Ghana – Chapter 11 bis
Accra, May 1, 2005
"Liberia"
Hello
Everyone.
It has been a while since I wrote. I appreciate everyone's replies, comments
and questions. Hope you're not bored with my goings on (thank God for the
Delete button, Right?).
Here are a couple of quick observations (and photos) from my week in Liberia.
Most of you probably remember that Liberia had a civil war that lasted nearly 15
years. It ended about 1 1/2 - 2 years ago when the US Marines and then the UN
stepped in to stop the warring factions. It was a very violent, brutal war with
13 year old soldiers chopping off people's hands and feet with machetes. Most
of the country was trashed by the fighting and what wasn't destroyed by war
simply fell apart from the affects of neglect and the tropics over the long
period of chaos. In the capital Monrovia, just about every building taller than
2 stories was gutted and the rest are sprayed with pockmarks from bullets.
The country is quiet now. This is partly because the population is truly,
completely exhausted by war, partly because nearly half the population is living
in IDP camps (internally displaced persons) run by the UN, and partly because in
the towns, there are UN soldiers and tanks everywhere.
But because of the poverty and desperation, crime is still a major problem -
from purse snatching to shootings (no guns on the streets, but everyone has
one). The US Embassy and USAID staff lived in an armed camp. The US Embassy is
a beautiful location. It is on a rocky prominence overlook the sea right in the
center of Monrovia. It has huge 100 year old tropical trees growing the
compound. But is is a fortress with marines and police stationed everywhere,
helicopter pads carved out, high walls, bullet proof everything and lots of
barbed wire. the embassy and USAID have two apartment buildings right across
the street from the embassy where everyone lives (no families permitted). The
street is blocked off by barricades and the only place that USG employees are
allowed to walk is across this street from the embassy to the apartments and
back. Everywhere else they ride around in bulletproof armored vehicles.
I, of course, walked down the street for dinner and a beer every night, but
that's another story.
[Sorry about the quality of the pictures. These were taken on a cloudy, rainy
day with the camera on my telephone.]
Here is a street scene taken from the front seat of my armored SUV. We were
just crossing a bridge in downtown Monrovia. There were US soldiers and machine
gun nests set up on each end of the bridge. That's a UN armored personnel
carrier parked there so they would have some protection if someone started
shooting at them. The troops I saw were from Ghana, Ireland and Nigeria.
This was a UN checkpoint set up on another street. You can see how shot up the
building in the background is. They are all armed, but they don't harass
people. I think everyone feels safer with them around. They always saluted me
(either because of my beard or perhaps it was the diplomatic plates on the car).
Monrovia
is starting to bustle, but with 85%+ unemployment, it's hard to have much
business going on.
There are elections coming up and all the Western countries are pumping money
and technical assistance into the country to try to make them work. But it's
not looking good. The lack of communications and logistics around the country
makes any kind of democratic campaign almost impossible. There is no
electricity anywhere, so people don't even have radios or TVs to listen
to/watch. The roads are all destroyed so newspapers can't be distributed
outside the city except by UN helicopters.
I was there to work on a couple of things. One of the projects is to help
rebuild Liberia's rubber industry. Historically, Liberia
was a major world producer of raw rubber, but with the war it has been eclipsed
by Asia. Firestone
has huge plantations there and Goodyear and Michelin buy rubber from there.
Some of the rubber is in big plantations (like Firestone's), but most of it was
produced by small farmers with a few acres of trees. These smallholder farms
need to be reclaimed from the bush and the people in the camps need to be
encouraged to move back into the countryside and to take up farming again - a
major challenge.
I went out to meet with Firestone and then traveled up country for a day to talk
to some other small processors and to see some rubber production. This is a
nursery of young rubber trees that will be used to replant some of the destroyed
plantations. During the war most plantations were abandoned and the bush
covered them (a rubber tree grows for about 30 years). Those plantations can
often be cleared and put back into production. In other places, the rebels
either cut down the trees to make charcoal or slashed them to try to get as much
latex (sap) out as possible in one season and destroyed them. These plantations
have to be cleared and replanted.
Firestone agreed to donate 600,000 trees per year and USAID will help set up new
private nurseries (as small businesses) to disseminate new trees to farmers who
want to get restarted. Firestone will also provide technical assistance to the
new nursery owners to help them make it work (grafting, business management,
etc.). USAID will set up a tool fund in the processing plants where farmers
will be able to go to get hand tools (machetes, etc.) for land clearing and
planting on credit - which they will repay when they bring their rubber to the
plant (that way the tool fund will be revolving and more tools can be bought to
expand the program).
This is what I do when I say I do "public-private alliance building": my job
was to talk Firestone in to contributing the trees and technical assistance and
USAID into putting in some money.
I'm working on a similar kind of program to help the cocoa farmers get back into
production (for all you chocolate lovers). And I'll be going back to Liberia
in June or July to talk to the mining companies about working with them on a
variety of different projects (agriculture, health, education, environment,
infrastructure, etc.).
It's actually fun and I enjoy my work (particularly since no one shot at me).
Ciao. Got a big conference coming up this week.
Greg, the RRRR (regional roving rubber repairman)
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