December 30 is a Town Trap

The Liberian Civil War in the 1990s robbed me of my childhood development. Before the war, I lived in Yekepa, the mountainous concession area in Nimba County; a place that developed my life into the man I am today, a closed knit community where everyone was neighbor. We had access to 24/7 electricity and attended some of the best primary and secondary schools in the country at the time.

Alolysius J Morris, Author

I was too young to understand, but there had been rumors of tribal killings by the regime of former President Samuel K. Doe. I remembered as a child when parents of our friends were taken away from their homes under the cover of darkness and left at the mercy of President Doe’s death squad because they were members of different ethnic groups.

On a sunny afternoon in May 1990, the NPFL forces which launched the civil war attacked and captured our peaceful community. They claimed to be freedom fighters and the units that captured Yekepa were predominantly of the Nimbaians. When they took over the community, they began carrying out reprisal killings. I remembered my family ran away to Guinea with us (the children) to escape the scourge of the war where we became refugees, susceptible to all sorts of communicable diseases and I contracted cholera that almost killed me; thanks to God and my mother for the care given and the intervention that saved me till this day.

For the first time in many years as a child, we couldn’t attend school for the academic year due to the raging of war and our regular meals were rationed due to uncertainty of how long the war would last.

When we returned after the cessation of hostilities in early 1991, there was a man who worked with the LAMCO railway only known to me as “Whiteman” who was very jovial and friendly with everybody, even us the kids. But that man was murdered by a notorious NPFL commando known as “Alfred Tell Me Truth” simply because he was alleged to have ‘belonged to a certain tribe’. Killings were common in all of Yekepa and the killings were on both sides first supporters of the Doe’s regime and later those who supported Taylor’s NPFL.

We witnessed our friends’ parents being taken away from them because they belong to one tribe or another. Even our Mandingo neighbors ran away due to news that they were being hunted by the NPFL in retaliation to them aiding and abetting the AFL during raids on many villages in Nimba County.

There are stories of many massacres that were perpetrated by various factions during the course of the civil war. Amongst them were the Lutheran Church Massacre, the Duport Road CowField Massacre, the Carter High Massacre, the infamous Barkedu, etc.

These are just amongst the many scars of the war. I know war because I have experienced the attending consequences of warfare; the delay in our progress as young people, the trauma and the decimation of 250,000 of our countrymen are all the attending consequences of the war that lasted from December 1989 to August 2003.

These stories and my personal experiences are highlighted with the hope of enlightening my readers, some of whom may have forgotten the horrors of the war, and to emphasize that an unfair peace is better than a fair war. The incidences that culminated into the civil war may have led to an act of war that was supposedly justified; but the only lesson we were taught vividly has been the damage it did to the fabric of our society; it decimated over a quarter of million people and many more were sent into refugees camps; children were made orphans and young Liberians were conscripted to fight guerilla warfare for selfish Liberian politicians, which led to many traumatized youths languishing in various street corners.

People were marginalized, civil servants were not being paid, the regime was being accused of extrajudicial killings, there were huge disenchantment amongst the people, incessant protests and the economy was crumbling under its own weight, corruption increased. These and many factors led to the 1989 uprising that eventually lasted until 2003 when the International Community finally decided to intervene by deployimng one of the largest peace keeping force in the history of the Organization; but before then, there were several interventions that did not materialize; the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed in Ghana saw the departure of former president Taylor and the final cessation of hostilities.

Are the same issues that necessitated the war still persistent today? Let’s look at some of the issues that are similar to what caused the civil war:

Allegations of Corruption

There have been allegations of massive corruption which led to the first major protest and continuous agitation of the people. The alleged stealing of 16 billion Liberian Dollars; and the alleged misapplication of the 25 Million United States Dollars that was authorized by the President to mop up excess Liberian Dollars from the Liberian economy; allegation that the President built 47 condos in few months, and numerous allegations that the government has largely paid lipservice to the fight against corruption. It can be recalled earlier this year, five officials of the Central Bank of Liberia were arraigned before a court in Monrovia to answer to allegations of their role in the illegal printing and siphoning of billions of Liberian Dollars, a move government supporters claimed was a step in the right direction while critics called it a witch hunt. All of these have compounded the issues and are at the crux of the numerous disenchantments of the masses. These are amongst the many reasons why the organizers of the December 30, 2019 protest have decided to call for the President to step down.

The Economy

In one of his books, The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier asserts that countries with slow growth or worse countries that are stagnant and in decline are prone to civil unrests. As an approximation, a typical low-income country faces the risk of civil unrests of about 14% in any five year period. According to his assertion, if a country grows by any percentage point, the likelihood of conflict reduces by that corresponding percentage and vice versa.

Earlier, the World Bank and other credible International Development Agencies predicted doom for the Liberian economy; they reported an inflation rate high of over 28%, and a growth rate of 0.4 and later predicted a further decline. Given that we accept this assertion as true, Liberia is most likely to slide into civil unrest than not; but the onus is upon not only the government but the opposition, the civil society organizations, student and youth groupings to ensure that we as a country don’t get to slide into any form of unrest. These variables and predictions only point to doom and how the government is able to manage said predictions will go a long way.

In early 2010, Tunisia as a country was entrenched in bad governance practices, they experienced low income, slow growth, high food prices, police brutality and many other vices; the people of Tunisia had the right to protest, there was every justification to protest; there had been protest and disenchantment amongst the people until one fateful day in December (17th of December) A street vendor Tarek El Tayek Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze and that became the catalyst for the now infamous Arab Spring; these protests spread through out North Africa and the Middle East, today its impact still lingers in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc. The initial conditions that added up to the protest were justified but the consequences were dire and are still being felt by the ordinary masses of the people eventhough they succeeded in changing regimes within the region, but it broke down the fabric of their respective societies and the scars of those unrests still remain today. Let us as a people in the words of the late US Congressman of the 7th Congressional District of Maryland, Elijah Eugene Cummings shift from politics to policy as a way forward for Liberia.

There is no doubt about the mounting economic challenges, some of which are exogenous; i.e, the shock in commodity prices (our traditional export commodities; Iron Ore and rubber), the slowdown of the global economy and other variables but yet some are self-inflicted; the over bloating of the wage bill by the government, the incessant protests which has led to investment fatigue. I used the phrase self-inflicted to refer to all sectors/factions of the Liberian society; the government’s continuous over piling of the wage bill and the opposition and civil society’s incessant protests; the electoral violence etc. have led to a situation where investors are shying away from the economy. There’s an adage in the financial industry that says “Money goes where it is treated best”. No rational investor will venture into a hostile or a perceived hostile environment because the essence of investment is to get returns, but if the place of investment is volatile, the investor’s most rational action is to pull out and invest his money to where its safety is guaranteed. As a result of the shortage of investment, the government is not getting the needed revenue to service the economy thus leading to stagnation.

Protests and news of protests every day and how the government has been able to manage it thus far has caused a bulk of the problems that are hampering the growth of the economy.

Bad governance policy coupled with insecurity has been largely the cause of the slowdown in the growth of the economy.

Allegations of Media Censorship

There have a mounting claims of media censorship with folks in the opposition accusing government of attempts at suppressing free speech and silencing critical voices within the media. These claims have come from influential folks within the media, prominent amongst which are Jonanthan Paye-Layleh of the BBC who claimed that the President accused him of being against him(the President), the latest being the closure of Roots FM operated by Henry P Costa who is one of the organizers of the pending December 30 protest. Henry has been a vocal critic of the government eventhogh the content of his broadcast has mostly been termed as unethical, but he continued unabated until his station was shutdown earlier in October for what the government termed as illegal operations and economic sabotage through “inciteful comments deemed to have scared investors away”. It can be recalled in June of this year, the government shut down the internet with an intent of contolling the information about the June 7 protest; at least that one was admitted by the Minister of Information Mr. Lenn Eugene Nagbe. These are amongst the few accusations against the Weah Administration from critics; but apologists and supporters hail the administration for being tolerant to the media and critical voices; for instance, one of the first acts of President Weah was to decriminalize free speech by passing the KAK Act.

Given all of the above, it is not rational at this point to encourage any protest that has the propensity to plunge the economy and the security of the state into further abyss.

If organizers of the December 30 “Weah Step Down” Campaign mean well, they should rally the government by other means, make it their sole business to assist the government in creating a safe environment for the revival of the economy by encouraging Foreign Direct Investment.

While we acknowledge the people’s right to assemble and petition their government, we would like to prevail on the organizers of the pending protest to desist and pursue other means at pressuring the government to deliver on its commitment and if they feel that cannot be attained, petition the legislature to impeach the President instead of gathering on the streets. Gathering on the streets would only further stall the already struggling economy which would have a negative trickledown effect on the ordinary mass of the people.

In my candid opinion, these protests are inimical to the forward march of the country because they would only further scare away investors and starve the economy of an important source of Foreign Exchange earnings.

A hint to the wise, they say,