Liberia,
Corpses At The Doorstep
By Greg Palast
Baltimore Sun,
26 July, 2003
"The
photos of corpses in the streets of Liberia's capital and news reports
with those words so familiar in the New World Order - 'warlord,' 'civil
war,' 'warring tribes' - prompt a gut response in both the U.S. public
and U.S. government, 'Let's get in the helicopters and just get the
heck out.' The easiest, obvious policy is to let Liberia die."
Those words, which
I wrote to the U.S. State Department eight years ago, could have been
written today. All that's changed since then is the name of the president
and the names of the dead.
In 1995, at the
request of prominent Liberians, I took an unofficial delegation to convey
that nation's plea to provide material and U.S. Marines to support a
peacekeeping force from other West African states. Then, as now, visions
of another Somalia, of another Black Hawk Down, led to our government's
deadly hesitation.
This week, as mortar
shells burst inside refugee centers, Liberians dropped the bodies of
their parents, friends and one headless child at the doorstep of the
American Embassy - a ghoulish but apt protest. They are the grim reminders
of our culpability in the killings, which goes much deeper than the
Clinton and Bush administrations' policy of benign neglect.
Reporters never
fail to mention that former American slaves founded Liberia, yet have
passed over more recent history: The administration of Ronald Reagan
armed the first berserker to seize power in Liberia, setting in motion
the current civil war.
Liberia enjoyed
a century and a half of democracy and prosperity until 1980, when a
low-ranking officer in the presidential guard, Samuel K. Doe, murdered
the president, executed the nation's entire Cabinet and declared himself
ruler. Within months, the newly inaugurated Ronald Reagan locked down
Mr. Doe's hold on power by showering him with $500 million in taxpayer
dollars, the most aid granted any African nation.
In return for this
largesse, Liberia's first dictator made his nation the U.S. government's
African spearhead in the Cold War, a counter to Moammar Gadhafi of Libya
and the Russians and Cubans advancing in Angola.
America's cash funded
Mr. Doe's war of misery, atrocity and attrition against rival gangsters
("warlords" is far too grand a name for the greed-driven thugs
that vie for the spoils of control). Today, the Cold War and President
Reagan are gone; so is Mr. Doe, who was hacked into pieces in the presidential
mansion. But the bloody residue of the use of Liberia as our foreign
policy pawn remains.
Liberia is no Somalia.
As I wrote in 1995, "The shooters and looters are not organized
armies but roving gangs of notorious bullies who flee at the first show
of strength. Therefore, a properly armed and supported African peacekeeping
force can take guns out of the hands of the teen-agers that make up
much of the ganglord's 'troops.'"
One of the criminals
claiming power is the nominal president, Charles Taylor, who invaded
Liberia in 1989 with 125 mercenaries after his escape from a Massachusetts
prison. Technically, he was elected to office. However, Mr. Taylor's
technique of armed campaigning - with the implicit slogan, "Vote
for me or I'll kill you" - hardly grants legitimacy to this jailbird's
authority.
There is, of course,
a real danger in U.S. intervention: the Iraqi-fication of a humanitarian
policing mission.
In Iraq, America's
first viceroy in Baghdad, retired Gen. Jay Garner, was replaced by President
Bush. I suspect his error was to announce Iraqis could hold elections
within 90 days of the end of hostilities. His successor has postponed
elections until next year or the year after. Mr. Garner had a military
man's instinct that "liberation" begins, after three months,
to look like colonial reoccupation - and the cost of that shift can
be counted up in body bags for U.S. soldiers.
In Liberia as in
Iraq, we should be wary of the temptation to overstay our welcome. Liberia
is close enough to Nigeria for the Bush administration to smell the
oil. The French have moved troops into the nearby Ivory Coast, and Britain
has reasserted authority over Sierra Leone.
It is easy to imagine
humanitarian intervention taking an ugly turn, with America again using
Liberia as puppet, this time in a tussle over control of African resources.
But the greatest difference between other nations where our troops have
landed and Liberia is that in Liberia we are welcome.
And we are obligated.
We rushed in to fund the killings, now we must go in to end it. Until
then, the Liberians will pile the corpses at our doorstep to remind
us of the blood on our hands.
Greg Palast
is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money
Can Buy. Subscribe to his writings for Britain's Observer and Guardian
newspapers, and view his investigative reports for BBC Television's
Newsnight, at www.GregPalast.com
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