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Archive for May, 2013

Adoptions of children decreased by 48% worldwide

By Clemente Ferrer adoption symbol

 

More and more couples without children want to adopt, but on the other hand, there are fewer kids up for adoption. Previously, the lack of kids for adoption, in developed countries was compensated through the adoption abroad. Now this is more complex. The number of international adoptions has dropped by 48%.

Before investigating the roots of this reduction, it is worthwhile to recall two internationally accepted rules. The first emphasizes that the interest which should prevail is the one of the child. The second, expressed in the Hague Convention of 1993 requires that preference should be given to adoptions within the country.

Some scholars like Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor at Harvard University, felt the growing demands can sentence many children to spend more time in hospice.

“Le Monde” states that in France 2,000 foreign kids were adopted in 2011 and only 1,500 in 2012, according to the latest census of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Those who aspire to achieve an adoption face toughest environments abroad and in France, where there are a number of kids eligible for adoption.

China and Russia have tightened the conditions for the adoption in recent years. China is the country with more children up for adoption: about 80,000 between 2003 and 2011. Adopting a newborn is the most longed for, but also the most difficult. Instead there are more opportunities to adopt babies from 3 or 4 years, or also invalids or afflicted kids. Children of 5-7 years account for 13% of those adopted in France in 2012, compared to 10,73% in 2011, and those with more than 7 years of age were 16,65% in 2012, compared with 14,28% in 2011.

Jesus Palacios, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sevilla said that currently, the preference is that adopted children are somewhat older or suffering from a physical or mental distress. “And that, of course, clashes with the desires of many families, whose goal is a young baby as healthy as possible, and without any problems.”

In Spain as in many countries, the legalization of abortion in 1985, has led to an abortion for every four live births. A serious situation which has reduced the number of babies free for adoption.

The adoption has become more difficult today. Given the lack of children and the unfulfilled desire of many marriages, it seems appropriate not to add more difficulties that complicate the processes of adoption.

Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of advertising and public relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing.

[email protected]

 

 

 

 

May 22, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Americo-Liberians: The 17th Tribe of Liberia - Part I

By Siahyonkron Nyanseor Siahyonkron-Nyanseor1-130x150

 

“Americo-Liberians: The 17th Tribe of Liberia” is a two parts series. Part I will look at various sources such as the Bible, Greeks, Romans and Anglo-Saxon (English) cultures; and what Cultural Anthropologists say about tribe, before arriving at a working definition and all that encompasses tribe.

One of my main reasons for writing this article is to make clear to those Liberians who are of the belief that any reference to Tribe - means uncivilized or something that is PRIMITIVE. Due to this belief, many Liberians– especially those from tribal backgrounds who were raised by Americo-Liberians or Congo families do not want to be identified with their native backgrounds (an egregious form of self-hatred). Some of them even go as far, to denial that their tribal parents are not their biological parents. See my story: “Passing: A Classic Case of Shame and Tragedy,” published in the August 11, 2007 edition of theperspective.org.

 

Part II will focus on the practices of a tribe or the behaviors of most tribal people.

 

Moreover, if nothing else, this exercise is intended to bring some clarity to the confusion (state the confusion). Therefore, I ask that any challenge to this essay should be directed at the facts presented and not to me personally or groups that I represent or I am a member of.

 

For some time now, there has been this ongoing discourse at home and especially on the Liberian Listservs regarding tribalism and ethnicity; and there has been narrow usage and interpretation of both words. For example, an individual who supports another person from his/her tribe for whatever their reason may be is accused of being tribalistic. As a result of the fear for being labeled or accused of tribalism, many individuals avoid the discussion of “Tribalism” and“Ethnicity”.

 

I had completed this research July 2012. I intended to include it in one of my upcoming books; but I could not resist the urge to contribute to the current discourse on the question: “Is tribal loyalty or loyalty to a group in conflict with loyalty to the state or patriotic nationalism?” At the end of this article, this question will be answered.

 

Furthermore, I am glad we are discussing Tribe or Tribalism or for that matter, other national issues on the Liberian Listservs. Besides the occasional diatribes, lots of good discussions and recommendations have come from these various Listservs. However, we need to emulate the example of my late friend, the proud son of Pallipo, Tarty Teh. Teh epitomized what it meant to be a gentleman scholar. Never once did I see him trading insults with those who misunderstood and misinterpreted his writings/positions.

 

I remembered as a youth growing up in the unpaved area of Clay Street, Monrovia, those of us who were African-Liberians (Klao/Kru, Bassa, Kpelle, etc.), were referred to by Americo-Liberians or Congo (pronounced ‘Kongor’) as Native or Country people. Such reference was intended to degrade us as being backward and uncivilized. This practice started with the so-called founding of the Commonwealth of Liberia. During this period, the Settlers did not recognize the indigenous people as member of the Commonwealth – the very people who gave them the land upon which they settled. Instead, they referred to them derisively as aborigines, natives, tribal people, and referred to themselves as Americo-Liberians. This is what I referred to in my article: “A Cultural Legacy of False Starts,” published in ThePerspective.org on November 16, 2000.

 

As a point of fact, the July 16, 1847 Declaration of Independence drafted by the Representatives of the People of the Commonwealth of Liberia excluded the natives. It reads:

 

We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were originally inhabitants of the United States of North America.

 

In some parts of that country we were debarred by law from all rights and privileges of man - in other parts, public sentiment, more powerful than law, frowned us down.

We were excluded from all participation in the government.

We were taxed without our consent.

 

We were compelled to contribute to the resources of a country which gave us no protection.

 

We were made a separate and distinct class, and against us every avenue of improvement was effectively closed. Strangers from other lands, of a color different from ours, were preferred before us.

 

We uttered our complaints, but they were unattended to, or only met by alleging the peculiar institutions of the country.

 

All hope of a favorable change in our country was thus wholly extinguished in our bosoms, and we looked with anxiety for some asylum from the deep degradation.

 

The western coast of Africa was the place selected by American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home (emphasis is mine). Removed beyond those influences which oppressed us in our native land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and privileges and exercise and improve those faculties which the God of nature has given us in common with the rest of mankind.

 

Under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, we established ourselves here, on land, acquired by purchase [questionable] from the lords of the soil…

 

In addition, the Motto the Settlers adopted reads: “The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here.”

It is the distinction established in Settlers’Constitution and Motto that gave birth to our present grave problem, for which the discussion regarding “Tribalism” and “Ethnicity” is being debated today. In order to bring clarity to the discussion, we need to establish working definitions for both Tribe and Ethnic groups; in doing so, we will be able to prove if Americo-Liberians can be considered a Tribe.

 

Tribe from a Biblical Perspective

First, let’s look at the Biblical definition. According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim was one of the Tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Manasseh together with Ephraim also formed the House of Joseph. The descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas each of the other sons of Jacob founded only one tribe. Thus, there were thirteen tribes; but the number twelve was preserved, while Levi was excluded and Ephraim and Manasseh are mentioned separately. (See Num 1:32-34; Josh 17:14, 17; Chr 7:20)

 

After the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, who himself was a descendent of Ephraim (1 Chronicles 7:20-27) in c. 1200 BCE, until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BC, the Tribe of Ephraim was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. At that time, no central government existed, but in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges. With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a strong centralized monarchy to meet the challenge, and the Tribe of Ephraim joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. After the death of Saul, all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul, but after the death of Isa-bosheth, Saul’s son and successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making David, who was then the king of Judah, king of a re-united Kingdom of Israel.

 

The point here is, during Biblical time, a tribe could be named after the leader; like the Tribe of Ephraim, an individual. (Easton’s Bible Dictionary (formerly known as the Illustrated Bible Dictionary) by Matthew George Easton, M.A., D.D. published in 1897)

 

The Greeks and the Romans’ Definition of Tribe

The Greeks and the Romans defined Tribe as, any group of political and demographic subdivisions of the population. In Greece the groups divided into tribes were distinct by location, dialect, and tradition, and they included the Ionians, Dorians, Achaeans, and Aetolians. In Attica, Cleisthenes replaced the 4 Ionian tribes with 10 new tribes, each of which was named after a local hero; these came to develop political and civic functions, including the election of magistrates. The demes developed out of the tribal system. In Rome the tribes formed the 3 (later 4, and still later 35) original divisions of Roman citizens. These were the basis of military levies, property tax, census taking, and voting units in political assemblies. (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Tribe)

 

Cultural Anthropologists

Cultural anthropologists defined Tribe as any of a variety of social units, including some defined by unilineal. (Unilineality is a system of determining descent groups in which one belongs to one’s father or mother’s lineage or both). The term is usually apply to a unit of social organization that is culturally homogeneous and consists of multiple kinship groups—such as the family, lineage, or clan. But what unites societies of such diverse scales as being “tribal” is their own internal sense of “being a single people.”

 

Throughout most of the history of modern cultural anthropology, the terms tribe and primitive were usually linked; however, in recent years primitive has been avoided by most anthropologists because it appears to carry with it an unintended judgment of the moral or technological development of a people. (IBID)

 

The Romansdefined Tribe as a social group bound by common ancestry and ties of consanguinity (state of being related by blood or descended from a common ancestor) and affinity; a common language and territory; and characterized by a political and economic organization intermediate between small, family-based bands, and larger chiefdoms. Some anthropologists believe that tribes develops when more stable and increased economic productivity, brought on by the domestication of plants and animals, allow more people to live together in a smaller area. A tribe may consist of several villages, which may be cross-cut by clans, age grade associations, and secret societies; each of these cross-cutting institutions may, at different times and in different ways, perform economic, political, legal, and religious functions.

 

Tribes are popularly believed to be close-knit and parochial, but some anthropologists now argue that they are flexibly defined communities of convenience. They have observed that there has been as much marriage between tribes as within, that members of many tribes may speak the same language and that members of any one tribe may speak different languages, and finally that all members of a given tribe rarely—if ever—unite in any important political or economic activity. Anthropologists have noted that every known tribe has been in contact with states, and suggest that tribal institutions may form alliance with the greater state power, or as direct consequences of the activities of states. (IBID)

 

In ancient Greece, a country district or village was distinct from a polis (an independent city and its surrounding region under a unified government). Cleisthenes, an Athenian statesman and chief magistrate promoted the democratic reforms that took place from (508–507 BC). For example, the demes of Attica (the area around Athens) gained a voice in local and state government while the Attic demes had their own police powers, cults, and officials. Males aged 18 years became registered members of the deme. Members decided deme matters and kept property records for taxation. Each deme sent representatives to the Athenian boule (Deliberative council in the city-states of ancient Greece. It existed in almost all constitutional city-states, especially from the late 6th century BC in proportion to its size. The term continued to be applied to local districts in Hellenistic and Roman times. Democracy as we know today derived out of Deme (Greek, Demos). (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Tribe)

 

The English: A brief history of the tribes of England:

 

The Ancient Britons

There are no written records from this time sohistorians have built up a picture using archeological and linguistic evidence. From the Neolithic to the British Isles, were settled by mainly Germanic, Gaulish and Iberian tribes migrating from mainland Europe. Today these people are collectively known as the Celts or Britons.

The Romans

The oldest name for Great Britain is Albion. After the Romans invaded in 43AD over the next four centuries they established the province of Britania. There were been some integration by 410AD.

The Anglo Saxons

What is known today as England was settled from the 5th Century by Germanic and Nordic tribes from Angeln, Jutland and Saxony. Although they fought battles, they however integrated with the indigenous Celts and Britons; and in the 9thCentury formed a unified England. (http://www.anglosaxon.org.uk/England).

Now, this brings us to Ethnic or “Ethnicity”.

 

ETHNIC:

Ethnic is defined as:

 

  1. Relating to, or characteristic of a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage;

 

  1. Being a member of a particular ethnic group, especially belonging to a national group by heritage or culture but residing outside its national boundaries: a classic example is the ethnic Hungarians living in northern Serbia. (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Tribe)

 

In addition, the following disciplines, Social Science/Anthropology & Ethnology defined ethnic as a member of a particular group, especially “one who maintains the language or customs of the group; or an individual of a human group having racial, religious, linguistic, and certain other traits in common.”Ethnicity is what ties the individual to his/her race or culture. It has a strong influence in the things one does.

 

Moreover, an ethnic group is a group of people who share a common characteristic that makes them unique to every other group. Example of an ethnic group is a group that would share the same culture or race. (IBID), (http://answers.ask.com/Society/)

 

The Modus Operandi of Settlers or Tribes in History

This brings us to the settlers or European tribes’ modus operandi in dealing with those who are different from them – be it their skin color, culture, religion or language. Let cite few examples here.

 

South Africa

For example, the Khoi initially came into contact with European explorers and merchants in approximately AD 1500. The ongoing encounters were often violent. Local population dropped when the Khoi were exposed to smallpox by Europeans. Active warfare between the groups flared when the Dutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Over the following century the Khoi were steadily driven off their land, which effectively ended traditional Khoikhoi life.

 

Khoikhoi social organization was profoundly damaged and, in the end, destroyed by European colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, some Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen or farm workers; others were incorporated into existing clan and family groups of the Xhosa people.

 

Early European settlers sometimes intermarried with the indigenous KhoiKhoi, producing a sizable mixed population known at the time as “Basters”. Such reference is degrading to this population. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki‎)

 

The Australian Aborigines

The Australian Aborigines also referred to as Aboriginal people, are people whose ancestors were indigenous to the Australian continent — that is, to mainland Australia or to the island of Tasmania before British colonization of the continent began in 1788.

 

The category “Aboriginal Australians” was coined by the British after they began colonizing Australia in 1788; they collectively refer to all peoples they found already inhabiting the continent, and later to the descendants of any of those peoples. Until the 1980s, the sole legal and administrative criterion for inclusion in this category was race.

In the era of colonial and post-colonial government, access to basic human rights depended upon your race. If you were a “full blooded Aboriginal native … [or] any person apparently having an admixture of Aboriginal blood”, a half-caste being the “offspring of an Aboriginal mother and other than Aboriginal father” (but not of an Aboriginal father and other than Aboriginal mother), “quadroon”, or had a “strain” of Aboriginal blood you were forced to live on Reserves or Missions, work for rations, given minimal education, and needed governmental approval to marry, visit relatives or use electrical appliances.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians‎)

The Americo-Liberians, their sub-ethnic group – the Congos, their Wards and the English Anglo-Saxon tribe of Great Britain have similar modus operandi. For example, in 1626 Peter Minuit (an individual) bought Manhattan Island from the local Canarsie Indians for a load of bread and what today would equal about $24.00! (http://www.chacha.com)

Settlers’ History

According to the History of the Settlers from North America, they bought “Cape Montserrado” for goods valued at approximately $300.00. This writing of history, reminds me of the African proverb that says: “Until lions have their historians, tales of the huntshall always glorify the hunter.”

 

From January 1820, the American Colonization Society (ACS) sent ships from New York to West Africa in search of a homeland for freed slaves. The first one had 88 free blacks and three white ACS agents. After several attempts and hardships, ACS representatives in December 1821 succeeded in acquiring a 36-mile long strip of land – near what is Monrovia today – from indigenous ruler King Peter [what not the name he calls himself?] in the region that is now Liberia. The area they acquired was Cape Mesurado.

 

After dwelling for some time on a piece of land at Cape Mesurado in present day Monrovia, which was freely given to the settlers by the local inhabitants as a temporary refuge, U.S. Naval Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton (also referred to as Captain in the Settlers’ History book) and Colonial Agent Eli Ayres of the ACS masterminded confiscation of the land under the so-called Treaty of Mesurado drafted by them and imposed on native leaders described as Kings Peter, George, Zoda, Long Peter. Even the merchandise promised in exchange for the land was not fully delivered, and so in January 1822, King George and others protested to authorities in Sierra Leone about the unfairness of the land transaction. But the protest was too late as hostilities followed (Dunn & Holsoe, Historical Dictionary of Liberia, p. 173). Also, what ensured was full confiscation of Cape Mesurado and adjacent areas by the settlers and their ACS agents.

 

As a common practice, ruling elites in Liberia and South Africa for example, imposed their cultural hegemony on the indigenous inhabitants in these countries with total disregard for the culture and way of life of the people whose land they occupied. Prominent among these violations is the acquisition of land through“false” purchase, confiscation, and downright robbery.

 

A classic example of this practice was alluded to by Frank Sherman (2011) in his recent book: Liberia: The Land, Its People, History and Culture. Sherman wrote:

 

The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of Americo-Liberians also had their roots in the antebellum American South. And they profoundly influenced and shaped the perceptions and attitudes of Americo-Liberians toward the natives.

 

The indigenous people, their cultures and lifestyles, were seen as the very antithesis of what civilisation was all about and whose embodiment was the Americo-Liberian community in the midst of a “backward” and “primitive” people.

 

 

Stay tune for Part II: This part will focus on the practices of a tribe or the behavior of most tribal people.

 

SOURCES

Nyanseor, Siahyonkron. “A Cultural Legacy of False Starts,” published in

ThePerspective, November 16, 2000.

 

Nyanseor, Siahyonkron. “Unraveling Our Past to Make Necessary Corrections,”

published in The Perspective.org, February 28, 2001.

 

Nyanseor, Siahyonkron. “The Myth of Our Once ‘Peaceful Country’”, published

in ThePerspective.org,June 23, 2003.

The Declaration of Independence in the July 16, 1847 Constitution of

Commonwealth of Liberia.

 

Easton, M.A., D.D., Matthew George. (1897) Easton’s Bible Dictionary (formerly

known as the Illustrated Bible Dictionary) New York: Easton.

 

Taryor, Nya Kwiawon, Impact of the African Tradition on African Christianity.

Edition, reprint. Publisher, Strugglers’ Community Press, 1984.

 

Dunn, Elwood D., and Svend E. Holsoe, eds. Historical Dictionary of Liberia.

Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985

 

Sherman, Frank (January 10, 2011). Liberia: The Land, Its People, History and

Culture. New York: New Africa Press.

 

A brief history of the tribes of England:

(http://www.anglosaxon.org.uk/England)

 

The Free Dictionary Com:

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Tribe

 

Ask Com:

http://answers.ask.com/Society/

 

Liberian Past and Present:

http://www.liberiapastandpresent.org/index.html

 

Teh, Tarty’s Letter to A. Romeo Horton, Chairman, Liberian Elections Support

Group, Inc. (LESGO), dated September 15, 1992 and Horton’s Replay.

 

http://blojlu.wordpress.com

 

Discourses: The Liberian Listservs

 

Liberia: The Land, Its People, History and Culture:

https://site.google.com/siteintercontinentalbookcentre/liberia-the-land-its-people-history-and-culture

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

 

Sundiata, I. K. Black Scandal: America and the Liberian Labor Crisis, 1929–36.

Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1980.

 

Wiley, Bell, ed. Slaves No More: Letters from Liberia 1833-1869. Lexington:

University Press of Kentucky, 1980.

 

Shick, Tom. Behold the Promised Land: A History of Afro-American Settler

Society in Nineteenth-century Liberia. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

 

Staudenraus, P.J. (1980) [Columbia University Press, 1961]. The African

Colonization Movement, 1816 - 1865. New York: Octagon Books.

 

Wreh, Tuan. (1976) [C. Hurst & Company] The Love of Liberty: The Rule of

President William V. S. Tubman in Liberia, 1944 - 1971.

 

Garrison, William Lloyd. Thoughts on African Colonization. Boston, 1832.

Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1968.

 

Johnson, Charles S. Bitter Canaan: The Story of the Negro Republic. New

Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1987.

 

Mehlinger, Louis R. “The Attitude of the Free Negro Toward African

Colonization” Not a Slave! Free People of Color in Antebellum America, 1790-1860, ed. In Lacy Shaw New York: American Heritage Custom Publishing Group, 1995.

 

Smith, James Wesley. Sojourners in Search of Freedom: The Settlement of

Liberia by Black Americans. Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1987.

 

About the Author: Siahyonkron Nyanseor is a native of Liberia. He is a poet, a playwright, a journalist, a cultural and political activist and was ordained on May 19, 2012 as a Minister of the Gospel. Mr. Nyanseor is a founding member of the Union of Liberian Association in the Americas (ULAA), Inc. as well as the organization’s eleventh President and its historian. He is the current Acting Chair of ULAA Council of Eminent Persons (UCEP), Inc.; he is the publisher of the 1st Liberian Online Internet Newsmagazine - ThePerspective.org; Senior Advisor toTheVoiceofLiberia Online News website. He is a founding member and current Treasurer of the Liberian History, Education, and Development (LIHEDE), Inc., an organization dedicated in promoting indigenous Liberian history and the advancement of human and civil rights for Liberians. In addition, Mr. Nyanseor is the Organizing Coordinator of the Tarty Teh’s Memorial Foundation, which the ‘Friends of Tarty Teh’ is in discussion with the Teh Family to establish the Tarty Teh’s Pallipo Foundation. One of the foundation’s goals will be to publish Teh’s body of work. Mr. Nyanseor can be contacted at: [email protected].

 

 

May 22, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Questioning rationale behind Sirleaf’s Gandhi award, and many other awards

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh Ellen

 

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a former financier of a deadly civil war who got away without ever been indicted for war crimes, for her role in the 14-year civil war that ended before she was elected President of Liberia in 2005.

The president’s international friends prefer not to see her that way. To them, she is the quintessential “iron lady” whom they can do political and financial business with conveniently in these times of global uncertainty.

To Liberians, however, Sirleaf represents many failures; one of which is a monumental failure to be a change agent who really could make a positive difference in the lives of many in post-war Liberia.

In a country whose history is riddled with oppression, Sirleaf sympathizes with the disgraced and discredited status quo that also ruled the Liberian people with overt discrimination and prejudice.

With time, of course, came healing. In terms of putting the centuries-old prejudicial and discriminatory history behind them, the Liberian people moved forward and seemed to have healed and forgiven their Americo-Liberian oppressors until the vestiges of the civil war ripped their hearts off.

The reported participation of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the deadly civil war opened old wounds; and the arrogance of the president hasn’t help her case either as she continues to dance around the incendiary charges of financing the civil war, as if she’s innocent.

Liberians, however, are divided over whether Ellen Johnson Sirleaf should resign, be put on trial or barred from political office, as suggested by her own Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The latter was obviously rebuffed by a very cocky president who would rather have unlimited political powers and control than to actually embrace genuine peace, reconciliation and closure in a very troubled nation that truly needs competent, uncorrupt and genuine leadership to get those things accomplished.

As the war crimes charges drags on, Sirleaf, the globetrotting president continues to receive awards from her international friends for her trailblazing role as the continent’s first elected female president, who performed invincible miracles that changed the lives of the Liberian people and nation. Ha-ha!

I laughed sarcastically because nothing has changed in the lives of the Liberian people since Madam Sirleaf became President of Liberia.

Unemployment is over 80%, corruption is rampant; the education system and healthcare systems are in shambles; violent crimes are high, and hunger, poverty and disease are seen everywhere in the country. Not all: There is no accountability and transparancy in government, and the imperial president, Sirleaf, often manipulates decision-making, the judiciary and the electoral process.

However, the designation as the continent’s first ever elected female president and the countless awards Sirleaf has received from many across the globe, I guess, are far more important to her international friends than halting their recognition and looking seriously into charges that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf did indeed financed the Liberian civil war that killed over 250,000.00 innocent people, destroyed a country, and sent countless others into exile and homelessness.

Remember, these same people or groups would have cringed and taken the so-called moral high ground had their perceived ‘enemy’ other than Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was implicated in the mass killings of human beings, in their preferred country somewhere around the world.

So what’s the difference between the Liberian civil war that Ellen Johnson helped financed, and other civil wars others fought or are accused of financing for which they were eventually pursued and brought to justice?

Are these global actors saying that the red blood that spilled from the Liberian people for 14 years that rewarded Madam Sirleaf the presidency, not red enough to warrant the halting of all recognitions and awards until she is exonerated of all charges?

Interestingly, the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust doesn’t see it that way.

Like the Nobel Prize Committee that ignored charges of war crimes, poverty, nepotism, rampant corruption, record unemployment and the overwhelming suffering of the Liberian people under Ms. Sirleaf’s leadership, only to dwell on the notion of “women’s right to full participation in peace-building work,” the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust up the ante when that body blindly chose the polarizing and controversial Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for its 2012 Gandhi award. What a travesty!

According to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took over office as the President of Liberia in 2006 acquiring a legacy of distrust, disharmony and mismanagement. She had successfully restored financial health to her country which was on the verge of fiscal breakdown,” a statement from the award committee noted.

Sirleaf was also chosen for the award, according to The Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, “for being an example and inspiration to women in Africa and beyond and for ensuring the return of peace, democracy, development, security and order in Liberia.”

Whether the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust studied Liberian history or studied the rugged and bloodstained roads Sirleaf traveled to reach the Liberian presidency is unknown.

What is known is the fact that the group that prides itself of promoting international peace has not been peaceful at all; and lacks the judgment when it overlooked war crimes charges and chose a key player in the Liberian crisis for its award.

When groups such as the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, and the Nobel Committee injects itself into Liberian politics to influence and undermine the democratic aspirations of the Liberian people, unmasked its respective missions as out of touch and not caring for the welfare of poor people.

May 12, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

The "doctors, professors and counselors at law" in the Liberian society

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh tws

I always thought the two-letter word that preceded his name was actually his first name. But it wasn’t. As a child, however, I constantly heard the press and others referred to the Liberian president at the time as “Dr. Tubman.”

The dictatorial Mr. Tubman set the precedent and encouraged the Liberian people and those that came in constant contact with him to call him “Dr.”

Since his death in 1971, his predecessors preferred to also be called doctors, as in “Dr. Tolbert”, “Dr. Doe,” Dr. Taylor” and now some are referring to the current president as “Dr. Sirleaf,” as if that’s the only way Liberian presidents can be validated.
To her credit, though, Ms. Sirleaf has been reticent about the press calling her “Dr.” Sirleaf,” but has yet to put an end to the practice perhaps because it is to her taste.

This thing about being called ‘Dr.’ reached comical proportions during the Doe administration when it was reported that Mr. Doe’s wife, Nancy, who was used to hearing the press and others referred to her husband as “Dr Doe,” actually thought Mr. Doe was actually a medical doctor.

Because she did not know the difference between a medical doctor degree and the earned doctorate degree awarded to individuals from their respective colleges and universities, the story is told that she demanded her non-doctorate-non-physician husband to treat her when she got ill. “I want Sammy to treat me when I get sick” Mrs. Doe was reportedly heard saying at one time. According to Liberians, it was later explained to her that her husband was not actually a medical doctor, but something else far from being any of the above.

Liberians with PhDs are close to being fanatical about wanting people to refer to them constantly as “doctors” in non-academic settings; else, the individual will tell you to “please put a handle to my name.”

Another nuance I have often noticed is that when a Liberian with a PhD writes an article to be published in a non-academic journal, the individual requests that the PhD be attached to the end of their name as if the PhD is their given name.
The Liberian Dialogue’s editorial policy has always been to recognize the MD (medical doctor), the city or state, and include the PhD in the article when the topic is academic in nature and adds to the national debate.

I have yet to verify another joke told by Liberians about a particular guy who has two PhDs, and prefers to be called “Dr. Dr.,” else, he will quickly make the correction that his PhDs be added after his name before he even can allow a conversation to begin.

The Liberian press, known for its shameless pandering and incompetence continues to clog their reporting with wordiness when they are writing about government officials and ordinary citizens with PhDs.

A former member of the House of Representative, Ketterkumehn Earl Murray, who has a doctorate is referred to in the Liberian media as “Representative Dr. Murray.” Why not called the man Rep. Murray?

Then Supreme Court Chief Justice Johnnie N. Lewis was often referred to as ‘Chief Justice Cllr. Johnnie N. Lewis,’ former Minister of Justice, Frances Johnson Morris as ‘Minister of Justice Cllr. Frances Johnson Morris,’ and former Solicitor-General Tiawon Gongloe as ‘Solicitor General Cll. Tiawon Gongloe.”

Even university instructors with no trail of stellar professorship and professional peer-reviewed academic papers or books to their names are referred to as “professors” in the Liberian media.

Wilson Tarpeh and Alhaji Kromah, both of whom teach courses at the University of Liberia are often referred to as “Professor Tarpeh” and “Professor Kromah” respectively by the Liberian press.

Why not follow the standard set by leading countries and institutions in nations we looked up to to learn the proper way to refer to our politicians and others? Since we claimed to be so close to the U.S., why not study the best examples from them to do things the right way?

An example would be the way individuals and the press refers to publicymakers and non-policymakers in the U.S. with advance academic degrees. Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, a PhD and an intellectual powerhouse, firebrand and former college professor with many books to his credit, is an example.
There are individuals with PhDs in the American political and academic scenes that are often referred to only by their first name, last name or full names, yet are inspiring to others, and are contributing immensely to the American society in a positive way.

We often read about the contributions of Americans to the national debate and hear less about their PhDs, because actions and contributions to society speak louder than a mere PhD gathering dust on a wall somewhere.

Liberians with PhDs are known to hide behind their PhDs and let it gather dusts on the wall, and rely on government for jobs. I don’t have anything against the brothers and sisters with PhDs. Kudos to them for reaching that academic milestone.

I wish those Liberians with PhDs would be humble enough to let their good work shine before God, men and women by contributing to society, so that their contributions to society will inspire others to do the same. The flaunting of PhDs and other academic credentials will not rebuild Liberia or put food on the table for the suffering masses.

 

May 11, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

The “doctors, professors and counselors at law” in the Liberian society

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh tws

I always thought the two-letter word that preceded his name was actually his first name. But it wasn’t. As a child, however, I constantly heard the press and others referred to the Liberian president at the time as “Dr. Tubman.”

The dictatorial Mr. Tubman set the precedent and encouraged the Liberian people and those that came in constant contact with him to call him “Dr.”

Since his death in 1971, his predecessors preferred to also be called doctors, as in “Dr. Tolbert”, “Dr. Doe,” Dr. Taylor” and now some are referring to the current president as “Dr. Sirleaf,” as if that’s the only way Liberian presidents can be validated.
To her credit, though, Ms. Sirleaf has been reticent about the press calling her “Dr.” Sirleaf,” but has yet to put an end to the practice perhaps because it is to her taste.

This thing about being called ‘Dr.’ reached comical proportions during the Doe administration when it was reported that Mr. Doe’s wife, Nancy, who was used to hearing the press and others referred to her husband as “Dr Doe,” actually thought Mr. Doe was actually a medical doctor.

Because she did not know the difference between a medical doctor degree and the earned doctorate degree awarded to individuals from their respective colleges and universities, the story is told that she demanded her non-doctorate-non-physician husband to treat her when she got ill. “I want Sammy to treat me when I get sick” Mrs. Doe was reportedly heard saying at one time. According to Liberians, it was later explained to her that her husband was not actually a medical doctor, but something else far from being any of the above.

Liberians with PhDs are close to being fanatical about wanting people to refer to them constantly as “doctors” in non-academic settings; else, the individual will tell you to “please put a handle to my name.”

Another nuance I have often noticed is that when a Liberian with a PhD writes an article to be published in a non-academic journal, the individual requests that the PhD be attached to the end of their name as if the PhD is their given name.
The Liberian Dialogue’s editorial policy has always been to recognize the MD (medical doctor), the city or state, and include the PhD in the article when the topic is academic in nature and adds to the national debate.

I have yet to verify another joke told by Liberians about a particular guy who has two PhDs, and prefers to be called “Dr. Dr.,” else, he will quickly make the correction that his PhDs be added after his name before he even can allow a conversation to begin.

The Liberian press, known for its shameless pandering and incompetence continues to clog their reporting with wordiness when they are writing about government officials and ordinary citizens with PhDs.

A former member of the House of Representative, Ketterkumehn Earl Murray, who has a doctorate is referred to in the Liberian media as “Representative Dr. Murray.” Why not called the man Rep. Murray?

Then Supreme Court Chief Justice Johnnie N. Lewis was often referred to as ‘Chief Justice Cllr. Johnnie N. Lewis,’ former Minister of Justice, Frances Johnson Morris as ‘Minister of Justice Cllr. Frances Johnson Morris,’ and former Solicitor-General Tiawon Gongloe as ‘Solicitor General Cll. Tiawon Gongloe.”

Even university instructors with no trail of stellar professorship and professional peer-reviewed academic papers or books to their names are referred to as “professors” in the Liberian media.

Wilson Tarpeh and Alhaji Kromah, both of whom teach courses at the University of Liberia are often referred to as “Professor Tarpeh” and “Professor Kromah” respectively by the Liberian press.

Why not follow the standard set by leading countries and institutions in nations we looked up to to learn the proper way to refer to our politicians and others? Since we claimed to be so close to the U.S., why not study the best examples from them to do things the right way?

An example would be the way individuals and the press refers to publicymakers and non-policymakers in the U.S. with advance academic degrees. Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, a PhD and an intellectual powerhouse, firebrand and former college professor with many books to his credit, is an example.
There are individuals with PhDs in the American political and academic scenes that are often referred to only by their first name, last name or full names, yet are inspiring to others, and are contributing immensely to the American society in a positive way.

We often read about the contributions of Americans to the national debate and hear less about their PhDs, because actions and contributions to society speak louder than a mere PhD gathering dust on a wall somewhere.

Liberians with PhDs are known to hide behind their PhDs and let it gather dusts on the wall, and rely on government for jobs. I don’t have anything against the brothers and sisters with PhDs. Kudos to them for reaching that academic milestone.

I wish those Liberians with PhDs would be humble enough to let their good work shine before God, men and women by contributing to society, so that their contributions to society will inspire others to do the same. The flaunting of PhDs and other academic credentials will not rebuild Liberia or put food on the table for the suffering masses.

 

May 11, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Q&A with Environmental Activist/Engineer Morris T. Koffa, Executive Director, Africa Environmental Watch (AEW)

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh Morris__T__Koffa

 

Q&A with Environmental Activist/Engineer Morris T. Koffa, Executive Director, Africa Environmental Watch (AEW), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization established to respond to environmental distress in Liberia, and also to provide environmental expertise in Africa through educational awareness and behavioral change communication.

Q. You have been an environmental advocate for many years. Where did you get the passion to do what you do to raise awareness and educate the public about the environment at home and abroad?

A. Many thanks for this great opportunity to share my views about environmental conditions in Liberia. My passion for environmental advocacy is deeply rooted in my orientation as a professional Environmental Engineer. But more so, the desire to be an advocate grew in scope when I served as Chairman for the Committee on the Environment and International Affairs in the Union of Liberian Association in the Americas (ULAA) under the administrations of Hon. Samuel M. Kromah and Hon. Roberta Rashid.

In that capacity, I headed a cleanup campaign to Liberia dubbed “Operation Clean Sweep” in 2003, to give the City of Monrovia a facelift prior to the arrival of dignitaries/delegations attending the inaugural ceremony of the National Interim Transitional Government of Liberia (NITGL), after ULAA successfully represented the Diaspora Liberian Community during the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) in Accra, Ghana.

Having been out of Liberia for 14 years at the time, I was indeed touched by the level of filth in the city and the unbearable odorous atmosphere. We provided the resources and work in collaboration with the administration of the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC). We cleaned major streets in Monrovia for 3 days and collected several tons of garbage. After the cleanup initiatives, the people of Liberia wanted more of it. Hence, the birth of Liberia Environmental Watch (LEW), now Africa Environmental Watch (AEW).

Since its inception, AEW has and continues to make tremendous progress in championing environmental awareness and institutional capacity building for a sustainable path. We work in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA-L) and other international and domestic NGOs, and government entities to promote a healthy environment for Liberians.

Q. The ubiquitous presence of garbage in the City of Monrovia gives an impression of a lack of a sound garbage-disposal/environmental policy in the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration. What is your take on that?

A. The lack of adequate garbage collections schemes and proper depository mechanisms have always been a challenge to municipal governments, and by extension the national government in Liberia for a number of reasons. Antiquated environmental policies or laws that have been improved since the inception of the Agency in 2003; lack of system thinking, a well-crafted sustainable roadmap to deal with the reality of issues; lack of robust educational awareness and enforceable mechanisms, and the lack of adequate resource allocation.

To the government’s credit, it has made functional the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA-L) since 2006, with a constituted leadership body. But the agency has not been fully supported internally and externally to meet its national quota of adequately protecting the environment of Liberia from a holistic perspective. Notwithstanding, the agency is thriving at a slow pace under extreme difficulties, coupled with a challenged workforce with limited resources, and other bureaucratic hurdles are so inherent.

Q. Are there any landfills in all of Liberia to dispose garbage?

Yes, there is finally one sanitary landfill that was commissioned recently, which is located in Wein-Town, Mount Barclay, according to the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA-L). This is a sign of progress by the agency and the government, and hope more sanitary landfills can be built in strategic areas as per demography. Though I do not know the holding capacity of the current sanitary landfill and the design criteria per population, but certainly one sanitary landfill cannot accommodate a population of more than 1 million residents including businesses and other fast-generating factors per person or entity.

Equally important in this case is the collection of the garbage in the communities. The current system in Liberia cannot handle the volume of garbage generated per day in Monrovia. Monrovia alone can generate about 4 to 8 tons of garbage/solid wastes per day including businesses and others. If such amount of garbage/solid waste is not collected from the communities in a reasonable time frame, say between 3 to 6 days depending on the weather, it can start to depose and vector-borne diseases can begin to generate and thereby becomes a public health issue.

Q. Are there any independent engineering assessments and evaluation of possible sites you are aware of that could be used to build landfills in Liberia?

A. I am not aware of any independent engineering assessments and evaluation of possible sites to build landfills in Liberia. However, I am aware that the Ministry of Land, Mines and Energy, and the Ministry of Public Works either separately or jointly conducted need assessments of the Wein-Town, Mount Barclay and Tweh-Town areas across the bridge, Bushrod Island. It could very well be the case, but I don’t have that information since the EPA-L in most instances don’t know what some of the ministries and agencies are doing as it relates to the environment.

Q. It is common practice for homebuilders to dig the beach for sand from the ocean (sand mining), which is mixed with cement to construct homes in Liberia? Is this practice environmentally-friendly? Is it attributing to the erosion problem affecting coasting Liberia? What do you think?

A. Digging on or around the beach area is environmentally destructive. Recently, government has clamped on perpetrators. As a result, it has slowed down the illegal sand mining considerably. Even the areas demarcated as legal for sand mining still remains a threat. But the issue is a delicate one in that the government cannot entirely abandon sand mining because of its critical nature to development and the economy. Creating a sense of balance in such a situation is indeed relevant. Development must go on for jobs creation and economic growth that will enhance social integrity.

Q. Currently, there are no toilet facilities for residents living near the Atlantic Ocean in coastal cities in Liberia. The lack of toilet facilities often force these residents to dispose human feces from their homes into the sea. These residents are also known to go to beach to use the toilet. Are you aware of any proactive government policy in place in the current Liberian government to remedy the problem? What’s the position of Africa Environmental Watch?

No, I am not aware of any plan the government has in place to address such concerns. This is not to say it is not happening in some quarters of the nation. Some NGOs are making some efforts to build latrines in some communities but the problem has always been about maintenance. If these latrines are not properly maintained, they become a major sanitary problem to the community. Most times, these latrines are built with not maintenance package, therefore, they are short-lived and later become an environmental threat to the communities.

The same can be said about water pumps that are installed in most communities. They are built with good intentions but the lack of maintenance later can become an environmental nuance to the community. There are hundreds of such cases all over the country. Again, this goes back to the issue of sound and enforceable policy that ensures that the right things are done to protect the well-being of the communities. Africa Environmental Watch continues to encourage the EPA-L and other appropriate entities to address these concerns for the public interest.

Q. There is an electric turbine in the yard of the Liberian Electricity Corporation on Bushrod Island, Pt. 4 that blows black smore in the air throughout the day and year. There is a strong possibility that the dirty black smoke could cause lung, eyes, heart and other medical problems for residents living neear the electric plant. What’s AEW’s take on this hazardous environmental problem?

A. The LEC Bushrod Island plant is not functional as of now and does not emit that “dark smoke” in the air at least for now. However, what has happened in the past is that the oil residue that is considered highly toxic and dangerous to human health, has spilled into the community of Colonel West and the Coast Guard Base, into wells where residents get their drinking water, and into the Atlantic Ocean, threatening the marine population.

AEW brought the incident to the attention of the government through the EPA and the media community in Liberia, but unfortunately, there has not been any decontamination effort to clean the affected communities, and also render medical services to those obviously impacted. When it rains the situation becomes highly unbearable for the kids, the elderly and pregnant women, many of whom are teenagers and other vulnerable residents with preexisting conditions. AEW understands money allegedly changed hands to cleanup the environmental disaster, but the situation still remains.

Q. What is AEW’s relationship with the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency? Have you gotten any support in terms of coorperation from the current agency head?

Yes, AEW does have a strong relationship with the EPA of Lberia. AEW is working on behalf of EPA of Liberia to promote it image abroad on a pro bono basis to build its external and internal capacity through partnership with US-based institutions. In September of 2011, AEW spearheaded a major international environmental conference here in Washington, DC that brought together major partners such as the USEPA, USAID, National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), Global Environmental Facility (GEF), Conservation International (CI), University of the District of Columbia (UDC), UNEP and many more.

The focus of the conference was for the technical capacity building of the EPA of Liberia. As a result of the conference, MOUs were signed between the UDC and the EPA-L, William V.S. Tubman University (TU) and Stella Maris Polytechnic (SMP), to work in areas of mutual interest. There were other commitments made to the EPA-L that are now beginning to bear fruits for the agency and the academic institutions aforementioned. As a follow-up to the conference, a delegation of technical experts from UDC headed by AEW traveled to Liberia in May of 2012 to conduct a need assessment for the EPA, TU and SMP. During the assessment trip, a curriculum package was presented for TU and SMP to offer environmental degree programs. It was accepted and is currently being taught at SMP and TU September, 2013.

In September, 2013, AEW again will head another team to Liberia for the second international environmental conference for the capacity building of the EPA of Liberia. While in Liberia, the team will engage in teaching at the two named universities in the field of environmental and related areas to include customized certificates program; as AEW’s way of institutional capacity building.

Q. Since Liberian Presidents,including Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are known to control and influence policies, do you think your environmental advocacy efforts has been successful in Liberia? Any cooperation from President Sirleaf?

A. I will proudly say ‘yes’ AEW’s advocacy effort that started in 2004 is gaining ground in promoting environmental awareness in Liberia. However, we must recognize that when one compares the current environmental conditions to 10 or 20 years ago or previous administrations, there has been noticeable progress made by the current government due to the strong advocacy campaigns by many organizations, including Africa Environmental Watch.

AEW strongly believes that no government succeeds economically and socially if environmental conditions threaten public health and human resources. Unfortunately, we have not received direct support from the president in spite of the visible positive impacts AEW has made and continues to make in Liberia. In spite of that, AEW commitment still remains strong and focused.

Q. Over the years, the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency lost two administrators, back to back. How has the tragic departure of the gentlemen affected the agency’s ability to focus and do the job for which it was created?

The death of the two executive directors of the EPA within one year was a shocked to which AEW had expressed sadness and recommended a government investigation be conducted. The rationale behind such investigation was to bring the case to a closure and internally allayed the emotional fear among employees and reassurance of the confidence levels among employees and other partners of the EPA as a path for moving forward. AEW position for an investigation was in no way accusatory of anyone involved in the deaths, but an effort to put to rest any misconceptions surround the deaths. After the death of the two officials, the level of distrust among employees intensified especially when everyone is surmising what went wrong. An investigation would have brought mush to rest in a short period of time. Things are getting along now.

Q. There are news reports that the nation’s land and natural resources in the rural areas are being auctioned to multinational companies. Can you tell our readers what you know, and what is AEW doing to help the Liberian people?

A. I have no information to substantiate such claims regarding the auction of land to multinational companies. What I have learned of however, are disputes with Sime Darby and the citizens of Cape Mount County and Golden Veroleum of Liberia (GVL) and the citizens of Sinoe County. Those disputes are being worked out through the intervention of the government of Liberia.

Q. AEW, over the years has held environmental conferences in the US and in Liberia, highlighting some of the environmental and pollution crisis the country is facing. What are your plans for the future?

A. AEW’s long range plans focus on taking environmental awareness to the level of institutional capacity building and community empowerment. AEW intends to use the academic community as a meaningful conduit to create the knowledge and professional skills needed for the workforce, research and a robust community involvement. As I’ve said earlier, AEW has introduced curricula degree programs at two major universities in Liberia where environmental degree programs are being taught. This is a good start that AEW hopes to sustain. This September, AEW will be traveling to Liberia for its second national environmental conference.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you also.

Mailing: Africa Environmental Watch

4207 Plummers Promise Dr, Suite 100

Bowie, Maryland 20720

240-417-2545

africaenvironmentalwatch.org

[email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 7, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Q&A with Environmental Activist/Engineer Morris T. Koffa, Executive Director, Africa Environmental Watch (AEW)

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh Morris__T__Koffa

 

Q&A with Environmental Activist/Engineer Morris T. Koffa, Executive Director, Africa Environmental Watch (AEW), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization established to respond to environmental distress in Liberia, and also to provide environmental expertise in Africa through educational awareness and behavioral change communication.

Q. You have been an environmental advocate for many years. Where did you get the passion to do what you do to raise awareness and educate the public about the environment at home and abroad?

A. Many thanks for this great opportunity to share my views about environmental conditions in Liberia. My passion for environmental advocacy is deeply rooted in my orientation as a professional Environmental Engineer. But more so, the desire to be an advocate grew in scope when I served as Chairman for the Committee on the Environment and International Affairs in the Union of Liberian Association in the Americas (ULAA) under the administrations of Hon. Samuel M. Kromah and Hon. Roberta Rashid.

In that capacity, I headed a cleanup campaign to Liberia dubbed “Operation Clean Sweep” in 2003, to give the City of Monrovia a facelift prior to the arrival of dignitaries/delegations attending the inaugural ceremony of the National Interim Transitional Government of Liberia (NITGL), after ULAA successfully represented the Diaspora Liberian Community during the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) in Accra, Ghana.

Having been out of Liberia for 14 years at the time, I was indeed touched by the level of filth in the city and the unbearable odorous atmosphere. We provided the resources and work in collaboration with the administration of the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC). We cleaned major streets in Monrovia for 3 days and collected several tons of garbage. After the cleanup initiatives, the people of Liberia wanted more of it. Hence, the birth of Liberia Environmental Watch (LEW), now Africa Environmental Watch (AEW).

Since its inception, AEW has and continues to make tremendous progress in championing environmental awareness and institutional capacity building for a sustainable path. We work in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA-L) and other international and domestic NGOs, and government entities to promote a healthy environment for Liberians.

Q. The ubiquitous presence of garbage in the City of Monrovia gives an impression of a lack of a sound garbage-disposal/environmental policy in the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration. What is your take on that?

A. The lack of adequate garbage collections schemes and proper depository mechanisms have always been a challenge to municipal governments, and by extension the national government in Liberia for a number of reasons. Antiquated environmental policies or laws that have been improved since the inception of the Agency in 2003; lack of system thinking, a well-crafted sustainable roadmap to deal with the reality of issues; lack of robust educational awareness and enforceable mechanisms, and the lack of adequate resource allocation.

To the government’s credit, it has made functional the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA-L) since 2006, with a constituted leadership body. But the agency has not been fully supported internally and externally to meet its national quota of adequately protecting the environment of Liberia from a holistic perspective. Notwithstanding, the agency is thriving at a slow pace under extreme difficulties, coupled with a challenged workforce with limited resources, and other bureaucratic hurdles are so inherent.

Q. Are there any landfills in all of Liberia to dispose garbage?

Yes, there is finally one sanitary landfill that was commissioned recently, which is located in Wein-Town, Mount Barclay, according to the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA-L). This is a sign of progress by the agency and the government, and hope more sanitary landfills can be built in strategic areas as per demography. Though I do not know the holding capacity of the current sanitary landfill and the design criteria per population, but certainly one sanitary landfill cannot accommodate a population of more than 1 million residents including businesses and other fast-generating factors per person or entity.

Equally important in this case is the collection of the garbage in the communities. The current system in Liberia cannot handle the volume of garbage generated per day in Monrovia. Monrovia alone can generate about 4 to 8 tons of garbage/solid wastes per day including businesses and others. If such amount of garbage/solid waste is not collected from the communities in a reasonable time frame, say between 3 to 6 days depending on the weather, it can start to depose and vector-borne diseases can begin to generate and thereby becomes a public health issue.

Q. Are there any independent engineering assessments and evaluation of possible sites you are aware of that could be used to build landfills in Liberia?

A. I am not aware of any independent engineering assessments and evaluation of possible sites to build landfills in Liberia. However, I am aware that the Ministry of Land, Mines and Energy, and the Ministry of Public Works either separately or jointly conducted need assessments of the Wein-Town, Mount Barclay and Tweh-Town areas across the bridge, Bushrod Island. It could very well be the case, but I don’t have that information since the EPA-L in most instances don’t know what some of the ministries and agencies are doing as it relates to the environment.

Q. It is common practice for homebuilders to dig the beach for sand from the ocean (sand mining), which is mixed with cement to construct homes in Liberia? Is this practice environmentally-friendly? Is it attributing to the erosion problem affecting coasting Liberia? What do you think?

A. Digging on or around the beach area is environmentally destructive. Recently, government has clamped on perpetrators. As a result, it has slowed down the illegal sand mining considerably. Even the areas demarcated as legal for sand mining still remains a threat. But the issue is a delicate one in that the government cannot entirely abandon sand mining because of its critical nature to development and the economy. Creating a sense of balance in such a situation is indeed relevant. Development must go on for jobs creation and economic growth that will enhance social integrity.

Q. Currently, there are no toilet facilities for residents living near the Atlantic Ocean in coastal cities in Liberia. The lack of toilet facilities often force these residents to dispose human feces from their homes into the sea. These residents are also known to go to beach to use the toilet. Are you aware of any proactive government policy in place in the current Liberian government to remedy the problem? What’s the position of Africa Environmental Watch?

No, I am not aware of any plan the government has in place to address such concerns. This is not to say it is not happening in some quarters of the nation. Some NGOs are making some efforts to build latrines in some communities but the problem has always been about maintenance. If these latrines are not properly maintained, they become a major sanitary problem to the community. Most times, these latrines are built with not maintenance package, therefore, they are short-lived and later become an environmental threat to the communities.

The same can be said about water pumps that are installed in most communities. They are built with good intentions but the lack of maintenance later can become an environmental nuance to the community. There are hundreds of such cases all over the country. Again, this goes back to the issue of sound and enforceable policy that ensures that the right things are done to protect the well-being of the communities. Africa Environmental Watch continues to encourage the EPA-L and other appropriate entities to address these concerns for the public interest.

Q. There is an electric turbine in the yard of the Liberian Electricity Corporation on Bushrod Island, Pt. 4 that blows black smore in the air throughout the day and year. There is a strong possibility that the dirty black smoke could cause lung, eyes, heart and other medical problems for residents living neear the electric plant. What’s AEW’s take on this hazardous environmental problem?

A. The LEC Bushrod Island plant is not functional as of now and does not emit that “dark smoke” in the air at least for now. However, what has happened in the past is that the oil residue that is considered highly toxic and dangerous to human health, has spilled into the community of Colonel West and the Coast Guard Base, into wells where residents get their drinking water, and into the Atlantic Ocean, threatening the marine population.

AEW brought the incident to the attention of the government through the EPA and the media community in Liberia, but unfortunately, there has not been any decontamination effort to clean the affected communities, and also render medical services to those obviously impacted. When it rains the situation becomes highly unbearable for the kids, the elderly and pregnant women, many of whom are teenagers and other vulnerable residents with preexisting conditions. AEW understands money allegedly changed hands to cleanup the environmental disaster, but the situation still remains.

Q. What is AEW’s relationship with the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency? Have you gotten any support in terms of coorperation from the current agency head?

Yes, AEW does have a strong relationship with the EPA of Lberia. AEW is working on behalf of EPA of Liberia to promote it image abroad on a pro bono basis to build its external and internal capacity through partnership with US-based institutions. In September of 2011, AEW spearheaded a major international environmental conference here in Washington, DC that brought together major partners such as the USEPA, USAID, National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), Global Environmental Facility (GEF), Conservation International (CI), University of the District of Columbia (UDC), UNEP and many more.

The focus of the conference was for the technical capacity building of the EPA of Liberia. As a result of the conference, MOUs were signed between the UDC and the EPA-L, William V.S. Tubman University (TU) and Stella Maris Polytechnic (SMP), to work in areas of mutual interest. There were other commitments made to the EPA-L that are now beginning to bear fruits for the agency and the academic institutions aforementioned. As a follow-up to the conference, a delegation of technical experts from UDC headed by AEW traveled to Liberia in May of 2012 to conduct a need assessment for the EPA, TU and SMP. During the assessment trip, a curriculum package was presented for TU and SMP to offer environmental degree programs. It was accepted and is currently being taught at SMP and TU September, 2013.

In September, 2013, AEW again will head another team to Liberia for the second international environmental conference for the capacity building of the EPA of Liberia. While in Liberia, the team will engage in teaching at the two named universities in the field of environmental and related areas to include customized certificates program; as AEW’s way of institutional capacity building.

Q. Since Liberian Presidents,including Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are known to control and influence policies, do you think your environmental advocacy efforts has been successful in Liberia? Any cooperation from President Sirleaf?

A. I will proudly say ‘yes’ AEW’s advocacy effort that started in 2004 is gaining ground in promoting environmental awareness in Liberia. However, we must recognize that when one compares the current environmental conditions to 10 or 20 years ago or previous administrations, there has been noticeable progress made by the current government due to the strong advocacy campaigns by many organizations, including Africa Environmental Watch.

AEW strongly believes that no government succeeds economically and socially if environmental conditions threaten public health and human resources. Unfortunately, we have not received direct support from the president in spite of the visible positive impacts AEW has made and continues to make in Liberia. In spite of that, AEW commitment still remains strong and focused.

Q. Over the years, the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency lost two administrators, back to back. How has the tragic departure of the gentlemen affected the agency’s ability to focus and do the job for which it was created?

The death of the two executive directors of the EPA within one year was a shocked to which AEW had expressed sadness and recommended a government investigation be conducted. The rationale behind such investigation was to bring the case to a closure and internally allayed the emotional fear among employees and reassurance of the confidence levels among employees and other partners of the EPA as a path for moving forward. AEW position for an investigation was in no way accusatory of anyone involved in the deaths, but an effort to put to rest any misconceptions surround the deaths. After the death of the two officials, the level of distrust among employees intensified especially when everyone is surmising what went wrong. An investigation would have brought mush to rest in a short period of time. Things are getting along now.

Q. There are news reports that the nation’s land and natural resources in the rural areas are being auctioned to multinational companies. Can you tell our readers what you know, and what is AEW doing to help the Liberian people?

A. I have no information to substantiate such claims regarding the auction of land to multinational companies. What I have learned of however, are disputes with Sime Darby and the citizens of Cape Mount County and Golden Veroleum of Liberia (GVL) and the citizens of Sinoe County. Those disputes are being worked out through the intervention of the government of Liberia.

Q. AEW, over the years has held environmental conferences in the US and in Liberia, highlighting some of the environmental and pollution crisis the country is facing. What are your plans for the future?

A. AEW’s long range plans focus on taking environmental awareness to the level of institutional capacity building and community empowerment. AEW intends to use the academic community as a meaningful conduit to create the knowledge and professional skills needed for the workforce, research and a robust community involvement. As I’ve said earlier, AEW has introduced curricula degree programs at two major universities in Liberia where environmental degree programs are being taught. This is a good start that AEW hopes to sustain. This September, AEW will be traveling to Liberia for its second national environmental conference.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you also.

Mailing: Africa Environmental Watch

4207 Plummers Promise Dr, Suite 100

Bowie, Maryland 20720

240-417-2545

africaenvironmentalwatch.org

[email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 7, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Q & A with restaurateur Wilhelmina "Mina" Bestman, owner, Mina's West African & Caribbean Cuisine, (5439 Memorial Dr), Stone Mountain, Georgia

all pics 030By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

 

This week interview features restaurateur Wilhelmina “Mina” Bestman, owner of Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine, who single handedly turned the once struggling Mina’s Place/Mina’s Kitchen into a thriving and all-inclusive place to dine with families and friends. So far, Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine is believed to be the longest-serving and running Liberian-owned restaurant in metro Atlanta catering to West Africans and Caribbean diners.

Q. How and why did you get into the restaurant business?

A. After I moved down here from Philadelphia in 1996, few friends and I started throwing business ideas around about the need to have a restaurant in our community, after we noticed a void in that sector.

Q. Any experience owning and operating a restaurant, and is this something you always wanted to do?

A. No. Actually, I am a hairdresser by profession. I even ventured at one time in my life into the home healthcare business.

Q. You’ve been in business for 17 years. Are you having any fun running Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine?

A. Yes, I am having fun. Like any business, there are ups and downsides. Getting people to work consistently is a downside. Another downside is low turnover, which makes it difficult to get loan from the bank. I enjoy what I am doing, is an upside. Another upside is keeping my customers smiling and happy. As a result, I have repeat customers whom I am very grateful to have at this moment.

Q. Who are your customers?

A. My customers are mostly West Africans and people from the Caribbean. My customers are also African Americans, and of course, my own Liberian people. Since we like to cook our food daily and fresh, we often ask our customers to call us first then pick up their orders later, to keep their food warm and ready to eat. If our customers prefer coming in to sit with us and eat their meals, we are more than happy to to serve them.

Q. Any secret to your success and longevity?

A. I love what I am doing, and I also take my customers seriously. I gave 100% to everybody walking through the doors to my restaurant. Also, I am God-fearing, and I love my kids.

Q. What are your opening and closing hours?

A. We are open at 11:30 a.m., daily. Closed on Sundays.

Mon – Thu (11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.)

Fri-Sat (11:30 a.m. – 11:00 p.m) Sun (CLOSED).

Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine

5439 Memorial Dr.

Stone Mountain, Georgia 30083

Phone #: 508- 9691 (Phone in to pick-up).

Email: [email protected]

“We’re Open 6 Days a Week!”

“We also do event rental and catering.”

Thank you for your time.

Thank you also for interviewing me.

 

 

May 5, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Q & A with restaurateur Wilhelmina “Mina” Bestman, owner, Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine, (5439 Memorial Dr), Stone Mountain, Georgia

all pics 030By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

 

This week interview features restaurateur Wilhelmina “Mina” Bestman, owner of Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine, who single handedly turned the once struggling Mina’s Place/Mina’s Kitchen into a thriving and all-inclusive place to dine with families and friends. So far, Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine is believed to be the longest-serving and running Liberian-owned restaurant in metro Atlanta catering to West Africans and Caribbean diners.

Q. How and why did you get into the restaurant business?

A. After I moved down here from Philadelphia in 1996, few friends and I started throwing business ideas around about the need to have a restaurant in our community, after we noticed a void in that sector.

Q. Any experience owning and operating a restaurant, and is this something you always wanted to do?

A. No. Actually, I am a hairdresser by profession. I even ventured at one time in my life into the home healthcare business.

Q. You’ve been in business for 17 years. Are you having any fun running Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine?

A. Yes, I am having fun. Like any business, there are ups and downsides. Getting people to work consistently is a downside. Another downside is low turnover, which makes it difficult to get loan from the bank. I enjoy what I am doing, is an upside. Another upside is keeping my customers smiling and happy. As a result, I have repeat customers whom I am very grateful to have at this moment.

Q. Who are your customers?

A. My customers are mostly West Africans and people from the Caribbean. My customers are also African Americans, and of course, my own Liberian people. Since we like to cook our food daily and fresh, we often ask our customers to call us first then pick up their orders later, to keep their food warm and ready to eat. If our customers prefer coming in to sit with us and eat their meals, we are more than happy to to serve them.

Q. Any secret to your success and longevity?

A. I love what I am doing, and I also take my customers seriously. I gave 100% to everybody walking through the doors to my restaurant. Also, I am God-fearing, and I love my kids.

Q. What are your opening and closing hours?

A. We are open at 11:30 a.m., daily. Closed on Sundays.

Mon – Thu (11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.)

Fri-Sat (11:30 a.m. – 11:00 p.m) Sun (CLOSED).

Mina’s West African & Caribbean Cuisine

5439 Memorial Dr.

Stone Mountain, Georgia 30083

Phone #: 508- 9691 (Phone in to pick-up).

Email: [email protected]

“We’re Open 6 Days a Week!”

“We also do event rental and catering.”

Thank you for your time.

Thank you also for interviewing me.

 

 

May 5, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post

Why Charles Taylor’s war crimes judgment seems like A travesty of justice to Liberians

By Moco McCaulay Charles Taylor in court

 

On April 26, 2012, the former leader of a small African nation and a feared ex-rebel leader who spread terror in his country and across West Africa—but seemed above-the-law—was finally cut to size by the swashbuckling sword of Lady Justice. It was a day that international news media heralded as: “the end of impunity!”

A fairytale-like ending you could say, especially for the people of Sierra Leone, to the atrocious story of death and destruction that had plagued West Africa during the 1990s. And the concluding narrative of the verdict that was told to the world paralleled a Mosaic redemption: a people, long subjugated to the appalling brutalities of war, had finally found respite at the Oasis of Justice after a brutal trek through the Wilderness of Injustice.

Who could therefore be sacrilegious enough as to want to sour such a narrative?

Well, one man is trying to ruin that happy ending. And, if you were Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, who was found guilty on that day for “aiding and abetting”the commission of war crimes in Sierra Leone, and later sentenced to 50 years in prison, you too would probably be doing everything within your power to ruin the fairytale-like ending of this narrative.

So Taylor and his team of lawyers, headed by Morris Anyah, have appealed the verdict, calling it “a miscarriage of justice.” The appeal judges are now deliberating the case and are expected to make a decision whether to uphold the verdict or overturn it at some point before the year’s end.

A Grave Danger to the Credibility of International Justice?

But, it seems it is not only Taylor and his lawyers who have tried to play the Grinch to this rousing narrative of how the righteous Wrath of Lady Justice finally struck down a murderous warlord for “aiding and abetting” crimes against humanity. Even on that day that supposedly marked “the end of impunity,” Malick Sow, an alternate judge who sat on the bench during the full length of Taylor’s trial, cast aspersions on the legal foundations on which Taylor was found guilty.

“I disagree with the findings and conclusions of the other judges, because for me, under any mode of liability, under any accepted standard of proof, the guilt of the accused from the evidence provided in this trial is not proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution. And my only worry is that the whole system is not consistent with all the principles we know and love, and the system is not consistent with all the values of international criminal justice, and I’m afraid the whole system is under grave danger of just losing all credibility…” Judge Sow interjected right after the presiding judge delivered the court’s verdict.

But, before Judge Sow could finish delivering his dissenting opinion, his microphone was brusquely switched off and the Venetian blinds of the public gallery was immediately pulled, leaving Judge Sow literally in the dark, while the other judges scurried off the bench.

But those were hardly Judge Sow’s last word on the issue. In a no holds barred interview with New African magazine’s reporter, Sheriff Bojang, Jr., the Senegalese judge didn’t mince his objection to the court’s decision to find Taylor guilty for “aiding and abetting” war crimes.

Accusing the other judges of “hiding to meet” during the “most important part of the deliberations, which was the criminal responsibility of the accused,” Judge Sow averred that from the evidence gathered in the trial, excluding the part on Liberia, “you don’t have much left” to convict Taylor.

“The only question was just one – how to prove the link between Charles Taylor and the crimes committed in Sierra Leone, and not why I entered my Dissenting Opinion. It’s because I couldn’t be indulgent in the face of the countless contradictions, lies, deceptions and manipulations in this trial, and conclude that the accused was guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crimes he was charged with. You cannot conclude that there was no doubt in your mind when you see all this money spent on witnesses, and part of the money you didn’t know the origin of. I didn’t know where it came from,” Judge Whatmust also be noted is that, not only was much of the prosecution’s charges against Taylor struck down by the judges, including the crux of their case that Taylor was involved in a “joint criminal enterprise” with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which committed gross human right violations during Sierra Leone’s civil war, but according to some legal experts, it appears that the charge for which Taylor was convicted:“aiding and abetting” the commission for international justice.

“The conclusion of the Trial Chamber in Charles Taylor seems based on uncontroversial principles. He or she who provides significant assistance to a participant in a conflict knowing that the participant is perpetrating atrocities against civilians is guilty of aiding and abetting such crimes. This is straightforward. And it leads to an interesting direction,” says William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, in a posting on his blog titled: “Charles Taylor Judgment Suggest a More Modest Level of Participation in the Sierra Leone Conflict.”

Prof. Schabas, who was also a member of Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, adds:

“Moving beyond Sierra Leone, can we not blame the French government for aiding and abetting genocide, given its support for the racist Rwandan regime in 1993 and 1994? The crimes of the regime were well-publicised, not only by an NGO commission of inquiry but also by Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations. And yet the French continued to provide assistance, in personnel, arms and ammunition, to the Habyarimana regime.”

The question then is: why hasn’t some high ranking French official(s) been brought to trial for “aiding and abetting” the genocide that took place in Rwanda? And for good measure, there have been reports of crimes of war by the Syrian rebels in their fight against the Assad regime, so does that mean held liable for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes in Syria because of the US military support for the rebels?

To that question, some might rightly retort: “Hell will freeze over before that happens!”

A Travesty of Justice for Liberians

But, be that as it may, one thing must be made crystal clear: this is certainly NO attempt to “defend” Charles Taylor as it were, a man who is responsible for great sufferings and death of thousands of people in Liberia, and for that matter, Sierra Leone.

What most Liberians struggle with though is that, notwithstanding all the death and destruction Taylor wrought upon their nation warlord-extraordinaire of the Liberian civil conflict, which resulted in over 250,000 deaths, why is there such an apparent attempt to twist the arms of Lady Justice to convict Taylor for war crimes committed in Sierra Leone when the preponderance of evidence of Taylor’s culpability for war crimes points to Liberia?

That for quite a number of Liberians—and notwithstanding the world’s leading media concoction of this fairytale-like narrative of Taylor’s verdict as being “the end of impunity”—makes the whole affair, more than a year later, seem like such a travesty of justice!

And this is magnified all the more when the country’s former warlords, who along with Taylor were found liable by Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to bear the greatest responsibility for “gross human rights violations and war crimes” during the country’s 14-year atrocious civil war their crimes, and in effect, thumb their noses at the system of international justice.

A case in point, FrontpageAfrica, one of the country’s leading dailies, recently quoted Prince Johnson, a former Liberian warlord notorious for using his silver pistol to publicly execute people for all manner of whimsical reasons during the height of the Liberian civil carnage, blatantly saying that he has “no remorse” and castigating Jerome Verdier, a human rights lawyer and the former head of the country’s TRC.

“Jerome Verdier needs to go to a mental home. When he wrote that bogus report that was filled with nothing but incrimination without evidence—that report was thrown into the garbage bin. I knew from the onset that report would never go anywhere because you don’t incriminate prominent people in this country without evidence,” Johnson, the former leader of the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, reportedly said.

The TRC report, which was released in 2009, recommended that Taylor, Johnson, George Boley, Alhaji Kromah, Thomas Yaya Nimley and Sekou Damate Conneh, all former heads of rebel armies, among others, be tried for war crimes. The commission arrived at its decision based on, among other things, the statements of over 20,000 statement givers.

The Commission’s report though, as Johnson so brutally puts it, has literally been “thrown into the garbage bin.” And most observers believe this is so because, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is the country’s president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was also recommended, along with other prominent Liberians, for debarment from public office for 30 years for her financial support for Taylor during the early stages of the country’s civil war.

So while justice hangs in limbo, Liberians continue to be subjugated to such invectives by Johnson, now a Senator in the Liberian Legislature, and his elk.

That notwithstanding, if there wasn’t such an underlying tragedy to the whole affair, Johnson’s tirade about “you don’t incriminate prominent people in this country without evidence,” would surely be cast into the garbage bin of laughable.

Who was more prominent then Samuel K. Doe, the former president of Liberia who Johnson captured and tortured to death, recording much of the sadistic spectacle on video? And what evidence did he have against President Doe, might we ask? At least for Johnson, the TRC has gathered a trove of evidence against him which has been cast into the “garbage bin,” a fact that must certainly be sweet music to his ears.

But, if Taylor’s verdict is to be seen by Liberians as simply a case of the righteous tide of justice running its course as some would into those 20,000 statements to try Taylor, along with Johnson and the others for their crimes in Liberia? And in Taylor’s war crimes trial in particular, this might after all present a tighter legal case, rather than as it seems, subjecting the whole system of international justice to a spectacle of double-standard justice, and as Judge Sow warned, putting the whole system in “grave danger of just losing all credibility”?

Otherwise, it remains exceedingly hard for Liberians to buy into the fairytale-like narrative of “the end of impunity” because, as far as they are concerned, it is just that: a fairytale.

Moco McCaulay is a freelance writer.

 

May 4, 2013 | 0 comments | View Post