by Jeff Drumtra

U.S. Committee for Refugees

As the decade that ruined Liberia comes to an end, the people of Liberia realize that they stand at a crossroads in their country's history. They nervously wonder which road leads to permanent peace, and which path leads back to war.

Virtually all of Liberia's 3 million citizens fled their homes for weeks, months, or years during that country's seven years of bloodshed. An estimated 150,000 Liberians died as up to 11 armed factions battled against each other and terrorized the entire population from late 1989 until late 1996.

The years of chaos trashed virtually beyond recognition Liberia's proud national system of education and health care arguably the best in impoverished West Africa before the war.

Strong ties between the United States and Liberia convinced many Liberians that American soldiers would eventually wade ashore and restore stability in their ravaged country. (Freed American slaves have historically dominated Liberia's politics and economy.) Direct U.S. military assistance never arrived, however.

Three years ago, Liberia's long war officially ended when the country's exhausted armed factions agreed to hold national elections. A fitful peace has replaced the gunfire.

Three-quarters of the country's uprooted people have anxiously returned to their homes, although some 200,000 Liberian refugees remain in neighboring asylum countries, wary of their country's future. Nearly 3,000 Liberians have gained individual permanent asylum in the United States during the 1990s, and more than 6,500 have been resettled through the U.S. refugee resettlement program. An additional 10,000 Liberians continue to receive temporary refuge in the United States, their eventual deportation delayed by the Clinton Administration until late 2000 because of political and economic conditions inside Liberia. (See Refugee Reports, Vol. 20, No. 9, p. 11.)

Many Liberians express mixed emotions about their return home and their prospects for the future. Philip Jackson, a 30-year-old Liberian, hopes that all Liberian refugees rapidly return home. He adds, however, that he has mixed emotions about Liberia's future.

In a devastated country with up to 80 percent underemployment, Philip is one of the fortunate few. He earns the equivalent of $500 per month working for a prominent international aid organization. Philip's salary must stretch to support his wife, four children, and three-dozen friends and relatives.

Philip (not his real name) asks that his actual identity remain anonymous to spare him troubles with authorities. He is ethnic Krahn, the group that is widely perceived to have endured the greatest political and economic losses during the war. Philip fled temporarily to Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire during the long conflict. But he has returned home and managed to secure a lucrative job despite his disdain for the current Liberian government.

"We don't have 100 percent security, but it is improved. Things have been picking up economically.... I would tell them [Liberian refugees] to go home. I would tell them, 'Your voice and my voice blended together can make a difference. It is up to us to rebuild our country. We made this war. It is our home we spoiled it, and we can fix it.'"

"If they [current refugees] would come back home, I would feel very proud. The only way for us to regain credibility as a country is to bring back credible people, especially people [with skills in] education, health care, and reconstruction. With them coming back, Liberia could take its rightful place in the world. Without them, there is a cloud hanging over Liberia."

He divulges, however, that he recently sent his family back into exile for security reasons. "There is no future in Liberia now," Philip concludes.

While the majority of Liberians struggle to rebuild their country, significant numbers of well-educated Liberians acknowledge that they have virtually "given up" on their homeland and might settle permanently in other countries for political or economic reasons.

"The bulk of the most educated and most experienced Liberians are not in the country" anymore, a Liberian lawyer observed. "There is a permanent removal of these very highly trained people."

"What's disappointing to me is the number of Liberians whom I wish were there [in Liberia] but are not there. They are missing in action," an American with long experience in Liberia lamented. "If they [returned to] Liberia, the nature of political discussion inside Liberia would be different. Liberians have to take the risk and commitment to return home. Their presence in the country would contribute to a solution. Their absence contributes to the problems."

The country's problems are evident. Liberian voters in 1997 elected as president the most powerful armed faction leader, Charles Taylor, largely to ensure his cooperation in ending the war. Liberians widely complain that President Taylor has reneged on his campaign promises and that his government is "both incompetent and corrupt extremely incompetent and extremely corrupt," as one Liberian put it. (See Refugee Reports, Vol. 20, No. 9, p. 12.)

The U.S. government and other major donors agree with that assessment. Apparently so does Alexander Kulue, executive director of the Liberian government's Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission and a frequent public critic of his government colleagues.

"Honesty and sincerity [are] lacking in our country. We don't have a lot of honest men in this government," Kulue told Refugee Reports. "Our leaders have to realize that the way we're going is not the way to go. They have not realized that yet.... The government does not show good judgment, so how can we convince donors to give us money? I understand the government is not so good yet and [donors] don't want to give it money. I agree."

The capital city, Monrovia, remains without electricity and is still cluttered with ugly shells of buildings destroyed by the war. Prices remain higher, and supplies of staple foods and goods remain lower, than pre-war levels. Several key highways are virtually impassable one-third of the year because of rains and years of neglect. Paychecks to government employees are modest as little as $10 per month and reach employees months late.

Residents in most rural areas are virtually cut off from regular news and information about their country, unable to hear the capital city's seven radio stations because of the stations' budget problems and government restrictions on broadcasts. Shockingly low student test scores on national scholastic exams in mid-1999 emphasize the deleterious effects of school overcrowding and the erosion of academic standards compared to the pre war period.

"It has been two years [since the national election], and still there are no social services, poor schools, few hospitals, no running water, and no electricity in the whole country," a Monrovia resident complained.

Struggling to come to grips with the war's legacy of enormous ruin and a substantially lower standard of living, Liberians are impatient for the benefits they expected peace to bring.

In addition to economic and social hardships, sporadic violence and looting during the past year kept Liberians on edge. In many areas of the country, particularly in Monrovia and the northern county of Lofa, residents believe that three years of relative peace still have not yielded reliable stability.

"Liberia is a post-war country, but not a post-conflict country," an international aid worker in Monrovia observed.

In September 1998, up to 18,000 ethnic Krahn Liberians fled to neighboring Côte d'Ivoire after government soldiers and Krahn militia clashed in Monrovia, leaving hundreds of civilians dead in the capital, according to some estimates.

Twice in the past eight months, in April and August 1999, armed elements attacked villages in remote Lofa county, destroying homes, looting international relief supplies, and temporarily taking aid workers and international diplomats hostage. Up to 8,000 ethnic Mandingo Liberians fled to neighboring Guinea in April. In August, continued looting and violence displaced thousands of Lofa county residents, many of whom remained uprooted in October.

Most aid organizations, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), pulled out of upper Lofa county in August. UNHCR said its withdrawal was "permanent" because of recurring insecurity and targeting of relief operations there.

Most Liberians and international observers believe that Liberian government security forces were heavily involved in the looting and destruction in Lofa in April and August. Whether President Taylor sanctioned the violence by his troops remains unknown.

"Nothing is done to bring these people [undisciplined government soldiers] to book," charged James Verdier, associate director of the Justice and Peace Commission, a respected local human rights organization. "There is government complicity in most of these cases.

"This has an effect on the return of refugees from neighboring countries. Before August, there was an appreciable number of returns. But since then, many have gone back" to asylum countries, Verdier said. "These events do not encourage people to come home."

Liberia's current security problems stem in part from the flawed disarmament process immediately after the war. International donors, including the United States, failed to provide proper funding to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate some 40,000 combatants back into Liberian society.

Liberians say they are convinced that many ex-combatants, particularly child soldiers, did not receive the post-war psychological counseling they desperately needed. They assert that many former combatants retain access to weapons that they now use for periodic looting.

"There may be a lot of freelancing going on," a Liberian human rights worker said. "People who fought with a faction during the war, and now feel abandoned by their leaders" might dramatize their alienation from the political and economic mainstream by reverting to violence, he said.

Although most of Liberia's two-dozen main ethnic groups co-exist peacefully, the war has left scattered tensions, particularly against two groups ethnic Mandingoes and Krahns who formed ethnic-based armies before or during the war. Strong ethnic hostilities exist in parts of Lofa county, where Mandingoes and ethnic Lomas have traditionally competed for economic advantage. Atrocities committed by and against both those groups during the war aggravated animosities that persist today.

Between half and three-quarters of the 200,000 Liberian refugees who so far have refused to repatriate are Mandingoes, Krahns, or residents of troubled Lofa county, according to demographic information compiled in asylum countries. Some Mandingo families in Lofa and Nimba counties reportedly have been unable to regain possession of their homes and properties after returning to Liberia.

Fear and discrimination are not uniform, however. Thousands of Krahn families returned safely to eastern Liberia's Grand Gedah county. Many told Refugee Reports that they feel secure. Thousands of Mandingoes managed to re-established their lives in Liberia. And sizable parts of Lofa county remain free of post-war violence.

Liberia's people are left with a tenuous peace that is threatened by undisciplined soldiers, disillusioned ex-combatants, pockets of ethnic hostility, and economic hardship. It is a peace that, in the hearts of many Liberians, produces more anxiety than comfort.

"The majority of Liberians have a fear that things can happen at any time. People keep thinking something [bad] will happen," said Reverend Christian Harding, a Liberian Episcopal priest.

The international community has responded cautiously to Liberia's considerable needs for reintegration programs, renovation, and long-term development aid. International donors, led by the United States, hesitate to pump aid dollars into a Liberian government widely suspected of corruption, mismanagement, and human rights problems. Liberian returnees receive far less reintegration assistance on a per capita basis than do returnees in many other regions of the world.

The World Bank, capable of tapping hundreds of millions of dollars for Liberia, curtailed its activities in Liberia earlier this year in hopes of pressuring Liberian authorities into management reforms and improved accountability for public expenditures.

UNHCR and international NGOs struggle to attract timely, adequate funding and are gun-shy after repeatedly suffering attacks, looting of relief equipment, and emergency staff evacuations throughout the 1990s. (Earlier this year, aid agencies lost more than $1 million worth of food, vehicles, radios, and other assets in two major security incidents in Lofa county.)

In October, Médecins Sans Frontières lost thousands of dollars and evacuated a French staff member wounded by armed intruders in southeastern Liberia's Maryland county, previously a quiet area.

Despite security concerns and limited funding, international and local aid organizations operate a range of assistance programs. Catholic Relief Services delivers food used in food-for-work programs and supports agricultural projects in selected counties.

The American Refugee Committee operates a micro-credit loan program that will provide up to a quarter-million dollars in small loans, $100 to $225 each, to help jump-start new local businesses. Adventist Development and Relief Agency renovates schools buildings, conducts teacher training workshops, and sponsors income generation projects.

The International Foundation for Education and Self-Help operates programs in health education, women's literacy, social reconciliation, small loans, and school renovation. Search for Common Ground supports local production of radio broadcasts specially geared to facilitate reintegration and social reconciliation.

The Carter Center operates a $600,000 "democracy and governance" program aimed at strengthening local human rights organizations and improving the skills and independence of local journalists. Recent cutbacks in U.S. funding have endangered the Carter Center program, however, and forced the National Democratic Institute to suspend similar programs intended to strengthen democratic practices in Liberia.

"We found ourselves in a situation where everything is to be done. You go into the bush and see" widespread needs, said Guy Avognon, UNHCR repatriation officer in Liberia. "Even if we had received twice the amount of money we requested, the need is still so large."

Before the war, Liberians relied on what they described as a "special relationship" with the United States that steered considerable aid money and other benefits to their country. Now Liberian society is coming to the painful realization that the "special relationship" is finished.

Neither international aid donors nor international business investors are standing in line to channel huge sums of money into post-war Liberia. And the Liberian government has, so far, been unable or unwilling to improve conditions for the vast majority of the population.

"Liberians have always expected more from Americans than Americans have ever given," said one Liberian exile who says he might never return home. "Liberians have always thought there was a special relationship between the United States and Liberia. But it is more like a relationship of unresponsive love."

(On October 12, the U.S. State Department removed Liberia from the "Priority Three" refugee processing priority list. Consequently, Liberian refugees overseas will no longer be eligible to receive consideration for U.S. admission based on petitions from close family members who legally reside in the United States. See story, State Department Scales Back Family-Based Refugee Processing for Africans.)

SOURCE: Refugee Reports, Vol. 20, No 10 (1999)

Copyright 1999, USCR