Liberia Program, an Initiative for a Global Network

The gas station outlook mostly in Liberia (photo: A.Rahino)

Abang Rahino Journal #1
Monrovia, 3 February, 2009

Liberia at a Glance
You probably refer to thousands of ships around the world which raise Liberia flag as their registered identity. The West African country is notably being the oasis for ship owners throughout the world – including Indonesia my home country – to register their vessels. Ease is the spirit that Liberian government tries to introduce to the entire world for many years.

Despite Liberia gets lots of tax from those vessel registrations, even though the resources they have are including diamond, iron ore, and recently an expedition identified a large number of offshore oil resource, and the land granted to them just as fertile as Indonesians have, but the following information makes me wonder, what kind of catastrophe which Liberians suffered from recently.

The IMR[1] of Liberia is 143.89 deaths/1,000 live births, PLWHA[2] is 100,000 while those who died from AIDS were 7,200 in 2003 and HIV adult prevalence rate is 5.9%. My contact for HIV/Aids program in Papua, Indonesia told me that the official figure in HIV/Aids issue is in fact a tip of an iceberg. Liberia population is only 3.38 million though, not even more than Yogyakarta, my hometown in Indonesia which has 3.5million people. The Liberian human life expectancy is 41.13 years.

As you walk down the roads in Monrovia in the morning of 7:15am, small boys and girls take bath outdoors with pail of water. Public sanitation is on its lowest grade I’ve ever seen. Many shops owners prepare their small China made generators before they start their businesses, as electricity already gone at 7am and will just on at 7pm.

Learning how poverty exists deeply on Liberia community, I can parallel it with Indonesia situation under the Japanese occupation in 1942-1945. The difference is that through 1970 were only few Indonesians had cars. It was until the beginning of 1960s that most of Indonesians rode on bicycles not even motorcycles. I bought my own first old-used Italian scooter in 1994 after being a church worker for 15 years! I then replaced to another Italian used scooter in 1998 from my office, a Canadian/US based INGO working in Indonesia. But in Liberia, on the midst of such poverty, cars considered luxury types in Indonesia such as BMW, Mercedes, American sedans and MPV as well as all types from Japan and Korea are everywhere. All with their two liters of engine or more, and are fully built up imported. The public transportation system is poor.

The two pictures of poverties i.e. Liberia and Indonesia in two different periods of time but in paradox conditions, showing me difficult questions to answer on the why aspect. So let’s just leave the why aspect, for I’ve just been on my 11th day in Liberia.

Went Through on Civil Wars
One of the possible reasons of what Liberians suffered this time is their long several different civil wars since 1980 which finally ended on 2003. Even though the casualties were not as dramatic as Indonesia’s bloodiest event in 1965-1966 which left dead toll to almost three million people as what Sarwo Eddie Wibowo – an Indonesia’s Army Special Squad Commander said ( Memoar Pulau Buru, by Hersri Setiawan), but Liberian civil wars’ brutality buried down almost all of their people social and economical capitals.
Liberia, which means "land of the free," was founded by free African-Americans and freed slaves from the United States in 1820. An initial group of 86 immigrants, who came to be called Americo-Liberians, established a settlement in Christopolis (now Monrovia, named after U.S. President James Monroe) on February 6, 1820.

Thousands of freed American slaves and free African-Americans arrived during the following years, leading to the formation of more settlements and culminating in a declaration of independence of the Republic of Liberia on July 26, 1847. The drive to resettle freed slaves in Africa was promoted by the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization of white clergymen, abolitionists, and slave owners founded in 1816 by Robert Finley, a Presbyterian minister. Between 1821 and 1867 the ACS resettled some 10,000 African-Americans and several thousand Africans from interdicted slave ships; it governed the Commonwealth of Liberia until independence in 1847.

Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who was born and raised in America, was Liberia's first President. The style of government and constitution was fashioned on that of the United States, and the Americo-Liberian elite monopolized political power and restricted the voting rights of the indigenous population. The True Whig Party dominated all sectors of Liberia from independence in 1847 until April 12, 1980, when indigenous Liberian Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe (from the Krahn ethnic group) seized power in a coup d'etat. Doe's forces executed President William R. Tolbert and several officials of his government, mostly of Americo-Liberian descent. One hundred and thirty-three years of Americo-Liberian political domination ended with the formation of the People's Redemption Council (PRC).

Since that 1980 coup, Liberian plunged into deep sufferings caused from one civil war to another. After several different international interventions through ECOWAS[1] and the UN, the civil wars ended in 2003. Under a strong intervention of UNMIL[2], Liberia gradually gains stability, and have energy to develop itself, when finally at the end of 2005 a democratic election was held. A first woman African president was elected, Mdm.Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Her leadership were applauded by many parties both internally and internationally. A local RTV television station broadcasted two days after the event, exposed on how none of their interviewees including diplomatic corps members dissatisfied with what Mdm.Sirleaf already done on her first three year assignment as the President of the ex torn country. The interviews addressed to the President’s annual speech to the House of Parliament, carried out on January 26, 2009.

An Initiative for a Global Network
On the mid of such a condition of Liberia, through YEU[3], an Indonesia NGO specifically working on disaster response, PDA[4] invited me to be their interim Program Coordinator/Representative for Liberia Project which mainly carries out a single psychosocial program for Liberian ex-combatants. My main duty is to suggest an exit strategy as the UNDP funded program will be terminated on March 2009.

As almost the first two weeks learning the program supervised by Luke Asikoye, the Director of International Disaster Response of PDA, as well as working together with a small team of local staffs in Monrovia, we explore to a suggestion of an exit strategy which include an exchange with Acehnese ex-combatants in Indonesia, and also post monitoring program which include peacebuilding and income generating programs. Even though we still need to explore deeper on the details, it seems to us that those choice will be the best for the Liberian ex-combatants in exploring their paths for their future lives.
The idea is also exploring an initiative of a global network which includes relations between Northern and Southern countries, and at the same time creating Southern-to-Southern relationship. May the Lord who has the world as His field, He himself be in front of the initiative

[1] ECOWAS: Economic Community of West African States
[2] UNMIL: United Nations Mission in Liberia
[3] Yakkum Emergency Unit
[4] Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
[1] IMR: Infant Mortality Rate
[2] PLWHA: People Living with HIV/Aids