I still need to do a longer article about the subject, but until I get that done, I would just like to quote the New Democrat from the 24th of June.

“Justice has become expensive and seeking it bears all the marks of inconvenience. The aggrieved person (the victim; my clarification) is not only expected to transport the police and “put something in their pockets”, but if it comes to jailing the charged person, the aggrieved must pay for his or her food daily. If not, the person is released. Moreover, even if one is so determined to get justice by jailing the person, there is absolutely no guarantee the person would not be released after the aggrieved party leaves, once the charged person can pay the price”

(Paying For Justice, New Democrat, Monrovia, 24.06.2008, p.3)

I was reminded of that apt bonmot by a senior diplomat in Liberia again when I saw photos from the inside of Charles Taylors residence, the so-called White Flower, in a newspaper recently.

As a devout disciple of Christ, Mr. Taylor of course had his private chapel for intimate conversations with the redeemer. Most likely this is where the Lord told him to keep up the good work he was doing for Liberia, and continue with plunder, rape, murder and all the other virtues he so amply possessed. And the Lord is still with him. How else could it be explained that his family and friends hosted an intercessory prayer service in January of this year in a Monrovia church, requesting the Lord to intervene and free the good Mr. Taylor from the unfair trial in the Hague that this friend of his people is unfairly subjected to?

But in Liberia, God is also employed in personnel vendettas. The “Reverend” Brima Fartoma is accused of having planned and instigated the gruesome murder of “Bishop” Alfred Quoa. The prosecution claims that the late “Bishop” was lured out of his home by an accomplice of “Reverend” Fartoma and then hacked to death with machetes.

Still “Reverend” Fartoma knows himself to be a true servant of the Lord, who can call in a favor if needed. “You will rot in hell” he shouted to a journalist who dared to take his photo while the good “Reverend” was led to a prison van. “I am placing a curse on you from today. You will rot in hell for taking my picture”. (New Democrat, 24.06.2008, Monrovia, Liberia, p.1).

To me the continuous misuse of religion and the name of God in Liberia without any form of divine retribution to the perpetrators is sufficient and conclusive evidence that God does not exist, indeed.

An acquaintance of mine, lost her expensive Japanese Luxury SUV a few weeks ago. Well, she did not actually loose it, it was stolen by her houseboy.

His duties of cooking and cleaning did not only leave him ample time to plan the theft in great detail, but also gave him the knowledge of where Venus (Not her real name) kept the car papers and the spare keys. And one morning, at around 3 in the night, he took the registration papers and the keys and drove out the compound, while the owner was soundly sleeping in her bed.

When Venus discovered on the next morning that keys, papers and houseboy were missing she went to the police. This being Liberia,  she knew that if she wanted the police to investigate, she had to pay. So she offered them 1.000 USD, which is about 15 times the average monthly salary of a policeman, payable on delivery of the car back to her. Naturally the police preferred to be paid in advance, but Venus remained steadfast. This probably hampered the willingness of the police force to investigate the matter further, because nothing was heard from their side ever after.

But Venus is an experienced businesswoman, so she called a friend of hers, and asked him to check the records of the border police to see if her car had left the country. What he reported showed that the houseboy had planned his coup with remarkable tenacity, planning and initiative.

After stealing the car, he must have driven directly from Monrovia to the Guinea Border, since the records of the local security detail showed that her car had crossed into Guinea in the early morning hours. Even more surprising was that, according to ledger, Venus herself had been in the car. The entry clearly showed that a “Venus Nelson” had crossed the border, with two passengers in her car. This clearly surprised Venus, who had been sleeping in her bed during that night. A few more questions later and some dollars poorer, the real Venus Nelson was finally able to piece the story together.

The houseboy had used two accomplices for the job. One was a Guinea national, who arranged for a buyer of the car in Guinea and a place where the necessary change of color could be done. The other was a woman who took care of the paperwork. She obtained a “Laissez-Passer” document from the Liberian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia, under the name of Venus Nelson. The “Laissez Passer” is not a passport, but is used frequently instead of a passport in West-Africa. If the Foreign Ministry was duped into making out the false paper, or if their complicity was bought for a few dollars will never be known. But the false Venus managed to get the car over the border.

The real Venus has given up the hope of ever reclaiming the car. By now it will have a different color, identification number and license plates. And thanks to the false Venus it will have a different owner. After all who can prohibit the owner of a car to sell it, even if it is in Guinea ?

In the end the real Venus has decided to import another car from abroad. And I have repeated my vows to never, ever, have any cook, cleaner or houseboy in my apartment - for obvious reasons.

There seem to be fewer of them these days, but I recently ran into on of them again. People who have this misguided notion that Africans are born conservationists, since they “live in harmony with nature”. Hearing this, I always have to suppress the Blackadder reflex, asking ” Tell me Mam/Sir have you ever visited the planet Earth ?” But sometimes I invite them to take a stroll over Duala Market and take a look at the small hands of freshly killed monkeys hanging over the side of cheap stainless steel plates. The little hands are always coiled up, as if they were pleading for mercy. But the population is not about to give any merci to the wildlife, not even five years after the war has ended. “Bushmeet” is highly valued in typical local dishes such as tobogee, for its asserted sweetness and spiritual properties. As if that were not enough, the current rise of food prices will certainly put additional pressure on Liberian wildlife.  The sole billboard pictured above will make little difference under these circumstances. 

Admitted: The Photo above is slightly unfair. It was taken over a year ago, when the central station of the Liberian National Fire-service had only that junker in the garage. Now, thanks to donations from UNMIL and others the station features a Renault 4×4 tanker truck, specialised for bush fires, a shining Chinese made copy of a New York fire engine, and an ambulance, also of Chinese lineage.
But while the equipment is new, the spirit in the fire brigade still is the same. A few weeks ago, a fire broke out in the dilapidated National Housing Bank building directly opposite the fire station, on the other side of the road. The distance between the front of the fire engine and the burning building was not more than 50 feet. And what did the faithful and daring fire service do? They called UNMIL (United Nations Mission In Liberia) and begged for fuel to ” reach the fire”.
Old habits die hard !

It seemed to be a custom with the Liberian administrations that came to power by force that they immediately set out to plunder the fallen presidents houses. 
And it was not the rank and file that started the looting. In most cases the plundering was led by members of the junta themselves, starting their spree to enrich themselves with emptying the most promising flesh-pools first.
New evidence brought forward in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia (TRC) hearings in the USA shows that the first wave of plunder at the Bensonville Villa of the slain President Tolbert was led by George Boley. (The Analyst, Monrovia, 13.06.200 Boley is one of these characters that thrive in a changing and unpredictable climate of a failed state, and the many roles that he took on during the various administrations, are a good example for the chaotic structure of the entire conflict.
George Boley was first a junior minister in the Tolbert Administration. But later he fell out with Tolbert and was jailed under the accusation of being a member of opposition groups. There must have been some truth to that. Not only was he released by the Doe Junta on the morning after the bloody coup in which Tolbert and some 14 members of his administration were killed, but he immedeately set out to endear himself to his new masters.  Captain Samuel Kalongo Luo, the witness at the TRC hearings in Minnesota stated that George Boley drove in Tolberts compound in Bensonville in the Jaguar that only a few hours before had belonged to the killed president of Liberia. He then threatened Toberts Butler to give him the combination of the Presidents safe, and cleaned them out. He left in the Jaguar with money and other loot. This act endeared him so much to the new leader of Liberia, Master Sergeant Doe, that he made Boley Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, and finally Minister of Education. Boley fled Liberia after Doe suffered a violent death at the hands of Prince Johnson in 1990, but returned to the country in 1993 to become a warlord and form the “Liberia Peace Council”. Like all the other factions in Liberias war the highly sounding name was just a thin disguise for what the group really was, yet another armed rabble preying on the civilian population.
Being a warlord in his own realm at least earned him a position in the transitional government of Liberia, where he most likely continued his long struggle to enrich himself and impoverish his nation. 

The following true story was narrated to me by a friend of mine.

I decided to include it here because it nicely illustrates one of the daily small frustrations. For some reasons one can never get a straight answer to a question. It does not matter if the question is about history, technical matters, or just mundane everyday live. ,The reason for this problem is yet unclear, but at least three theories are currently discussed in the expatriate community:
The first, let us call it the biological determinant, holds that Liberians are genetically unable to give a straight answer. The second theory brings in the powers of “juju”, the local Black Magic variant. One of the main concerns of Juju is to deny the adversary power over oneself. Leaving hair at the barber or clipped nails at the beauty parlour is extremely foolish, because even an apprentice witch doctor can concoct a potion out of these insignificant parts which will kill you, render you impotent, or change you into a goat. The latter version is frequently featured in Nigerian films, by the way. It is equally dangerous to wisher ones name in the wind, because the bad spirits will then know it and use it against you. Knowing of these dangers it is only consequent to never answer straight to a question, thus denying the interrogator the power over oneself.
The last theory, which is possible the right one, maintains that Liberians never give a straight answer because they do not give a damn what the foreigners say anyway. After all they are just here to distribute their money freely to the poor downtrodden locals and then it is back to them to the lands of milk, honey and Mercedes-Benzes.
I leave the reader to decide which theory is the best, or to submit a theory of his own as a commentary after reading the following, true story.
Situation: Somewhere in a village in rural Liberia. A foreigner (white) and a local are walking along a dirt road. They pass a man pushing a wheelbarrow which is visibly full of something.
Foreigner: What is in the wheelbarrow ?
Liberian: Oh, that is my father in law there, pushing the wheel barrow.
Foreigner: Yes, but what is in it ?
Liberian: I told him to bring the wheelbarrow to my house.
Foreigner: Yes, but what is in it ?
Liberian: I will use the wheelbarrow later.
Foreigner: Aaaaaaaarggghhhhhh!

As reported before in this blog (see my entry “Scrapped Back To The Stone Age”), Liberia has lost most of her infrastructure to predatory scrapping during the war time. While normal scrap business is a legitimate business activity, and frees the residual value of a machine at the end of its service life, predatory scrapping takes operates quite differently and with dire effect. The biggest operators put complete machines to the torch. The many small scavengers are limited to steal all that can be easily removed and carried by hand from a machine. However, the loss of many small parts kills a machine as surely as the torch.
The real tragedy is that destructive scrapping has become an easy way to create cash, that is still going on in Liberia right now. With annoying regularity Liberia Electric Power (LEC) discovers that scavengers steal parts of the newly installed power lines.
The stolen metal is then sold and resold, and trucked or shipped out of the country to end in the furnaces of China or India. Scrap is such an ideal vehicle for cash generation simply because it is nearly impossible to trace back. Who can say if the cut parts on the truck came from a defect or a working machine?
On the 22^nd of May the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy finally reacted and imposed a ban on scrapping. In a move that surprises anyone not familiar with Liberia, the “Scrap Association” has complained to the government about this “unfair” act. With admirable brazenness the president of the Scrap Association stated that the halt to scrapping would affect the business and economic growth of Liberia. (The Analyst, Monrovia, Liberia, 13.06.2008, p.10)
He conveniently forgot that the scrap dealers and their government accomplices are responsible to a large extend for the dilapidated state of Liberia, and that many of them should be standing trial as war criminals for their actions.
Another official of the strange association also chimed in. Noting that the scrap business had “taken many criminals out the street”, he went on to present the government with the thinly veiled threat that the former criminals would be forced back into their old ways of making money by the ban.

It can only be hoped that the government stands firm in the face of such extortion and keeps the ban in place until a working system has been put together which limits the scrapping of working equipment.

I am afraid, that the love for Liberia alone will hardly be sufficient to entice new recruits to join the Liberia National Police.  Paying them a living wage on the other hand might go a long way. Alternatively one could think about more thruthful bumper stickers:

 I love being paid so little that I have to extort motorists to survive
                                           Therefore
                              I sign up to join the LNP

or:   

I love braving an angry mob without any weapons
                         Therefore
                I sign up to join the LNP

or:   

I love riding in my police pickup with blaring siren to pick up my girlfriends mother
                                                     Therefore
                                         I sign up to join the LNP

As reported in the “Plain Truth”,  one drinker of the “faked” Heineken reported that he had suffered from constipation, but shortly after drinking the Heineken, his stomach started producing “rivers and streams”, and that “My stomach ran like hell to the extent that I almost die”.
Why anybody would try to fake such bad beer as Heineken is beyond me though !