foreign correspondent and author, Jon Lee Anderson, paints an evocative portrait of the depths to which Monrovia has fallen in his article, ‘After the Warlords’, in the March 27, 2006 edition of The New Yorker. He knows Liberia well, having spent part of his childhood in Liberia as the son of a US diplomat. In his article (excerpted below), Anderson offers a description of the Dukor's decay.

‘Downtown, the Dukor Palace Hotel, where I used to go swimming, is a kind of city in itself. A couple of thousand displaced people have built shanties inside its hulking, burned-out nine-story shell. All that remains of its nineteen-sixties modernism is a Jetsons-style canopied entrance [at right in the photo above]. A shanty occupies a corner of the lobby, which has been stripped to the bare concrete. On the sill of a panoramic window, laundry had been hung to dry. Leaving the Dukor, I stepped over streams of urine and other liquids that ran out of the base of the hotel, like secretions from a beached whale.’

The Dukor was just as Anderson described it when we visited the hotel a few days ago. It was late afternoon as we walked up the road to Mamba Point. A steady rain was falling, making the Dukor’s pool terrace slippery underfoot. Strings of laundry hung outside the hotel in the downpour. Below the terrace on the hillside was an abandoned, slightly overgrown tennis court. A single car was parked in the canopied roundabout that used to receive the Dukor’s guests.

Outside the hotel’s reception (above), some enterprising Liberians had set up a makeshift shop for the Dukor’s residents. It was clear that the Dukor is a living, breathing community, despite its dilapitation. Inside the main lobby the words ‘AWAIT YOUR PHOTO & INKING OF FINGER!!’ were scrawled across the walls—-perhaps a remnant of the UN and transitional government’s efforts last fall to ensure that all citizens, including the squatters and IDPs of the Dukor, had the opportunity to vote in Liberia’s first post-war elections.

Winding stairs led from the lobby to a mezzanine that once played host to elegant soirees and business conferences. A now empty ballroom (above) occupies the far end of the landing, complete with a black-and-white checkered marble dance floor. Two blackboards hung from the far wall. ‘JESUS LOVES YOU’ was written on one in thick chalk letters; on the other, ‘WRITING EXAM JUNE 2, 2006’. A primary school operates on the Dukor’s mezzanine, an indication that, for now, the indefinite presence of squatters in the Dukor is taken as an accepted fact.

We met two University of Liberia students in the hotel's rotunda, one studying history and English and the other studying business administration. Several young children played on benches nearby. In an odd way, the place seemed almost pleasant. Yet there was something utterly despondent about this city within a city, especially at dusk. As we exited the Dukor and walked back out into the rain, an older man joked that someday, perhaps, we would return to Liberia to restore the Dukor to its former splendor. I smiled and assured him that someday, no doubt, someone would find the Dukor to be a good investment. I didn't tell him that I thought it wouldn't be anytime soon. For now, at least, the Dukor's hundreds of current residents, himself included, have nowhere else to go.

2006-07-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

A Nigerian man in his early 30s, Henry E., owns a modest bar and restaurant around the corner from my office called the Rolling Stone Entertainment Center. It is simple hang-out. A handful of plastic chairs and tables are arranged sparingly on a bare concrete floor, and chicken wire covers the windows. While the menu offers basic food, it is not the kind of place you go to eat-—instead, it is the kind of place you go at the end of a long day to knock back a large, cold 40 of the local Club Beer.

The Rolling Stone would be unremarkable but for its exceptional artwork. Henry is not only the bar's proprietor but also an amateur painter, and the Rolling Stone is a showcase for his work. His talent is apparent. Murals of American hip-hop artists like 50 Cent, Tupac, R. Kelly, Beyoncé and P. Diddy decorate the Rolling Stone’s walls, and paintings of the Jamaican reggae artist and ‘Back to Africa’ Rastafarian Winston Rodney (aka ‘Burning Spear’) and the popular Nigerian comedian and actor Nkem Owoh (aka ‘Osuofia’, after the name of the character he played in a 2003 film, Osuofia in London) grace its exterior.

Henry is not the only painter in Liberia with a ken for creating iconic artwork. Wall and sign painting is a cottage industry in Monrovia, and a booming one too. New shops and kiosks open weekly, and a budding optimism has businesses everywhere applying fresh coats of paint to their buildings. All of these shops require advertisements, and almost all of the adverts are hand-painted. Pictures of cell phones, scratch cards (phone cards), hair styles, jewelry, money, electronics, clothing, generators, fresh meat, and other wares adorn shop walls and signs, making a rich visual landscape of Monrovia’s streets. Even the items on restaurant menus are painted on the doors or walls of the eateries.

Most billboards in Liberia are also hand-painted, often in elaborate detail. Some of the most interesting murals are public service advertisements from UNMIL, the UN specialized agencies, and international NGOs that implore Liberians to pursue an education, prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, protect endangered species, or report rape. One of my favorites simply depicts the stalk and grain of a rice plant and declares mysteriously: ‘Rice Is Life … But All Is Not Well in the World of Rice.’

The business of painting murals, signs, and billboard advertisements is a sort of unofficial endowment for the visual arts. The paintings are a higher-order graffiti: functional and economically valuable, yet culturally (and individually) expressive. Many are works of art in their own right.

American rap culture is by far the most popular theme for Monrovia’s wall art and advertisements. Although traditional West African music remains popular in Liberia, in Monrovia, American R&B and hip-hop reigns supreme. Nods to American rap artists are ubiquitous, with 50 Cent the most popular by far (that is, if the number of references—-written, painted, or posted—-actually reflects popular opinion). Nelly, however, is represented by an eponymous barber shop on Carey and Lynch Streets, complete with a mural of the American rapper on its front wall and posters of him in full bling plastered to the barbers’ mirrors.

Despite the popularity of hip-hop, African music does not take a backseat to the American scene. Afropop is thriving, and it holds its own on the playlists of local radio stations like Kiss FM, Star Radio, and DC 101, as well as with DJs at Monrovian nightclubs like The Pepper Bush. Much of the popular African music is from Ghana and Nigeria, as well as from Sierra Leone. Perhaps the most-played song is ‘African Queen’, the hit single of Nigeria’s 2Face Idibia. Also popular is a song by an artist called Big Mouth with lyrics in both Ghanaian English and Twi and the refrain, ‘I and my shorty [i.e., 'wife'] are one, are one, are one’.

One of this summer’s biggest hits, though, is ‘Liberian Girl’ by Romeo Mulbah, aka ‘2C’. 2C was born in Liberia but grew up in New Orleans. He now makes his home in Atlanta, Georgia, and his debut album is scheduled for release later this year. Resonant with the club-friendly beats characteristic of the Dirty South style, ‘Liberian Girl’ is a tribute to 2C’s homeland and a call for Liberians to unite to overcome the depredations of war: ‘This goes out to my Liberian Girl, home-grown, now she’s all over the world. People wonder who you are, I’m gonna show ‘em you’re a shining star. Keep holding your head up, let nobody put you down. Forever you’re my girl …’

2006-07-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Kofi Annan arrived in Monrovia amidst heavy security yesterday evening after paying a visit to Sierra Leone. The intense security surrounding his visit reflected the latent paranoia of civil unrest here in Monrovia, and the main road from Roberts International Airport to the Pan-African Plaza (UNMIL headquarters) downtown was completely closed to traffic from 6pm until 10pm. Liberian riot police and UN troops lined the entire route and blanketed the city. Things came to a standstill. The precautions seemed a bit extreme. Was it really necessary to shut down the city from late afternoon onwards, even if the visitor is the UN Secretary General?

Today, with Kofi Annan in meetings, several hundred Liberians marched on the UNMIL headquarters in support of the establishment of a war crimes tribunal in Liberia. The demonstrators wore black t-shirts and carried 16 caskets on their shoulders to symbolize those who died in Liberia’s 14 years of civil war—-one casket to represent the dead from each of Liberia’s 15 counties, and one casket to represent the international peacekeepers and foreign nationals who also perished in the war.

The group that organized the demonstration—-a local activist organization calling itself the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court—-failed to obtain a permit for the demonstration and was warned against staging the march. The demonstration was held despite the warnings. Fortunately, the Liberian government let the demonstrators proceed, and the government’s tolerance was perhaps the most significant display of the day. The demonstrators also successfully delivered a petition to a UN official to be forwarded to the UN Security Council in New York City. The petition requests the Security Council to consider a resolution for the establishment of a hybrid Special War Crimes Court for Liberia (similar to the one established in Sierra Leone) to prosecute those most responsible for atrocities in Liberia in the last decade and a half. But the establishment of such a court is unlikely in the foreseeable future. The creation of a hybrid war crimes tribunal would require the consent of the Liberian government, which is improbable given that many of those responsible for the conflict remain in power, including the House Speaker Edwin Snowe (the former son-in-law of ex-president Charles Taylor), Senator Jewel Howard Taylor (Taylor’s wife), Senator Adolphus Dolo (a former general under Taylor’s government), and Senator Prince Johnson of Nimba County (the former leader of the now defunct Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, who can be seen in a blue hat peering over Charles Taylor’s shoulder in this picture).

Despite the long odds, the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court has been very vocal of late. It is not too keen on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the chosen institution for transitional justice. Members of the group delivered a similar petition to the National Legislature five weeks ago seeking domestic legislation to establish a war crimes court. The 21-page petition, which was read aloud by the House Clerk, enumerated the alleged massacres, atrocities, summary executions, and other crimes committed by members of the current Legislature and government, including the ‘butchering’ of 400,000 Liberians, the raping of over 50,000 underage girls, and ‘the hacking off of limbs coupled with the betting murder game that saw pregnant women’s stomachs ripped open.’ The accuracy of their casualty figures is impossible to confirm, but even if the numbers are outsized and hyperbolic (and they could just as well be short of the mark), their descriptions of the atrocities reflect the truth.

This morning, Kofi Annan was set to address a joint session of the National Legislature, followed by more meetings with UNMIL and the various UN agencies around town. In conjunction with his visit, the University of Liberia announced a proposal to establish a new Kofi Annan School of Peace and Development Studies. More high-profile visitors are expected in Monrovia in the coming weeks. Former President Bill Clinton, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, and heads of the World Bank and African Development Bank are expected to arrive in Monrovia around July 12 for a donor’s conference on Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, including proposals for canceling some of Liberia’s close to US $3.5 billion in external debt.

2006-07-01T04:40:00.000-07:00

The building where I work on the Corner of Broad and Johnson Streets in downtown Monrovia (above) was a gift from the U.S. taxpayers to the Liberian people via USAID. On the second floor are the national offices of the Foundation for International Dignity (FIND). About ten staff members work there, including the four of us in FIND’s Legal Aid Office. More staff work across the street at FIND’s Resource Center, where a collection of computers, books, and archived newspapers serves as a free resource for the public on human rights.

Our offices are fairly typical of those throughout Monrovia. A generator provides electricity from 9am until noon, and again from 1pm until 6pm. There is no flushing toilet, and no air conditioning. What we do have are mice. Plenty of them.

FIND was founded in June 2002 by exiled Liberian human rights lawyers and advocates in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A national office opened in Liberia in September 2003 soon after the signing of the peace accords, followed by an office in Guinea in 2004. FIND’s original mission was to advocate for the protection of Liberian refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and other vulnerable populations in the three Mano River Union countries of West Africa. The end of the Liberian civil war, however, prompted a shift in its mandate, and FIND now involves itself in broader human rights monitoring and advocacy in the region.

FIND has perhaps the best geographical breadth of any local NGO in Liberia, with field offices in seven of the country’s 15 counties (Bomi, Bong, Grand Gedeh, Lofa, Montserrado, Nimba, River Gee) and a field presence in four more (Gbarpolu, Grand Cape Mount, Grand Kru, and Maryland). Human rights monitors staff the field offices and act as the eyes and ears of the organization by documenting local human rights violations. The field staff also act as paralegals, providing legal advice, counseling, and mediation services to their local communities. This is an important role; there is a serious shortage of lawyers and general legal knowledge in Liberia. The field staff also hold ‘legal literacy’ workshops to educate Liberians on their legal and human rights under national and international law, and workshops were recently held on Liberia's new rape and women’s inheritance statutes.

The bread and butter of the Legal Aid Office, where I work, is the provision of legal assistance to refugees, IDPs, the indigent, and other vulnerable populations in Liberia. Often, FIND’s field monitors refer cases of human rights violations to our office in Monrovia for intervention. Many of our clients, however, are walk-ins. I spend part of my day conducting screening interviews of those who walk through our doors. Many of our complaints involve labor rights abuses, and foreign businesses—-particularly those owned by the Lebanese—-are usually behind the complaints. Other cases involve illegal or arbitrary detentions by the government, land or property disputes involving IDPs and returnees, or women’s rights and domestic violence. Recently, we have partnered with the American Refugee Committee to handle referrals of gender-based violence cases, particularly rapes. It is a growing caseload. Our job is to ensure that these cases reach prosecution, a difficult task in a largely defunct judiciary. In the past, FIND’s Legal Aid Office has offered criminal defense services because of the absence of public defenders, but only does so now in rare and pressing circumstances.

Liberia’s poor—-and they are many—-face particular difficulties in accessing justice. FIND is one of only three organizations providing indigent representation in all of Liberia, the others being the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (with one attorney) and the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (consisting of a small team of part-time attorneys). A handful of private lawyers also offer pro bono services, but on an infrequent basis. Not surprisingly, all of this legal aid is concentrated in Monrovia and the surrounding, relatively urban areas of Montserrado County.

Indigent criminal defendants are among the most disadvantaged. According to a February 2005 UNMIL report, Liberia has only 11 public defenders, and four of them are believed to be over 80 years old. Rising crime rates—-due in part to more police on the streets but also to the unemployment of ex-combatants and others—-is putting even greater pressure on an already abysmally thin public defender system. Things will not soon improve; there are few incentives for lawyers to go into public defense. Private lawyers in Liberia receive US $100-300 per court appearance per day, and experienced lawyers charge upwards of US $200 per hour. Compare this with the US $20 that public defenders earn per month. And the government is often in arrears in doling out even that meager income.

Beyond legal representation, FIND’s Legal Aid Office engages in general human rights awareness and advocacy projects. So far, we have surveyed the state of courthouses and prisons in both Bong and Margibi Counties (courts, where they still exist, are in very dilapidated conditions as shown in the two pictures above). Soon, we will conduct a similar assessment of the Montserrado County judiciary. We also regularly visit prisons order to ensure that inmates’ constitutional rights are respected. Frighteningly, the Liberian judiciary is black hole, and we often advocate for the release of individuals that are falsely imprisoned or detained beyond statutory limits without formal charges, as well as for the speedy assignment of certain cases for prosecution (many defendants languish for months in prison without access to a lawyer, the courtroom, or a trial).

FIND's Legal Aid Office also trains national staff on paralegal skills, engages formal and informal adjudicating authorities on human rights issues, conducts public awareness campaigns on legal issues, and organizes legal literacy workshops on topics ranging from civic education and women’s rights to basic human rights awareness and sexual and gender-based violence. Additionally, in partnership with the American Bar Association (ABA-Africa), we are training traditional leaders and clan chiefs to mediate local disputes, and we are working with the Liberian National Bar Association to draft a mediation act that will formalize the mediation process and ensure that mediated resolutions will be enforceable in court.

Finally, FIND takes on high-profile human rights cases and advocacy projects, and it is in the headlines almost daily. Most recently, the plight of the Firestone Rubber Plantation workers has been front and center, and the other week FIND released a 30-minute documentary on Firestone labor rights abuses. FIND and five other human rights groups also filed a petition recently with the Liberian Supreme Court to nullify the confirmation of Kabineh Ja’neh as a new Associate Justice because of his disregard for the rule of law as Justice Minister under the former National Transitional Government as well as for his role in human rights abuses committed during the civil conflict. Other subjects of recent advocacy include ending the impunity of Charles Taylor and the UN’s sanctions on Liberia.

2006-06-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

Arach-Attack Parte Deux: We found this spider crawling the walls of my bedroom the other day. While Christen stood on my bed screaming like a Banshee with a can of Raid in her hand, I attempted to herd the creature into my laundry bucket with a clothes hanger. Unfortunately, the spider jumped as well as crawled, and during the chase I am almost certain I saw it fly. Perhaps I was delirious. In any case, it outwitted us, and I finally caved to Christen’s suggestion that we gas the thing out of fear of what he might do to me in my sleep. A cloud of poison later he was belly-up underneath my bed. It may be coincidence, but as the rainy season gets rainier, the spiders seem to be getting bigger, hairier, and scarier. I’m not looking forward to what we find next.

2006-06-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I was obliged to wear a suit for the first and hopefully last time in Liberia. The occasion was the formal launching of the Liberian Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It was a miserable day to debut a coat and tie. The sun—especially intense that morning—was set in a cloudless sky, and I now fully appreciate the casual dress code that is a fringe benefit of being a ‘human rights worker’ in Liberia. (According to a co-worker, nobody expects anything more sartorially of human rights advocates than jeans and a t-shirt, regardless of the gravity of the meeting or our counterparts’ rank on the Liberian totem pole.)

Rich and Christen succeeded at securing me an invitation to the event through their internships at the TRC, and at a quarter past nine in the morning we all filed into the Centennial Pavilion in central Monrovia in order to be seated before the arrival of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Although scheduled to begin at ten o’clock, the TRC did not actually begin ‘launching’ until closer to eleven. Idle time was spent sitting in pews fanning ourselves furiously and dreaming of air conditioning. Many of the biggest names in Liberian politics and society, as well as from the international aid and development community, filled the benches around us.

The program that morning was ambitious. Two religious leaders (one a Christian reverend, the other a Muslim sheikh) kicked things off with blessings, followed by several ‘opening statements’ and musical numbers, including a live performance of the TRC’s radio jingle. Next came ‘remarks’ from representatives of UNMIL, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the U.S. embassy, the diplomatic corps, ex-combatants, the children, the women, and civil society. All of this even before the keynote speaker was introduced. And the keynote speaker was not even the President! (It was a former interim president from the early 1990s, one Dr. Amos Sawyer, now Chairman of the Government Reform Commission.)

Liberians have a knack for being long-winded, and the speakers last Thursday proved no different. The highlights of the next three and a half sweltering hours included some obscure allusions to numerology in a speech on the auspicious timing of the Commission’s launch (including a reference to 666, or the sign of the Beast—I’m still unclear how such a coincidence either bodes well for the TRC or is even relevant, considering that the launch took place on June 22, not earlier on June 6, 2006, but that’s neither here nor there). Later, a well-spoken ex-combatant made a rousing call for greater investment in education and the youth. But most of the speeches were filled with empty platitudes. What kept things amusing were the loud groans that issued regularly from a traditional horn (above) throughout the morning. Although intended to emphasize the speeches’ more stirring moments, the horn unfortunately sounded like the mating call of a walrus and bewildered a fair number of the speakers.

The official launching of the TRC did not come until close to one o’clock. Flanked by gigantic bodyguards in dark shades, the President Johnson-Sirleaf took the podium and reminded the commissioners’ of their duty to strike a ‘healthy balance’ between retributive and restorative justice. Although the likelihood of future prosecutions shadowed her speech, the TRC remains for now Liberia’s principal mechanism for making amends with its past. A lot rides on the Commission’s success at healing Liberia’s wounds. According to one scholar, Paul Collier, almost 50 percent of countries that emerge from civil conflict re-descend into violence within five years of achieving peace. In her speech, the President recognized the urgency of the moment. ‘The future and the stability of our country will remain in doubt unless we face ourselves as a people,’ she said, ‘unless we tell the truth of what we did to ourselves and to our nation.’

A nationwide sensitization campaign has already begun to educate the public about the TRC’s mission, and in the next few weeks over 150 statement takers will fan out across the country to begin gathering testimony from victims and perpetrators. As the process gets underway, Liberia’s choice to establish a TRC instead of a war crimes court will be tested. Without a doubt, this historical reckoning will be painful. But the mood last Thursday at the TRC’s launch was hopeful. With luck, the process will generate the balm that Liberia needs so sorely to heal the trauma of years of civil war: understanding, tolerance, and forgiveness.

2006-06-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

At around 9pm last night I started vomiting. Only two other times in my life have I felt this bad: food poisoning in college (Dad will remember that episode for the ridiculous $5000 emergency room bill I later presented to him) and the time I suffered from a combination of food poisoning and heat exhaustion in Turkmenistan (an episode that my friend and former CITS colleague Richard had to experience with me in our cramped hotel room in the Turkmen desert). Not sure what brought this one on: I ate Zatarain’s Broccoli Rice Au Gratin last night, after which the sweating and abdominal pains started, and I ate African earlier in the day for lunch, along with an afternoon orange.

In any case, from 9pm to 3am my body was wracked with convulsions as it tried to expel whatever it was that it didn’t like in any way it could figure out to rid itself of whatever it was that got me. It was miserable. I’m feeling much better this morning, but I’m utterly exhausted and running a fever, so I had to cancel today’s plans to visit orphanages outside of Monrovia. My fellow NYU law student Marie was a saint—-she checked up on me regularly, supplied meds, emptied the bowl I kept next to my bed, and even began washing the towels and linens I’d ruined over the course of the night (basically everything in the house). Makes me grateful that I am not over here alone. Today’s plans: rehydration, sleeping, and movie watching on my laptop.

2006-06-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

At the beach last weekend I noticed a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on a Lebanese friend, S. He is tall, skinny, and soft-spoken, and he slicks back his hair with pomade, making him look Italian. He was born in Liberia and has lived here his entire life except for three years away in the 1990s. When I first saw the tattoo, I assumed it was the result of a night of drunken revelry, a vestige of teenage angst, or a remnant of peer pressure. The story, however, was much more interesting than that.

During the war S worked for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders), originally in logistics. Mounting casualties, however, turned MSF into a makeshift hospital and converted S into an ambulance driver. By that time, all of the regular drivers had turned tail and run.

In his new job, S and a Frenchman would drive Monrovia’s streets to pick up the wounded. They were stopped one day by teenage soldiers and dragged from their vehicle, AK-47s pressed against their heads. The teenage soldiers told them they were going to die. S remembers his mind going blank. No words formed. The Frenchman, however, risked a small request: he wanted to smoke one last joint before he died.

Liberia’s civil war was waged in part by cross-dressing teenagers on drugs, brainwashed by their leaders and shaped into dependent killing machines. The teenagers at the trigger end of the AK-47s that day were two of them. But they were taken aback by a condemned man's request for one last drag. They let the Frenchman roll a joint. As the four of them smoked up on the side of the road, the soldiers’ demeanor changed. By the time the joint made its final pass the teenage soldiers had declared free passage along the road for S and the Frenchman. In fact, they would now be protected at all times. It was a random about-face, a small testament to the unpredictability and utter pointlessness of the war. No revolutionary ideology inspired these teenagers to arms. They made no pretense of grand motives. The war was driven by nothing but power, manipulation, senselessness and greed. Lives could turn on the smoking of weed.

During the fiercest fighting, S was holed up with the other staff members in the MSF building, almost ten to a room. They ate cold spaghetti from a can. Outside, bullets flew and bodies filled the streets. The violence was numbing. One night while drinking warm beer and smoking pot one member of this diehard crew proposed tattoos. Somebody had an old tattoo gun, but little ink. The tattoos would have to be small and uncomplicated. Someone suggested tattoos of the Grim Reaper while they were watching Scary Movie III. With death all around, the idea had a certain logic about it. The hooded cloak, a recess of black for a face, a scythe in the left hand. It seemed a perfect choice. So, in the spirit of camaraderie, and perhaps also as a talisman, each and every one of the MSF staff in the room that night got a tattoo of the Grim Reaper. All of them also made it through the war alive.

Stories of the war come surprisingly easy in Liberia, from Liberians as well as the foreigners who lived through the 14 years of civil conflict. Perhaps catharsis drives the sharing. At other times the stories seem to be motivated in part by a need to educate outsiders about Liberia’s traumatic past—a desire for understanding. Some stories arise off-topic and unsolicited, like that of a driver who nonchalantly points out the spot on the road where he cradled his brother in a pool of blood until he died. Others may tell you about watching their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers killed or raped in their homes before their eyes. Although evidence of Liberia’s conflict is everywhere—-in a bullet-riddled sign, for example, like the one above—-it is these stories that best remind me that the trauma of Liberia’s war is fresh and only too real.

2006-06-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

Only 10 miles from the border with Sierra Leone is the one-time seaside resort of Robertsport, which now resembles a ghost town. The war was not kind to Robertsport. Still, there are signs of a more prosperous past. Actual concrete roads and sidewalks lay beneath overgrown vegetation, and fine houses stood throughout town in various stages of decay. And sitting on a hill high above the beach was the roofless shell of a large hotel, now almost completely submerged in a tangle of green.

Robertsport is a three hour drive from Monrovia, half of which is on a rough, red-dirt road. I made the trip there last Saturday with friends from the American Refugee Committee. We departed early, while the morning was still cool and grey. By mid-morning we were set up underneath a large tree on the beach, and soon we were juggling a football in the sand with some local kids. The sun broke through the clouds close to noon, and several of the young Liberian boys fetched unripe coconuts for us from a nearby tree and removed lids from each with a machete. We paid them 20 LD for each, or 33 cents a piece, and drank their sweet, cool milk and scooped soft flesh from their empty shells.

Near our spot on the beach the ocean was like glass, and you could float on your back for a long while without worrying about being thrown to shore on a wave or being pulled out to sea. Young men trolled a fishing net from a dugout canoe offshore. Wooden floats made a fence out of the blue netting; stone weights brought the net’s length to the ocean’s floor. It took an hour for the fishermen to lay the net clear across the bay. Once the netting was laid a tug-of-war was waged against the sea. Two groups of between five and ten men worked the net’s ropes at opposite ends of the bay and began pulling the it toward the sand, hand-over-fist, gradually closing the distance between them at the same time. Their feet dug into the sand, and their sinewy muscles stood out on their bodies under the strain of the work.

Two hours after the net was laid the catch was hauled ashore. The harvest was meager. Large, inedible jellyfish outweighed the fish, none of which was longer than seven inches. One friend remarked that the twenty fishermen expended more calories laying the net and hauling it ashore than the small catch could replace. The fisherman did not appear frustrated by the size of the haul; if they considered the enterprise futile it did not show.

A turn in the shore half a mile south is marked by slick, black boulders, and beautiful barrels of waves roll off the point. Only three surfers rode the waves on Saturday: two Lebanese and one local, Alfred, referred to as ‘the only Liberian surfer’. Almost all of the surfboards in Liberia were brought here by expatriates in the international aid and development community. There are no surf shops in Liberia, and few Liberians can afford boards. That afternoon the shore and ocean was otherwise deserted, giving Robertsport the feel of an undiscovered surfing gem despite its renown. The point breaks regularly reach 15 to 25 feet, offering some of the best surfing in Africa and earning Robertsport’s waves a feature role in Bruce Brown’s classic 1966 surf movie, The Endless Summer. It is a gorgeous spot. If things go well, some day again Robertsport will be big.

2006-06-17T02:40:00.000-07:00

Across the street from where I live in Congo Town is the former residence of Liberian ex-President Charles Taylor. The compound (above) is unremarkable except for the un-electrified Christmas lights on its rooftop that spell out ‘Season’s Greetings’, lending a paradoxically wholesome air to a place that should be eerie. One would hardly expect the residence to be the former lair of a warlord turned president (and now an indicted war criminal). Yet it was home until 2003 to the man widely viewed as responsible for the deaths of between 50,000 to 100,000 persons in Sierra Leone's civil war that ended in 2002, as well as the more than 200,000 dead as a result of Liberia’s civil conflict that ended in 2003.

In the last two years investigative teams from the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) have picked over Taylor’s former residence in search of evidence for his prosecution. Thieves have done the same in search of valuables like ‘blood diamonds’, despite an adjacent deployment of UN troops. At present, Taylor stands trial for 11 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law named in an amended March 2006 SCSL indictment. The charges include rape, murder, and the recruitment and use of child soldiers during the war in Sierra Leone. The counts focus on Taylor's alleged support of the Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh’s brutal forces, known as the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF.

Taylor came power in 1997 by winning the Liberian presidential election in a landslide. His rise followed on the heels of an offensive launched in the early 1990s at the head of a group of rebels called the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). His path to power was unusual, to say the least. In the 1970s Taylor was an economics student at a small Massachusetts college. He later became a high-level official in the government of Samuel K. Doe but fled to the United States in the early 1980s when charged with embezzling close to US $1 million in government funds.

While awaiting extradition from the United States in 1985 on those charges, Taylor effected a classic jailbreak from Plymouth County Jail in Massachusetts by cutting the bars on his prison cell window and shimmying down knotted bed sheets to freedom. He later resurfaced in a guerrilla training camp in Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya in the late 1980s. It was Taylor’s reputation as a fearsome warlord that allowed him to capitalize on Liberia’s fear of renewed civil war in order to win the 1997 presidential election. An oft-quoted slogan captures the mood of his campaign: ‘He killed my Ma, he killed my Pa, but I will vote for him’.

With several rebel factions battling fiercely against government troops for control of Monrovia in 2003, Taylor accepted Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s offer of asylum in exchange for abdication, leading to the current peace. But Taylor could not resist meddling in West African politics from his seaside villa in Calabar, Nigeria. These repeated interferences in the region—-a violation of the peace accords—-ultimately led Interpol to issue a ‘red notice’ that gave a legal green light to countries to arrest Taylor wherever he could be found. Nigeria at first refused to hand Taylor over but later said that it would surrender him upon an official request from a democratically-elected Liberian government.

That request finally came on 17 March 2006 from President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, only to be followed by a dramatic but failed attempt by Taylor to escape to Cameroon. In late March 2006 Taylor was re-captured and flown briefly to Liberia, where he was quickly handed over to the UN and whisked off to Freetown, Sierra Leone to stand trial in the UN-backed Special Court. (The SCSL’s mandate is to ‘prosecute persons who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean Law committed in the territory of Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996.’ The SCSL will only address Taylor’s offenses in Sierra Leone, not those committed in Liberia.)

Given the continuing volatility of the West African region, it is no surprise that many Liberians and Sierra Leoneans are anxious for Taylor’s trial to begin. Many of them are just as anxious for the proceedings to be transferred from Freetown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) facilities in The Hague. Taylor’s supporters are still numerous in Liberia, and largely unemployed. Concerned that the trial would be potentially destabilizing for the region, the SCSL formally requested the ICC to try Taylor under their direction. The Netherlands subsequently agreed to host the trial, but only if a third country accepted custody of Taylor upon the trial’s completion.

Recently, two countries have responded to the Netherlands’ request for post-trial custody: Sweden and the United Kingdom. This paves the way for Taylor’s trial to begin. Just last Friday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the transfer of the trial to the ICC. The sooner the better. The trial promises to provide both Liberia and Sierra Leone with some measure of closure to over two decades of conflict, and the successful prosecution of Taylor will send a strong message to other heads of state that they will not enjoy impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed while in office. The untimely passing of former-Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic earlier this year foreclosed the most recent opportunity for a victimized population and the international community to bring a former head of state to justice. With the prosecution of Charles Taylor finally moving forward, international justice has another chance.

2006-06-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

I recently took a walk around Monrovia with a friend from my office, my first real exploration of the city on foot. With the sun blazing overhead and the previous day's rains already evaporated and hanging in the air, we walked down Johnson Street toward Rock Town, a neighborhood near the army barracks along the Atlantic Ocean. My neck burned, and my shirt was quickly soaked in sweat. It was the hottest day since I’d arrived.

As a foreigner, one is warned constantly of the dangers of Monrovia: rampant thieves, restive ex-combatants, the desperate unemployed, unpredictable mobs, chaotic traffic. I don't wish to jinx myself; I will be the last to scoff at those risks. Yet for the most part I have felt comfortable and safe, with one exception. About two weeks ago, my friend Joseph and I visited the market at ELWA junction not far from my house. The market was in a rickety, low-ceilinged building, and at 5'9" my head scraped the cross-beams. The entire market was as dim as dusk despite the full afternoon sun outside. Inside, long tables stretched the length of the building, covered with cured fish, buckets of slugs in leopard-spotted shells, fresh (or rotten) greens and vegetables, bags of rice, and meat so saturated with flies that it appeared to waver in the faint light.

Being white in Liberia, you quickly become accustomed to hard or curious looks, as well as the occasional ‘Hey, Stupid White Man!’ But that afternoon the stares were particularly intense. It was not a place that foreigners went to; it was not a place that I would have gone alone. Joseph took me there because I had expressed curiosity. Although generally relaxed, he was tense and anxious that afternoon as we walked through the market, and he kept grabbing my arm to keep me close by his side. When I told him that I wanted to buy some vegetables he told me not to pull money from my pocket, and he paid for them himself. Our walk through the market was brisk. When we exited into the blinding sunlight, Joseph turned to me and said, Promise me you will never, ever, go there alone. There are many bad people in there, he told me. His tone of urgency unnerved me. I was quick to promise. I don’t intend to return.

I was more at ease this day as I walked around Monrovia. From Rock Town and the General Market we walked out to UN Drive, which traces the outline of Monrovia along the water and is so-named because of the many UN agencies that populate the route. We followed UN Drive around Mamba Point and made our way through the bustle of Water Street in the commercial district of Waterside. On the crowded and muddy streets of Rock Town and Waterside the depths of Liberia's poverty began to sink in. Bare feet waded through small streams of sewage. Dilapidated shacks lined the sides of the path. Hundreds of desperate voices clamored to sell the most unsaleable goods. Houses overflowed with families of squatters.

By most measures, Liberia is one of the most impoverished and least developed countries in the world. Poverty is hard to describe, especially since the idea of poverty is usually relative, as it is when when we speak of 'poverty' in the United States. Rather than try to describe it in words, I find it easier to let the numbers (imperfect as they may be) speak to Liberia's poverty instead:

2003 life expectancy (World Bank): 42.5 years (compare to 77.4 years in the US)
2003 fertility rate (WB): 6.9 births per woman (US: 2.0)
2003 infant mortality rate (WB): 157 infants died during their first year of life for every 1,000 births (US: 7)
2003 under-5 mortality rate (WB): 235 for every 1,000 live births (US: 8)
2005 est. GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity) (CIA World Factbook): $1,000 (US: $41,800)
2003 adult literacy rate (WB): 55.9 percent
2005 access to safe drinking water (USAID): 25 percent
2005 access to sanitation facilities (USAID): 36 percent
2005 undernourished population (USAID): 35 percent
2005 immunization rate (USAID): 28 percent fully immunized
2003 physicians per 100,000 people (WB): 2 (US: 549)

2006-06-08T05:10:00.000-07:00

The Legal Aid Office at FIND has three full-time employees: Sundaiway, Finley, and Adolphus. FIND is one of only three organizations in Liberia that offer legal aid to the indigent, the others being the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission and the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia.

Sundaiway Elizabeth Nelson (her name is pronounced fluidly and beautifully as ‘Sunday-way’, and she is seated in the picture above) is the only Attorney at Law at FIND. She has a sunny disposition and speaks with a strong lisp that is endearing (although it made the already foreign-sounding Liberian patois especially difficult to understand at first). An active member of the Liberian National Bar Association, she is one of less than 80 female lawyers in all of Liberia. When I first arrived, she had long hair that fell down below her shoulders in thick braids. This last Monday morning, she strode regally into the office with short, wavy hair, wearing a nice red dress and gold jewelry. She is now ‘Queen Elizabeth’.

Finley Karngar (middle) is in his early 30s. He is exceedingly good-natured. Jokes come regularly, and he is quick with a smile. In the afternoons, he often brings a snack into the office from the streets: roasted corn cobs, fresh pineapple slices, fried ginger and coconut balls, roasted plantains, bananas. Inevitably, he shares.

In addition to working at FIND as a Legal Aid Officer, Finley is a second-year student at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law at the University of Liberia, the only law school in the country. Of the 50 students that entered his class, only 20 remain. Like Finley, almost all of the students hold full-time jobs during the day, and many find it too difficult to juggle school, work, and family while at the same time maintaining their school fees and making ends meet.

Since all of the professors at the law school are working professionals, classes don’t start until four o’clock in the afternoon, and Finley often briefs cases for class at the office. He is frequently late for school because of work. Jonathan, he’ll ask, Do you know this case, International Shoe? Liberian law is largely derivative of U.S. law; Liberian courts regularly cite American judicial precedents as legal authority. Since Finley’s studies mirror mine, we often talk through criminal, international, and civil procedure cases together. Of the three staff, Finley shows the most commitment to a career in human rights and indigent representation. Unlike many other young Liberians, Finley has no desire to leave his country to find better opportunities elsewhere. He will be a great human rights lawyer.

John Adolphus Woods (left) is a natural leader. Deeply engaged in all issues affecting Liberian society, he is especially passionate on the topics of human psychology and religious philosophy. When he speaks, he does so with great intensity and deliberation, and his hands speak as much as his mouth. Adolphus is a seminary student at United Methodist University in Monrovia as well as a Legal Aid Assistant at FIND. He holds several leadership positions at his school. Everyone in Monrovia seems to know Adolphus. When we walk around town together, he is constantly being greeted by friends and classmates. He laughs when I tell him that I think he would make a great politician and says that he’s not interested in holding a public office. Maybe some day he will be.

2006-06-06T02:36:00.001-07:00

The wheelbarrow is an apt symbol of Liberia, both past and present. Liberia’s history is unique in sub-Saharan Africa. While the rest Africa was carved into foreign concessions and exploited for its natural resources during the 19th and 20th centuries, Liberia successfully resisted Western European intrusions into the region. Liberia was founded in 1847 by freed American slaves (Americo-Liberians), and it enjoyed modest economic success until as recently as the 1980 military coup, which ended the minority Americo-Liberians' long history of political dominance. Yet despite this empowering history, the motives behind the freed slaves' migration from America were not entirely benign. The American Colonization Society--the organization that spearheaded the settlement of Liberia--was supported as much by Americans who were intent on resettling freed slaves outside of the United States as by abolitionists and free Blacks who sought to make a fresh start and guarantee liberty for an emancipated population.

In the foreground of Liberia's national seal sits a wheelbarrow, symbolizing the toil of Liberia’s founding fathers to establish a republic on the west coast of Africa. In addition to the wheelbarrow, the palm tree represents the rich resources of the land, and the shovel the mineral wealth of the Liberian earth. A white dove carrying a scroll symbolizes an endowment of wisdom and peace to the new republic, and a rising sun over the ocean signals the birth of the new country.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, the wheelbarrow still plays a central role in Liberian life and the national economy. All manner of goods can be seen being carted around Monrovia’s streets in wheelbarrows, my favorite being the music vendors pushing boom boxes that blast African music at full volume from beneath a mound of tapes and CDs. The wheelbarrow is also a basic tool of the current construction boom. All around town, wheelbarrows carry construction materials for the completion of half-finished structures that were abandoned during the war or supplies to rebuild those that were destroyed in the fighting. They can even be seen on rooftops pouring wet cement! Although unemployment stands at close to 85 percent, the omnipresent wheelbarrow hints at Liberia’s latent industriousness. Perhaps one day it also will be seen as a symbol of Liberia's successful re-development.

2006-06-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

Last night, an alphabet soup of international NGO and IGO employees gathered at the ‘mega-compound’, a strident (and quite successful) attempt to recreate a 1970s-era Florida beach motel on the west coast of Africa. Inside the walls, two stories of motel-like rooms surround a courtyard containing a small swimming pool, cabana with full bar and brick oven, and a handful of palms. On Saturday night, red and white helium balloons, tethered to lounge chairs, drifted back and forth in the night breeze. Men in shorts and Hawaiian shirts and women in bathing suits or beach sarongs stood in clumps around the pool. Bottles and red Solo cups littered the cabana, and two Liberian DJs—-the only hint that Disneyworld was not a tram ride away—-guided the music from one Eighties pop song to another. Something of the absurd permeated the scene. The place, in the midst of all else that is Liberia, brought to mind a pastime that is characteristic of almost all expat communities: escapism.

Our debut on the expatriate scene that night paid dividends. A handful of UNDP and UNMIL staff warmed to us at the after-party at a Monrovia bar, Agenda, and by the end of the night we had a ride to Silver Beach secured for Sunday afternoon. Taxis, difficult to hail at any time in Monrovia, are unsafe to take after dark. As a result, the lack of a personal car or driver is a serious logistical disadvantage to a social life. We had hired our first private driver, Ahmed, that Saturday night to drive us downtown to the party. We met him with his car next door at the casino. A Harvard University parking permit was stuck against the car’s rear window. As we sat in the car at the casino gate, three men pushed us up an incline and then released the car suddenly. As we rolled forward, Ahmed popped the clutch, and the engine sputtered to life. We were on our way.

At a UN checkpoint downtown, Ahmed reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. The UN soldiers require drivers to illuminate their interiors when passing a checkpoint at night. Unfortunately for Ahmed, his overhead light was out. For some reason, Ahmed told us, the peacekeepers always give him trouble for the bum light. I’ve told them it doesn’t work, he said to us. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work! What more can I do?

As the car rolled to a stop at the checkpoint, Ahmed placed the flashlight upwards beneath his chin as if he were about to tell ghost stories around a campfire. A bluish light washed across his bearded face, and Ahmed greeted the approaching UN peacekeeper with a smile. After a quick glance into the car, the soldier waved us through. With a grin, Ahmed turned to us and said, With a little torch-light, some friendly talk, and a smile, everything can be made good. If only everything in Liberia was actually that simple.

The next day, Sunday afternoon, we drove out to the small estate that is Silver Beach. Tall palms surrounded a small, ranch-style house next to the ocean, and twenty or thirty huts of palm fronds stood on the sand, along with a large palaver hut. Seated or sprawled in the shade and sun were about fifty expats of all stripes, and more swam in the waves. Several surfers paddled farther out into the ocean, waiting to catch a wave to shore. (Liberia is widely regarded as having the third best surfing in all of Africa.) The afternoon was spent lounging around with our new friends, strolling the beach, playing euchre, and swimming. Farther down the beach we met a crowd of fat, middle-aged Lebanese men under large yellow umbrellas, and they offered us a beer and a draw of apricot tobacco from their hookah.

Minus the Lebanese, it was easy to imagine myself on the coast of Florida that Sunday afternoon. With beaches rumored to be even more beautiful elsewhere in Liberia, and with waves of a caliber to attract serious surfers, Liberia has all of the necessary ingredients for a tourism explosion. Despite being plagued by years of conflict and instability, and in spite of continuing uncertainty about the sustainability of peace in the region, Liberia’s landscape begs for intelligent investment in tourist infrastructure. Although there is always the risk of over-development as well as of the hijacking of Liberia’s landscape for foreign gain, socially- and environmentally-conscious investment in the tourist industry may be just what is needed to give the Liberian economy a foothold on the path to sustainable development.

Foreign investors already appear to be betting on a stable future for Liberia. Australian and Lebanese co-owners just recently opened the Palm Spring Casino (pictured above), which sits adjacent to the compound where I live in Congo Town. Additionally, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud (the world’s 5th richest individual), visited Monrovia this week and announced plans to invest US $200 million in the Liberian hotel and tourist industry. (The Saudi Prince also donated US $2 million for housing during his visit, following an earlier charitable donation of US $1.2 million in 2005.) This is encouraging news. Access to capital is a huge barrier in Liberia, and Liberia's development will depend to a great extent on attracting foreign investment. Still, it would be nice to see some entrepreneurial Liberians join the fray and take greater ownership of the tourist industry’s potential.

2006-06-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I found myself at the Temple of Justice (pictured above) for a Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA) donation ceremony with Sundaiway Nelson, FIND’s Legal Aid Officer. The Temple of Justice—-which houses Liberia’s Supreme Court and several lower civil, criminal, and specialized courts—-was looted and severely damaged during the war. Many of its windows lack panes of glass, and its courtrooms and chambers are bare. It is a fitting symbol of Liberia’s post-war judiciary, which is a shambles.

The LNBA’s donation was received with great fanfare, including a speech by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Johnnie Louis, a tall, graying gentleman who I had the honor of meeting before the ceremony. The media covered the comments of both the Chief Justice and LNBA President with gusto. Newspaper and radio reporters thrust tape recorders and microphones toward the two men, and flashbulbs fired regularly during the ceremony. In light of this pomp and circumstance, a partial list of the donated items provides a glimpse of just how resource-poor Liberia’s judiciary is today: two typewriters, two executive chairs, six desks, tens of multi-colored plastic deck chairs, staplers and hole-punchers, and 68 reams of paper.

Chief Justice Louis presides over one of the most daunting priorities on the reconstruction agenda: rebuilding Liberia’s judiciary and securing its independence as a coordinate branch of government. As a FIND colleague, Adolphus, told me the other day, strengthening the judiciary is crucial to ending the culture of impunity in Liberia, a problem that extends beyond wartime abuses to the urgent need to root out corruption and governmental malfeasance, such as the recent disappearance of US $14,000 from the Government Reform Commission.

Problems on the path to strengthening Liberia’s judiciary abound. Quack lawyers con victims with false credentials, and too few credentialed lawyers are in practice (imagine that!). Representation of the indigent is meager, and the constitutional right to criminal defense counsel is a farce. In rural areas, most Liberians have little to no access to formal courts and instead rely for dispute resolution on extra-judicial institutions like judgments by village leaders and councils of elders based on traditional or customary law. Too few prosecutors are available to handle a growing docket of criminal cases. To make matters worse, many judges are recent law school graduates with no practical experience, and they often lack objectivity and are vulnerable to bribery. Justices of the Peace (JPs) are notoriously corrupt and incompetent, and estimates put the number of illiterate JPs at close to a third. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t envy the Chief Justice his job.

2006-06-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

According to my FIND colleagues, it is an ‘NGO tradition’ in Liberia to work Saturdays. Yet they only work from 10am until noon! A ‘time for reflection’, they tell me. I resolve to spend next Saturday reflecting on the utility of this tradition.

As for last Saturday, another member of FIND’s Legal Aid Office and I attended a conference of Liberian NGOs organized by Amnesty International and hosted by the Center for Democratic Empowerment. The purpose was to discuss the role of Liberia’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in ending impunity for abuses of human rights that occurred during the years of civil conflict. According to the TRC Act of 2005, the Commission is to investigate ‘gross human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law as well as abuses that occurred [during the period of January 1979 until October 14, 2003], including massacres, sexual violations, murder, extra-judicial killings and economic crimes, such as the exploitation of natural or public resources to perpetuate armed conflicts.’ The TRC will provide ‘an opportunity for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to share their experiences in order to create a clear picture of the past to facilitate genuine healing and reconciliation.’ Similar truth commissions were established in places like South Africa, Argentina, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and even Greensboro, N.C. to research and report on human rights abuses that occurred within a defined time period. Ultimately, the Commission will create a report of its findings, and it is empowered to recommend perpetrators of wrongs and their accomplices for either prosecution or amnesty (although amnesty does not apply to violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity). The TRC may also make recommendations regarding any reparations for victims.

Institutionally, the TRC is a body of nine prominent Liberians and their support staff, created in keeping with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in Accra, Ghana on August 18, 2003 to end Liberia’s 14 years of civil war. The TRC’s Chairman is Councillor Jerome Verdier, a man named by The Analyst, a Liberian newspaper, as one of two ‘2005 Human Rights Advocates of the Year’. Cllr. Verdier is also a co-founder of Green Advocates, a group of Liberian lawyers organized to protect Liberia’s environment and valuable natural resources, including its tropical rainforests, iron ore, diamonds and gold, all of which were exploited for years to fuel Liberia’s civil war. The other 8 members of the Commission include Sheikh Kafumba Konneh, Rev. Ambassador Gerald Coleman, Cllr. Pearl Brown Bull, Retired Bishop Arthur F. Kulah, Ms. Massa Washington, Mrs. Dede A. Dolopei, Mrs. Oumu K. Sylla and Mr. James H.T. Stewart.

The discussion last Saturday was passionate. One participant contended that as long as human rights violators and war criminals remain free—-and, in some cases, in power—-the reemergence of civil conflict will remain a threat. Another insisted that the TRC must designate a prosecutorial institution as soon as possible; otherwise, vengeance will be sought against violators and those who testify. Others asserted that Liberians will not testify voluntarily, and that the TRC’s subpoena and enforcement powers may be insufficient to accomplish its mission. Still others declared that any discussion of prosecutions was premature and would undermine the peace-building and reconciliation that the TRC is designed to achieve. The debate grew more impassioned as the conference spilled over its scheduled closure and into Saturday afternoon, and at one point descended into a shouting match. At that point the sole woman in the group, apparently exasperated at the aggressive and prolonged debate, exclaimed, Today is Saturday, man. With those words, the conference drew to a close.

Despite significant disagreement over whether prosecutions should follow automatically from the TRC’s work and, if so, what type of prosecutorial institution should be created, all participants agreed that, for now, Liberian civil society should support the Commission and work shape its final recommendations, regardless of their differences in opinion on what those recommendations should be. At the very least, the creation of a collective memory of the war is a step toward reconciliation and the establishment of a stable peace, both of which are essential if Liberia is to be reborn.

2006-05-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

The discovery of this spider in our bathroom—large enough to cast a shadow on the wall tiles—has meant the spread of Hitchcockian paranoia through our household. Every cabinet, every door, every dark corner is approached now with a little trepidation. This creature was lucky enough to meet us a few days ago and enjoyed our beneficence. Those we've encountered since have met less genial fates.

2006-05-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Time slows to a crawl on Sundays in Liberia. According to a Liberian friend, Joseph, the main road to Monrovia fills with Liberians taking their weekly jogs or runs from 6am until 8am, and later in the morning the streets fill with churchgoers. Liberia seems an intensely religious country, with Christian churches and institutions of all denominations spread throughout the city and its suburbs. Liberia is also home to a minority of Muslims, and a small but beautiful, white-washed mosque trimmed in yellow and sky blue can be found in downtown Monrovia. A Liberian seminary student at the United Methodist University in Monrovia told me that while 85 percent of Liberians identify as Christian, only 40 to 45 percent are active worshippers. Still, it is clear that religion plays a huge role in Liberian society, and even the bumpers of taxis proclaim the hope of Christ and blessings of God (although perhaps because, riding in a Liberian taxi, one is as close to death as one can be while still living).

On this lazy Sunday, I slept off my jet-lag and missed the morning runners and churchgoers. The afternoon was spent wandering the grounds of my home for the summer: the Dorothy Pryor Baptist Compound in Congo Town, Monrovia. The Compound sits on a hill overlooking a saltwater lagoon, itself separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a sizeable sandbar. From the Compound you can see barrels of waves roll onto the beach, and the sound of the ocean carries easily to Compound’s grounds and enters through the open windows of the house where I stay with two other NYU School of Law students, Christen and Rich (a fourth, Marie, joins us in June).

Outside the Compound’s gate on the main road into Monrovia sits one of the city’s many UN bunkers, including sandbags and a armored vehicle under camouflage. A tall cinderblock wall encircles the grounds, and embedded shards of colored glass from shattered windows and bottles line its top. The Compound is not only physically apart from the rest of Liberia, but also literally a world apart. About ten Mediterranean-style, red-roofed villas are on the grounds, which are well-landscaped with palm trees, flowers, and tropical foliage and populated with, among other creatures, three deer-like duikers and countless orange-throated lizards.

A generator on the grounds provides the Compound with power from around 6pm until roughly 8am, and air-conditioning cools the bedrooms in our house. Surreally, wireless internet is broadcast about the grounds whenever the power is on. Although we drink 'UN water' brought into our house in large plastic canisters, the plumbing is functional, and refreshingly cool water issues from our showerheads in the mornings.

Compare this setting to the living conditions of most Monrovians: no electricity (destroyed during 14 years of civil war), no pipe-borne water (also destroyed during the upheaval), and a shortage of housing (likewise destroyed during the war). Internally displaced persons (IDPs) have swelled Monrovia’s population and put additional pressure on the city’s available housing, and most of the city's abandoned and war-torn structures shelter numerous Liberian families taking advantage of any vacant building with a roof to shield them from the penetrating Liberian sun and drenching summer rains. Progress in restoring basic services like water and electricity to Monrovia is slow; the task is monumental. It is expected now that only a small corridor of Monrovia will be electrified by July 26, the date by which Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf promised Monrovians that she would light the city. Restoration of pipe-borne water to the city will likely take much longer.

2006-05-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

Large pallets of freight emblazoned with the UN’s characteristic baby blue wreath of olive branches circling the globe—-supplies for the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), the largest deployment of UN peacekeepers and administration anywhere in the world—-disgorge from a nearby cargo plane. UN helicopters line the tarmac, and blue helmets mill around our Bellview Airlines jet. The descent to Robertsfield International Airport, 40 km from Monrovia, seems a world away from Lagos or Accra. Instead of miles of cityscape spread out beneath the belly of the plane, an endless carpet of verdant low-country, a kaleidoscope of green, stretches unbroken to the horizon: Liberia.

Inside a low-slung concrete building a large, female immigration officer welcomes me to Liberia with a wink. In the next room, a short conveyor belt carries bags indoors through plastic weather flaps and snakes around the room. The power dies and all goes dark just as the first bags circumnavigate the room. A collective groan rises from the waiting crowd, and a few enterprising passengers climb onto the conveyor belt and stick their heads outside through the plastic flaps and shout at the porters for their luggage. I decide not to exercise that option. A few minutes later, the machinery crawls to life, and soon I’m wading through a humid afternoon, with my pack on my back and my eyes peeled for the man who is supposed to meet me. Surprisingly few entrepreneurial Liberians offer me housing or a ride into town, but this changes when I identify my contact waving at me from a distance. Suddenly, a handful of young men appear out of nowhere and surround me, hoping to carry my bags, and I quickly lose track of the man who waved me over in the first place. The pack sweeps me along to a Land Cruiser parked across the street, marked with the insignia of the organization I will be interning with this summer, FIND, and its motto: Dignity Beyond Borders. The FIND driver ushers me into the passenger seat as one of the young men hoists my luggage into the back and then begins clamoring for a tip. Do I actually pay him for that? No, the driver says. Everybody wants something for nothing.

Everybody wants something for nothing. It’s a refrain I hear repeated several times that day. Mostly, the sentiment is directed at those in positions of relative power, and that attitude is most colorfully resisted in the Liberian adage, No more monkey do and baboon draw. In other words, no more free-riders in the new Liberia. For too many years, regular Liberians worked hard without reward while others kicked back and drew inflated paychecks for nothing. Not in this new Liberia. The sentiment expressed by the saying is a positive one, and it seizes the future of Liberia for the honest, hard-working people, not the corrupt. No more parasitic management or government. No more monkey do and baboon draw. I can only hope that the sentiment is as widespread as it appears during my first day in Liberia.

2006-05-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

Without a Nigerian visa (by plan), I spend the afternoon in dank, dark Room 0146 of immigration at Lagos airport, waiting to be escorted to a transit area to await my 7am flight to Monrovia. A wan light filters through two Plexiglas windows, casting everything in a greenish submarine hue. A mosquito bite swells on my arm in the darkness, and all I can think about is malaria. In a corner of the room, an immigration officer changes out of his khaki uniform. A strong, musky body odor wafts over to the metal bench I sit on and hangs in the wet air. The officer tries the light switch. No current. I swat a huge mosquito sitting on the knee of my jeans. My passport is padlocked in a file cabinet only two feet away. I feel captive.

Later, a Nigerian man and a Nigerian woman enter the dark room. Both arrived from the UK, having been turned away by British immigration. The man—tall and thin with a long face and a bird nose—is a Nigerian civil servant in the Ministry of Education. The woman, a vociferous Pentecostal Christian, chats with me as the immigration officer questions the man. She is concerned about my overnight stay in the airport. Do you have water? Have you had something to eat? I assure her that I will be fine. Are you a missionary? No, just a law student on my way to Liberia. A Christian? No, I tell her. She looks at me hard. Then, with great intensity: May God bless you, and may you some day receive the blessings of Jesus Christ. My first taste of religiosity in Africa.

If the British ask you how long you stay, lie to them, says the immigration officer to the Nigerian man from behind his worn, particle-board desk. If you have a seven day visa, he says, tell them you stay for four days. When you enter, they will not know where you are, and when you leave, they will not know you overstayed. Why did you tell them the truth?

I ask the woman why she was denied entry into the UK. She tells me that, after five months in the UK, she returned home to Lagos for three months to help her cousin with the birth of her first child. The explanation, apparently, was not sufficient. I ask her whether she was in Britain on a work visa. No, she says. A tourist visa. I don’t ask her what she was doing for five months in the UK.

The immigration officer calls her over to his desk. So, he says, what happened to you? I will appeal their decision, she answers. They should not have turned me away. Perhaps not, the immigration officer says curtly, but that is how they always treat us Nigerians.

At 10:15pm, the Lagos Airport is sleepy, and the last airplane of the day—a Virgin Nigeria flight to London—is pulling away from its gate. Only a few transiting passengers hole up in the airport for the night, and workers are shuttering the airports cafés and bars. As I fall asleep on the airport bench, I wonder how many of the passengers on that Virgin Nigeria flight will be back in that very same airport in a matter of days.