Place is pretty raw, alright .... my friend was way out in the bush mostly, a long way from Monrovia, and some of the stories he tells are quite vivid, like going through checkpoints of various factions, getting shaken down for 'visa' money by teenagers with machine-guns .... he goes on at length about the right and wrong ways of paying these bribes, says women are incapable of understanding how to do it right, especially stubborn dutch nurses who are great at nursing but usually haven't spend any time in back alleys or similar jungles .... one of these lost him a brand-new pickup truck one time, by being obstinate in refusing to smile and pay maybe ten bucks cash, so they had to walk back to camp carrying forty kilos each of irreplaceable medical supplies, all they could pack, leaving the rest thrown out in the ditch .... not long after, they recognised that truck on the road, it had a machine-gun mounted behind the cab
In a couple of places though, like where they had that camp at which he stayed the longest, he noticed considerable evidence all around of how organised the people had been previously, within ten years or so back [he was there the first time in 1991 i think] ..... there were well-built houses, churches, irrigation, water system to houses, even sewer in quite a small town, tree-lined pleasant streets .... and people remembered quite well how civilised it had been before .... in this particular place there was not even in 1991 any ethnic rivalry really, just warlordism from other parts taking its effect on them because they were on the road between two other places ... he found the people generally capable and willing to learn [though not all], and thought all this place needed was good policing to keep the gunmen out of town, then some proper education
Last time he heard news of the place, probably four or five years ago, all the MSF compound [much of which he had personally built or re-built] had been looted, burnt, completely destroyed, and several locals who had helped them had been shot for it ... and now all the shiney new '92 Dodge pickups of MSF were in the hands of warlords, or lying shot up and burnt at side of the road somewhere
He picks no favourites among the Taylor/rebel factions by the way, says they all need a good thump upside the head for being prone to violence when there is no need for it ..... early on he did, then later saw that group do unspeakable things, says then he felt from time to time the need for his own twelve gauge, so when he saw anybody else with a gun, he could just waste the sucker [as a carpenter handyman fixer-upper extraordinaire, he believes firmly in using the right tool for each job]
'Might be good to go as part of a UN team, show we can play as a team player.'
Probably yes, this could be an opportunity to find common ground within the UN structure, certainly as a canadian i would want my government to help in any reasonable effort .... Liberia is a special case though, the people there really do relate strongly to the US ..... there are some friends in place nearby, the brits remain involved in Sierra Leone, and the french in Ivory Coast, these are the two adjacent nations ... of course anything here will benefit from cooperation with Ecowas - ecowas.int |
