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© missio 2005
23
Menschenrechte
Droits de l’Homme
ISSN 1618-6222
missio Order No. 600 275
Human Rights
Hans-Peter Hecking
Human rights in
Liberia: A dream
of freedom
The efforts of the Catholic
Church for justice and peace
The Human Rights Office aims to promote awareness of the human rights situation in Africa, Asia
and Oceania. In pursuit of this objective we are actively involved in human rights networking and
foster exchanges between missio’s church partners in Africa, Asia and Oceania and church and
political decision-makers in the Federal Republic of Germany. This Human Rights series comprises
country-by-country studies, thematic studies and the proceedings of specialist conferences.
Current/Planned Publications
Since the country’s creation in 1847 Liberia’s history has been marked by a series of institutional
failures and a decline of the state, ending in its complete collapse as a result of lawlessness, strife
and the denial of fundamental human and civil rights to large sections of the population. Even
now, almost a year after the disintegration of the state and the subsequent attempt at a social revival
with the aid of the international community, Liberia still suffers from the consequences of historically
determined constitutional weaknesses and the disastrous decline of the republic after 1980.
2 Human Rights in the DR Congo: 1997 until the present
day. The predicament of the Churches
in German (2002) – Order No. 600 202
in English (2001) – Order No. 600 212
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 222
This study examines the Catholic Church’s efforts on behalf of justice and peace in Liberia over the past
25 years, i.e. since the First Republic came to a violent end. It shows how the Catholic Church of
Liberia stood up in defence of basic human and civil rights in this period of rapid political decline,
which ended in the complete breakdown of any political and social order in “Black Africa’s oldest
republic”, as well as in the first year of political and social reorientation following the abdication
of the despot, Charles Taylor. The Catholic Church’s commitment to justice and peace as well as
to human and civil rights in Liberia is presented and discussed on the basis of a selection of the
most important ecclesiastical pronouncements and documents.
Hans-Peter Hecking (b. 1955) studied theology and political science, receiving the title of Dipl.-Theol.
He then trained as a pastoral specialist in Trier. He has worked for missio Aachen since 1983; up
to 1989 as an educational specialist, since 1989 as Desk Officer for the Asian countries and, as of
1997, for the African countries, too. Since the beginning of 2002 he has been in charge of missio’s
Africa Desk. He has made numerous fact-finding and project trips to Asian and African countries,
including Liberia.
1
Human Rights. Religious Freedom in the People’s
Republic of China
in German (2001) – Order No. 600 201
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 211
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 221
3 Human Rights in Indonesia.
Violence and Religious Freedom
in German (2001) – Order No. 600 203
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 213
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 223
4 Human Rights in East Timor
– The Difficult Road to Statehood
in German (2001) – Order No. 600 204
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 214
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 224
5 Human Rights in Turkey – Secularism
= Religious Freedom?
in German (2002) – Order No. 600 205
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 215
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 225
6 Persecuted Christians? Documentation of an
International Conference Berlin 14/15 September 2001
in German (2002) – Order No. 600 206
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 216
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 226
7 Female Genital Mutilation – Evaluation of a Survey
Conducted among Staff Members of Catholic Church
Institutions in Africa
in German (2003) – Order No. 600 207
in English (2003) – Order No. 600 217
in French (2003) – Order No. 600 227
8 Female Genital Mutilation
A Report on the Present Situation in Sudan
in German/in English/in French (2002)
– Order No. 600 208
9 Human Rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Religious Freedom
in German (2002) – Order No. 600 230
in English (2003) – Order No. 600 231
in French (2003) – Order No. 600 232
10 Human Rights in Sri Lanka.
Church Endeavours for Peace and Human Dignity
in German (2002) – Order No. 600 233
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 234
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 235
11 Human Rights in Zimbabwe.
in German (2002) – Order No. 600 236
in English (2002) – Order No. 600 237
in French (2002) – Order No. 600 238
12 Human Rights in South Korea.
in German (2003) – Order No. 600 239
in English (2005) – Order No. 600 240
in French (2005) – Order No. 600 241
13 Human Rights in Sudan.
in German (2003) – Order No. 600 242
in English (2004) – Order No. 600 243
in French (2004) – Order No. 600 244
14 Human Rights in Nigeria.
in German (2003) – Order No. 600 245
in English (2003) – Order No. 600 246
in French (2003) – Order No. 600 247
15 Human Rights in Rwanda.
in German (2003) – Order No. 600 248
in English (2003) – Order No. 600 249
in French (2003) – Order No. 600 250
16 Human Rights in Myanmar/Burma.
The church under military dictatorship
in German (2004) – Order No. 600 251
in English (2004) – Order No. 600 252
in French (2004) – Order No. 600 253
17 Religious Freedom in the Kingdom of Cambodia.
in German/in English/in French (2004) –
Order No. 600 254
18 Human Rights in Laos
in German/in English/in French (2004) –
Order No. 600 257
19 Human Rights in Egypt
in German (2004) – Order No. 600 260
in English (2004) – Order No. 600 261
in French (2004) – Order No. 600 262
20 Turkey on the road to Europe – Religious Freedom?
in German (2004) – Order No. 600 264
in English (2004) – Order No. 600 265
in French (2004) – Order No. 600 266
21 Opportunities for Christian-Islamic co-operation
in upholding human rights and establishing civil societies
Conference in closed session 11/3/2002 – 14/3/2002, Berlin
Volume 1
in German (2004) – Order No. 600 268
in English (2004) – Order No. 600 269
in French (2004) – Order No. 600 270
22 Opportunities for Christian-Islamic co-operation
in upholding human rights and establishing civil societies
Conference in closed session 11/3/2002 – 14/3/2002, Berlin
Volume 2
in German (2004) – Order No. 600 271
in English (2004) – Order No. 600 272
in French (2004) – Order No. 600 273
23 Human rights in Liberia: A dream of freedom –
the efforts of the Catholic Church for justice and peace
in German (2005) – Order No. 600 274
in English (2005) – Order No. 600 275
in French (2005) – Order No. 600 276
All publications are also available as PDF files.
http://www.missio-aachen.de/humanrights
1
Inhalt
2 Liberia – Facts and figures
3 1. Injustice and strife
4 2. Liberia – Land of the free?
4 2.1 Failure built into the state
system: Americo-Liberian
dominance and economic
dependence
9 2.2 Bloody seizure of power:
The end of the ancien régime
ushers in the process of political
decay
12 2.3 Civil war and the complete
collapse of the state: The rule of
Charles Ghankay Taylor
12 2.3.1 Civil war – Phase I
15 2.3.2 Civil war – Phase II
19 2.4 One year after the complete
collapse of the state – muted
hopes of a new start
25 3. The Catholic Church’s efforts
for justice and peace
27 3.1 The efforts of the Liberian
Bishops’ Conference for civil and
human rights – official statements
and pastoral letters
27 3.1.1 ITCABIC: Spreading the
gospel and striving for justice
and peace are the same
28 3.1.2 CABICOL: The struggle for
internal peace and justice for all
40 3.2 The efforts of Archbishop
Michael Kpakala Francis for
justice and peace in Liberia
52 3.3 The efforts of the InterReligious Council of Liberia to
bring about peace negotiations
between Taylor and the rebels
53 3.4 The Justice and Peace
Commission’s efforts on behalf
of civil and human rights
56 4. Conclusions
58 Literature
64 Abbreviations
66 Footnotes
2
3
Liberia – Facts and Figures1
Name of country
Area
Inhabitants
Population
Population growth
Age structure
Life expectancy
Languages
Literacy rate
State institutions
Head of state
Religions
Republic of Liberia
111,370 sq. km. (cf. Germany: 356,970 sq. km). This West
African country has 580 km of Atlantic coastline (Gulf of Guinea)
and borders with Sierra Leone in the north-west (306 km),
Guinea (563 km) in the north, and Côte d’Ivoire (716 km) in the
east.
3.3 million approx. (July 2003 estimate)
95% of Liberians belong to one of the 16 different indigenous
ethnic groups (Kpelle 20%, Bassa 14%, Grebo 9%, Kru 8%, Gio
8%, Mandingo 7%, Loma 6% and nine other small peoples:
Mano, Krahn, Gola, Gbandi, Kissi, Vai, Dei, Bella and Mende).
The group of descendants of ”Americo-Liberians” (former US
slaves), who were settled here in the 19th century, make up 2.5%
of the population. To these must be added around 30,000
foreigners (mainly Lebanese).
Approx. 1.7% per year (2003 estimates)
0-14 years: 43.4%; 15-64 years: 53%; 65 years and over: 3.6%;
(2003 estimates)
48.15 years (men: 47.03 years, women: 49.3 years [2003 estimates])
English is the official language and lingua franca (20% of the
population can read, write and speak it); existing alongside it
are various native languages and numerous dialects, some of
which have been given written form.
According to 2003 estimates, the literacy rate of the over 15-yearolds is 57.5%. The proportion of women (41.6%) who can read
and write is far lower than that of men (73.3%).
Presidential democracy and two-chamber system (Senate and
House of Representatives) since the beginning of the 2nd Republic
on January 6, 1986. The Senate contains 26 seats, the House of
Representatives 64.
15 counties: Bomi, Bong, Gparbolu, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape
Mount, Grand Gedeh, Grand Kru, Lofa, Margibi, Maryland,
Montserrado, Nimba, River Cess, River Gee, Sinoe.
Capital: Monrovia
After the abdication in August 2003 of President Charles
Ghankay Taylor (winner of the elections held on July 19,1997)
Gyude Bryant (Liberian Action Party) became Chairman of the
Transitional Government and later, on October 14, 2003, head
of state and head of government
40% Christian, 40% Muslim, 20% traditional African religions
(indigenous beliefs). Islam is largely confined to three tribes. Most
of the Christians belong to various Protestant churches, sects and
free churches. About a third of the Christian population belongs
to the Catholic Church, which is organized in three dioceses (the
archdiocese of Monrovia and the suffragan bishoprics of Cape
Palmas and Gbarnga).
1. Injustice and strife
“Where there is justice there will be peace and where there is peace there must
have been justice.”2 In this short formula the Catholic Archbishop of Monrovia,
Michael Kpakala Francis, one of Liberia’s most renowned defenders of human
rights in recent decades, coined an easily comprehensible and generally accepted axiom that sums up the fundamental interdependence of the two elementary qualities of human society: justice and peace.
The rough sketch offered here of Liberia’s history up to the present makes
it clear how little this principle is reflected in the social, cultural, political and
economic affairs of this West African country which likes to call itself “Black
Africa’s oldest republic”. Its almost 160-year history is marked by a succession
of “apocalyptic trias” consisting of failure of the state, decline of the state, and
finally the complete collapse of state institutions,3 caused by injustice, violence and
the denial of fundamental human and civil rights to large sections of the population.
Although only a little over a year has passed since the forced abdication of
former rebel leader and ex-President Charles Ghankay Taylor4 and his departure
for Nigerian exile to the cheers of a long-suffering population on August 11, 2003,
Liberia is still suffering from the consequences of the constitutionally rooted failure of the state and the disastrous decline of the republic since 1980. In this agony
of decay, which lasted almost 25 years and ended in the complete disappearance
of any political and social order, the country was systematically plundered and
devastated by military coups, dictatorial rule and the chaos of war, in a brutal
cycle of violence in which all human and civil rights were trampled underfoot.
In the past decades, numerous national and international groupings and
organizations have striven to preserve and enforce human and civil rights in
Liberia, including one outstanding local actor – the Catholic Church. The commitment of the Catholic Church to justice, peace and human and civil rights
during the disastrous years of Taylor’s rule, which led to the complete collapse
of the state, as well as in the year following the forced abdication of the
“democratically” elected dictator, will be illustrated in this study on the basis of
a selection of the main ecclesiastical pronouncements and documents.
The difficulty of finding certain source materials was an obstacle to a more
thorough analysis of events. Some of the church documents were lost through
the vicissitudes of war. As an analysis of the available sources makes clear, an
important witness and the church’s most important voice in the struggle to defend
human rights and ensure a democratic development in Liberia was Archbishop
4
Michael Kpakala Francis of Monrovia. He agreed to let me visit him in Liberia
and do a series of interviews in March 2004. A few days before my arrival his
work was suddenly cut short by a stroke, and his poor state of health prevented him from resuming it. This study must therefore confine itself to arranging
the available documents, putting them into their political and chronological context, and cautiously interpreting them in retrospect.
2. Liberia – Land of the free?
2.1 Failure built into the state system:
Americo-Liberian dominance and economic dependence
The country on the Gulf of Guinea, which was bought from the British in 1822
by the American Colonization Society with a view to settling freed slaves there,
achieved its sovereignty on July 26, 1847. The new republic was initially recognized only by the European powers. The US government did not recognize the
new state until 1862, when civil war was raging in its own country. Thus right
from the start it observed ‘political correctness’ in its diplomatic relations with
Liberia, for apart from Haiti, the first ‘black republic’ which had achieved independence back in 1804, the Liberian embassy was the only ‘Negro post’, i.e. one
headed by a coloured US diplomat.
For more than a hundred years, beginning in 1877, Liberia, whose territory before the deal with the British had been the established homeland of 16 different ethnic tribes,5 was politically and economically dominated by the Protestant/Freemason True Whig Party of Americo-Liberians, former slaves who had
settled there after their liberty had been bought. This tiny elite of Liberian society, which never made up more than five percent of the total population, had
the real say in the country and determined the fate of the indigenous tribes who
made up the majority of the population. Political and economic power was concentrated in the hands of a small number of respected families, who engaged in
political horse-trading within the establishment party and divided up economic interests among themselves. Although there was no legal ban on other political parties, no organized political opposition was tolerated, so Liberia was in fact
a one-party state.
The original inhabitants of the country, i.e. the Afro-Liberians, were only
granted very limited scope for economic improvement and political rights. The
members of the tribes were regarded at best as ‘second-class citizens’, only being
granted formal citizenship in 1904, nearly 60 years after the founding of the state.
5
Not that this meant the equality of all before the law, for Liberia continued to
have a two-tier election and voting system. Although Article 77(a) of the 1847
constitution – which was modelled on that of the US – stated that every Liberian (!) over 18 years of age could enter his name in the electoral rolls for public
elections and referenda, the real right to vote was long confined to those male
Americo-Liberian settlers who had reached the age of 21 and owned property
in excess of a certain limit. The 16 indigenous peoples, on the other hand, who
wanted to belong to the Liberian state and had paid 100 US dollars for this privilege, could only be represented in the House of Representatives by one delegate
per tribe. Furthermore, each delegate was only allowed to take part – through
an interpreter – in such deliberations as directly affected the people of his tribe.
When as late as 1945 a constitutional amendment was granted permitting the
native population passive suffrage for the House of Representatives, this still did
not mean that they had active suffrage. This was only granted to the men of the
native tribes a year later on the basis of a special statute. Not until 1948 was a
law passed granting universal suffrage to all Liberian women, including those
of the country’s indigenous peoples.
The political device known as ‘indirect rule’, introduced in 1906 and apparently granting the leaders of the indigenous tribes in the rural hinterland the
right to decide over their internal affairs, while in reality excluding them from
the important decisions and policymaking of the central government, was only
abolished in 1964, when the tribal inhabitants were given the right to be elected to the Senate as well. In a macabre irony of history the establishment of “indirect rule” was accompanied by the introduction of forced labour in the land of
the freed slaves for members of the native peoples. Although the Liberian constitution banned slavery and the use of the words ‘slave’ or ‘slavery’ was taboo,
the forced-labour system, which was not abolished until 1955, enabled government officials, who were all descendants of former US slaves, to force the mainly illiterate members of the native tribes to engage in backbreaking toil building roads and working on the sugar and coffee plantations. Liberia, the ‘land of
the free’, as the Americo-Africans called it, may not have been a Western colony
or part of a foreign empire. But what the tribal population had to put up with
under the Americo-Liberian oligarchy was comparable to the oppression and
exploitation suffered by neighbouring peoples who were under the direct rule
of European colonial powers.
The establishment of the extensive and very efficient plantation system in
the style of the American antebellum South, which was completely in the hands
of Americo-Liberians, was stepped up by the Liberian government in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries in order to promote the country’s economic develop-
6
ment. Tough competition on world markets, however, led to a fall in the prices
of sugar and coffee.
Thus the Liberian government considered it a stroke of good fortune when,
after the First World War, the US Firestone company announced its desire to build
up its own rubber plantations in their country so as to make itself independent
of the expensive offers of the British and Dutch rubber monopolists in SouthEast Asia. On the face of it, the 99-year lease of 400,000 hectares of land
concluded in 1926 represented an economic upswing for Liberia. But in fact it
also meant for the “Firestone country”, as Liberia was subsequently dubbed, the
beginning of a one-sided economic dependence on the USA.
The economic dependence associated with the Firestone enterprise mainly
affected Liberia’s native agriculture, which lost cultivated land needed for food
crops to the new rubber plantations. A more serious effect of the plantation boom
was that thousands of rural inhabitants hired themselves out as workers on the
plantations, neglecting their own fields.
During the Second World War and the years that followed, above all under
the presidency of William Tubman (1944-1971),6 Liberia had become an important military and strategic ally of the USA, quite apart from the economic ties
between the two nations. The country’s great tactical significance for the USA
in the struggle against Nazi Germany may be seen, for example, from the state
visit paid by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Liberia in January 1943, the purpose of which was to secure the support of Liberia as a war ally. With the Far Eastern rubber plantations of Malaya and Singapore under Japanese occupation,
Liberia was of prime importance to the Americans and the Allied powers as practically the only source of latex. Furthermore the Robertsfield international airport near Monrovia, only recently completed with the aid of PanAm, was needed as a refuelling stop for US Air Force transport aircraft, while other military bases
in Liberia served as storage depots for the war in North Africa. Finally, Liberia
was urged to expel all German commercial representatives and physicians from
the country and declare war on Germany. Liberia officially entered the Second
World War a year later, on January 27, 1944, when it declared war on Germany
and Japan.
Even during the Cold War that followed the Second World War, when many
of the newly independent African states threw in their lot with the non-aligned
or communist camps, Liberia continued to be a close partner of the USA with
great geostrategic significance.7 In the vicinity of Monrovia a huge antenna complex was built, which was used for many years as the CIA’s main West African
listening post, although it has now outlived its usefulness in today’s satellite age.
Foreign investments were massively supported by Liberian economic policy in
7
the era of President William Tubman. For some years under his rule the ‘West
African Switzerland’ enjoyed the world’s highest rates of economic growth.8 But
the native tribal population had hardly any share in the economic boom that
came when transnational companies began to exploit the country’s newly discovered riches of iron ore, gold, tropical timber and diamonds. On the contrary,
the hiring of cheap unskilled labour in the rural tribal areas further intensified
the exodus from the land. It was foreigners who largely controlled the modern
industrial sectors of the Liberian market in the post-war period, not infrequently
by bribing representatives of the country’s Americo-Liberian upper class, which
had the power to decide on domestic policy. The tribal population, however, was
excluded from both spheres of influence. A popular saying in the Liberia of the
1970s summed neatly up the social reality: “The shops belong to the Lebanese,
the taxis to the people from Guinea, the companies and utilities to the whites,
the government to the True Whig Party – and all that belongs to the native Liberians is poverty.”
The search for more lucrative jobs drew increasing numbers of people to the
capital, where foreign firms had their offices and the government its ministries.
By 1974 Monrovia, which in 1940 had been a sleepy little coastal town of
12,000 inhabitants, had become a chaotic city of 166,000 souls, many of whom
had failed to find either the work they had sought or a better standard of living
than they had had in the country.9 The economic stagnation of the 1970s aggravated the social problems in the metropolis, whose infrastructure could not cater
for such a large number of people. The lack of affordable accommodation
increased and the slums spread. As unemployment rose, so did the crime rate.
The depressed social, economic and political situation of the 1970s gave rise
to organized resistance against the True Whig Party establishment. The two main
domestic opposition movements against the ruling social class were the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA), formed at the University of Liberia in 1973,
and the Progressive Alliance of Liberians (PAL), founded by Liberian exiles in the
USA in 1974. Spied on and intimidated by the government’s secret services, PAL
and MOJA attempted by means of political enlightenment campaigns and other
activities to bring about a change in the existing situation in Liberia. In their political work both movements seemed more committed to the path of gradual social
reforms than that of revolution.10
It was part of government policy to subsidize the cultivation of coffee, rubber and cocoa, i.e. the exports of the Americo-Liberian planters. The market price
for rice, however, which was mainly cultivated by the native tribal population
for its domestic needs, was fixed by the government at a low level so that the
staple food of the Liberians remained affordable, especially for the people in the
8
towns. Although this policy of dumping prices ostensibly benefited the poor population of the towns, the low prices caused the farmers in the countryside to neglect this crop and cultivate it only for their own needs. As a result rice was increasingly imported at prices subsidized by the government or by the foreign
companies based in the country for distribution to their workers as part of their
wages.
The policy of subsidizing the agricultural sector introduced by President
William Tubman was largely retained by his successor in the office of president,
William Tolbert Jr. (1971-1980), an ordained Baptist minister and former chairman of the Baptist World Alliance.11 At the beginning of his term of office the
“preacher president” was distinguished by a remarkable passion for reform. He
rejected the conservative formalism of his predecessor and in his foreign policy even broke with Tubman’s anticommunist doctrine – closely modelled on that
of the USA – by intensifying contacts with the communist camp.
Although he promised the country a ‘humanistic capitalism’, his government
became increasingly mired in political nepotism and economic corruption.
Faced with the fall in the prices of Liberian exports in the late 1970s, Tolbert,
who came from one of the largest and most influential Americo-Liberian clans,
tried to raise the subsidized rice price in spring 1979. He justified this move politically by arguing that the increased price would constitute an incentive for the
farmers to stay on the land and increase rice cultivation so as to produce a surplus they could sell, instead of migrating to the towns and plantations to
become wage workers.
This brought the opposition movements onto the scene, accusing the president and his minister of agriculture, who both owned large rice farms, that in
raising the rice price they were only pursuing their own economic advantage.
The PAL called for a protest meeting to be held in Monrovia on April 14, 1979,
which was attended by some 2,000 PAL adherents. The originally peaceful meeting got out of control when the number of demonstrators rose to about 10,000
and violent participants from the capital’s more deprived areas took advantage
of the situation to plunder and destroy shops and rice warehouses. To reinforce
the inadequate police forces, which had been ordered to storm the PAL headquarters, the government decided to deploy troops. During the one day of
bloody street-fighting, which have gone down in Liberian history as the ‘rice riots’,
at least 40 demonstrators and rioters were killed and more than 500 people were
injured. Hundreds were arrested, including PAL leaders and other political dissidents, whom the Tolbert government accused of being responsible for the excesses and damage. The university was closed down and only opened three months
later. Even this was only for political face-saving purposes, as the next day Mon-
9
rovia was due to host the 17th ordinary OAU Assembly of heads of state and government (July 17-20, 1979). For the same reason the still incarcerated ringleaders of the ‘rice riots’ of April 14 were released from prison.
2.2 Bloody seizure of power: The end of the ancien régime
ushers in the process of political decay
The ‘rice riots’ showed the indigenous citizens of Liberia, who had been kept in
a state of political tutelage, the vulnerability of the Americo-Liberian oligarchy
that had dominated practically every sector of social life ever since independence. On April 12, 1980, almost twelve months to the day after the rice riots,
the end of the 133-year ancien régime was abruptly sealed by a military coup led
by 29-year-old Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe (1951-1990), a member of
the relatively small Krahn tribe.12 The fact that it was possible to keep the preparations for the coup secret under the noses of the Liberian secret service, which
was on special alert at this time of extreme political tension, and the US embassy
in Monrovia, with its ample staff of over 500 people well equipped with
intelligence-gathering facilities, raises questions concerning the active support
or passive toleration of the plot by the USA that remain unanswered to this day.
Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, a man of little schooling from a primitive
rural background, was the highest-ranking of the Afro-Liberian soldiers who carried out the coup. He was therefore appointed President of the People’s Redemption Council (PRC), as the military junta pompously called itself, and was thus,
after the long period of Americo-Liberian rule, the country’s first Afro-Liberian
– i.e. the first real native – head of state.
President William R. Tolbert was bestially murdered by one of the conspirators – who were only 18 in number – on the very day of the coup: April 12, 1980.
The constitution was suspended, a state of emergency declared, and political parties were banned. A few days after the assumption of power by the PRC nearly
all former members of the Tolbert government were shot not far from Monrovia
after a show trial at which they had been denied legal representation.
One of those who had escaped the purge was Charles Ghankay Taylor (b.
1948),13 the son of an Americo-Liberian lawyer father and a native Gola mother,
who had only returned from the USA a few months earlier at the invitation of the
then president to become a member of the Tolbert government. In the 1970s Taylor had been involved in radical Liberian student movements in the USA. As chairman of the Union of Liberian Associations founded in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) in 1974, he organized, among other things, a student demonstration against
President William Tolbert Jr. during the latter’s state visit to the USA in 1979.
10
Charles G. Taylor succeeded, not least on account of his ethnic origin, in changing fronts again immediately after the military coup. The PRC made him head
of the General Services Agency (GSA), which was responsible for all government
contracts and purchases. Through this body, which was described by insiders during his tenure as the ‘kickback agency’,14 he had access to considerable government funds.
After the terrible events of the seizure of power, the work of the PRC began
quite promisingly, for the military government showed a certain tendency to
reform and moved in the direction of a democratically legitimized political order.
On the first anniversary of his assumption of power Doe announced the formation
of a 25-member national constitutional committee (NCC) to draw up a new constitution chaired by Dr. Amos Sawyer,15 a political scientist at the University of
Liberia. The NCC submitted to the PRC military government a draft constitution, which was to replace the old 1847 constitution – suspended since the coup
– in March 1983. The text of the draft was referred for critical scrutiny to the PRCappointed, 59-member Constitutional Advisory Committee (CAA), which had
completed its work on October 19, 1983. The new constitution was approved
by a majority in a national referendum held on July 3, 1984.
Paragraphs 11 to 26 of this Liberian constitution – which is still in force –
guarantee all the basic rights that the 1847 constitution withheld from the bulk
of the population or that the state had been unable to secure in the preceding
phase of political decay and the breakdown of the constitutional order. But in
the following years of complete political disintegration they were ignored and
literally trampled underfoot. With reference to the principles of unity, freedom, stability, equality, justice and universal human rights in the preamble, the
guaranteed basic rights and principles of the Liberian constitution include:
equality of all before the law without regard for ethnic allegiance, race, sex, creed,
origin or political beliefs (Art. 11); banning of slavery, serfdom and indentured
or forced labour (Art. 12); freedom of movement and choice of abode (Art. 13);
protection of freedom of thought and religious freedom, separation of church
and state, no state religion (Art. 14); respect for freedom of opinion – especially by the government – freedom of speech and of the press, academic freedom,
right to privacy of correspondence, right to equal access to state media (Art. 15);
respect and protection for the personal, family and domestic private spheres (Art.
16); right to work and employment on the basis of equal pay for equal work
regardless of sex, creed, religion, ethnic origin or political beliefs (Art. 18);
exemption of civilians from military law (Art. 19); right to life, freedom and inviolability of the person, equal rights for all, principle of presumption of innocence
(Art. 20), house searches and remanding in custody only on court order following
11
a hearing, guaranteed legal representation, right of caution, ban on torture and
inhuman treatment of prisoners, right to see the warrant for one’s own arrest,
the right not to testify, immunity of legal counsel (Art. 21); right to property (Art.
22); right of spouses to retain their own property (Art. 23); no state expropriation without legal basis.
The initially positive political measures taken by the PRC after its seizure of
power were compromised by the fact that the head of state pursued a parallel
policy of filling important posts in the government and administration with
favourites from his own tribe and having real or imagined political opponents
from other tribes brutally persecuted. It was unclear, for example, whether the
accusation made by the head of state in 1983 that Charles G. Taylor had embezzled 900,000 US dollars was justified, or whether Doe had just been looking for
an excuse to move against Taylor, who was now suspected of seeking a deal with
“General” Thomas Quiwonkpa. Quiwonkpa, Samuel Doe’s ally and right-hand
man in the 1980 military coup, had now become his political rival in the struggle for power. The cause of the political and personal conflict between Doe and
Quiwonkpa can presumably be sought both in the traditional tribal rivalries
between the Mano (Quiwonkpa) and the Krahn (Doe) and in the PRC chairman’s
ethnocentric personnel policy.
The military interregnum and nepotism practised by head of state Samuel
K. Doe at the beginning of the Second Republic forced a great many political opponents into exile,16 including Thomas Quiwonkpa, who fled to neighbouring Sierra Leone in 1983 in order to plan Doe’s overthrow from there. His attempt in
November 1985 to seize power in Liberia with the aid of a rebel group from Sierra Leone failed during the storming of the presidential palace in Monrovia. Quiwonkpa was killed and his mutilated body put on public display.17 The Krahnled Liberian Army then carried out a bloody massacre in Nimba County, the home
of Quiwonkpa’s people, the Gio and the Mano, which the inhabitants of Nimba
did not intend to let pass unavenged.18
Charles G. Taylor had avoided arrest by the Doe regime by fleeing to the USA
in October 1983. At the request of the Liberian president, who had a good relationship with the Reagan government because of his anticommunist stance, Taylor was arrested for extradition to Liberia in Massachusetts/USA in May the following year on a charge of tax evasion. After 15 months in custody and
extradition proceedings in which he was represented by the former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Taylor succeeded in breaking out of prison with four
petty criminals in September 1985. It is assumed that this escapade succeeded
because it was tolerated by the Reagan government, which was about to drop
its former favourite Samuel Doe for his acts of violence and human rights vio-
12
lations. Whatever the truth of the matter, the fact remains that the US made no
attempt to apprehend Taylor after his escape.
After the ban on political parties in Liberia had been lifted in July 1985,
Samuel K. Doe founded his own National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL)
in order to stand as its candidate in the presidential elections to be held in October that year. Although Doe won, claiming nearly 51 percent of the vote, there
were numerous allegations of electoral fraud by the losing parties and international observers, who believed Jackson Doe, the candidate of the Liberia Action
Party (LAP) and no relation of Samuel, to be the real winner, describing the election as neither free nor fair. On January 6, 1986 Samuel K. Doe was sworn in as
the 20th president of Liberia and the first president of the Second Republic. His
‘ethnicized’ rule, characterized by lust for power, corruption, nepotism and violation of human rights, was to last barely four years.
2.3 Civil war and the complete collapse of the state:
The rule of Charles Ghankay Taylor
The exact whereabouts of Charles G. Taylor during the four years following his
escape from prison in the USA are unclear. What is certain is that he spent some
time in Ghana and – together with another 200-odd comrades-in-arms, such as
Prince Yormie Johnson19 and Moses Blah20, who were also committed to the overthrow of Samuel Doe – in Muammar al-Gaddafi’s military training camps in Libya.
As Gaddafi’s protégé, he later continued to receive financial support and arms.21
Charles G. Taylor ‘officially’ re-emerged in West Africa in late 1989.
2.3.1 Civil war – Phase I
At the head of the rebel movement, National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPLF),
which was made up of both Libyan-trained Americo-Liberian resistance fighters and those Mano and Gio dissidents who had remained at home, and with
the military support of his friend, the new president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré,22 also Libyan-trained and supported by Gaddafi, Charles G. Taylor invaded Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire on Christmas Eve 1989. Taylor’s ‘Christmas invasion’ marked the beginning of one of the bloodiest and most brutal conflicts on
the African continent.
The first phase of the war lasting up to 1997 saw the direct or indirect involvement of a wide range of internal and external actors.23 According to cautious estimates, the number of Liberians killed in this period – often in hideous circumstances – totalled over 200,000, while hundreds of thousands more were
13
wounded. Thousands of child soldiers took part in the fighting during the following years, after having been kidnapped or forcibly recruited by the various
military factions.24 Charles G. Taylor alone is credited with having conscripted
15,000 child soldiers for his notorious unit known as the ‘Small Boys’. There were
enormous waves of refugees. During this phase of the civil war 750,000 refugees
sought shelter in Monrovia, which led to catastrophic conditions in the capital. Another 768,000 Liberians fled to neighbouring countries. Private and state
property was seized or destroyed by marauding soldiers and rebel units.
In the struggle against the rebels of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia
(NPLF) and Prince Yormie Johnson’s Independent National Patriotic Front of
Liberia (INPFL) the Krahn-officered Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) 1990 lost control of the situation, so that the rebel units were able to advance rapidly on Monrovia and seize control of strategically and economically important parts of the
country. Despite the intervention of the West African peacekeeping force ECOMOG25, which had been formed to settle the Liberian conflict and entered Monrovia with 4,000 soldiers in August 1990 in order to bring about an armistice
between the warring factions, the conflict grew ever more acute. On September
9, Samuel Doe was ambushed by the INPFL on his way to ECOMOG headquarters in Monrovia and later bestially tortured to death by the notorious psychopath
Prince Yormie Johnson and his men. The terrible scenes were recorded on video,
and copies can be bought in West African markets even today.
Afterwards, heavy fighting regularly broke out between the ECOMOG
troops, the NPLF, Doe supporters and other factions, such as the INPFL. ECOMOG was not up to the task, also being accused of wanton destruction and human
rights violations. It had not been neutral from the start, having been said to favour
various Krahn-dominated groups which it needed as ‘foot soldiers’ against the
NPFL.26 This was partly why Charles G. Taylor regarded ECOMOG as an occupying power and insisted on his own claim to total power.
In the early hours of October 15, 1992 the NPFL launched its major offensive on Monrovia, known as Operation Octopus. In staging this operation,
which probably claimed the most victims and witnessed the bloodiest atrocities
against the civilian population of the entire war, Charles G. Taylor sought a military decision to make himself president of Liberia. Thousands of people in the
suburbs of the capital were slaughtered, including five American Sisters of the
Adorers of the Blood of Christ, two of them murdered on the road between Gardnersville and Barnersville on October 20, and three at their residence in Gardnersville on October 23.
At the urging of various national and international non-governmental
organizations27 there were repeated attempts at negotiations between the par-
14
ties to the civil war. But the various ceasefire agreements or even peace treaties
were generally only of brief duration and soon violated out of hand.28 In this phase
of the disintegration of the state the ECOMOG-backed interim governments were
unable to assert any authority, remaining insubstantial and fragile coalitions.
Numbering six in all, the various interim presidents were only able to hang on
to office for a few months against the raging background of the war.
The Abuja Accord of August 19, 1995 finally convinced the warlords leading the rebel organizations that armed force paid off as a means of gaining political and economic power. The Abuja Accord granted them seats in the civilian
transitional government LNTG, without requiring them to recognize that the
state had the sole right to use force.29 This left the individual warring factions
with relatively unhindered access to the country’s valuable sources of raw materials; control of the hinterland, which opened the door to economic exploitation of the civilian population (forced labour); and control of the border checkpoints, enabling them to charge customs duties. This enabled some warlords,
like Charles G. Taylor, to make huge profits from the international trade in tropical timber and diamonds, in which European companies were also involved.
The proceeds could then be used to procure arms and war materials or be
deposited in foreign bank accounts. In addition to this ‘war economy factor’ the
‘regional factor’, i.e. the conflicts of interest among the neighbouring regional
powers and their consequent unwillingness to cooperate in bringing peace to
Liberia, doubtless helped to ensure that the Liberian civil war continued on such
a dramatic scale.30
On the basis of the ECOWAS-brokered Abuja peace plan of 1995, ECOMOG
succeeded in ending the fighting between the Liberian government army and
the opposition militias by creating a buffer zone in June 1996. On August 17,
1996 the warring factions concluded a supplementary treaty in Abuja (Abuja II),
which provided for the appointment of Ruth Sando Perry as interim president
(September 1996 - August 1997), the first woman to become head of an African
state, and the preparation of elections to be held by mid-1997. In January 1997,
ECOMOG began an extensive disarming and demobilization programme, which
covered 21,315 fighters from various formations, including 4,306 children and
young people aged between 12 and 17.31 In the following months a comprehensive resocialization programme for former child soldiers was carried out with
the crucial assistance of church organizations. Over the next two years most of
the refugees who had been forced by the civil war to flee the country were brought
back to their native villages with the aid of the United Nations.
The elections of July 19, 1997, in which 13 parties fielded candidates, were
won by Charles G. Taylor and his National Patriotic Party (NPP). Despite con-
15
siderable intimidation of voters by Charles G. Taylor, who threatened to resume
the civil war if defeated at the ballot box, both the election campaign and elections were described by international NGO observers as ‘free’ and ‘fair’. Taylor
received 75 percent of the ballots cast. This gave his party 21 of the 26 seats in
the Senate and 49 of the 64 seats in the House of Representatives. “He killed my
father, he killed my mother – still I voted for him,” was a much-quoted remark
after the elections that expressed the general feeling in Liberia. After seven
years of civil war the civilian population was so exhausted that it voted for Charles
G. Taylor in the hope that this would at least put an end to the slaughter and
plundering in the country.32 On August 2, 1997 Charles Taylor was sworn in as
21st president of Liberia in the presence of numerous West African heads of state.
Immediately after his election he promised that his government would devote
itself to a policy of reconciliation and reconstruction of the ruined country. What
happened was quite the opposite.
2.3.2 Civil war – Phase II
The mood among the population remained one of fear and deep depression. The
scale of the destruction wrought by the war was simply staggering. The country’s economy and public infrastructure were in ruins, the basis of people’s
livelihood had been destroyed. Since 1996 hundreds of thousands of citizens,
mainly those with useful skills which were sorely needed for the country’s postwar reconstruction, had left Liberia because of the lack of future prospects and
the uncertain situation.
All over the country there was a massive military presence, with road blocks
where civilians were subject to acts of arbitrariness. Poorly and irregularly paid
policemen and down-at-heel, poorly equipped young soldiers under the influence of drugs or alcohol – many of them former child soldiers who had been
drafted into the Liberian Army – took out their frustrations on the population.
The corruption of public life in the Taylor years assumed appalling proportions.33
On July 18, 1998 a three-week national conference was convened to draft a
plan for Liberia’s future on the basis of peace and national reconciliation. It was
attended by members of the government, Liberians resident abroad, various
domestic social and political groupings and authorities, and foreign partners. Soon
after the conference, however, there was a sobering awareness that the government was doing nothing to implement the conference’s decisions. It could only
be assumed that the Taylor government had been neither willing nor able to offer
any recognizable initiatives or solutions to overcome the country’s economic and
political problems since coming to power. On the contrary, Taylor’s presidency
16
had never been anything but the conspiracy of a criminal clique bent on ruthlessly exploiting the land and its people to the point of ruin. In the process Taylor was going to stop at nothing. National and international organizations regularly reported massive violations of civil and human rights during the Taylor era.
Charles G. Taylor not only brought about the complete political and institutional disintegration of his own homeland, Liberia – he was also a major troublemaker and warmonger in the neighbouring countries of the Mano River subregion. At the beginning of the new millennium he was actively involved in the
prolonged conflict in Côte d’Ivoire. In the 1990s, he had been one of the main
warmongers in neighbouring Sierra Leone, where in exchange for diamonds he
supplied arms to the rebel organization Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under
its gruesome warlord Foday Sankoh.34 Charles G. Taylor thus shared direct
responsibility for the atrocities, mass rapes and bestial mutilations committed
by the RUF against civilians in Sierra Leone during the ten-year war which
finally sputtered out in 2002, having cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Taylor also seems to have been behind RUF attacks in Guinea.
Just a few months after the assumption of power by President Charles G. Taylor, armed resistance to his rule emerged in the north of the country and coalesced into a military organization called Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy (LURD). Taylor’s criminal style of governing and the strong reactions
it provoked from LURD, together with the withdrawal of the hated ECOMOG
troops in mid-1999, prevented Liberia from achieving internal peace and stability.
As early as August 2001, fierce fighting was reported in Lofa county between LURD
rebels and government troops. New flows of refugees headed south to the
capital.35
It is clear that for a long time the leaders of the international community
lacked the political will to work for lasting change in Liberia. But this attitude
had changed by March 7, 2001, when UN Security Council Resolution 1343 placed
an embargo on diamonds (‘blood diamonds’) from Liberia and the Mano region,
issued a ban on arms deliveries to Liberia, and also prohibited members of the
Taylor government and their spouses from travelling freely abroad.36 After that
the country was politically isolated, most embassies having been closed down
during the first war in any case. Mastering the situation in Liberia was increasingly seen by the international community as the key to ending the bloody conflicts in West Africa. In September 2002 an international contact group was set
up for Liberia.37
At the beginning of 2003, the situation began to escalate dramatically when
LURD, which had originally operated out of Guinea, launched a powerful and
sustained military offensive and advanced on the capital from the north and
17
north-west. It was supported by the Movement for Democracy in Liberia
(MODEL), formed in April 2003, a rebel organization that marched in from Côte
d’Ivoire, where it had enjoyed the protection of President Laurent Gbagbo,
who thus revenged himself on Taylor for supporting the rebels in his country.
Within a short space of time MODEL had succeeded in gaining strategic control over the heavily forested areas in the south and east of Liberia. Thus, by the
end of May, Taylor no longer had access to the tropical timber and hence lost
his last important source of income, which in 2003 officially accounted for about
68 percent of the state budget. But even during this phase the trade in cheap ship
registrations, which right up to the end brought the Taylor regime about 18 million US dollars annually, continued to flourish.38 By early June, LURD and
MODEL between them had 80 percent of the country under their control, thereby forcing the Taylor government to take part in peace negotiations chaired by
ECOWAS.
In the fighting that accompanied the march on Monrovia many public and
church buildings, schools and health-care centres – some of which had been
rebuilt after the first ‘Taylor war’ with international assistance – were burned down
and destroyed again. Anything that was not wrecked as a direct result of the hostilities was plundered afterwards by civilians or marauding soldiers of the government army and fighters of the two rebel organizations, LURD and MODEL.
Robbery and the rape of women and young girls by troops of the Liberian Army
and LURD were the order of the day. Employees of international aid organizations and Catholic priests were kidnapped. Because of the insecure situation, international non-governmental organizations had to stop their work in most parts
of the country in spring 2003 and fly out their foreign staff. For the second time
in the space of 15 years hundreds of thousands of people had been turned into
refugees in their own country, fleeing from the ongoing fighting between the
government army and the rebel groups, whose aim was to seal off the capital
Monrovia. Hundreds of thousands of refugees who found no haven in their own
country again sought safety in neighbouring Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana or
Sierra Leone.
On June 4, 2003 the prosecutor of the United Nations-supported special
court39 located at the headquarters of the United Nations Mission for Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL) in Freetown published an indictment and a warrant for the arrest
of Charles Ghankay Taylor, the first serving head of state to be accused as a war
criminal by a UN tribunal. The indictment had originally been issued by a
judge in London on March 7, 2003, but not been made public by a decision of
the court. It accused Charles G. Taylor of having committed crimes against
humanity, war crimes and crimes against humanitarian international law on the
18
territory of Sierra Leone and hence of being the person bearing the “greatest
responsibility” for these crimes.40 The arrest warrant was published when Taylor, who was still subject to the severe travel restrictions imposed by the UN Security Council, was in Akosombo/Ghana – with the approval of the United Nations
and under the auspices of the International Contact Group – for peace talks with
the two Liberian rebel movements. In the interests of the ongoing peace diplomacy the criminal prosecution of Taylor was thwarted by the Ghanaian government, which refused to surrender him on the grounds that no formal application for his extradition had been received. In a fly-by-night operation Taylor
was flown back to Monrovia in the personal aircraft of Ghanaian President John
Kufour, who was chairing the peace talks. As a result, the fighting around
Monrovia flared up again, causing numerous casualties among the civilian population.
On June 8 the LURD rebels, who by now had completely sealed off Monrovia from the land side, launched their main offensive on the capital, causing
heavy fighting in the outskirts of the city.41 The situation of the approximately
700,000 refugees in the city centre worsened dramatically. There was neither suitable accommodation nor sanitary facilities. Despite the heavy monsoon rains
people had to camp out in the open air. The food-distribution and water-supply systems had collapsed. In the second week of the offensive French special
forces evacuated some 300 foreigners from Monrovia by helicopter to a warship
off the coast. In an emergency session on June 12, the United Nations Security
Council called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Through the good offices of former Nigerian President Abdusalam Abubakar
the Taylor government and the two rebel groups signed a ceasefire agreement
in Ghana on June 17, which was to be followed within 30 days by a definitive
peace accord and the opening of negotiations on the formation of a transitional government (LNTG), to which Taylor would not belong. After the agreement
had been broken several times within the space of a few days and LURD had
resumed the bitter struggle for the capital, ECOWAS decided to send a 3,500-man
peacekeeping force to Monrovia, to be called the ECOWAS Mission in Liberia
(ECOMIL). The ECOMIL units, which arrived in Monrovia from Nigeria at
beginning of August, were greeted enthusiastically by the population.
Under extreme international political pressure Charles G. Taylor finally
accepted the offer of exile, coupled with an assurance of immunity, made by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. On August 11, 2003 President Charles Taylor
and his family were flown off to exile in Nigeria on board a Nigerian government plane, after he had handed over his official functions to his deputy, Moses
Blah.
19
Under the peace treaty42 concluded in Ghana on August 18 the warring factions
and the representatives of Liberian civil society finally agreed on August 21 to
accept the leader of the small opposition party Liberia Action Party, Gyude Bryant43
– a businessman largely unknown outside the country – as new interim president. He duly assumed office on October 14 with the title of Chairman of the
Liberia National Transitional Government (LNTG) until the new elections scheduled for October 2005.44 After some initial difficulties the formation of the
LNTG, which under the peace accord of August 18, 2003 was composed of people from LURD, MODEL, the former Taylor government and representatives of
civil society, was completed in March 2004.
2.4 One year after the complete collapse of the state
– muted hopes of a new start
A lot of effort and stamina for the long haul will be needed to tackle the key tasks
required to get Liberia on its feet again: the complete reintegration of the rebels
following their disarming; the initiation of a national reconciliation process
between victims and perpetrators and the mutually hostile power and interest
groups; the setting up of legal and democratic institutions; the recognition and
enforcement of civil and human rights; and the creation of stable economic conditions for development. Given the opaque political situation and the absence
of financial support from the international community, it is questionable
whether these tasks can be tackled in the foreseeable future.
Today, just over a year since the complete collapse of the state, Liberia is still
at the bottom of the UN list of least developed countries. The public infrastructure
was utterly destroyed in 2002/03 when the civil war flared up again. Nearly all
private, state and church buildings, hospitals and utilities are at least damaged
if not totally demolished. According to the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Liberia, Jacques Klein, devastated schools that have been closed
down for years and the large numbers of children and young people in the IDP
camps, where teaching facilities are largely lacking, have made today’s Liberia
probably one of the few African countries in which the illiteracy rate among children and young people is higher than among their parents.45
Flight and expulsions have brought agricultural production to an almost complete standstill. Only the huge rubber plantations leased to the American Firestone concern for 99 years in 1926 are perfectly intact, and the macadamized
overland roads from the port of Monrovia to Liberia’s ‘liquid gold’ are excellently
maintained. The formerly significant iron ore industry, the proceeds of which
used to account for 51 percent of the value of Liberian exports, has been aban-
20
doned since 1989, when Charles G. Taylor began his civil war. The average per
capita income of the just over three million Liberians has sunk below 150 US
dollars.
The health care system is a catastrophe, having been almost completely
ruined by last year’s fighting. The country still has about 60 medical practitioners,
most of them without formal qualifications. The equipment in the hospitals and
dispensaries has largely been demolished or stolen, there is a lack of adequate
drugs, and the hygienic conditions in the hot, damp and totally overcrowded
wards are hardly bearable. The Catholic St. Joseph’s Hospital of the Brothers Hospitalers in Monrovia, which succeeded in maintaining operations even during
last year’s war, is the only hospital in the country to function in accordance with
relatively acceptable medical standards. The cost of the petrol required to keep
the hospital’s power generators running round the clock is enormous. There is
no public supply of electricity or water in the capital, let alone outside of it – all
that was destroyed during the civil war of 1989-1996, in which Charles Taylor
fought his way to power.
It was with great satisfaction and as a sign of hope for a just reckoning with
the Taylor era that the country received the news of the passing of UN Security
Council Resolution 1532 on March 12, 2004, which froze all foreign bank
accounts and assets of the Taylor clan. The aim is to ensure that the persons named
no longer have access to the proceeds of Liberia’s plundered economic resources,
which they misappropriated and illegally transferred abroad. The sums in question are put at about 100 million US dollars. With some hesitation the Liberian
transitional government endorsed these UN sanctions seven months later, on
October 14, 2004, the first anniversary of Gyude Bryant’s assumption of office.46
It is hoped that it will soon be possible to put Taylor on trial for war crimes.
It is true that his willingness to abdicate last summer was obtained by Nigeria’s
President Olusegun Obasanjo with an assurance to protect him from criminal
prosecution. But the warrant for his arrest issued in June 2003 by the UNbacked Special Court in Freetown is still in force. At the end of 2003 the US Congress increased the pressure on the exiled ex-dictator and the host country
Nigeria by appropriating two million US dollars for “apprehending a person
accused by the Special Court for Sierra Leone”.47 On December 4, 2003 Interpol
also issued a warrant for Taylor’s arrest after the Nigerian president had hinted
he might hand over the ex-dictator, but not to the UN Tribunal. So far there has
been no majority in the Liberian transitional government (LNTG) for applying
to the Nigerian government to extradite Taylor to the Special Court in Sierra
Leone.48
21
There is nothing surprising about this, since the representatives of Taylor’s former GOL49 government and the two rebel organizations LURD and MODEL constitute the majority in the LNTG under the increasingly controversial Gyude
Bryant, who is accused of economic links to the former Taylor government and
political chicanery in the present period of political transition in the run-up to
the elections.50 All three factions, who are accused by human rights organizations of committing atrocities against the civilian population of Liberia, are
attempting to preserve their claims to power at least until next year’s elections.
They are less concerned about implementing programmes and democratic
reforms to benefit the country than about ensuring their own political survival
and guarding their own economic interests. Political office has always been regarded in Liberia not as a means of serving society, but as a way of gaining influence
and control over the country’s main resources, as the domination of the country by the Protestant/Freemason True Whig Party of Afro-American Liberians
between 1877 and 1980 amply demonstrated.
It is perfectly in keeping with this ‘political strategy’ that the three warring
factions have secured for themselves the key portfolios in the 22 LNTG ministries
provided for in the peace treaty concluded in August 2003 in Ghana.51 The GOL,
for example, was awarded the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications; the
Defence Ministry; the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs; the Planning and
Economics Ministry; and the Interior Ministry. LURD got the Ministries of
Finance, Justice, Labour, Transport, and the Ministry of State. MODEL controls
the Ministry of Agriculture; the Ministry of Trade; the Ministry of Mineral
Resources, Energy and Mines; the Ministry of Public Works; and the Foreign
Ministry.
Many people in the country regard it as particularly scandalous that the peace
treaty even grants the three warring factions control over the key state-owned
enterprises until the elections scheduled for October 2005: thus the Liberia
Petroleum Refining Corporation is controlled by the GOL, while LURD holds
sway over the Liberia Free Zone Authority and the National Ports Authority, which
makes things difficult for the local partner organizations of church groups and
other NGOs when they are confronted with delays and illegal financial demands
while trying to obtain clearance for aid shipments from the port authority. Former MODEL warlords are in charge of the country’s sole airport, Roberts International Airport, where former combatants pester passengers with demands for
unlawful fees.52
Meanwhile, after one year in office, the LNTG, which is supposed to lead
Liberia until the elections scheduled by the Accra peace treaty for October next
year, is also being accused by international donors of extensive corruption and
22
inefficiency. This was the main reason why the UN embargo on diamonds and
tropical timber from Liberia, which was imposed in 2001 and again in 2003, was
extended in June 2004. In addition, strict control of the present government either
by the UN or directly by the donor states is necessary to ensure that the 520 million dollars in reconstruction aid53 promised by the international Liberia donor
conference in New York on February 6, 2004, is put to proper use and does not
disappear into murky government channels. A high-ranking visiting delegation
of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the US Treasury
Department at the end of October 2004 found itself compelled to demand
more transparency and accountability in the administration of government funds
by the LNTG, without which the embargoes on tropical timber and diamonds
could not be lifted.54
Under UN Security Council Resolution 1509 of September 19, 2003 the
ECOMIL intervention force was relieved by a multinational force known as the
United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which is currently the world’s
largest UN peacekeeping operation. With almost 15,000 soldiers and over 1,100
policemen and women from nearly 50 countries, the UN force was at full
strength by the end of August 2004. Its mandate was extended by one year under
UN Resolution 1561 of September 17, 2004. UNMIL’s mission was to implement
the Accra peace accord and support the overall peace process in the country. It
was also to help with humanitarian aid and human rights work and promote
the reform of the national security forces.
According to the DDRR (Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and
Reintegration) programme laid down in the Accra peace treaty, UNMIL is above
all supposed to see to the disarming and social reintegration of the rebels, originally estimated by the UN to number 38,000. In particular the child and
women soldiers are to be supported. The programme provides for the fighters
to go to special camps where they are to receive 150 US dollars (out of a total of
300 US dollars) for handing in their weapons, plus cooking utensils, food, medical care and a several-week reintegration and training programme, including
psychological counselling.
The DDRR programme announced at the beginning of December 2003, for
which 50 million US dollars had been allocated and which was to be completed by October 31, 2004,55 got off to a sluggish start and ran into a number of
logistical problems, which the civilian population found very hard to understand.
Whether the generally lackadaisical approach of the UNMIL was partly due to
the fact that most of its members came from Third World countries and received
higher pay during their tour of duty in Liberia than they would in their country of origin – which meant they had no interest in shortening the length of their
23
mission, as I was constantly assured by church employees during my stay in
Liberia in March 2004 – is not something that can be proved, but it may be
assumed.56 It is indicative that former blue helmets in Guinea-Bissau rose in revolt
on October 6, 2004 (shooting the heads of the army and the secret service in
the process) because their government owed them five months’ pay, which had
been transferred by the UN to the central bank of the country for their mission
in Liberia.57
According to the reports of church employees in the country, the war-weary
fighters waited months for an opportunity to finally hand in their arms. The initial logistical difficulties seem to have been overcome by April this year, even if
it has turned out in the meantime that the original estimate of the number of
rebels had been far too low, as by October 5, 2004 83,000 had been registered
under the DDRR programme as former members of rebel units, including some
600 combatants from neighbouring countries.58 But because of financial bottlenecks only about 15,250 rebels had been able to take part in the reintegration
and training programme by that date. The resulting security risk to the further
peaceful consolidation of society cannot be underestimated.59 Since summer 2004,
at any rate, the UNMIL forces seem to be present in large parts of the country
and to have the situation under control.60
Meanwhile the 39-million-dollar UNHCR repatriation programme for the
Liberian refugees in neighbouring countries has got under way. Although it was
officially scheduled to begin on October 1, 2004 after the end of the wet season,
no arrangements appear to have been made for its overall financing.61 Starting
on October 1, 2004 about 42,000 refugees who found asylum in neighbouring
Ghana for the past 15 years are to be brought back to Liberia over the next two
years by sea and air from that country alone. According to UNHCR, about
50,000 of the 350,000 people who fled during the civil war to Guinea, Côte
d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone, Liberia’s three neighbours in this crisis-stricken region,
appear to have made their way back in the past few months before the start of
the official return programme under truly hair-raising circumstances.62
In Liberia itself more than half the population are still living under appalling
hygienic conditions in the hideously overcrowded slums of the capital or in
wretched home-made mud huts in one of the over 60 IDP camps surrounding
Monrovia and along the roads leading to the capital. UNHCR puts the number
of people in the IDP camps at over half a million.63 The government has yet to
name a date for the beginning of the announced NCRR programme (National
Community Resettlement and Reintegration), the official plan for resettling and
reintegrating the internal DPs. The question of financing this programme also
seems to be quite unresolved. Furthermore, the conditions stipulated in the
24
NCRR’s strategy paper64 for introducing the programme have still not been met
in all parts of the country. They include guaranteed control by UNMIL troops
and the completion of the disarmament programme in the regions. There must
also be a guaranteed police presence and the existing schools and hospitals must
have been reopened. Unimpeded and secure access for aid and development
organizations must be ensured. Finally, a certain number of ‘spontaneous
returnees’ must indicate the ‘normality of the situation’ in the endangered
regions of the country.
The last condition now seems to have been met. As a result of the expanded UNMIL presence the security situation in the remote rebel-controlled parts
of the country has improved considerably since early summer.65 Previously great
stretches of northern and southern Liberia had been practically depopulated. In
order to escape from the catastrophic living conditions in the wretched mud huts
and shabby tarpaulin dwellings of the IDP camps and rebuild the homes
destroyed by the war, a few thousand people have so far risked the journey back
to their home villages. The first meagre harvest from the farms long abandoned
as a result of the war is expected after this year’s wet season at the end of October. The financing of the returning refugees’ food supply by the World Food Programme, on which every sixth Liberian is directly and completely dependent,
appears to be far from assured, at least according to WFP information.66
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) continues to support the
people in the 60-odd IDP camps around the capital. The villages in the hinterland, on the other hand, are excluded from the WFP network. Parish priests there
are attempting to get whatever rice they can to the hungry rural population. Their
financial and transport resources are insufficient to assure an adequate supply,
however. The men in the villages therefore have to return regularly to the IDP
camps in order to fetch WFP food rations for themselves and their starving women
and children. During my visit to Liberia in March 2004 members of the Jesuit
Refugee Service (JRS) criticized another aspect of the WFP food rations: instead
of rice, the staple food in Liberia, the starving people in the IDP camps are being
given American maize and flour, staples that are largely unfamiliar to them. As
I myself was able to observe in March 2004, refugees on the overland roads are
selling sacks of WFP flour to traders from Guinea for 2.50 US dollars each in order
to buy a sack of rice for 14.00 US dollars from the Lebanese traders in Monrovia.
If one asks those on the spot why the food programme cannot be adapted to the
needs of the people it is intended for, one is usually told that the US farm lobby,
which maintains a subsidized outlet market through the WFP, is probably too
powerful.67
25
How fragile the peace and how great the potential for violence in Liberia continue to be is shown by the major clashes that broke out between adherents of
the old Taylor regime and LURD sympathizers in Monrovia on October 28 – i.e.
two days before the deadline of the disarmament programme – in which at least
16 people were killed. A 24-hour curfew was imposed and the UNMIL swiftly
reasserted control. Jacques Klein, Kofi Annan’s UN representative in Liberia,
described the clashes as the “death throes of the old regime”.68
3. The Catholic Church’s efforts for justice
and peace
The Catholic Church began its first attempts at missionary activity in the territory that was later to be Liberia in 1841. The American missionaries from
Philadelphia soon had to admit failure, however, not least because of the major
administrative obstacles put in their way and the rejection they encountered from
the Protestant/Freemason Americo-Liberians. Greater success was achieved by
the Spiritans from 1848 onwards. In 1903, Liberia became an Apostolic Prefecture. In 1906, the Societas Missionum ad Afros (SMA) was entrusted with the mission to Liberia.69 In 1934, Liberia became an Apostolic Vicariate. Finally, in 1981
the country received its own diocesan structure, with Monrovia as a metropolitan and Cape Palmas as a suffragan bishopric. A third diocese, Gbarnga, was created in 1986.
The Catholic Church is one of the most conspicuous organizations supporting
the cause of human rights in the country. This applies particularly to the recent
years of political and institutional disintegration continuing up to the present,
i.e. the arduous period of attempting a new political start following the complete
collapse of state institutions.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference CABICOL regularly spoke out in official
statements and pastoral letters when it felt obliged to draw attention to abuses
and demand that human rights in their country be respected. It is a striking but
perhaps not surprising fact that no documents are extant from the bishops of
Cape Palmas and Gbarnga, in which they address themselves individually and
directly in their capacity as diocesan bishops to the faithful of their bishoprics
on questions of justice and peace, of human and civil rights. This may be
because any pronouncements that may have been made were never committed
26
to paper or that any existing documents were lost in the chaos of war, for the
bishoprics of Cape Palmas in the south and Gbarnga in the north were worst
affected in both phases of the civil war: from 1989 to 1996, and again in 20032004.
The cathedral town of Gbarnga was fought over several times by government
troops and rebel units before being reduced to ashes. Church property, including the bishop’s palace with its archives, either suffered serious damage or was
completely destroyed. In those days no one could think of anything but naked
survival. In the second phase of the war the largest flows of refugees came from
the territory of the two bishoprics of Gbarnga and Cape Palmas, as the LURD
rebels advanced on the capital from Guinea, while the troops of the smaller rebel
organization MODEL, which attacked from Côte d’Ivoire, drove the people
towards the capital from the south.
In 2002/03, as in the first war (1989-1996), Bishop Boniface Nyema Dalieh70
of Cape Palmas, together with his priests, monks and nuns, again had to seek
sanctuary across the Cavalla river in Côte d’Ivoire, while church buildings and
libraries were plundered and burned to the ground. In 2003 Mgr. Lewis Jerôme
Zeigler,71 the Bishop of Gbarnga, had to spend several weeks as a refugee with
members of his flock in one of the IDP camps which ring Monrovia. In this way
Bishop Zeigler showed that the place of the Church was with those who are in
distress and deprived of their rights. In the course of several trips abroad, most
recently in March 2004 at the invitation of Misereor in Germany, he tried to draw
the world’s attention to the situation of the people who were suffering in his
homeland. In seminars, interviews and press conferences he particularly stressed
the psychological plight of former child soldiers in his homeland, who during
the war had been both perpetrators and victims and urgently needed to be reintegrated in society.72 The souls of these children, said the bishop, had been
destroyed, for they had been taught nothing but how to kill. The bishop appealed
to those in responsible positions in the West to take action against the trade in
small arms.73
An outstanding exponent of the church’s work for human rights within CABICOL in the terrible times the country has gone through since the end of the 1970s
is Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis.74 In his capacity as Diocesan Bishop of
Monrovia and in his other prominent ecclesiastical and supra-ecclesiastical
functions75 he has been tireless in his efforts, both at home and abroad, on behalf
of the rights of the oppressed and afflicted people of his country in the disastrous period of Liberia’s decline into anarchy.
As president of the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia (IRCL), comprising the
Liberian Council of Churches (LCC), whose previous president he was, and the
27
National Muslim Council of Liberia, the Archbishop of Monrovia exploited the
opportunities available at the ecumenical level in order to pursue his efforts for
justice and peace together with the other churches and religions.
It was also at Archbishop Francis’s initiative that the Catholic Justice and Peace
Commission (JPC) was founded. In the past few years this national church
organization, which also has diocesan branches, has become recognized as an
important instrument for the preservation and defence of human rights in
Liberia even by those outside the Church.
3.1 The efforts of the Liberian Bishops’ Conference for civil
and human rights – official statements and pastoral letters
In the years of crisis the Liberian bishops joined together to make their voice
heard on several occasions. In so doing, their intention was always to arouse the
citizens of their homeland to an awareness of morals and human dignity, and
to stand up for those who had been reduced to servitude and deprived of their
human and civil rights.
3.1.1 ITCABIC: Spreading the gospel and striving for justice
and peace are the same
In 1982, the three Liberian bishops joined the four bishops of their two Anglophone neighbours to form the Inter-territorial Catholic Bishops’ Conference of
The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone (ITCABIC) under the chairmanship of Archbishop Kpakala Francis of Monrovia. The statutes also provided for the setting
up of a Justice and Peace Commission.
Evidently there were certain teething troubles, at least at the beginning of
the JPC’s work, for in his first annual report Fr. Edward Grimes CSSp, the then
Secretary General of the ITCABIC, criticized the less than satisfactory functioning of the diocesan and national commissions and their poor cooperation with
ITCABIC-JPC. Under the heading “Promotion of human rights” he expresses the
hope that the local ITCABIC churches will in future do more about the rights
of the poor and marginalized. He points out that the bishops of each ITCABIC
country had already expressed their concern about peace and justice in their pastoral letters and thus had begun to sharpen popular awareness in questions of
justice and peace.76
In their subsequent consultations the bishops recommend that in its work
for human rights in the region the church should be more insistent in referring
to the national constitutions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the
28
speeches made by the three heads of state. They expressly underline the necessity of investigating and documenting instances of injustice and human rights
violations, to which reference can be made in ecclesiastical declarations. Finally the bishops point out in the protocol of the 1993 Plenary Assembly that the
Church should take a closer look at the conditions under which prisoners and
persons awaiting trial are kept.77 The extent to which these ITCABIC resolutions
were put into practice by the Liberian church cannot be verified because of the
absence of sources due to the large-scale destruction wrought by the wars in the
region.78
For Advent 1987 the Liberian bishops, together with their ITCABIC colleagues,
published a pastoral letter on The Great Task of Evangelization.79 In it they pointed out to the people of their country, who at that time were suffering under the
oppressive measures and human rights violations of Samuel Doe’s regime, that
the evangelical work of the Church expressly included a “message concerning
the rights and obligations of every human being”. Referring to Pope Paul VI’s
Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi of 1975, they stress that concern for
the poor, as well as questions of justice, liberation, development and peace in
the world, are inseparably bound up with the evangelizing mission. The bishops call for the observance of important Christian principles in the defence of
human rights when they write: “Christians must do their share to fight injustice, to raise the standard of living of less favoured groups and individuals, to
educate to honesty, unselfishness, peace, toleration, charity, and good behaviour.”80 They call upon Moslems and Christians alike to protect and promote
peace, freedom, social justice and moral values.81
3.1.2 CABICOL: The struggle for internal peace and justice for all
In 1997, faced with a deteriorating political situation in the entire Mano River
region and the consequent difficulties of communication, the Liberian bishops
cancelled their membership of ITCABIC and officially founded their own Bishops’ Conference, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Liberia (CABICOL).
On July 1, 1987, i.e. barely two years after Samuel K. Doe’s dubious success
in the presidential elections of October 1985, when the consequences of his irresponsible way of governing were becoming ever clearer, the Liberian bishops published a pastoral letter on the subject of corruption,82 which they not only
addressed to the faithful of their three dioceses, but to “to all men and women
of good will in Liberia in general”. In their capacity as citizens of Liberia and “conscious of being prophetic witnesses of God’s Word” they pointed out the significance and the consequences of corruption in their country and submitted
29
proposals on how to eliminate or reduce this “serious moral problem” and
“national cancer”. Seen from a moral and ethical point of view, corruption, the
bishops stressed, undermined every aspect of life in Liberia. They provide examples to describe the devastating effects that corruption has not only on the individual spiritual and personal sphere, but also on all facets of social, economic,
professional, political and legal life.
They call it social corruption when people – as was the order of the day in
Liberia at that time – are refused fundamental human rights, such as freedom
of speech, movement and assembly. The bishops also consider it to be social corruption when people are arrested without charge and trial, when the legal system is perverted, when immoral laws are passed that do not serve the common
welfare, when the state budget is plundered for private gain, when press, radio
and television are manipulated, when land is obtained fraudulently and when
teachers enrich themselves illegally at the expense of their pupils. Economic
corruption occurs, in the bishops’ words, in a country where only profit counts
and individuals or companies exploit workers of both sexes by paying excessively
low wages for excessively long working hours, and where “even God’s creation
itself – the earth on which we all stand – is abused and the ecology fouled, simply to make more profits”.83 Reluctance to pay what is owed for goods and services, tax evasion and unjust tax laws aggravate economic corruption, the bishops stress. Professional corruption occurs, the letter points out with reference to
Doe’s chauvinistic policy, where offices and positions are used for personal
enrichment and where family and tribal connections count for everything and
not the qualifications of the person applying for a position. Professional corruption, the pastoral letter states, also occurs when aid and funds are diverted
from the genuinely needy by those only interested in personal gain. The bishops also criticize the political corruption in the country, which they see “where
the system of patronage becomes the one and only norm for political participation and advancement.”84 Cases of bribery, intimidation and mistrials in the
legal system, which under the Doe government were the order of the day, are
also stigmatized by the bishops as judicial corruption, as are instances of arbitrary
justice, the disregard for people’s fundamental and constitutional rights, and
lawyers who, unmindful of legal ethics, do not represent their clients in the way
the law requires.
An official intervention on the issues of justice, peace and solidarity was tabled
at the Special Synod of Bishops for Africa (April 10 - May 8, 1994) by Mgr. Benedict Dotu Sekey,85 the first Bishop of the Gbarnga diocese, representing the
Liberian bishops and “on behalf of the many Liberians for whom the last four
and half years have been a nightmare of untold proportions”. He deplored very
30
earnestly the fact that, in times of crisis – like the civil war in Liberia – in which
respect for human life had disappeared, church leaders in his home region had
been silenced when they had tried to adopt a public stance on desecration and
massacres, injustice, hatred and war. Under these circumstances bishops, church
employees and even innocent bystanders quickly became victims, Bishop Sekey
pointed out. He called upon the national and regional bishops’ conferences
in other parts of Africa to become, together with the pope, the voice of the
“voiceless churches”87 and to express their solidarity, their support and their compassion.
In the following years the two regional West African bishops conferences
AECAWA and CERAO met twice to discuss the tense situation in the region, especially in Liberia. The first consultation took place in 1997 in Youpougon/Côte
d’Ivoire,88 and the second in 2001 in Kumasi/Ghana. In the final communiqué
of the Kumasi consultations the political leaders in the Mano River region are
unambiguously made responsible for the catastrophic conditions in their countries. All the warring factions are exhorted to begin a process of dialogue and reconciliation. The two chairmen of CERAO and AECAWA are authorized, together with the Archbishops of Conakry, Freetown and Bo, and Monrovia, to contact
the presidents of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia immediately with a view to
persuading them to find conciliatory solutions for overcoming existing problems
at the negotiating table.
The rich nations are requested to continue their efforts for a resolution of
the crisis: “They should not leave us Africans in our precarious situation to ourselves. After all, in many instances, they are the cause of the chaos we find ourselves in.”89 Finally, the sister churches and those of their organizations that are
responsible for evangelization and development are also called upon not to let
up in their help for the region.
Finally, the AECAWA expressed its solidarity with Liberia one year after Taylor’s abdication in the final communiqué of the 10th Plenary Assembly held on
August 2-30, 2004 in Ho/Ghana entitled “The Church and Good Governance
in West Africa” as follows: “During our assembly, our attention was drawn to the
deplorable state of affairs in Liberia, notwithstanding the end of the fratricidal
war in that country. We were informed of the continued lawlessness and human
rights abuses, the near collapse of the national economy and the untold sufferings of the people.”90 The bishops pledged to offer more assistance to the people of Liberia.
On August 1, 1996, i.e. shortly before Abuja II,91 Archbishop Francis of
Monrovia, Bishop Dalieh of Cape Palmas and Bishop Sekey of Gbarnga published
a two-page statement, in which they expressed their willingness to join forces
31
with all those in Liberia who were striving for a lasting peace, since “the Catholic
Church continues to proclaim the message of love, peace, mercy, forgiveness and
reconciliation.”92 They deplore the crimes and victims, the scale of human and
material destruction, the violence and loss of all moral values. They describe the
psychological destruction of thousands of children and young people as one of
the greatest evils of the civil war.93
At the same time the bishops say they consider it to be their duty not just to
condemn the social evils as such. They also condemn those who were responsible for these evils, i.e. they “condemn in no uncertain terms all the warring factions and their leaders (…) and all other factions that have violated the fundamental
human rights of the Liberian People. They should be held responsible for the
destruction of human lives and the material destruction of the country, and are
answerable to God and the Liberian people for their actions. The culture of evil is
unacceptable in any civilized society, let alone in Liberia which prides herself on
being a signatory to the fundamental human rights of the United Nations.”94
The bishops regret the fact that members of the Catholic Church have also
played an active role in the drama of the Liberian civil war and hence acted against
the doctrine of the Church. Such persons will be condemned and excommunicated by the bishops: “All Catholics who have been and are involved directly,
knowingly and willingly, in the destruction of Liberia and its people without any
remorse cannot and will not take part in the sacramental life of the Church.”95
The bishops declare their solidarity with the ECOWAS countries in their efforts
to bring about a peaceful situation in Liberia, in which free and fair elections
can be held. They appeal to the international community to continue its humanitarian and other efforts and to support the efforts of the ECOMOG in Liberia.
For their part, in order to induce the various warring factions to continue the
current peace negotiations in Nigeria, which in their view can only end in success if all social groups are involved, the bishops declare their willingness to “stand
ready to participate in seeking genuine peace for our country, in the reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation of our nation and its people. (…) Any
effort to establish peace in Liberia has to be a collective and selfless effort.”96
In their pastoral letter of April 1997 under the heading of Peace97 the bishops expressed grave concerns about the timing of the elections scheduled in the
Abuja Accord for May 30, 1997, as this did not allow nearly enough time to make
the necessary preparations or to ensure that they were free, fair and democratic. They pointed out that there had been no harmonisation of election laws; nor
was the constitution in force; nor were the provisions of the Abuja Accord
being observed, nor was there any system in place for voters’ registration or voters’ education for illiterate citizens.
32
The bishops’ intervention merely led to the postponement until July 19, 1997
of the elections from which Charles G. Taylor and his party were to emerge victorious. But two other important points of the Abuja Treaty which they had also
called for, the demobilization and reconstruction of the New Army, were not met,
as the bishops noted with disappointment in their pastoral letter for Advent 2002.
The bishops see this overhasty operation as one of the reasons for the subsequent
collapse of the state under Taylor, which led to the second civil war and the total
ruin of the country.
On November 23, 1997, following Taylor’s election as president of Liberia,
CABICOL issued a joint Advent letter in which it voiced its expectations both
of the citizens and of the new government if the bitter experiences of the previous seven years of national self-destruction were to be overcome. The bishops
called upon people to support the positive initiatives of the new government
and the process of reconciliation. They exhorted people to have the courage of
their convictions and address problems openly. Addressing themselves to the new
government, the bishops wrote: “Our Government has a grave responsibility to
create a conducive environment for the respect of fundamental human rights,
revitalize the economy and develop a practical programme for reconstruction,
reconciliation, rehabilitation, repatriation and resettlement of our people. It is
unfortunate that most of our people are still being exploited even by those in
government. People in high places must exercise a high degree of honesty,
transparency and accountability.”98
In its Whitsun pastoral letter “Liberia, the Third Millennium” issued on May
23, 1999 – i.e. barely two years after Taylor’s seizure of power, when Liberia was
as far from internal peace as it had been immediately after the national conference of the previous July – CABICOL commented on the most glaring omissions
that had been made in their country in the past and were continuing into the
present, and submitted its own proposals for a better future for Liberia.
The bishops made it clear in their letter that Liberia could only have a better future if there was a readiness to learn from the mistakes of the past. The most
serious mistakes included the unjust distribution of the proceeds from raw materials, the mismanaged economic policy, the increasing human rights violations,
the country’s economic and political dependence on others, and the general social
decline which was mainly manifested in corruption. They expressly deplored the
violence which had accompanied the social upheavals that had taken place
since 1979 and stressed that this was no way to resolve conflicts in society.
They praised the initial achievements and short-term successes of the Taylor government. These included the noticeable increase in internal stability and
security; the return of the refugees; the gradual construction of educational and
33
health facilities; the restored functioning of the division of powers; the reduced
crime rate; and greater press freedom. These, however, had to be balanced
against the many problems which were all the more conspicuous in the wake
of the previous year’s national conference, such as the country’s continuing poor
economic situation. Above all they criticized the human rights situation in
their country: “The human rights concerns are not satisfactorily handled. Lawlessness among security personnel requires serious attention”99 They voice their
concern about administrative incompetence and deplore the misuse of public
funds and the ubiquitous corruption. Summing up, they express concern “about
the moral, social, economic and political indiscipline”100 in Liberian society. They
therefore demand from the government practical steps to implement the resolutions of the national conference of July 1998.
In order to bring about a better future for the country “in an atmosphere of
freedom and security”, the bishops list nine points: 1. Setting up of a society based
on the principles of law and justice with “respect for the fundamental rights of
all citizens regardless of ethnic, social, political, religious background and one’s
situation in life”; 2. Getting the economy back on its feet in order to overcome
the “gap between the poor and the rich”, above all through a just distribution
of national resources and the paying of appropriate wages; 3. Improvement of
the education system by “reconstruction and rehabilitation of schools, and
establishing vocational and technical institutions” and “at least aim[ing] at free
primary and junior high school education for everyone”; 4. Restoration of the
health care system by building and repairing medical facilities, for the “health
of a nation is the measure of development”; 5. Upgrading of agriculture, review
of the unbridled deforesting activities and introducing a re-afforestation programme so as “to halt the already noticeable change of weather pattern”; 6. Commitment to party democracy; 7. Overcoming of the country’s political isolation;
8. Privatization of semi-public enterprises; 9. Investments in the country’s development, since “the right to development is one of humankind’s most cardinal
fundamental rights. (...) It is not enough to be guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of freedom, when there are no standards set for the advancement of the human potential. There can be no progress and development in a
nation when there is massive ignorance, illiteracy, poverty and a high mortality rate.”101
On December 1, 2002 the CABICOL bishops published a 20-page pastoral
letter under the title A New Liberia with Justice for All, in which they dealt with
the ideal foundations for a free society and commented on the gravest problems
facing the country barely a year before the elections planned for October 2003,
which were to set the political agenda for the next six years.
34
At the beginning of their letter Archbishop Francis, Bishop Dalieh and the new
Bishop of Gbarnga, Lewis Jerôme Zeigler, called upon their fellow citizens to elect
those who are working for a peaceful, “New Liberia where there is justice and
respect for all” and “where reconciliation is not a slogan”.102 The forthcoming
elections were to lay the foundations for overcoming the difficulties with which
Liberia, in the bishops’ view, had had to contend with since its founding in 1847,
namely “corruption and trickery, false elections, ethnicism, nepotism, use of office
for self-aggrandizement, distinctions between privileged and underprivileged,
between settlers and indigenous, total lack of distributive justice, denial and
infringement of human rights, (...) apotheosis of the President, sycophancy among
all other politicians has come to be equated with roguery and hypocrisy.”103 The
bishops regarded the “Rice Riots” of 1979 as the beginning of Liberia’s criminal
nemesis. In their view reconciliation was necessary, though without forgetting
the price that the numerous victims of the crisis years had had to pay. The bishops reminded their readers of those who had been “murdered and slaughtered”,
of those who had been downtrodden, of those who had lost everything, and of
the many Liberian refugees at home and abroad.
The second chapter of the letter is devoted to the subject of Freedom.104 In
their remarks on the biblical/Christian and philosophical concept of freedom
they point out that freedom is a God-given human right which everyone possesses by virtue of being a human being, and not a gift to be bestowed by governments. It was the duty of the state to protect this basic human right and not
to deny it to anyone. All laws drafted and published by the state must therefore
be in accordance with this fundamental human right. Laws passed by the government should not be the result of arbitrary decisions nor the random product of arbitrary majority decisions. Governments and legislators, therefore,
always had to allow their policies and proposals to be scrutinized for their truth
content and criticized from a moral and pragmatic point of view. In Liberia the
constitutional body responsible for ensuring the observance of these principles
was the Supreme Court, whose decision-making law practitioners should not owe
their office to political patronage and be completely independent of the executive and legislative branches of the government.
The bishops considered the threats to and disregard for human freedom in
many parts of the African continent, including Liberia, to be a cause of great concern. They deplored the fact that, after fighting for freedom from colonial rule,
African leaders had themselves become the worst despots. This had led to uprisings and in many cases to successive military coups resulting in, as the bishops
noted with regret, ever worse heads of state. They described the new, 1980s phenomenon of child soldiers as a “scourge of the continent, including Liberia”.
35
The leaders of the Catholic Church in Liberia regard the failure to recognize the
authority of the constitution and the rule of law as a special problem on their
country’s road to a modern, democratic polity. In the bishops’ view the notion
that the sovereignty of the rulers is of an exclusively political nature and laid
down by law (and not determined by individuals) had not yet won acceptance
in their country: (“We talk democratic language, we act an undiluted authoritarianism. We do not act in terms of equality and liberty.”105 They saw it as particularly absurd that an unjust and corrupt government should enforce laws by
threatening its critics with violence, justifying its action by accusing the latter
of irresponsible and subversive anti-state activities. The bishops underline the
importance of free media coverage unhindered by the state.
Violations of freedoms, which occurred constantly in Liberia, urgently
required redress. Among these the bishops included the failure of the Liberian
justice system to observe the “presumption of innocence” as perhaps the most
important constitutional principle. People were, according to the pastoral letter, thrown into prison or remanded in custody for indefinite periods without
sufficient evidence, formal charges or judicial proceedings. Where the latter
occurred, they often dragged on for years, while the detainees languished forgotten in prison. The bishops made themselves quite clear: “Arbitrary arrest and
detention are immoral. To arrest and detain an individual requires some prima
facie reason for suspicion. (…) The conditions in which a suspect is detained must
respect his human dignity, his freedom and his presumed innocence. Our treatment of detainees is an affront to human liberty. And our prison conditions for
convicted criminals fall very short of an acknowledgement of inherent human
dignity and freedom. (…) It is not at all acceptable that cases are not brought to
court, that they are left to die away after a person has been subjected to arrest
and detention.”)106
The bishops also demanded the right of freedom of speech and publication
in their country, deploring the notorious violation of the press by the government. They pointed out that the electronic media and newspapers were constantly
subjected to brusque or subtle forms of repression by the government. They mentioned the closing of radio stations107 and newspapers as well as the arbitrary arrests
– followed by months of detention – of many journalists in recent years. The
bishops reminded their readers that freedom of the press was guaranteed by the
Liberian constitution and that free and independent media were absolutely necessary in every democratic state.
The bishops made no secret of their view that “freedom of association, of
assembly, freedom to form or join a political party of one’s choice” should be
guaranteed in their country. Economic power should not be used to give offices
36
and administrative posts only to those who belonged to certain parties. The bishops stressed the importance of an opposition and opposition parties in a democratic state.
The third chapter of the pastoral letter dealt with the subject of “democracy” from a biblical, theological and philosophical point of view.108 The bishops
stressed that a nation can determine its own form of government. They pointed out that, while there was a “variety of just forms of government”, every form
of government was to be rejected that tolerates and supports injustice or violates
human rights. Despite all the difficulties which the bishops see in party democracy (especially in a population with a very low level of education), they make
clear their commitment to a democratic form of government, because “the
checks and balances that can be fitted into democracy provide greater protection for justice than is available in any other forms of government.”109. They therefore called upon the people to defend the democratic constitution of Liberia. With
a view to the forthcoming elections they made the following appeal: “(We
must) take steps to guarantee a real resurrection of the freedom, justice, peace
and development of a genuinely democratic society.”110 They asked the citizens
of their country to exercise their right to vote and thereby show that in a
democracy the people decide on the politicians and not the other way round.
In the following chapter entitled Elections the bishops set out in thirteen
points the conditions which in view of the ongoing crisis would have to be met
if “free, fair, democratic and transparent elections” were to be held in October
of the following year: 1. Ending the war; 2. Guaranteeing security and stability
in the country; 3. Holding a national census to provide a basis for the just distribution of seats in the House of Representatives; 4. Demarcation of electoral
districts/constituencies; 5. Deployment of peace-building forces so that people
can vote without fear of intimidation and the candidates can conduct their election campaigns without fear; 6. Appointment of an independent election commission; 7. Registration of voters; 8. A level playing field for the election campaign; 9. A voters’ education programme on current electoral law (an urgent
necessity in a population with an illiteracy rate of about 80 percent); 10. Training of monitors to monitor the elections; 11. Training of electoral officials; 12.
Retraining of the security apparatus to guarantee its neutrality; 13. Demobilization, disbanding and reintegration of all militia formations.
In the bishops’ view the members of the election commission ought to meet
the following criteria: 1. They should be persons of pristine integrity; 2. They
should maintain their neutrality and not belong to or be dependent on any party;
3. They should respect the basic rights of the people; 4. They should be trustworthy individuals; 5. They must be beyond all suspicion.
37
The bishops urged voters to find out about the country’s constitution and electoral laws so as to prevent electoral fraud – either by the president or by the election commission that was dependent on him. The bishops appealed to the politicians to refrain from forming splinter parties that exclusively represented
regional special interests. Their advice was that not more than three parties should
contest the election. To usher in a peaceful future for the country the bishops
called for a fair election campaign since “there is no excuse for any violence. An
effective peaceful democratic outcome should put an end to a need for violence
again: it should deliver us from the gun and put an end to the careers of the purveyors of violence, forever.”111
How this is to be done is explained by the bishops in the following chapter
entitled Candidates, in which they specify the criteria to be met by those wishing to compete in the 2003 elections for a seat in parliament or the office of president: 1. They should be “reconcilers”; 2. In view of the great disunity among
the people in the country and the Diaspora they should possess the ability to
unify the people so that the nation can heal its wounds; 3. They should respect
the fundamental human rights of the people of Liberia, so that the “the spiral
of violations of the fundamental rights of our people” come to an end; 4. They
should be honest, sincere, responsible and truthful in all they say and do; 5. They
should feel committed to the democratic principles; 6 they should be above
reproach in their private and public life, free from immorality and corruption,
7. The welfare of the people should be the motive for their candidacy, not private, political or economic interests.112
The most recent CABICOL pastoral letter “Liberia at the Crossroads: Hopes
and Challenges” is dated January 4, 2004. For what are termed “organizational
reasons”113 it was not published until Ash Wednesday 2004 together with the
Lenten pastoral letter of the Archbishop of Monrovia, Mgr. Michael Kpakala Francis.114 Like its predecessor, this CABICOL letter aroused a great deal of attention
in Liberia because of its clear language on the state of the nation and it was seen
by the population as an encouraging sign of a better future. The bishops call upon
the people to learn from the terrible experience of the past two decades and to
stand up fearlessly for their rights. They plead for the assumption of joint
responsibility for the building up of a vital society and a readiness to stand up
in defence of human dignity; they urge people never again to adopt a passive
role in society, but to do what they can to ensure that all people in the country
may live in justice and equality, peace and freedom. Against the background of
the terrible years that have just passed and the continuing instability of the transitional political situation the bishops call for specific educational and consciousness-shaping measures to strengthen people’s confidence in the enforcing
38
of and respect for human rights. The growing legal awareness among the public should, in the bishops’ words, help to overcome the prevailing “culture of
impunity” in the country. The human rights violations of the war years must,
according to the bishops, be named and confronted.
In their pastoral letter the bishops offered a concise analysis of the situation
then prevailing in Liberia, followed by recommendations for a positive development of the emerging peace process. They criticized the fact that certain parts
of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement had not been implemented as stipulated. These included: 1. Failure to observe the ceasefire, so that even four months
after the conclusion of the treaty fighting was still going on in the country, claiming many victims and driving many people from their homes; 2. Delays in the
disengagement of the army and rebel units; 3. Disregard for human rights, particularly rebels, who had not yet been completely disarmed owing to the dilatoriness of UNMIL; 4. Failure of the LNTG transitional government to exercise
adequate authority and control.
The bishops summed up their criticism of conditions in the country in very
clear words: “The condition on the ground is one of concern. Human rights are
being violated, the natural resources are being exploited and the LNTG is ineffective. What we see is the scrambling for jobs, money and power. The motivations which have driven all the factions during these nightmarish years remain
power and greed. Known killers are in positions of responsibility and thus the
culture of impunity and arrogance continues. No one is accounting for the mass
killings and destruction of our country during the last 24 years (1979-2003). The
situation is bad and something must be done. We were told Mr. Taylor was the
problem and when he is driven away the problem would be solved. Indeed, Mr.
Taylor was one of the problems but we are saddled by the “pontiffs of righteousness” who claim they have come to liberate us.”115
The following six challenges must, in the bishops’ view, be mastered if the
country is to be led to a peaceful future: 1. The stabilization of the LNTG transitional government, which was not functioning properly because of the imperfect Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which even rewarded the warring
factions for the destruction they caused; 2. The bishops regard the success of the
DDRR Programme as the key for national peace and internal stability, especially in view of what happened after phase I of the civil war, when elections were
held although the rebels had only been partially disarmed and no demobilization, rehabilitation or reintegration had taken place at all; 3. The time allotted
to the reconstruction of the security apparatus should be extended in order to
guarantee an exhaustive screening of the personnel involved and their instruction in fundamental human rights issues; 4. The judiciary should consist of fear-
39
less men and women who are well versed in the law, well trained, adequately
paid and ready to apply the law without respect of persons; a commission
should be formed to review the existing laws; 5. A new Independent Election
Commission should be set up, consisting of independent, competent and
upright men and women who are familiar with the laws; members of the existing Election Commission who fail to meet these requirements should resign; 6.
A national census should be held and the constituency boundaries redrawn so
that the elections of October 2005 produce a government legitimized by the
majority of the Liberian people.
Their hopes of a peaceful and just future for the “New Liberia” are summed
up by the bishops in 14 points which they propose should be discussed at a
National Assembly to be convoked by the government with the aim of amending the constitution: 1. The powers of the president must be curtailed and
decentralized; a possible solution might be to divide these powers between the
office of president and the office of prime minister; 2. A revival of the economy
must be tackled by overcoming financial mismanagement, economic corruption
and extra-budgetary expenditure; by the regular payment of civil servants’ and
public employees’ salaries; and by the privatization of state-owned companies;
3. A revival of the educational system should be a government priority in order
to ensure that children and young people can make up for the lost years; 4. The
revival of the health delivery system and the improvement of sanitation conditions; 5. The adoption of a human rights curriculum and the implementation
of a systematic campaign to educate people in all communities about human
and civil rights; 6. An equitable distribution of Liberia’s wealth so as to overcome
the economic contradictions, the embitterment of the people and the instability of the country and also to improve people’s living conditions; 7. Respect for
the fundamental human rights of the people must be enhanced; 8. The defence
and preservation of freedom of the press, freedom of speech and free exchange
of information; 9. A reform of the Ministry of Information, which was more a
ministry of government propaganda, was an urgent necessity; 10. The significance of the military for the Liberian people must be reconsidered; 11. The setting up of a War Crimes Tribunal for Liberia to try the perpetrators of the murderous crimes of the preceding 14 years; 12. The possession of arms must be
prohibited, as must the recruiting of children (child soldiers) for any service
involving the bearing of arms; 13. The universally known warlords, who had committed atrocities against the Liberian people, should not be allowed to hold any
public positions or government offices; 14. Ethnic policies and rivalries must be
overcome, so that the different peoples and ethnic groups of Liberia can live
together in unity and peace.
40
The bishops conclude their pastoral letter with the following appeal: ”We must
as a people and nation never, never, forget what has happened to us and the perpetrators of the crimes of the eighties, nineties and the new millennium must
be made accountable. We must forgive, certainly, but we cannot ever forget. If
we forget, we will return to similar situations we found ourselves in during the
last 23 years. All Liberians have a co-responsibility to build a vibrant society, a
society in which we stand up for our rights, a society in which we no longer play
a passive role, a society in which we are part and parcel of the drama of justice
and equality for all.”116
3.2 The efforts of Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis
for justice and peace in Liberia
Like many other previous publications of the Liberian Bishops’ Conference, the
latest CABICOL pastoral letter “Liberia at the Crossroads: Hopes and Challenges”, bears the unmistakable handwriting of Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis. He was undoubtedly the most influential advocate of the downtrodden and
tormented people of Liberia in the preceding years. The news that their spiritual leader had suffered a stroke on March 6, 2004 was received by the population with profound dismay.117 According to the latest reports from high-ranking
church sources in Liberia the Archbishop is not expected to be able to resume
his duties.
More than any other individual Archbishop Francis, the Chairman of the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Liberia (CABICOL), had been a dedicated campaigner for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in his homeland during the Taylor regime and a warning voice on the subject of human and civil rights. Independently of the official statements published jointly with CABICOL, Mgr.
Michael Kpakala Francis spoke out personally in more than 50 pastoral letters
during his term of office as Archbishop of Monrovia. Not a few of his pastoral
letters directly addressed urgent questions of justice and peace, civil and human
rights in Liberia. He was indefatigable in his efforts to get a hearing from the outside world as an advocate of and lobbyist for his sorely tried people, for it was
clear to him that the only way the Church could maintain its credibility in his
homeland was as a champion of human rights. For this reason he made repeated trips to Europe and the USA in order to draw attention to the situation in his
homeland by means of lectures, press conferences and talks with high-ranking
political and church representatives. As a result he was considered both at home
and abroad to be the outstanding personality and the spokesman of the longoppressed people of Liberia. It is not least thanks to the urgent appeals of Arch-
41
bishop Michael Kpakala Francis to world public opinion that the dictatorial
President Charles G. Taylor had to step down and go into exile in Calabar in
Nigeria.
On May 20, 1990, five months after Charles G. Taylor’s invasion of Liberia,
the Archbishop published his first pastoral letter on the subject of “Peace”.118 In
it he deplored the great loss of human life, especially among the Mano and Gio
tribes, the large number of displaced persons, the ruining of the infrastructure
and the breakdown of law and order in the country. He warned against a total
collapse of the Liberian economy and the danger of anarchy. He called upon the
two contenders, President Samuel K. Doe and rebel leader Charles G. Taylor, to
declare an immediate ceasefire and commence peace negotiations in a neutral
country.
Against the background of the Yamoussoukro/Côte d’Ivoire peace treaty of
October 1991 – brokered by ECOWAS between the warring factions in the
course of lengthy negotiations and only respected by Charles G. Taylor until summer 1992 – which provided for the demobilization and disarming of the armed
groups under ECOMOG supervision as well as for new elections, Archbishop
Michael Kpakala Francis published his Pastoral Letter for New Year 1992 under
the title “Peace, Freedom, Charity”.119 In drastic terms he described the desolate
situation of his country after more than two years of civil war and the dilatory
implementation of the resolutions of the previous peace accord. At the same time
he stressed that his letter was intended to stimulate a social debate on the
meaning of freedom, basic rights and true democracy. He expressed his conviction that true and lasting peace in Liberia was only possible on the basis of free,
fair and democratic elections. However, it was vital to bring about a reconciliation process between the hostile rebel groups and tribes if society was to make
a fresh start. At the same time it had to be ensured that voters had their rights
and the voting procedure explained to them before the elections were held. The
constitutionally guaranteed rights of free expression of opinion, freedom of speech
and freedom of the press had to be guaranteed if the elections were to be considered democratic, free and fair, and there had to be peace in the country. “When
full peace is restored, when the arms are laid down and the fighters return to
civilian life, when the country returns to complete re-unification with untrammelled travel open to all, when families can re-unite and know the fate of their
relatives, Liberia will be ready for its first free and fair elections, ever.”120
In a pastoral letter of February 13, 1993 entitled “Peace”, Archbishop Francis spoke of the “renewed critical situation” in the country, which was threatening to collapse into “chaos and anarchy”.121 In unvarnished language he
protested against the impoverishment of the population and the consequent loss
42
of self-respect; against lawlessness, crimes and lynchings; against smuggling and
black market activities; against the dilapidated educational system; and against
the brutalizing effect on young people of being deprived of rights and prospects.
He directly named Charles G. Taylor as bearing the most guilt for the crimes of
the preceding war years, especially during Operation Octopus, and he was indignant that Taylor, despite all his crimes, could still become president: “While the
people of Monrovia and its suburbs were sleeping, Mr. Taylor and the NPFL began
to slaughter them. After signing several peace accords, he now resorts to force
once again. He is not sincere; he is not trustful; he is not a person of concern
for the rights of his own people. He and his NPFL have murdered and killed thousands of our people and destroyed the country, all so he can become President
of Liberia!”122
There were three basic values that the Archbishop thought had to be adopted and observed if Liberia was to find a way out of the crisis: truth, justice and
reconciliation. Of the main tasks that had to be tackled immediately for a lasting peace in Liberia to be possible, he enumerated 1. The creation of genuine
conditions for free and fair elections; 2. The implementation of a disarming and
rehabilitation programme for all warring factions under the supervision of ECOMOG, which should ensure public safety; and 3. The formation of an independent
election commission.
In a lengthy pastoral letter of October 10, 1993 entitled “The New Liberia”123
Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis spoke out again, after the UN had brokered
another peace accord on July 25 in Cotonou/Benin between the then transitional
government and the rebel units, which gave rise to some – albeit short-lived –
hope for a peaceful future for Liberia. At least agreement had been reached on a
ceasefire; on the demobilization and disarming of the armed bands; on the
release of prisoners; on allowing free access to humanitarian aid; on the return
of refugees; on the establishment of a transitional (six months) government for
the holding of free and fair elections; and on a general amnesty for acts committed
during the military conflict.124 The purpose of the Archbishop’s pastoral letter was
to support the peace process initiated in Cotonou by reminding people of Christian values in advance of the planned elections and explaining key terms connected with them (freedom, democracy, candidacy) from a Christian perspective.125
At the Africa Synod held in Rome in 1994, Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis urged Africa’s leading churchmen to adapt their lifestyles and attitudes more
to the living conditions of the oppressed people of that continent. They were
entitled to a “clear option” on the part of the Church. Justice and peace should
therefore, in the Archbishop’s words, be the focus of evangelical work and not
a mere link, as had been proposed in the Instrumentum Laboris (Working Docu-
43
ment) for the Synod (No. 112). “Human promotion,” said the Archbishop in
his intervention, “is not just an incidental aspect of evangelization, but its
backbone.”126
In a speech at a SEDOS symposium held during the Africa Synod, Archbishop
Michael Kpakala Francis described his expectations of the Church in Africa and
the results of the Synod. He set forth his view that the local African churches
would have to prove themselves a sacrament of justice, peace and unity. He dealt
in detail with the civil war situation in his homeland and analysed the background
to the process of political decay in Liberia.127
In the early summer of 1996 he was forced to flee Liberia for Europe. While
in Germany he visited the former Apostolic Nuntius to Liberia, Archbishop
Johannes Dyba of Fulda. On that occasion he appealed via the press to world public opinion not to forget the oppressed people of Liberia. He described the desperate
situation in his homeland, which was characterized by “violence, arson and plunder”. He reminded his listeners that his country was being terrorized by six military groups with a total strength of about 60,000 fighters, including some 4,000
child soldiers aged between eight and sixteen years. The civil war in his homeland,
according to the Archbishop, was less a matter of conflicting political beliefs or
ideologies than of sheer terrorism aimed at seizing as much booty as possible.128
A few days before he was compelled to flee the country, Archbishop Michael
Kpakala Francis wrote his Easter Pastoral Letter, 1996,129 in which he deplored
the “national malady of violence”130 and depicted the chaotic and dramatic conditions in Liberia in the seven months since the Abuja peace accord of August
19, 1995 and the resulting appointment of the six-member Council of State composed of three warlords and three civilians which was driving the country even
further along the road to ruin: “The peace process is off course: our people are
dying, suffering, our economy is in chaos, our government in disarray, the
Council of State is not unified and we live on a time bomb.”131 He saw the reasons for this in a lack of political and moral will on the part of the Council of
State, whose members, according to the Archbishop, distrusted one another and
were not interested in a real peace process. Reviewing the past six years of war
he addressed himself to the warlords, pointing out that the conflict could not
be terminated by military means. He deplored the “inordinate desire and intention of some of the members of the State Council to be President of Liberia”.132
In a passionate appeal he called upon all Liberians and above all the members
of the Council of State to stand up both jointly and individually for the cause
of peace in their homeland by ensuring that arbitrary threats and arrests should
cease, that private armies be disarmed, and that readiness for dialogue, reconciliation and forgiveness be translated into action. He appealed particularly to
44
boys and girls not to allow themselves to be misused as child soldiers in the private armies; they should lay down their arms and return to school and let
themselves get back to a “normal life”. He offered them the help of the Church:
“We are ready to help you.”133
After his return to Liberia in early 1997 the Archbishop published a very extensive pastoral letter on “Free and Fair Democratic Elections”,134 which was intended to familiarize the Liberian people with what he considered to be the essential guidelines for the parliamentary and presidential elections planned for
summer that year. The letter essentially offers the theological and philosophical background to the concepts of freedom and democracy, to which the CABICOL bishops referred in their previously mentioned Advent letter of 2002 entitled “A New Liberia with Justice for All” and extensive passages of which they
adopted (at least as regards the gist).
The Archbishop saw the holding of free, fair and democratic elections as being
essentially dependent on the following three conditions that should be passed
into law by the transitional parliament TLA:135 1. The disarming of all warring
factions, especially in view of the fact that some warlords wanted to stand as candidates in the presidential elections; 2. The formation of an International Election Commission to be made up of representatives of the UN, OAU and ECOWAS – or of the UN only – whose task it would be to organize and monitor the
elections and announce the election results; 3. The formation of an Election Tribunal, consisting of non-party lawyers, to decide on the legality of the election
and its results – this was necessary, since the members of the Supreme Court did
not have the necessary independence and thus did not enjoy the confidence of
the majority of the population.
The assessment criteria which the Archbishop proposed for the candidates
are identical with those of the CABICOL letter for Advent 2002 presented earlier. Finally the Archbishop pointed out that religious faith and political activity
– whatever certain politicians might suggest – were by no means mutually
exclusive, for “to be religious is not only to do Church things but to live all of
life, to perform all our activities in accord with the Divine Will. Christ’s redemptive action is to restore peace, justice and love between God and man, between
man and his fellow man. (…) The attainment of social justice, of just political
structures, of safeguarding and promoting the freedom and dignity of man – these
are all integral parts of the Christian mission.”136
In his Pastoral Letter for New Year 1998137 Archbishop Michael Kpakala
Francis referred to his previous letter of July 27, 1997,138 which he had published
eight days after Charles G. Taylor’s election as president. In it he assured the new
government of the Church’s willingness to cooperate on condition that the gov-
45
ernment let itself be guided by sound ethical principles that were in harmony
with divine law and benefited the Liberian people. He called upon the new government to focus all its efforts on achieving national unity and reconciliation
and ensure that the implementation and safeguarding of human rights would
be a priority of its policy.
Barely six months after the election the Archbishop paid tribute to the
announcements of the Taylor government that it would strive for peace and reconciliation, regular payment of government employees, and the restoration of
law and order. The setting up of a National Human Rights Commission and a
National Reconciliation Commission is singled out for positive mention. Yet the
Archbishop pointed out that all these declarations of intent and new institutions
were meaningless if they were not followed by practical steps, since the rights
of our citizens continue to be violated, sometimes with impunity. The arbitrary
arrests and harassment of journalists, the gruesome murder of citizens, are just
a few of the ills resurfacing in our society. (...) We are concerned about the general direction of government towards the improvement of the social and economic life of our people, as well as reconciling them – we ask what are the plans
of the Government.” The Archbishop reminded the government of its duty to
see to the safety of its citizens and ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence were brought to court. He concluded by expressing the hope that the government would try to reduce social tensions “and lead us on the path of national
reconciliation and peace”.
In recognition of his efforts for justice, peace, reconciliation and the defence
of human rights in his homeland over the past 20-odd years the Archbishop
received the internationally highly regarded “Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Award” in Washington, D.C. on November 22, 1999. In his eulogy Senator Edward
M. Kennedy paid tribute to the life and service of the Archbishop as an advocate of the people in his country: “He sought constructive ways to end the ethnic rivalry and violence. However, in 1996, he was forced to leave Monrovia after
he was held at gunpoint by three different armed groups on the same day. (…)
Archbishop Francis returned to Liberia after only a few months because, as he
said, "that is where I should be". Archbishop Francis has spoken out constantly
and courageously from his pulpit and through Radio Veritas, the broadcasting
station of the Catholic Church. He has spoken out against the civil war and for
the rights of the Liberian people. (…) When Radio Veritas was burned by rebels
in 1996, he made sure that it was back on the air within a year preaching justice, peace, and reconciliation. Archbishop Francis was also the inspiration for
the establishment of the Catholic Church’s Commission on Peace and Justice
in Liberia in 1991. Through this Commission, he has tried to replace a culture
46
of revenge with a culture of reconciliation. Archbishop Francis has never turned
his back on the struggle for justice and peace in Liberia, and neither should the
United States. Our histories are too closely tied (…).”.
In his pastoral letter on “Liberia in the New Millennium 2000”140 Archbishop
Michael Kpakala Francis dealt in detail with the devastating human rights situation in the period of the intensifying and unmistakable disintegration of the
state under President Charles Taylor. The head of the Catholic Church in Liberia
deplored the fact that citizens could not live in safety because the state lacked
a monopoly of power and/or because the state organs abused their power. He
expressed regret that this had caused thousands of highly qualified citizens to
leave the country in the years of Taylor’s rule.141 The Archbishop denounced in
unmistakable terms the social, economic and political decline of the country in
the previous two decades caused by the self-styled “liberators” and, above all,
the rapid loss of respect for human dignity and rights.
With regard to the economy he deplored the financial mismanagement, ubiquitous corruption142 and lack of fiscal discipline, mainly caused by the financial
connections between high-ranking politicians and private and semi-public economic enterprises.
The Archbishop detailed the open and subtle violations of human rights,
which took place in a political “climate of arrogance and impunity”. These included above all the inhuman conditions in the Liberian prisons, where many citizens had to languish for long periods without trial. He expressly called upon the
many human rights organizations to exert pressure on the government to
respect the rights of citizens. The population, on the other hand, should be told
about their rights and obligations by appropriate civic instruction programmes.
The Archbishop expressed concern about the large number of military and
paramilitary formations in the country, which gave the people a feeling of insecurity. He also described the low wages of state and justice officials as well as of
the police and security forces as both an injustice and a source of increasing corruption in the country. He took exception to the fact that the National Human
Rights Commission set up by Charles G. Taylor only existed on paper and in reality contributed nothing to the improvement of the human rights situation in
Liberia, because the governmental act establishing this commission in no way
corresponded to international human rights standards; the government had not
provided the Commission with the necessary financial funds; and the necessary
qualified personnel were lacking. A grave human rights problem was seen by the
Archbishop in the financial dependence of the National Reconciliation Commission, which, he said, “seems not to realize the pivotal role it should play in
our society. We hear little of what it is doing.”143
47
The Archbishop expressed his disappointment that the government had so far
refused to publish or implement the results of the national conference of
July/August 1998,144 which had been attended by over 2,000 representatives of
all social strata and which he thought had created a context in which reconciliation, reconstruction and peace in the country might have been achieved.
He put forward eleven proposals which ought to help guarantee the country a peaceful, harmonious, reconciled and just future:145 1. Respect for basic rights
of all citizens; 2. Strict observance of the division of powers between the legislative,
executive and judicial branches; 3. Putting the economy back on its feet and eliminating economic/political sleaze; 4. Recognition and observance of UN-imposed
conditions in order to qualify for foreign reconstruction aid; 5. Implementation
of government policy according to administrative procedures; 6. Restructuring
of the executive with personnel technically and morally qualified in public administration; 7. Transparency regarding foreign investors and companies in Liberia,
for “we the people of Liberia have the right to know who is exploiting our natural resources and how and what we will receive in return.”;146 8. Ensuring that
the National Human Rights Commission conforms to international human
rights standards; 9. Reviving the National Reconciliation Commission, so that
it can play its allotted part in the process of national reconciliation; 10. Publication and implementation of the resolutions passed by the Liberian National
Conference in summer 1998; 11. Proper remuneration for all civil servants and
public employees, especially the police.
At a press conference held in Munich in mid-February 2002 the Archbishop of Monrovia demanded an international ban on small arms. Radio Vatican
quoted the Archbishop as saying that the civil war in his country was not being
conducted with artillery or helicopter gunships but with pistols and rifles of American, British, Russian, Czech and German manufacture. He also pointed out that
there were about 10,000 child soldiers in Liberia, aged from seven upwards, who
were engaged in armed combat.147
When the civil war began to escalate in its second phase as a result of massive military operations by LURD, Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis published
his Pastoral Letter for New Year 2003, entitled “Justice, Peace, Reconciliation”.148
In it he denounced the “culture of evil” that had taken possession of Liberia, and
the moral decay in an environment of structural and individual violence, in which
any feelings of guilt or sense of responsibility for the common welfare had been
lost: “Today we live in a society that is permeated by evil, which has and is having devastating effects not only on our behaviour but also on Justice, Peace, Reconciliation and Development of our Land.”149
48
He called on people to oppose the “culture of violence” that prevailed in the country. This manifested itself, in the Archbishop’s words, in the wanton destruction
of human life, the mutilation of human beings and other atrocities, threats of
violence and violations of the rights of the individual, arbitrary arrests without
warrant, traumatization and the consequent blunting of human feeling, the trivialization of human life, which no longer appeared to have any value in Liberia.
In this connection the Archbishop again denounced the particularly “dehumanizing phenomenon” of child soldiers, who were forced in their thousands
by all warring factions to commit acts of violence as “killers and destroyers”. The
Archbishop demanded categorically that “the recruiting of our children to
become killers must stop”.150
He resolutely declared war on the “culture of lies and deception”, which manifested itself not only in the “endemic” corruption and bribery in the country,
but also in defamation campaigns and perversions of justice, the propagandistic manipulations of the rulers with which the Archbishop made a drastic comparison: “They have taken a leaf from the infamous Nazi propaganda chief
Goebbels, internationally known during the Second World War as the arch-liar.”.151
In the “culture of sycophancy” in public life the Archbishop saw another of
Liberia’s ills, created and promoted by the government and the warlords, which
had to be eliminated. Where any kind of state order had broken down and the
“public lie” ruled, the pastoral letter went on to say, people felt they could only
win the favour of the rulers and their henchmen through “pernicious sycophancy” in order to ensure their own survival and that of their families. This
attitude in turn, the Archbishop continued, led ineluctably to a system of prostitution and patronage, corruption and bribery, making for economic and political inefficiency and injustice at all levels of the state and society. In this climate
of institutionalised lying “the common good is sacrificed to the personal, greedy,
unjust gains of some individuals”.152
The Archbishop expressed his indignation at the unimaginable scale of
wanton destruction of private and public property by the warring factions and
also by civilians in his homeland which had reduced most citizens to living in
conditions unworthy of human beings. In this “culture of destruction of property”, which the Archbishop laid at the door of the rulers, the booty was on public sale in the markets “with the knowledge of those who should do something
to stop this”.153 With reference to Taylor and his ruling clique and also to the other
warmongers in Liberia, who had dishonestly acquired their wealth at the expense
of the population at large, the Archbishop wrote: “The ’new rich’ parade their
ill-gotten wealth with arrogance and with no concern for the people of this country – they have stolen the goods and they believe that the people are so stupid
49
and do not know. They will have to restore these ill-gotten goods to Liberia and
to its people one day if they hope for forgiveness from God.”154
Referring to the three preceding pastoral letters, in which he had already
denounced his country’s “culture of corruption” and its causes,155 he again assailed
the rampant corruption in the country in all its spiritual, social economic, vocational, political, sexual, legal and individual facets and implications.
In this pastoral letter the Archbishop condemns in particularly harsh terms
the “culture of injustice” prevailing in Liberia, in which the fundamental rights
both of individuals and of the whole nation were “trampled underfoot”. He
described the political and social structures of Liberia as “sinful”. The system of
nepotism and patronage eroded the human dignity of the individual. Another
aspect of the “culture of injustice” deplored once again by the Archbishop was
the “sinfully and ridiculously low” salaries of government employees, which had
particularly fatal consequences in the corrupt workings of the justice system,
where people were locked up without a warrant for their arrest while known murderers got off scot-free. “Every day we see how our people are treated and how
their rights are violated with impunity.”156
The Archbishop concluded his letter with an appeal to people to strive for
a society characterized by justice, peace and reconciliation and ensure that the
“clique” of the oligarchs and their cronies, “who promote murder, corruption,
bribery, crooked business deals, lies, toadyism, etc., are not represented in the
future government.157
In spring 2003, when the civil war situation in Liberia was worsening and
in the wake of the Liberian bishops’ “Ad Limina visit” to the pope on February
14, 2003, Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis undertook another lobbying
tour of Europe and the USA in order to draw attention to the tragic situation in
his homeland through lectures, press conferences and talks with senior politicians and to press for foreign intervention. On March 3, 2003, for example, he
attended an event at Washington’s prestigious Henry L. Stimson Centre, in
which he was billed as the main speaker. The subject of his lecture was “Building Civil Society in Liberia”.158
On July 22, 2003 Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis joined two bishops
from Sierra Leone, Giorgio Biguzzi of Makeni and Patrick Daniel Koroma of Kenema, in issuing a dramatic call for help to the international community.159 On
behalf of the million victims claimed by long years of warfare in the region they
called upon the USA and the international community to intervene in Liberia
to restore peace there and in the entire West African region. The bishops maintained that only the immediate despatch of a strong international military
intervention force could put an end to the civil war raging at that time. Other-
50
wise, the bishops feared, an escalation of the violence in Liberia was unavoidable and could easily spread to the entire West African region.
Between the lines the bishops criticized the hesitant behaviour of US President George W. Bush, while people in Liberia were being slaughtered. They
reminded him of the USA’s special responsibility for Liberia in the light of the
historical ties between the two countries. For too long the children in West Africa
had been robbed of their childhood by the war, in which they had to fight as
soldiers, in which they had lost their parents, their homes, their education and
hence any prospect of an independent future.
The three bishops demanded that the armistice should be immediately
enforced from outside. The country had to be completely disarmed, by force if
necessary. This disarmament had to be monitored by an international peacekeeping force with a robust mission. This, said the bishops, was the only way of
achieving a peaceful future for Liberia, the only way of rekindling hope in the
ruined country. The USA and the United Nations had to decide on an immediate military intervention in order to avert a catastrophe in West Africa. The bishops called upon President Bush to provide US troops immediately for an effective peacekeeping mission and help with the reconstruction of the country, so
that there could be a return to stability.
Against the backdrop of a deteriorating humanitarian and military situation
in Liberia Archbishop Francis visited Europe again in August 2003 in order to
ask the national governments and the international community both for humanitarian support in looking after the hundreds of thousands of refugees in his country and in setting up a peacekeeping force for Liberia.160 He took an unequivocal stance whenever he saw his people threatened, from whatever quarter. In a
lecture on “A Road Map for Peace in Liberia” given to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London on July 22, 2003 he condemned in the sharpest terms
the LURD attacks on Monrovia with indiscriminate mortar fire, which claimed
the lives of many, particularly civilians.161
Despite his harsh criticism, Archbishop Michael Francis evidently still
enjoyed the confidence of the LURD rebels as a go-between in the armistice negotiations. This is confirmed by a statement of LURD leader Sekou Damate Conneh in an interview given in connection with an event organized by the Sant
Egidio community in Rome on August 4, 2003. Asked about the role of the
Archbishop, whose urgent appeals to world public opinion helped to arouse international interest in the Liberian tragedy, Conneh said: “He was the first man to
start the initiative of dialogue with our organization. When it came to the
cease-fire, we used Monsignor Francis as a channel of communication.”162
51
During the final offensive at the beginning of August 2003 Archbishop Michael
Kpakala Francis repeatedly drew attention in interviews with the BBC and other
international media to the suffering of the people, e.g. the dire situation of the
refugees in Liberia.163 In an e-mail message of August 13, 2003 to missio, in which
he commented on Taylor’s fall, which he had helped bring about, the Archbishop
revealed that he was still very disappointed and displeased at the hesitant attitude of the USA in the conflict, which he had already criticized before: “It is a
source of joy that Mr. Taylor has disappeared. His successor Mr. Blah will only
be in office for about seven weeks until a transitional government is formed in
Accra, where the peace conference is taking place. The United States has no Liberia
policy and no Africa policy – it is just muddling along with an ad hoc policy in
order to make provision for all eventualities. We are so disappointed by the USA.
Three American warships are lying off Monrovia with 2,300 Marines on board!
What are they there for? We don’t know!”164
In an official statement at the beginning of February 2004 he described the
international Liberia donor conference in New York as a further step towards
strengthening the peace process in Liberia. “Liberia needs financial support in order
to help the country out of its totally devastated state, to rebuild the infrastructure, to get the development process moving, and to see to the training, rehabilitation and reintegration of the child soldiers,” said Francis. The aim of all future
steps, the Archbishop was quoted as saying, was to guarantee free, fair and democratic elections in October 2005. The first step was the disarming of the parties
to the civil war, their reintegration, and the rehabilitation of the soldiers of both
sexes. It would then be necessary to set up an election commission in order to
prepare and monitor the elections with UN support. In addition, the Archbishop is quoted further, a truth and reconciliation commission would have to be set
up to uncover all the things that had happened during the war. And finally the
installation of an independent human rights commission was necessary to stabilize the country by ensuring and monitoring the observance of human rights.165
In a lecture on “Racism and Education” given at a conference of the UN
Human Rights Commission in Geneva (January 26 - February 6, 2004)166 the Archbishop described the horrific results of the recent war in Liberia and how difficult it was to heal the wounds left by this war. But he also expressed very clearly the hope of the Liberian people for a peaceful future following Taylor’s
departure, the stationing of the UNMIL troops, and the installation of the transitional government. He pleaded explicitly for the setting up of a War Crimes
Tribunal for Liberia to try Taylor and his henchmen and thus send a clear signal that the “culture of impunity and violence”, which had permeated Liberian
52
society, was being overcome. With regard to Liberia, where thousands of children
in the preceding years had been unable to go to school, the greatest challenge, in
the Archbishop’s view, would be to give those children who had committed or experienced atrocities comprehensive education that was mainly aimed at teaching them
values and giving them an understanding of fundamental human rights. He
pointed out that the Catholic Church had already initiated school courses to make
the people of Liberia familiar with the ideas, principles and universal validity of
human rights. Human rights education was a fixed part of the curriculum in all
forms and grades of school and the teachers were being trained accordingly. “We
are convinced of the principles of enlightenment,” said the Archbishop, “because
we know that an enlightened and responsible citizenry is the best guarantee
against dictatorship, the violation of human rights, and economic exploitation.”167
3.3 The efforts of the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia to bring
about peace negotiations between Taylor and the rebels
Under the presidency of Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis the Inter-Religious
Council of Liberia (IRCL), founded in 1990 and internationally recognized for
its peace efforts, played a vital role in bringing about the Accra peace negotiations. In its efforts to bring about an end to the war the body had already directly urged President Taylor in April 2002 to seek a meeting with LURD. Charles
G. Taylor was not only ready for such a meeting, as the Catholic bishops documented in their pastoral letter of January 4, 2004, but even encouraged the IRCL
to take the necessary preparatory steps.168
At the beginning of May the IRLC sent a delegation to Freetown and Conakry
in order to make clear to the leading LURD representatives the concerns of the
religious leaders about the ongoing war and also to explore whether LURD
could be persuaded to engage in a dialogue with the GOL. After serious talks the
LURD leaders agreed to meet the GOL without preconditions and even announced
a unilateral armistice for the first two weeks of May.
On May 28, 2002 the results of the IRCL’s consultations were communicated to President Taylor, who requested a written report. The IRCL complied with
this request the next day. But the president did not react to this paper until his
forced departure into exile. Instead he began to accuse the IRCL, under its president Michael Kpakala Francis, of supporting the LURD rebels.
In October 2002, the IRCL was finally asked by ECOWAS to arrange a meeting between an ECOWAS delegation and LURD. After LURD agreed to this meeting and the president of Sierra Leone, Tejan Kabba, consented to the IRCL’s request
to play the role of host, the meeting was fixed for January 2003.
53
On December 26, IRCL Secretary-General David Kiazolu and his deputy, Christopher Toe, were arrested by order of the Taylor government on charges of
collaborating with LURD and accused of treason. They were not released until
two weeks later following intense national and international pressure.
In February 2003, the meeting between GOL and LURD representatives was
held belatedly in Freetown. An IRCL-brokered meeting between LURD and
ECOWAS was also held in February 2003.169 Finally, on the basis of the consultations previously initiated by IRCL, the International Contact Group for Liberia
founded in September 2002 invited the parties to peace negotiations in Ghana,
which were to begin at the end of May. In the first week of April 2003 the IRCL
invited 18 political parties and groups representing civil society to a meeting to
prepare the ground for these negotiations. They passed a resolution calling
upon the GOL and LURD to commence negotiations and cease all hostilities
immediately.
Even after the collapse of the Taylor regime the IRCL strove to promote the
social integration of Liberian society. With the support of OCHA Liberia170 it organized a Round Table Conference on Post-Conflict Rebuilding in Liberia (December 1-5, 2003) in Monrovia to implement the DDRR programme. The conference
was attended by the leading political and military representatives of LURD,
MODEL and the GOL and chaired by the president of the IRCL, Archbishop
Michael Kpakala Francis. All three factions declared their support for the disarmament programme and peace process, while regretting how long it was taking to station the UNMIL troops.
3.4 The Justice and Peace Commission’s efforts on behalf
of civil and human rights
In the present phase of political change the Catholic Church’s national Justice
and Peace Commission (JPC) continues to play an important role as an independent human rights organization.172 The commission, founded by CABICOL
in November 1991 when the civil war had already been raging for two years, sees
its mission as serving Liberian society and its citizens regardless of tribal or religious allegiance. The Church thus applies the concept of subsidiarity to perform
a task which the state authorities are still too weak to take on.173
Cases of human rights violations in the counties are reported by the diocesan JPC commissions in Cape Palmas and Gbarnga to the national JPC in Monrovia.174 For quite a few years now human rights violations that come to the attention of the JPC as well as reports on the general human rights situation in Liberia
are published in quarterly and annual bulletins, which are then distributed to
54
international human rights groups and partner organizations. In the present phase
of political transition the JPC sees the gravest violations of the Human Rights
Charter in Liberia in police brutality, rape, (domestic) violence against women,
threats to press freedom, and the use of forced labour by former warlords.
Prisoner care and legal counsel for the accused in criminal trials as well as
mediation in divorce cases (as in the case of marital disputes) are provided by
the JPC, which either looks for the necessary personnel or uses its own legally
trained staff. Another aspect of JPC work is taking testimony from witnesses of
massacres that occurred during the Taylor dictatorship and the war period. It is
hoped that this testimony will be used in future war crimes trials. According to
JPC staff, interviewing these witnesses in the present situation, in which the warring factions are still represented in the government and the state’s monopoly
of the use of force cannot be universally guaranteed, is not without its dangers.
There are regular attempts at intimidation and death threats against witnesses
and JPC staff. The people I spoke to saw no need to set up a special war crimes
tribunal in Liberia, as demanded by the bishops, justifying their attitude with
the high costs involved.175 The pending cases could, in the view of the JPC people, be tried by the existing court in Freetown/Sierra Leone, where, as we have
seen, Charles Taylor is to be put on trial.
Liberia’s long constitutional tradition of one-party rule imposed by the
True Whig Party from 1847 (when the state was founded) to 1980 (the Doe coup),
which systematically excluded the native population from the political process,
and a series of pseudodemocratic dictatorships interspersed with long periods
of civil war have left the majority of the Liberian population with little experience of or interest in the exercise of civil rights, especially the right to vote. The
JPC agrees with the bishops in regarding nationwide measures of “civic education” designed to teach people about their civil and human rights as a third and,
at the present stage, perhaps the most important focus of its work.
In preparation for the elections scheduled for October 2005 an extensive
nationwide programme designed to develop political awareness is currently
being implemented in all of Liberia’s 15 counties with financial support from,
among others, missio in Aachen. The emphasis is on educating young people
and adult women – of whom an absolute majority are illiterate – about their right
to vote. The programme also includes education in basic (Christian) values, general human rights, civil rights and duties, and the principles of political good
conduct. Instruction takes place via a multiplier system in seminars and workshops at local level.
This is flanked by weekly broadcasts of the Justice and Peace Forum of the
Catholic radio station Radio Veritas which deals in depth with the key points
55
contained in the education programme. Political freedom of speech is cultivated
and promoted in the discussion forums and chat shows, in which the various political
candidates are to be heard. In view of the high illiteracy rate in the country these
magazine programmes are an effective means of creating independent political
awareness and giving everyone access to objective information, for Radio
Veritas continues to be the most frequently heard station in the country.
At the initiative of former JPC director Frances Johnson-Morris and with the
financial support of missio Aachen a programme is currently being implemented under JPC auspices with a view to educating women about their rights
in connection with reproductive and health issues. This programme of Education on the Reproductive Health Rights of Rural Liberian Women is aimed at combating a particularly grave aspect of violence against women, mainly in the rural
areas of Liberia. It is estimated that 75 percent of women in Liberia die as a result
of unwanted pregnancy and the hazards of too early or too frequent pregnancies or the lack of qualified assistance during pregnancy and childbirth. Among
the rural population, in particular, frequent pregnancies, their associated complications and female mortality are regarded fatalistically. The programme is therefore intended to strengthen women’s awareness and make them realize that the
right to decide over their own bodies is a human right, for in Africa, even today,
women are traditionally regarded as the property of their husbands. The programme is therefore less concerned with medical considerations and technical
questions of contraception and more with the empowerment of women in
general and hence with the human rights aspects of the whole problem, i.e. with
women’s rights to education, economic independence, family planning,
inviolability of the person and the right to be protected against sexual, sexually
related and domestic violence, the right to (healthy) food and medical care.
Because of the high illiteracy rate among women in rural areas the contents of
the programme are being broadcast by Radio Veritas in the various tribal
languages. Theatre groups, which are used in the workshops and tour the
villages, help to get the essence of the programme across.
In mid-2001, inspired by Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis’ conviction
that in view of his country’s devastating experience176 education in human
rights had to begin in the schools, the JPC published a three-volume textbook
on civil and human rights for pupils at primary, middle and secondary schools.177
This was the first time in the country’s history that such a comprehensive work
on civil and human rights had been compiled for use in schools and become an
integral part of the Liberian school curriculum. All over the country civics
teachers in Catholic schools were made familiar with the contents of the publication in continuing education seminars and workshops. On September 6, 2001,
56
when the courses were completed, a symposium was held in Monrovia for those
who had attended them. In his preface to Volume II the Chairman of the JPC,
Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, expressed the hopes placed by the Church
in the use of the three-volume compendium to educate children about human
and civil rights: “When our children today know and understand their own rights
and obligations and those of their neighbours, we will have a better and healthier society in the future, because justice will rule. This not a utopia, but a natural reality (...) We must develop this culture of mutual respect for humanity. And
this will happen through our children (...) The goal is clear, and we hope that
the will to achieve this goal is there too.”178
4. Conclusions
This study has shown that in the past decades the Catholic Church in Liberia
has, at various levels, acted vigorously in all phases of the decline and disintegration of the state for the defence of civil and human rights and for justice and
peace. An outstanding figure in this process was the Archbishop of Monrovia,
Mgr. Michael Kpakala Francis. His loss – especially in the present political transitional phase – will be a painful one for many leading figures in the Church and
society. Now, in particular, his services would have come in useful for politicians
and NGOs, as an advisor, a warning voice and a public conscience, whenever it
was a question of setting future social trends, pointing out undesirable political
developments, and compelling respect for human dignity, civil rights and
human rights. It remains to be seen who in the Catholic Church of Liberia will
be able to assume this role in future.
As we have seen, the Catholic Church’s work on the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia played a vital role in bringing about the peace negotiations in
Accra/Ghana, which eventually saw off the Taylor government. In the current
phase of political transition the Church will continue to influence social and political developments through this body.
The further internal stabilization of the country and the confidence of the
population in the rule of law will largely depend on whether Charles G. Taylor
can soon be brought to trial for war crimes. Where the trial is held, whether in
Freetown or Monrovia, is of secondary importance. It is also to be hoped that
the demands of the bishops will be met and the representatives of the former
warring factions, who are now represented in the transitional government, will
57
no longer play any political role after the 2005 election. This would remove any
reason for retaining the existing UN sanctions, which are doing serious damage
to the economic development of the country.
After the “bought” departure of President Charles G. Taylor Liberia is still a
ruined country in every respect. Just over a year after the end of the era of terror, conditions in the country are anything but stable. Although the human rights
situation in Liberia has improved considerably, the low confidence of the majority of the population in constitutional bodies and the state monopoly of
power – never very high to begin with in view of their negative historical experience – has been seriously shaken and must be built up from scratch in the
coming years, perhaps for the first time in the over 150-year history of the country.
This has been clearly recognized by the Catholic Church. Through its National
Commission for Justice and Peace it has developed a large-scale programme of
civil and human rights education at school and parish level, which is currently
being implemented. This should build up the confidence of the population in
the rule of law and the protection of constitutionally guaranteed human and
civil rights.
It is to be hoped that the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission
demanded by the Catholic Church will begin its work as soon as possible. This
would enable Liberians to come to terms with the terrible events of the preceding years of civil war so that both victims and perpetrators may face a future of
peace and justice.
58
59
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Kraaij, Fred van der
Hecking, Hans-Peter
Der Traum von Freiheit. Liberia ist ein zerstörtes Land, in: Herder Korrespondenz. Monatshefte für Gesellschaft und Religion
58 (9/2004), pp. 473-477
President Samuel K. Doe (1980-1990). The Master Sergeant
President, in: www.liberiapastandpresent.org
Kraaij, Fred van der
President William R. Tolbert, Jr. (1971-1980). The Preacher President, in: www.liberiapastandpresent.org
Liebenow, J. Gus
The Liberian Coup in Perspective, in: Liberia Contemporary
Voice, Vol. 1 No. 7, September 1998 (www.republicofliberia.com/
vol1_no7.htm)
Link, Christoph
Ex-Blauhelme meutern in Guinea-Bissau, in: Frankfurter Rundschau, October 8, 2004, p. 6
Link, Christoph
Jubel für den neuen Boss. Präsident Gyude Bryant soll in Liberia während einer Übergangsperiode die Voraussetzungen für
eine friedliche Zukunft schaffen, Frankfurter Rundschau, October 15, 2003
Hecking, Hans-Peter
Hecking, Hans-Peter
Hecking, Hans-Peter
Die durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung liegt bei nur noch 51
Jahren. Über den verheerenden Bürgerkrieg in Liberia und die
Frieden stiftende Rolle der katholischen Kirche, in: Frankfurter Rundschau, June 13, 2003, p. 7
Liberias Traum von Freiheit. Auch ein Jahr nach der Abdankung
des Diktators Charles Taylor kämpfen die Menschen noch
immer ums Überleben, in: Frankfurter Rundschau, August 17,
2004, p. 7
Reisebericht Liberia (31.8.-11.9.2001), Aachen, January 2002
(unpublished Missio-internal paper)
62
63
Link, Christoph
Liberias Hoffnungsträger, Frankfurter Rundschau, October 10,
2003
Sorg, Eugen
Fürst der Finsternis; in: Die Weltwoche, Zurich (issue 32/03)
Meisenberg, Simon M.
Indictment and warrant for the arrest of Charles Ghankay Taylor issued by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, in: Humanitäres Völkerrecht, Heft 1 2004, pp. 30-39 (www.ruhr-unibochum.de/ifhv/ publications/huvi/meisenberg.pdf)
Sorg, Eugen
Gespräche mit Kannibalen. Eine Reise zu den Kindersoldaten
Liberias, in: Die Weltwoche No. 18, May 1, 2003
The Liberian Catholic
Bishops Conference
“Corruption”. A Letter from The Liberian Catholic Bishops
Conference, Monrovia, Liberia, July 1, 1987
United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1343 (2001) (http://www.womenwarpeace.org/liberia/docs/res1343.pdf)
Symbolischer Anfang. Der Bürgerkrieg in Liberia ist seit einem
halben Jahr offiziell zu Ende. Jetzt braucht das Land Perspektiven. Die internationale Gemeinschaft hat dafür über 500
Millionen US-Dollar zugesagt, in: Dw-World.De (Deutsche
Welle), February 11, 2004 (www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1109987,00.html)
United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1478 (2003) (www.humanitarianinfo.org/liberia/
infocentre/general/docs/N0334812.pdf)
United Nations. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) – agency reports
on the situation in Liberia
Pike, John
Liberia – Election and Coup Attempt – 1985 in: www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/liberia-1985.htm
United Nations. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) in Liberia
Situation Report No. 72, December 1-3, 2003 (www.unjlc.org)
Radio Vatican
Deutschsprachiges Programm (www.vaticanradio.org)
Rehrl, Annette
Die Diamantenkinder. Afrikas Kinder zwischen Sklaverei, Gewalt
und Hoffnung, Munich 2004
Virnich, Birgit and Grill,
Bartholomäus
Kindersoldaten. Krieg der Kinder, in: DIE ZEIT, August 28, 2003
No. 36
RFK Memorial Centre
for Human Rights
Forgotten Focus: Human Rights and the Role of Civil Society
Organizations in the Liberian Peace Process. A Report of the RFK
Memorial Centre for Human Rights Journey for Justice Delegation to Liberia, July 10-18, 2004, in: www.rfkmemorial.org
Saye Guannu, Joseph
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book One: The
Rights of the Child, published by the Catholic Justice and
Peace Commission of Liberia, Monrovia 2001
Saye Guannu, Joseph
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book Three: Human
Rights and Democracy, published by the Catholic Justice and
Peace Commission of Liberia, Monrovia 2001
Saye Guannu, Joseph
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book Two: Protecting and Promoting Human Rights, published by the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Liberia, Monrovia 2001
Schneider, Iris
Liberia: Krieg um Bodenschätze. Interview mit dem Menschenrechtsaktivisten James Torh, in: ai-JOURNAL July/August
2001
Schneider, Jürgen
Der Krieg in Liberia 1989 – 1997. Eine Konfliktanalyse, October
2000; in: www.unibas.ch/Africa/papers/js.liberia.pdf
Scholl-Latour, Peter
Afrikanische Totenklage. Der Ausverkauf des Schwarzen Kontinents, Munich 2003 (chapter on “Liberia”, pp. 407-432)
MISNA Missionary Service
News Agency
Pessler, Diana
WELTKIRCHE. Documents from
Africa, Asia and Latin America.
A joint service of Adveniat,
Misereor and Missio
64
65
Abbreviations
LCC
ITCABIC
AFL
CAA
ECOMOG
ECOWAS
FOL
GSA
IA
IFMC
IGL
IGNU
INN
INPFL
ITIP
JPC
LAP
LAW
LDF
LIPCORE
LNC
LNTG I + II
LPC
LURD
LWI
MODEL
MOJA
NCC
NDPL
NPFL
OAU
PAL
PRC
RUF
ULIMO
UNAMSIL
UNMIL
UNO
ECOMIL
IDP
IRIN
GOL
DDDR
AECAWA
CERAO
WFP
JRS
UNHCR
NCRR
SMA
CABICOL
IRCL
Armed Forces of Liberia
Constitutional Advisory Committee
Economic Community of West African States Ceasefire Monitoring Group
Economic Community of West African States
Friends of Liberia
General Services Agency
International Alert
Inter-Faith Mediation Committee
Interest Groups of Liberia
Interim Government of National Unity
International Negotiations Network
Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia
International Training Institute for Peace
Justice and Peace Commission
Liberia Action Party
Liberian Alternative at Work for Peace and Democracy
Lofa Defence Force
Liberian Initiative for Peace and Conflict Resolution
Liberia National Conference
Liberian National Transitional Governments
Liberian Peace Council
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
Liberian Women’s Initiative
Movement for Democracy in Liberia
Movement for Justice in Africa
National Constitution Committee
National Democratic Party of Liberia
National Patriotic Front of Liberia
Organization of African Unity
Progressive Alliance of Liberians
People’s Redemption Council
Revolutionary United Front
United Liberation Movement for Democracy
United Nations Mission for Sierra Leone
United Nations Mission in Liberia
United Nations Organization
ECOWAS Mission in Liberia
Internally Displaced Person
Integrated Regional Information Networks
Government of Liberia
Liberia’s National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilization,
Rehabilitation and Reintegration
United Nations World Food Programme
Jesuit Refugee Service
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
National Community Resettlement and Reintegration
Societas Missionum ad Afros / The Society of African Missions
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Liberia
Inter-Religious Council of Liberia
Liberian Council of Churches
Inter-territorial Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Gambia, Liberia
and Sierra Leone
Association of Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa
Conférences Episcopales Régionales de l’Afrique de l’Ouest
66
67
Footnotes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
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CIA – The World Factbook (Dec. 2003); Auswärtiges Amt: Liberia auf einen Blick (as at April 2004) – http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/de/laenderinfos/laender/laender_ausgabe_html?type_id=14&land_id=95”
In: Joseph Saye Guannu Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book Three. Human Rights and Democracy.
Catholic Justice & Peace Commission (JPC) Liberia, Monrovia 2001 (Preface iii); some quotations from this and following documents retranslated from the German
Cf. Gero Erdmann, Apokalyptische Trias: Staatsversagen, Staatsverfall und Staatszerfall – strukturelle Probleme der
Demokratie in Afrika. In: Bendel, Petra / Croissant, Aurel / Rüb, Friedbert (ed.), Demokratie und Staatlichkeit, Systemwechsel zwischen Staatlichkeit und Staatskollaps, Opladen 2003, pp. 267-292
This work covers events in Liberia to the end of October 2004.
Cf. Liberia – Facts and Figures
He died before the end of his seventh term of office during a stay abroad.
Cf. Jesse L. Jackson, "Changing Times: Changeless Values; Continuing Challenges", Speech before the Los Angeles World
Affairs Council on February 17, 1998 – www.lawac.org
Cf. Anthony Daniels, Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, in: Sunday Times, July 13, 2003 – www.suntimes.co
Cf. Liberia: A Country Study. Social and Economic Problems in the 1970s – www.globalsecurity.org/military/
library/report/1985/liberia_contents.htm
Cf. J. Gus Liebenow, The Liberian Coup in Perspective, in: Liberia Contemporary Voice, Vol. 1 No. 7, September 1998 –
www.republicofliberia.com/vol1_no7.htm
Cf. Fred van der Kraaij, President William R. Tolbert, Jr. (1971-1980). The Preacher President, in: www.liberiapastandpresent.org
Cf. Fred van der Kraaij, President Samuel K. Doe (1980-1990). The Master Sergeant President, in: www.liberiapastandpresent.org.
Cf. Fred van der Kraaij, President Charles Ghankay Taylor 1997-2003. The Warlord President. Part I, in: www.liberiapastandpresent.org.
Cf. Eugen Sorg, Fürst der Finsternis; in: Die Weltwoche, Zurich (issue 32/03).
Amos Sawyer was president of Liberia from November 1990 to September 1993, being the first of the six interim presidents of the civil war period (1989-1997).
Cf. Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict: The Case of Liberia and West Africa (CDR
Working Paper 97.4, June 1997), 3. The Character of the Coalition Force – The Liberian Factor; in: Danish Institute for
International Studies Department for Development Research (www.cdr.dk/working_papers/wp-97-4.htm)
Cf. John Pike, “Liberia – Election and Coup Attempt – 1985”, in: www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/liberia1985.htm
Charles Taylor played this card four years later in 1989, when he led his rebel campaign against Samuel Doe from a base
in Nimba county with the support of the Gio and Mano.
Prince Yormie Johnson, a native of Nimba county and former soldier in Samuel Doe’s army, broke with Taylor’s NPFL
(National Patriotic Front of Liberia) during the 1990 assault on Monrovia and became head of the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL).
Responsible for many executions of opponents of the regime, Moses Blah was a longstanding associate of Charles Taylor and became his successor, serving as 22nd president of Liberia from August to October 2003.
Jeff Gedmin, Gaddafi kann kein Partner sein. Auch der Kampf gegen Terror und Atomwaffen legitimiert kein Arrangement mit Diktatoren, in: Die Welt, January 22, 2004
Blaise Compaoré (born February 3, 1951 in Ouagadougou) became the sixth president of Burkina Faso on October 15,
1987 following the assassination of his predecessor, Thomas Sankara. In 1998 Compaoré was confirmed in office for
another seven years.
Cf. Jürg Schneider, Der Krieg in Liberia 1989-1997. Eine Konfliktanalyse (October 2000) in: www.unibas.ch/Africa/
papers/js.liberia.pdf. Basing himself on a study of “Conciliation Resources” (173 Upper Street, London N1 1RG, UK) published in 1996 under the title “The Liberian Peace Process, 1990-1996” in “Accord. An International Review of Peace Initiatives” (cf. www.c-r.org.), Schneider describes in his 26-page work the main participants in the first phase of the war (19891997), whose individual roles in the conflict cannot be gone into here. He distinguishes between 1. Internal parties who
are directly affected or involved: People’s Redemption Council (PRC), National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), Liberian Peace Council (LPC), Lofa
Defence Force (LDF), Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU), Liberian National Transitional Governments (LNTG
I and II), United Liberation Movement for Democracy (ULIMO); and 2. External, indirectly or directly involved parties:
Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Burkina Faso, France, Gambia, Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS)/ Economic Community of West African States Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), Organization of African Unity (OAU), United Nations Organization (UNO), USA, Libya.
Birgit Virnich/Bartholomäus Grill, Kindersoldaten. Krieg der Kinder, in: Die Zeit, August 28, 2003, No. 36; Eugen Sorg,
Gespräche mit Kannibalen. Eine Reise zu den Kindersoldaten Liberias, in: Die Weltwoche, May 1, 2003, No. 18.
Economic Community of West African States Ceasefire Monitoring Group
The Krahn-dominated groups included the AFL, LPC and ULIMO.
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Cf. “The Liberian Peace Process 1990-1996”, in: “Accord. An International Review of Peace Initiatives”. In the section
entitled “Key Actors” the following national peace NGOs are mentioned and described: Inter-Faith Mediation Committee
(IFMC)¸ Interest Groups of Liberia (IGL), Justice and Peace Commission (JPC), Liberia National Conference (LNC), Liberian Alternative at Work for Peace and Democracy (LAW), Liberian Initiative for Peace and Conflict Resolution (LIPCORE),
Liberian Women’s Initiative (LWI), Susukuu; the following international NGO peace initiatives are briefly outlined: Consortium for Peace-Building in Liberia, Friends of Liberia (FOL), International Alert (IA )/International Training Institute
for Peace (ITIP), International Negotiations Network (INN).
Cf. “The Liberian Peace Process 1990-1996”, in: “Accord. An International Review of Peace Initiatives”. The section entitled “Accords of the Liberian Conflict” lists the 14 peace and ceasefire agreements between the parties to the conflict
between 1990 and 1996 and reproduces their texts.
In Monrovia the population protested in March 1995 and February 1996 with a day of civil disobedience (stay-home
day) against the inclusion of warlords in the Council of State, as provided for under the Abuja Accord of August 1995.
Cf. Jürg Schneider, Der Krieg in Liberia 1989-1997. Eine Konfliktanalyse (October 2000), p. 17 et seq. - www.unibas.ch/Africa/papers/js.liberia.pdf
Cf. information on Liberia in “Netzwerk Afrika Deutschland e.V. (NAD), www.netzwerk-afrika-deutschland.de
Cf. Iris Schneider, Liberia: Krieg um Bodenschätze. Interview with the human rights activist James Torh, in: ai-JOURNAL July/August 2001.
Cf.: Hans-Peter Hecking, Das geknechtete Land. Liberia und der nicht enden wollende Bürgerkrieg, in: KM Forum Weltkirche, 4 (July/August) 2003, pp. 8-12.
Foday Sankoh (Oct. 17, 1937 - July 29, 2003) made the acquaintance of Charles G. Taylor during the time they spent
together in Libyan military training camps (see above). He was finally taken prisoner in 2000 and brought before the
Special Court in Freetown, where he was charged on 17 counts of war crimes, including crimes against humanity, rape,
sexual enslavement and extermination. Sankoh died of a stroke while in custody.
An impression of the tense situation at that time may be gained from the (internal, unpublished missio) report of my
trip to the North Liberian bishopric of Gbarnga in 2001: “The situation in the bishopric (...) was made tense and insecure by renewed rebel attacks, and there was a strong military presence everywhere. Travel in the diocese was made difficult by the many road blocks which, however, did nothing to make life safer, as a glance into the eyes of the young
soldiers made it clear that many of them were under the influence of alcohol and drugs. The activities of the LURD rebels
(stated aim: “Taylor must go!”) in the border areas of the dioceses continued. The diamond-smuggling routes used by
the RUF rebels from Sierra Leone run through the territory of the Gbarnga diocese. The persistent fighting made it impossible to enter Lofa county, which was part of the diocese. Attacks on villages and the kidnapping and raping of women
and young girls were also reported from various parts of the diocese during my stay. The continuing rebel activities in
this particular region and the corresponding countermeasures taken by the army were responsible for the fact that, according to official figures, there were reckoned to be 130,000 “internally displaced persons” and 10,000 refugees. These official figures were described to me by church insiders as underestimates. The flows of refugees from Lofa county continued throughout the period of my stay in Liberia” (cf. Hans-Peter Hecking, Reisebericht Liberia (Aug 31 - Sept 11, 2001),
p. 19 et seq.).
Cf. United Nations S/RES/1343 (2001), sections 6 and 7. On July 7, 2003 a 10-month embargo on tropical timber exports
from Liberia finally entered into force (cf. United Nations S/RES/1478 (2003), section 17 (a) – (c)). Many observers are
still unable to understand why the UN Security Council did not extend sanctions to timber exports from Liberia earlier,
since the ruthless exploitation of the tropical rain forest not only threatened the ecological balance in the entire region,
but was also an important source of income for the Taylor regime. “Timber-for-arms” had long replaced “diamonds-forarms”.
Members: ECOWAS, United Nations, African Union, European Union, France, Britain, USA, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria
and Senegal.
Cf. Eva-Maria Thoms, Unter fremder Flagge. German Reeder finanzierten das gestürzte Regime von Charles Taylor mit.
In: Die Zeit, October 2, 2003, No. 41.
Cf. UN Resolution 1343.
Cf. Simon M. Meisenberg, The indictment and warrant for the arrest of Charles Ghankay Taylor issued by the Special
Court for Sierra Leone, in: Humanitäres Völkerrecht, Heft 1, 2004, pp. 30-39 (www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ifhv/ publications/huvi/meisenberg.pdf). Meisenberg’s article gives a legal assessment of the proceedings taken against Charles G. Taylor by the War Crimes Tribunal in Freetown.
Cf. Hans-Peter Hecking, Die durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung liegt bei nur noch 51 Jahren. Über den verheerenden
Bürgerkrieg in Liberia und die Frieden stiftende Rolle der katholischen Kirche, in: Frankfurter Rundschau, June 13, 2003,
p. 7.
Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of Liberia and the Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy (LURD), the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) and the Political Parties, Accra, Ghana, August
18, 2003.
Cf. Christoph Link, Liberias Hoffnungsträger. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, October 10, 2003.
Cf. Christoph Link, Jubel für den neuen Boss. President Gyude Bryant soll in Liberia während einer Übergangsperiode
die Voraussetzungen für eine friedliche Zukunft schaffen. In: Frankfurter Rundschau October 15, 2003.
Cf. IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), LIBERIA: Back to school, but there are no chairs, no roof (June 10,
2004).
This measure also affects some high representatives of state-owned companies who were close to Taylor politically and
economically, including the then LPRC General Director and former Taylor supporter Edwin Snowe; cf. IRIN, LIBERIA:
Government freezes assets of Charles Taylor’s relatives and cronies (October 15, 2004).
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Cf. Christoph Link, Washingtoner Kopfgeld lastet auf Taylor’s luxuriösem Exil. Nigeria reagiert empört auf die Auslobung von zwei Millionen Dollar für den mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrecher aus Liberia. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, November 11, 2003, p. 6.
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: Parliament rejects petition for Taylor to be tried in Sierra Leone (July 7, 2004).
Government of Liberia
Cf. Hakeem A. Jimo, “Heiler” im Dschungel. Seit einem Jahr steht President Gyude Bryant an der Spitze des Staates. Erfolge kann er kaum vorweisen. In: Rheinischer Merkur, No. 42, October 14, 2004.
Cf. Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of Liberia and the Liberians United for Reconciliation
and Democracy (LURD), the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) and the Political Parties, Accra, Ghana, August
18, 2003; closing chapter “Allocation of Cabinet Positions, Public Cooperations and Autonomous Agencies/Commissions under the LNTG"
I experienced this myself during my last departure in March 2004.
According to the German Foreign Office, the Federal Republic of Germany promised support for reconstruction to the
amount of 10.75 million euros at the donor conference in New York. This makes Germany the third-largest donor after
the USA and the EU. The head of the UN Mission in the country, Jacques Klein, said in October 2004 that only 354 million US dollars of the sum promised by the International Donor conference in February had been received so far.
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: IMF and World Bank demand more transparency in public finances (26.10.2004).
The deadline set by the UN for the handing in of all arms was October 30. On September 1, 2004 Jacques Klein, the UN
Special Representative in Liberia, speaking in the presence of journalists in Monrovia, threatened anyone who proved
to be in unlawful possession of arms after this deadline with criminal prosecution and imprisonment; cf. IRIN, LIBERIA:
DDR commission rejects October deadline for completing disarmament (September 7, 2004).
Cf. Hakeem A. Jimo, Blauhelme unter Druck. In: Rheinischer Merkur (www.merkur.de/aktuell/do04/kiso_043804.html).
Cf. Christoph Link, Ex-Blauhelme meutern in Guinea-Bissau. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, October 8, 2004, p. 6.
On October 7, 2004 the governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia agreed on a return programme for former soldiers and
rebels in the two neighbouring countries; cf. IRIN, LIBERIA-SIERRA LEONE: Ex-combatants to be repatriated and pardoned (October 7, 2004)
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: Shortage of funds to retrain ex-fighters poses security threat (October 7, 2004).
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: UN peacekeepers extend reach towards Ivoirean border (June 22, 2004).
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: Refugees finally start to wend their way home (October 1, 2004).
Cf. IRIN, GHANA-LIBERIA: Agreement signed for repatriation of Liberia refugees in Ghana (September 22, 2004).
Source: Chinappan Amalraj SJ, Displacement at a Glance, JRS-Liberia (information manuscript).
Cf. Liberia Government National Community Resettlement and Reintegration Strategy. Adopted by Results Focused Transitional Framework Working Committee for Displaced Population, June 2, 2004 = www.humanitarianinfo.org/liberia/infocentre/general/docs/Liberia%20Government%20National%20Community%20Resettlement%20and%20Reintegration%20Strategy.pdf
The last disarmament centre for MODEL rebels was opened in the south-west of the country in late September; cf. IRIN,
LIBERIA: UN opens last disarmament site in Harper (September 30, 2004).
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: Returning refugees will starve unless donors provide more food – WFP (September 13, 2004).
The modalities of the WFP’s food supply appear to be unchanged, as I discovered in the course of a conversation with
the General Vicar of Gbarnga diocese, Fr. Chris Brennan, on October 7, 2004.
Cf. IRIN, LIBERIA: Religious riots erupt in Monrovia, curfew imposed (October 29, 2004).
Cf. The Development of the SMA Mission in Liberia - www.smafathers.org .
Born Dec. 9, 1933 in Pleebo/Liberia; ordained July 11, 1965; appointed Apostolic Vicar of Cape Palmas Dec. 17, 1973;
consecrated as bishop March 17, 1974; appointed Bishop of Cape Palmas Dec. 19, 1981.
Born Jan. 4, 1944 in Harrisbourg/Liberia; ordained Dec. 22, 1974; appointed Bishop of Gbarnga May 20, 2002; consecrated as bishop Nov. 9, 2002.
With the support of Misereor, the Gbarnga diocese trains at various localities former child soldiers and other young people affected by the chaos of civil war in order to open up future prospects for them (cf. Rheinischer Merkur, No. 45, November 4, 2004).
Cf. Radio Vatican. German-language programme. Reports of March 10, 2004 (www.vaticanradio.org).
Born Feb. 12, 1936 in Kpakala Town (Bomy county) as the son of an Afro-Liberian mother and a Lebanese father; ordained Aug. 4, 1963; appointed Apostolic Vicar of Monrovia Oct. 28, 1976; consecrated as bishop Dec. 19, 1976; appointed Archbishop of Monrovia Dec. 19, 1981.
President of the Inter-territorial Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone (ITCABIC) 19821985, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Liberia (CABICOL) since 1998, President of the Association of
Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa (AECAWA) 1989-1995, President of the Liberian Council of Churches
(LCC) 1986-1988; and President of the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia (IRCL) since 2001.
Cf. Inter-territorial Episcopal Conference of Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. 1983 Plenary Meeting. Monrovia,
Liberia. February 11-12, 1983; Appendix G.
Cf. Inter-territorial Episcopal Conference of Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. 1983 Plenary Meeting. Monrovia,
Liberia. February 11-12, 1983; Minutes of Plenary Meeting 1983, Item 11 (The Inter-territorial Commissions) C. (Justice and Peace Commission). In September 1989, Archbishop Michael K. Francis drew the world’s attention in a shockingly detailed report to the violation of the elementary human rights of political prisoners in Liberian penal camps and
military prisons during the military dictatorship of Samuel K. Doe (cf. Human Rights Violations. Statement of Archbishop
Michael Kpakala Francis, in: WELTKIRCHE, Eng./French/Spanish edition, 10/1989, pp. 295-297
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It is at any rate striking that the protocol of the ITCABIC Plenary Meeting 1985 contains no mention of any report by
the ITCABIC-JPC nor of the work of the national or diocesan JPC (cf. Inter-territorial Episcopal Conference of The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 1985 Plenary Meeting. Monrovia, Liberia, February 7-9, 1985)
“The Great Task of Evangelization”, in: ITCABIC Newsletter, Freetown/Sierra Leone, Vol. 4, No. 8, 1987, pp. 8-13.
Ibid., No. II (c).
Ibid., No. IV (e).
“Corruption”. A Letter by The Liberian Catholic Bishops Conference, Monrovia, Liberia July 1, 1987; Source: Copy of
the original manuscript (eight A4 typewritten pages), which Fr. Sumo-Varfee Molubah, secretary to the Archbishop of
Monrovia, was kind enough to make available to me.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Born Aug. 10, 1940 in Accra/Ghana; ordained Aug. 20, 1967; appointed Bishop of Gbarnga Nov. 17, 1986; consecrated
as bishop Jan. 6, 1987; died Dec. 13, 2000
Cf. Interventions during the African Synod. Arranged according to themes (www. afrikaworld.net /synod/sekey.htm)
Ibid.
It was unfortunately impossible for me to obtain any written documents concerning this consultation referred to in the
conclusion to the Kumasi consultation.
Cf. A Message of Hope. Issued at the end of a consultation on the unrest in the West African region organized by the
Association of Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa (AECAWA) and the Conférences Episcopales Régionales
de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CERAO) at Kumasi, Ghana ( April 25-26, 2001; source: copy of the original manuscript)
“The Church and Good Governance in West Africa. Statement by 10th Plenary Assembly of AECAWA, in: WELTKIRCHE 8/2004, pp. 193-197, No. 7 (Solidarity with Liberia and Sudan); (source: www.evangelizatio.org)
Cf. chapter on Civil war – Phase I
Bishops Call for Peace, Mercy and Reconciliation in Liberia. Statement by Catholic Bishops of Liberia. August 1, 1996,
in: Catholic Information Network/CIN (www.cin.org)
Ibid.
Ibid.; six different warring factions are listed.
Bishops Call for Peace, Mercy and Reconciliation in Liberia. Statement by Catholic Bishops of Liberia. August 1, 1996,
in: Catholic Information Network/CIN (www.cin.org).
Ibid.
I was unable to find the original of this document. It is, however, mentioned in the “Advent Pastoral Letter from the
Catholic Bishops of Liberia. December 1, 2002. First Sunday of Advent”, p. 12 (see below) with the comments reproduced here.
The Coming of Christ – Our Hope. Advent Pastoral Letter by the Catholic Bishops of Liberia, November 23, 1997
“Liberia: The Third Millennium. Pentecost Pastoral Letter Issued by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, in: WELTKIRCHE,
Eng./French/Spanish edition, 4/1999, pp. 87-92
Ibid.
Ibid.
Advent Pastoral Letter from the Catholic Bishops of Liberia. December 1, 2002. First Sunday of Advent (stapled manuscript in original English).
Ibid. p. 2.
Ibid., pp. 3-7.
Ibid.
Ibid.
The bishops are referring here to the repeated attacks on the Catholic radio station, Radio Veritas, which was set up by
Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis and went on the air for the first time in 1981. Located next to the cathedral in Monrovia, the station was deliberately razed to the ground by the Taylor rebels during the battle for the capital in 1996. Since
then the station has been accommodated in the old nunciature in Monrovia. Up to the end of the Taylor regime Radio
Veritas was the only free radio station in the country. It was the key organ of the opposition and an important medium
for propagating the cause of human rights and peace in neighbouring countries as well. In view of the country’s high
illiteracy rate the radio was an effective means of reaching the people and hence a thorn in the flesh of the Taylor government, which repeatedly tried to silence it. In March 2000 Taylor even had Radio Veritas closed down, but as a result of
outside political pressure from the USA (for one-and-a-half hours daily RV serves as a transmitter for the “Voice of America”!) the station was able to resume its work within a week. The government’s attempt to close it officially in July 2001
to enable Taylor, who himself operated a short-wave station, to have an opinion-making monopoly was blocked by the
courts. RV’s legal tussle with the Taylor government over its legal right to broadcast on short wave (in addition to VHF)
was finally won. missio financed the expansion of an additional studio for Radio Veritas and supported – under the heading of Civic Education – various radio programmes (background reports and panel discussions) via VHF and short wave
in the run-up to the forthcoming elections in 2005. The programmes provided information on the electoral law and
civil and human rights.
Advent Pastoral Letter from the Catholic Bishops of Liberia. December 1, 2002. First Sunday of Advent (stapled manuscript in original English), pp. 7-11.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp.16-19.
Information from Fr. Harry O’Brian, General Vicar of Monrovia, in March 2004 during my visit to Liberia
70
114 Liberia at the Crossroads: Hopes and Challenges, by the Catholic Bishops of Liberia, Monrovia, January 4, 2004 (11 stapled A5 pages) plus appended Lenten Pastoral Letter, 2004, Michael Kpakala Francis, Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2004
(five pages)
115 Ibid., p. 4 et seq.
116 “Liberia at the Crossroads: Hopes and Challenges”, by the Catholic Bishops of Liberia, Monrovia, January 4, 2004 (Conclusions)
117 As I was informed during my stay by Fr. Harry O’Brien, SDB, the vicar-general of the archdiocese, a few days after this
“fatal blow for Liberia” Jacques Paul Klein, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative in Liberia, and NTGL
Chairman Gyude Bryant immediately hastened to St. Joseph’s Hospital of the Brothers Hospitalers in order to offer their
assistance to this churchman of such importance to the future of the country. UN medical specialists treated the Archbishop in the intensive care unit. On March 8 he was flown to Korle Bu Hospital in Accra/Ghana on a UN plane. On
March 10 the vicar-general of the archdiocese of Monrovia called upon all parishes to pray for the Archbishop’s speedy
recovery. In the following days the appeal was broadcast several times daily by the Catholic radio station Radio Veritas.
On March 20 the Archbishop, accompanied by a team of four US specialists, was flown from Accra to a special hospital
near Washington, D.C., where he still remained at the end of October 2004.
118 Peace. Pastoral Letter, May 20, 1990, in: Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, We Want Peace (stapled collection of texts
in A5 format comprising three sermons and three pastoral letters from the years 1990-1993 on the subject of “Peace”,
incl. preface and afterword by the Archbishop) n.d., pp. 4-7
119 Peace, Freedom, Charity, January 1, 1992, in: Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, We Want Peace (stapled collection
of texts in A5 format comprising three sermons and three pastoral letters from the years 1990-1993 on the subject of
“Peace”, incl. preface and afterword by the Archbishop) n.d., pp. 15-27
120 Ibid., p. 23
121 Peace. Pastoral Letter, February 13, 1993, in: Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, We Want Peace (stapled collection of
texts in A5 format comprising three sermons and three pastoral letters from the years 1990-1993 on the subject of “Peace”,
incl. preface and afterword by the Archbishop) n.d., pp. 28-49
122 Ibid., p. 2 et seq.
123 The New Liberia. Pastoral Letter. Michael K. Francis, Archbishop of Monrovia, Monrovia October 10, 1993 (33 A5 pages,
stapled)
124 Cf. Amnesty International. LIBERIA – No chance for a lasting peace without effective human rights guarantees, December 13, 1997, Summary, AI INDEX: AFR 34/01/93 DISTR: SC/CO/GR (www.republicofliberia.com/amdec1393.htm)
125 The ideas put forward in this document are also to be found – in some cases with identical wording – in the aforementioned Advent letter for 2002 under the title “A New Liberia with Justice for All” and in the 1997 pastoral letter mentioned below on “Free and Fair Democratic Elections”. The need for these repetitions is explained by the chaos of war
and the shifting audience for the letters caused by the displacement of large sections of the population through flight
and expulsions.
126 Cf. Interventions during the African Synod. Arranged according to themes (www. afrikaworld.net /synod/francis.htm)
127 Michael Kpakala Francis, The Church in Africa Today: Sacrament of Justice, Peace and Unity, in: Africa the Kairos of a
Synod. Symposium on Africa, April-May 1994. Edited by Walter von Holzen, SVD and Seán Fagan, SM, SEDOS, Rome
1994 (pp. 117-134)
128 Cf. The Tablet, June 1, 1996
129 The Peace Process is Off Course. Easter Pastoral of Archbishop Michael Francis, in: WELTKIRCHE, Eng./French/Spanish
edition, 7/1996, pp. 196-200.
130 Ibid., p. 201
131 Ibid., p. 203
132 Ibid.
133 Ibid., p. 205
134 Free and Fair Democratic Elections. Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, in: WELTKIRCHE,
Eng./French/Spanish edition, 2/1997, pp. 35-48
135 The Transitional Legislative Assembly was composed of representatives of the main factions in the civil war.
136 Ibid., p. 46
137 From the Justice of Each Comes Peace for All. 1998 New Year Pastoral Letter. Most Rev. Michael Kpakala Francis, Archbishop of Monrovia, January 1, 1998 (original five-page text in English)
138 That We May be One. Pastoral Letter by Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, Monrovia, July 27, 1997
139 Edward M. Kennedy, Remarks of Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Presentation of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Award to Archbishop Michael Francis, November 22, 1999 (www.senate.gov). In July 2004, at the joint request of Archbishop Francis, the JPC and the IRCL, the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial organized a “Journey for Justice” to Liberia. The report was published on October 27, 2004 under the title “Forgotten Focus:
Human Rights, and the Role of Civil Society Organizations in the Liberian Peace Process. A Report of the RFK Memorial Centre for Human Rights Journey for Justice Delegation to Liberia. July 10-18, 2004”, in: www.rfkmemorial.org
140 Liberia in the New Millennium 2000. New Year’s Pastoral Letter. Most Rev. Archbishop Michael K. Francis, Monrovia,
January 12, 2000 (18 A5 pages, stapled)
141 The number of those who left the country between 1996 and the beginning of 2000 (especially for the USA) because of
the absence of future prospects and the insecure situation was put to me by Archbishop Francis during my visit in September 2001 at about 200,000 – nearly a tenth of Liberia’s total population at the time.
142 As he did in the CABICOL letter of July 1, 1987 (see above), Archbishop Francis distinguishes in this pastoral letter
between spiritual, social, economic, professional, political, legal and personal corruption.
143 Ibid., p. 8
71
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
Cf. chapter on “Civil war – Phase II”
Cf. Ibid., pp. 14-17
Ibid., p. 16
Vatican Radio Archive, Daily Bulletins, February 14, 2002 (http://217.169.99.140/tedesco/tedarchi/2002/Februar02/
ted14.02.02.htm)
New Year Pastoral Letter. Justice – Peace – Reconciliation, by Michael Kpakala Francis, Archbishop of Monrovia,
January 12, 2003 (18 A4 typewritten pages in English)
Ibid., p. 6
Ibid., p. 7
Ibid., p. 8
Ibid., p. 9
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 10
1. Advent Letter of December 12, 1977; 2nd New Year’s Pastoral Letter of January 12, 2000; 3. Advent Pastoral Letter of
December 2, 2001 (”Be Ye Perfect”). Pastoral Letters Nos. 1. and 3, mentioned here, were not available to me for inspection.
Ibid., p. 14
Ibid., p. 16
Cf. “The Henry L. Stimson Centre” (www.stimson.org)
The statement is to be found under: CAFOD news (www.cafod.org.uk) - In a footnote to their statement the three
bishops express their regret that, because of the vicissitudes of war, Archbishop Ganda of Freetown and the two bishops
of Gbarnga and Cape Palmas could not be reached and were therefore unable to add their signatures to the statement,
while affirming that the statement, which because of the critical situation in Liberia had to be published immediately,
was also drafted on their colleagues’ behalf.
Cf. The Kingdom, August 7, 2003 (www.the-kingdom.ie)
Quoted from Human Rights Watch, Weapons Sanctions, Military Supplies, and Human Suffering: Illegal Arms Flows to
Liberia and the June-July 2003 Shelling of Monrovia. A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, November 3, 2003 , in:
www.hrw.org
National Catholic Reporter. The Independent Newsweekly, Kansas City/USA, August 15, 2003 (www.nationalcatholicreporter.org)
Cf. The Hindu, 11.8.2003 (www.thehindu.com/2003/08/11/stories/2003081102761400.htm)
E-mail message from Michael Francis K. to missio on August 13, 2003
Cf. Michael Mondry, Donor Conference in New York. Misereor representatives talk to Archbishop Francis in Monrovia,
Misereor report of February 10, 2004 (www.misereor.de/allgemein_5135.php)
Racism and Education. A topic addressed by His Grace Michael Kpakala Francis, the Catholic Archbishop of Monrovia,
Republic of Liberia, at the Second Session of the Inter-Governmental Working Group of the Commission on Human
Rights on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, held in Geneva, Switzerland, January 26 - February 6, 2004 (seven-page typewritten manuscript that Archbishop Francis made available to me
before the conference at missio in Aachen at the end of January 2004.) The results of the conference may found on the
Internet under: www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/e06a5300f90fa0238025668700518ca4/be452f378454d389c
1256e700037168c/$FILE/G0411731.doc
Ibid., p. 6; cf. chapter 3.4 (The Justice and Peace Commission’s efforts on behalf of civil and human rights)
Liberia at the Crossroads: Hopes and Challenges, by the Catholic Bishops of Liberia, Monrovia, January 4, 2004, p. 1 et
seq.
Cf. Church World Service April 11, 2003 (www.churchworldservice.org)
OCHA = United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Liberia
Cf. Situation Report No. 91. United Nations. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Liberia (www.unjlc.org)
The founding director of the JPC was Samuel Kofi Woods, who has lived and worked for some years now as a lawyer in
Freetown/Sierra Leone, where he has founded the private human rights organization Foundation for International Dignity. His successor as head of the JPC was Frances Johnson-Morris until her appointment as Chairwoman of the National Election Commission (NEC) in April 2004. For a few months after the end of the war in 1996 she had been President of the Supreme Court of Liberia. As NEC Chairwoman she is charged with preparing and supervising the general
elections in October 2005 in accordance with the Accra peace treaty.
The following information on the JPC’s mode of operation is based on a working session with its then head, Frances
Johnson-Morris, and her closest aides held on March 15, 2004 in Monrovia.
The national JPC, whose headquarters are in the National Catholic Secretariat in Monrovia, also performs the tasks of
the archdiocesal JPC.
“Liberia at the Crossroads: Hopes and Challenges”, by the Catholic Bishops of Liberia, Monrovia, January 4, 2004,
No. 11
Cf. his lecture of February 2004 to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva
Joseph Saye Guannu, Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book One: The Rights of the Child, published by the
Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Liberia, Monrovia 2001; Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book
Two: Protecting and Promoting Human Rights, published by the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Liberia, Monrovia 2001; Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Book Three: Human Rights and Democracy, published by the
Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Liberia, Monrovia 2001
Ibid., p. v
72