I have gotten used to see taxis with the usual inscriptions on their rear bumper. From the pretty lame
“God´s time is the best”, through the fatalistic “Relax - God is in Control”, to the insane ”Good never lost”. But the one above is really unusual. What the hell does he mean by that ?
In my two years in Liberia I have now been to all but one of the provinces and their capitals. I have traveled the country from Lofa County in the Northwest, bordering Guinea, to Maryland in the Southeast which shares a border with Cote d´Ivoire.
The most depressing in all of those places is the degree to which the infrastructure has been destroyed. The massive destruction covers everything considered basic infrastructure, but water and electricity systems stand out. The road system was never well developed in the country, and the few paved roads ( also know as “coal-tar” in local language) have suffered so heavily from erosion and neglect that is often less exhausting to drive on a recently graded dirt track, than on the deeply pot-holed coal-tar.
Through the history of Liberia, investment has always been focussed heavily on Monrovia, while only a pittance was used for developing the “hinterland”. However, by the early eighties, at least the province capitals had been provided with basic electricity and water services. The Liberian Electricity Corporation (LEC) had started a rural electrification program. The program never reached the actual rural areas, but at least it provided electricity to the existing province capitals. Even the small coastal town of Greenville had a local electricity grid, powered by six Blackstone diesel generators from the UK, and a water system.
These days only the ruins of the water and electricity systems remain. The water towers in Harper and Greenville stand forlorn in the towns. A tree grows on top of the Greenville water tower. The electrical distribution system has completely disappeared, lines have been cut down and melted, poles used for building huts or turned into charcoal. The rusty wrecks of the massive Blackstone diesels still stand in the looted rural power stations. In the Harper power station alone, generating equipment of 2.4 MW has been turned into scrap metal.
In fact, in destruction of infrastructure Liberia has succeeded where Hitler failed. When it finally dawned on him that the war was irrevocably lost, he issued what became knows as the “Nero Orders”. Showing a disdain for “his people” bringing him close to Charles Taylor and consorts, he declared that since the German people had lost the war they would perish anyhow, and thus they did nor need any infrastructure to survive. According to the Nero orders, every power plant, dock, all the railways, the bridges, factories, mines were to be destroyed. That the Nero orders were not carried out is primarily due to the resistance that Albert Speer, the Minister of Armament and Ammunitions put up. In coordination with industry managers he counteracted the destruction orders by a wide variety of means, and with surprising efficiency. Speer was tried at the Nuremberg Tribunal and sentenced to twenty years in prison, but that Germany kept its infrastructure largely intact, and was not turned into the wasteland that Hitler wanted, remains his merit. Unfortunately Liberia possessed nobody with the foresight and the personal bravery of Speer. Large infrastructure assets like the rural power plants, the water works, or the Mount Coffee Hydroelectric Plant could have been kept in working condition if only one of the leaders in the civil war would have had any understanding of the value of infrastructure and the necessity of infrastructure to survival. But none did. All hat they were interested in was to create as much scrap metal out of the country as possible. Goering, the Nazi Air Force Chief, quipped during his trials at Nuremberg that in “fifty years all households in Germany will have a small statuette of Herman Goering”. History has proven him wrong. Having seen in reality what the “Nero Orders” were supposed to achieve, Speer on the other hand should be honored with a monument. A small one maybe.
The civil war graffiti above is still visible on a house in a small town along the road in Lofa. The extreme stupidity of the message, the childish painting, all of that would be funny, if it were not for the case that these were exactly the people who killed and maimed without aim or mercy.
The scribble above is still on the wall of an administration building in Lofa, on the border to Sierra Leone. What surprises most is that no one has bothered to paint over it. “Col.” Bristol was most likely a boy of sixteen, high on drugs, who would not even have passed the most basic infantry training. After seeing photos and Videos from the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, one is no longer surprised by the massive impact that professional mercenary outfits like Executive Outcomes or Sandline had in these wars.
Still, no one knows how many unfortunate people were killed or maimed by “Col.” Bristol and his comrades.
The bar owner put two large bottles of Club beer on the rickety table in front of us. Immediately big drops of dew formed on the bottles and ran down on the plastic table. It was five in the afternoon, and the heat and humidity of the Liberian day had nor relented even a bit. The last days before the start of the rainy season always were the hottest. My brown army T-shirt was soaking with sweat. I lifted the bottle and drank thirstily. My counterpart wiped the foam of his small moustache. A small man in a blue second hand shirt, and second hand trousers, once collected by some well-meaning charity in the United States, shipped over to Liberia as gifts, and then sold and resold untold times until they finally ended up in this small coastal town. He was very proud of these clothes. He also owned a Chinese-made motorbike with equal pride, even though the lights did not work. ” The battery”, he had explained to me the night before, when he had been driving me back to my quarters, using the horn to alert other people on the road.
We were the only guests in the bar, the generator was still off, and no loud music disturbed us. On the other side of the road an AG 100 motorbike was parked in front of a house of rusting zinc plates. The owner of the bar came back from the counter and sat down with us. I knew him well, since he was also the government employee in charge of all state assets in town. As a good barkeeper he stuck to a Coke. “It is all a problem of money”, said the small man in blue. “No public servant can survive on his governmental salary.” I nodded. ” Take Matthew here”, he continued, ” do you think he could make ends meet if he would not have this bar?” Matthew shook his head. ” For Monrovia, we do not exist”, he concurred. “They give us nothing. We do not have a motorbike, no bicycle, no desk and not even any paper or pens”. I knew Matthew was right. On every visit to the provinces I had heard the same complaint and seen the same problems. Police stations without light because they had no generator or no fuel. Clinics without any power because they could not afford the necessary repair of their generator. Towns and villages without safe water because the government had never delivered even the most basic amenities. A whole nation with a illiteracy rate of nearly 70% because the state had never considered education a priority, and was quite happy with the rudimentary education the missionary agencies provided.
And a totally dysfunctional civil service, which managed to be bloated and overly expensive, but at the same time could not provide its employees with a living wage. “I could not do without the bar”, said Matthew, “the tables here and five rooms in the back”. “I get by”.
The small man took another swig of cold beer. ” I am a full-time teacher at the High School” he said.” Do you know what my pay is ?”. I shook my head. “I will tell you, it is 50 USD per Month”. At going rates this was roughly equivalent to 3000 Liberian Dollars. “I was never able to survive on this”, he continued, “but the recent jump in prices makes it even more an illusion.”
“I have a family of five, and a 50 kg sack of rice will feed us for 3 weeks.”. “But that bag is now 2400 Liberia Dollars”. “A gallon of gas for m motorbike is 370 Liberian”.
I drank from my beer, which had warmed considerably in the meantime. “So you see”, he said, “One bag of rice and two gallons of gas that is what my government salary pays me”. “How can you afford to be honest under these conditions?”. “If someone comes and offers you 100 USD for passing his son, how can you refuse it ?”
“Would you ?”
We drank silently. But he was not finished yet. “There is actually no employment in town. Whenever an international NGO comes here, we all flock to it, trying to get a job”. ” If you get a contract, maybe three month, maybe six month, you are lucky. You can do something, build a house, or buy a motorbike” ” But without that, it is hopeless”.
What I had seen of the town during the last two days only confirmed his analysis. The water tower stood forlorn and wasted in the middle of the town. A tree grew out of the top of it. The power plant had been plundered to pieces. Nothing but a few mast remained of the electric grid. The small deepwater port, once build by a German company had fallen in total disuse. Nothing but empty ruins. A large freighter lay on her side on the beach like a stranded rusty whale. The only ship traffic consisted of a UN-vessel, supplying the local UNMIL contingent, since the roads linking the city with the rest of Liberia were virtually impassable.
Once the town had had two gas stations, a Shell and a Texaco. Now, only their signs remained, rusty, riddled with bullets, swinging and squeaking in the wind. But worse was that there was no sign of improvement. I had to admit that he was right. Whenever I had seen activity, it had been the work of some foreign NGO. Even the renovation of the municipal administration building was carried out by a US based NGO. There was no sign of original activity of either the Liberian Government or any Liberian Industry.
Matthew got up to attend to an early customer. The small man finished his beer. ” The guns are silent”, he said, ” but the basic needs are not met”.
Nice big mud-hole in the Southeast of Liberia between Fishtown and Harper. And the rainy season is just starting. No wonder that whole towns are cut off, sometimes for weeks during the rainy time of the year. Even the logging companies, who had extremely heavy machinery, used to shut down for about four month each year.
The mud-hole has actually three lanes that are already filled with water, and one in the foreground of the photo. That one runs along the dry embankment, but is only passable for 4×4 off-road vehicles.
Bigger items like the Volvo-Truck have to go through the water-filled lanes and will get bogged down. Then, the driver and his assistant normally dive under the vehicle and dig the hole a little deeper. They end up looking like lemurs, but they get the truck out finally. Until the next mud-hole that is, where the whole process repeats. The digging has the unfortunate effect of getting one vehicle out, but the hole will be even more treacherous for the next one. When the rainy season is in full swing, hole like this are sometimes lined with trucks and cars on both sides, waiting for the waters to subside.
Liberia has not had many achievements to be proud of. The claim of being the oldest republic in Africa rings hollow to everyone who has seen the said state of that republic. Being a founding member of the United Nations is likewise tainted by the continuous disregard that consecutive Liberian leaders have shown for even the most basic human rights.
But as the BBC recently reported there is one area where the country hold the World Championship - embezzlement of state funds.
A truly Olympic discipline in which many African leaders have engaged over time and a true democratic past-time, in which both the leaders and the lead participate in.
The World Champion of all time is none other than Charles Taylor, former warlord and President of Liberia, currently on trial at the UN-Special Court in the Hague.
According to a BBC report, prosecutor Stephen Rapp alleged that Mr. Taylor maintained two accounts in the USA. The sum of transactions on those accounts totalled over 5 Billion USD.( news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7379536.stm)
That Taylor used his presidency to amass a huge personal fortune is of little surprise to anyone. Even before he became President of Liberia, he extracted huge sums of money from “Greater Liberia”, that se parts of Liberia occuped by his forces.
Being a true Champion, Taylor beet even his close rival Mobuto of the DR Congo. What makes his victory so impressive is that he won on both counts. His total embezzlement of 5 Billion USD put Mobuto with 3.2 Billion USD clearly in second place. But the true achievments of Charles “Gankay” Taylor can only be grasped if compared to the relative economic strength of the two countries. The 2007 IMF List of Countries by GDP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) shows the DR Congo on position 115 with a GDP of 10Billion and 144 Million USD. Liberia is listed on position 163 with a GDP of 730 Million USD.
So while Mobuto only embezzled a measly 0.32 years of the DR Congo GDP (at 2007 numbers), Charles Taylor privateered 6.85 years worth of Liberia GDP (at 2007 numbers). But his relative embezzlement factor (6.85/0.32) is even more impressive. Here Charles Taylors shows as the true giant of the two. He beats Mobutu by an embezzlement factor of 21.4 times !
Or to put it in other words: His service to his counry was 21.4 times more damaging than Mr. Mobutus efforts in the DR Congo.
I think I will remember these figures when Liberian ask me for assistance next time.
Those interested (the majority I supposse) check out my newly added page “Wrecks and Accident Photos).
Hint: The few pieces of yellow in the second photo first row, are the remains of a taxi that took the plunge and flew into the gap left by the dissapeared bridge.
Anybody unlucky enough to have to travel from the East of Monrovia to the West found himself in a massive traffic jam yesterday morning. From 7:30 to 10:00 the area from the Capitol Building to the 14th. Street was transformed into one big parking lot. The reason was that the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) had blocked the only main road in town, to ease the travel burden of their Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, who visited Monrovia on his current Africa Tour.
Blocking the Tubman Boulevard, the only four lane road through town has approximately the same effect on Monrovia as if New Yorkers would find the George Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel, Triborough Bridge and the FDR Drive blocked simultaneously at 8:30 am. The resulting traffic chaos in Monrovia was so gigantic that even local divers gave up hope to get through somehow. The few individuals who tried to advance by honking or driving on the shoulders of the road made it a few cars further, then they were also stationary. Overall, drivers took the chaos pretty well. Since it was soon clear that everybody was stuck, very little honking or arguing took place. Instead, drivers cut their engines, got out of their cars and discussed the weather, the current administration, and Mr. Ki-Moon´s innovative approach to winning hearts and minds of Liberians.
Many people also took the solution that our office manager did. After sitting in a stationary taxi for over thirty minutes and seeing no movement at all, he decided to walk. He arrived at work one and a half hours late.
I still have to read what Mr. Ban Ki-Moon told the Liberian Politicians and UNMIL staff, but whatever it is, I am sure that Monrovia´s stuck motorists will remember him only with the fondest of thoughts.
The tallest structure of Africa is still located close to Monrovia. One of the three remaining antennas of the defunct Omega Navigation system is located in Paynesville, in the greater Monrovia area. Omega was a US - Navigation system operating in the Very Low Frequency (VLF) band, between 10 and 14 kHz. It was used both for navigation as well as for submarine communication. Omega was operated from 1970 until 1997 when GPS proved more accurate.
Due to the extreme wavelength, Omega needed very long antennas. The transmitter in Paynesville used a umbrella antenna suspended on a 417m high mast. The entire station was handed over to the Liberian Government when Omega was shut down permanently in 1997. While the station buildings have been duly plundered down to the bare walls the lattice mast is still there with all guy wires and antenna wires intact. And while the paint is weathered, there is no rust on the tower or the suspension system. In Liberia, where scrap is a main commodity, it is extremely surprising that the mast survived until today. There is no problem getting to the tower, one can drive right down to the base. More enterprising types could actually climb it too, as the ladders are still there.
When Omega was in operation, it was run by the US, and access to the station was severely restricted. This gave rise to many interesting theories about the “true nature” of the system. I have heard a few in my time in Liberia, mainly claiming that it was a gigantic listening device. The best theory however has been put forward by a Liberian acquaintance of mine. According to him Omega was ” a system that could read the minds of people coming into Liberia by plane. And if someone with bad intentions for Liberia would have come in, the system would have discovered him. Then the airplane would have been sucked to the top of the Omega mast, and have been arrested there.”
Hmm, somehow the system must have failed when Charles Taylor came…
