What do you think? Should we intervene? What is the motivation for the U.S. to get involved? Why the delay in action?

We cannot oppose the "war" in Iraq, and then support "intervention" or worse, "humanitarian intervention" in Liberia. It's truly awful in Liberia, but the U.S. is not a force that acts on behalf of democratic "nation-building". It looks out for its own interest, but the average working person in the U.S. will not benefit anymore from our troops being in Liberia than in Iraq. We cannot condone any military advance of the American Empire if we are dedicated to stopping U.S.enforced hegemony. South Los Angeles is already at war. Benton Harbor is at war. 2 million people in prison in the Land of the Free! That is what deserves our attention right now. Let's free those on death row, in our ghettos, being beaten by police. Let's at least let black people in Florida vote, for God's sake. We will not let the Bush-led "peacekeeping mission" abroad distract us further, not to mention fuck up Liberia even more.

xix century:

us creates a liberian state run by freed,upper-echelon slaves who become liberia's ruling elite at the expense of the locals - both charles taylor and his adversaries belong to this elite

1925:

firestone buys a giant swath of liberia to produce its own rubber - fuck the locals!!!

these days:

noone in the ruling western elites in the world has an interest in stopping the liberian civil war all too soon because:

1.the west sells every rebel group weapons - the more groups,the longer the war,all the better

2.war drives up the price of diamonds illegally traded thru liberia,which is good for taylor and for the western pigs who cut and sell that shit in amsterdam.

that's beginning to understand liberia.

Summary: Liberia was an unpleasant client-state of the USA in a French-dominated region. Taylor was another puppet for US foreign policy who got too big for his boots. A humanitarian crisis has been allowed to develop and an intervention will occur as a result. Racist media portrayals of "African conflict" (it's inevitable without a "civilized" "Western" "democracy" don't ya know?) will occlude this historical picture. Meanwhile oil seeps out of the corners of the portrait.

Same old story.

Two informative comments:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60648&PHPSESSID=4184e39c52ca5f6cdc40122ed3ef2d05#comment42210
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60648&PHPSESSID=4184e39c52ca5f6cdc40122ed3ef2d05#comment42257

It isnt so important what the US HAS done in liberia. what we want to know is what SHOULD it do now.
You can sit around all day weeping about the things you have done wrong or you can go out there and do somthing right. I know which I would prefer.

"Let's at least let black people in Florida vote, for God's sake. "

Right on Comrade!

We should also allow the overseas service men to have their write in votes counted as well. Those facsists Dems threw them all out!

"It isnt so important what the US HAS done in liberia. what we want to know is what SHOULD it do now."

Sometimes in order to "go out there and do something right" you have to have a little bit of knowledge about the place you're going to and how it got that way. Otherwise you're just another ignorant fool meddling with other people's lives and countries with nothing to guide you except prejudice, self-righteousness and moral infallibility.

We know where we came from. We are now moving on to what to do about it. When you catch up we can have a serious discussion.

Long answer:
It is virtually impossible to find out what is really going on, who is pulling the strings and all that in somewhere like Liberia, because there are very few sources of current information. The international
media is not interested until it reaches crisis and once that has happened, it is really too late to find out, they can't travel outside Monrovia and they only really report on the humanitarian crisis aspect of things.
However, there are certain things that you can say for sure about Liberia that allow you to make a pretty good guess about what is going on.

Liberia was established, by the order of President Monroe (hence Monrovia) by a small number of slaves repatriated from the US after the abolition of slavery in the US. These ex-slaves were consciously
established as a local ruling class to serve US interests. They quickly subjugated the tribes of the interior and practically recreated the slavery which they had come from, this time with them as the
masters. Curiously enough, the fashions of late 19th century Southern US still survived until very recently among the Liberian elite.
Rich folk live in plantation style mansions and wear top hats and waistcoats. Anyway, since the basis of their power was almost entirely external, their was no limits to their corruption, and Liberia has always been one of Africa's most messed up countries.

In the 1980's Charles Taylor seized power, after a saga of brutal
feuds among the ruling class. Taylor is no more than a violent
gangster, ruling the country like a godfather, but for a long time he
was tolerated by the US since he was useful to them. For example he
was one of the main conduits for illicit US aid to UNITA in Angola, in
particular laundering their 'blood diamonds'. He was also a useful US
bridgehead in a region where France's colonial hold is still strong.

Although there has long been a diamond industry in Liberia, in the
1990's there were discoveries of large deposits of kimberlite (a
mineral which indicates the presence of diamonds) in the region along
the border of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. When I was in the
region in 2000, I met a de Beers geologist who had just finished a
stint of exploration along the Guinea border. He had just bought an
island off the coast of Mozambique and was retiring there - in his
mid-30's!

Taylor let his gangster instincts go to his head and started getting
way to uppity for his overlords' liking. In the late 1990's he backed
Foday Sankoh's RUF guerillas in Sierra Leone, little more than a gang
of diamond thieves, to the annoyance of the British and yanks. It
wasn't until about 1999, after the intervention of Ecomog and south
african mercenaries that the RUF were driven out of their diamond
mines. Ecomog is essentially cover for the Nigerian military, the
regional strong man, and also global capitalism's enforcer of choice in
the region. At the same time Taylor was skirmishing with the
Guineans along their border, again going after their diamond producing
areas. In late 2000 a rebel army invaded Liberia from Guinea.
Although this army claimed to be an independent body of Liberian
exiles, everybody knew it was armed, trained and mobilised by the
Guinean government, almost certainly taking orders from Paris.

Finally, the straw that broke the camel's back was Taylor's meddling
in the civil war that broke out in Cote D'Ivoire earlier this year. A
rebellion broke out in the North of the coutry against Gbagbo's
governent - a staunch french ally. The rebellion has, in my opinion, the
backing of the US who have been long trying to wrest influence away
from the French in this coutry which is effectively the capital of
French West Africa. At a time when the rebels were advancing on
Abidjan, Taylor screwed things up by backing a third force which
invaded Cote D'Ivoire from the West and took the regional capital of
Man.

The US has made it abundantly clear that they want Taylor out. In
fact they openly state that the first precondition for peace in the
country is Taylor's resignation and they refuse to even talk to him
about a negotiated settlement. The invading force simply must be
armed and financed from Washington, although the aid is probably
funneled through Sierra Leone, Cote D'Ivoire and Guinea. The rebels
are currently beseiging Monrovia where Taylor's loyalists are making
their last stand. The US is playing its classic double game. On the
one hand they do not want to get involved in any fighting so they are
waiting until Taylor has been removed before they get directly
involved. At the same time they are letting everybody know, in a clear
but subtle way, that they are backing the rebellion. It is interesting to
note that the rebels are copying UNITA's tactics in Angola - use
terror to empty the countryside of people and make them all seek
refuge in the city, in the hope that the resulting humanitarian crisis
will cause the regime to collapse.

They have created this humanitarian catastrophe, in a calculated and
scientific way, which they will do nothing to resolve. But at the same
time they have started drumming it up in the media. This is paving the
way for their intervention - but only when things have reached a
favourable balance of power and the war has effectively been won. At
this stage they will send in peacekeepers to safeguard their conquest
of power, to make sure that the latest warlords don't go getting any
big ideas, and to mop up any remaining resistance to their monopoly
on diamond production. This will probably initially involve some US
troops but they will cede the job of occupation to Ecomog. They don't
want to have to deal with the unpopular side of being an occupying
army. The Ecomog 'peacekeeping' troops in Sierra Leone were far
from popular and suffered many losses, despite the fact that they had
driven out the hated RUF. A UN report into their mission found that
they had been involved in extensive diamond smuggling, rape, murder
and all that other stuff that always goes with occupation. A notable
aside is that the Indian general who produced the report was forced to
resign immediately afterwards and no changes were made to the
occupation. Peacekeepers in Liberia will doubtless do the same.

The story is horrific, but it is not atypical. In general this is what
intervention and peacekeeping means. Peacekeepers can't be
deployed against the wishes of the permanent members of the UN
security council, who also happen to be the big imperialist powers. In
general they are only employed to maintain the status quo once it has
reached a balance favourable to the big powers. Humanitarian
catastrophes are a favourite ploy, not only to justify intervention to
the world, but to depose an unwanted ruler without actually having to
fight against him and to decimate the society to such a point that not
only will there be no resistance, but they will be welcomed with open
arms.

So that is my opinion. It is quite possible that I am wrong in several
important details, since I haven't been following the situation in West
Africa too closely for the last year or so and th e information is from
memory. However, I'd be very surprised indeed if the essence was
other than what I have described.

*************************************************
> Been doing a bit of readin' up on Liberia by Chekov Sunday, Aug 3 2003
(Replies/responce to comments on the above text posted in indymedia.org.ie)

which, by the way, I'd recommend to some of you US flag wavers.
Doesn't it make y'all feel a little uncomfortable blindly cheerleading
the US, in a situation where you openly admit to knowing absolutely
nothing about what's going on? I mean, even if somebody wrote an
article criticising my mother, I'd try to investigate the claims before
leaping to her defence! Do y'all really trust your government so much
that you think that it's always doing good and you don't even have to
bother finding out what it's up to?

Since I wrote the comment, Charles Taylor has announced that he is
quiting, followed closely by the security council vote to "authorise a
multi-national force"[Sunday Tribune]. "The United States pushed for
the vote" and "US ambassador John Negroponte has said the Bush
administration wants the force being assembled by...Ecowas to take
the lead, with the United States providing support." Pretty much
exactly what I predicted. Again I could be entirely wrong, I don't have
enough information to be certain, but it's a pretty good indication
when a theory is useful in predicting the future.

What's more I am interested to see that France abstained from the
vote. They cited the ICC as the reason, but I'd say that imperial
rivalry is a more likely explanation. Another interesting titbit that I
saw was this, from an aid worker writing in the Tribune, "Almost
everywhere we go people call out for food...how are they supposed to
understand why the four aid agencies left in the country don't 'do'
food? Even I don't quite get it, and I've been doing this work for years.
... shortage is not the issue. So what went wrong? simple really: they
left all their eggs in one basket, at the port which is now controlled by
the rebels. Strange really, when every other agency which had stocks
in that part of town had moved a good portion of them to the other
side of town in case of future attacks." To me it's not so strange,
indeed it sounds very much like my description of a consciously
manufactured humanitarian crisis. Just in case any of the flag wavers
happen to go off and actually read something about Liberia (faint
hope), I'll answer their objections in advance. Yes, the agencies
responsible for the food distribution are from the UN (principally the
WFP) but they effectively take orders from the US embassy in
Liberia.

Then a few quotes from the human rights watch document linked
above: "Although U.S. pressure on the Liberian government to
address human rights abuses remained strong, the U.S. failed publicly
to condemn both abuses by LURD rebels and the government of
Guinea for providing logistical and some military support to LURD.
The closest it came to doing so was in a March 1 statement by the
U.S. ambassador in Monrovia condemning the renewed fighting in
Liberia, and calling on the Liberian government to take steps to
respect human rights and the rule of law. Although the statement
stopped short of naming Guinea, the statement did call on 'all parties
in the region to cease supporting any group that seeks political
change through violence and to respect their neighbor's borders.'

The U.S. government's silence on LURD abuses and Guinea's support
for LURD was particularly notable given that the U.S. government
began a U.S.$3 million program to provide training and non-lethal
equipment to the Guinean military in May 2002."

Again, very close indeed to my analysis above. The one point of error
being that Guinea is acting as an agent of the US in Liberia, rather
than of France. Makes more sense that way I suppose, and the
Guinean government has long been the most difficult of France's
charges in the region.

To answer Drbinoche's objection about the lack of M16s. When we
say that country A arms country B, we don't mean that they put a load
of weapons in a box and ship them off directly with a return to sender
address! In general when you are supporting an armed faction in
Africa you don't want to make it that obvious. To create an armed
faction you need two things, money and a supply route. The money is
trifling, with a few millions you can buy enough arms to destabilise
most african regimes. The supply route is more difficult, you have to
get a government in the region to launder the arms. This entails this
third party buying them on the international market and covertly
exporting them to their intended destination. In general the arms
bought are always of the AK47/RPG variety, because they are cheap
and readily available on the international market, regardless of the
source of the money. Although the governments of the region are
always scheming against each other and arming factions in each
other's countries, this is almost always with the approval of one of
the two big imperialist powers in the region, the US/UK or France. If
you disobey them, you get ousted - a la Taylor.

Once you have the money and arms supply, it is very easy to start the
insurrection. With unemployment (in terms of paid labour) running at
90% plus in most of West Africa, there are always a plentiful supply
of recruits among the youth. Early teens are preferred as they make
better killers, lacking the ability to contextualise their deeds.

If you are smart you will channel your money through an existing
ethnic strong man, who will recruit exclusively from a particular 'tribe'
and thus gain leverage from existing ethnic tension. If you are really
smart, and rich, you will fund a few of them simultaneously as the
chance of any particular strong man losing his way is quite high. If
they become too corrupt they will not give a good return of suffering
for your dollar, on the other hand the power may go to their heads and
give them notions of independence.

To answer a couple of objections:

a) No this is not anti-americanism. For a start I'm talking about what
the US government is doing. As you are all making abundantly clear,
this is done with pretty much zero knowledge on the part of the
population. In fact in Africa in general, but particularly West Africa,
the French government has had a much worse effect, basically
because they've had the chance. Whereas the US deliberately
blocked any intervention to stop the genocide in Rwanda, France
eventually intervened to protect the remnants of the Interahamwe!
Interestingly Giscard d'Estaing, the big EU man is personally
complicit in some of their worst crimes. He used to go elephant
hunting with Bokassa in the CAR - a name which even surpasses
Amin in terms of depravity. Not that the US/UK aren't doing their
best. UNITA has to have been one of the most brutal movements the
world has ever seen to name but one of the horrors they have
unleashed upon Africa.

b) I am not absolving Africans of blame. I am merely asking why this
is happening. There are, of course, a large number of Africans deeply
guilty. It really has nothing to do with race. Give me a country with a
similar economic situation to Liberia, give me a few million and a
supply route for arms and I'll destroy it. Doesn't matter where it is,
doesn't matter what colour the people are, it's easy. History has
shown, time and again, that, with power, you can manipulate
situations so that people will do the most horrific things to each other.
This does not absolve the immediate actors of blame. The various
killers in Liberia are just as guilty as those complicit in the nazi
regime were (incidentally a much higher proportion of the population
than in Liberia). Although, as with the nazis, the greatest blame
clearly lies with those who give plan everything and give the orders.

c) To refute Paul's argument, you only need to mention auschwitz,
two world wars, the slave trade ... Actually, for somebody like Paul,
probably the best refutation is a look in the mirror or listen to your
own dumb arguments, no genetic superiority there, that's for sure!

d) Seanin's accusation of me being racist is hilarious. Seanin, I'd have
thought that 'racist' was a compliment in your book. Well, you've
found me out, I think blacks are superior to whites. For this reason I
hate and pity myself, my family, most of my friends, my girlfriend and
the vast majority of the Irish population. If only we were black, I
repeat over and over.

Finally, I'd really love if some of you pro-US government 'no matter
what it does', types went off and tried to refute some of these
arguments. In places like Liberia they often don't bother to cover their
tracks too well. They can rely on the deep racism of the media and
establishment. In general most people just assume that this type of
thing is 'just what Africans do'. Even among left-leaning types this
type of thinking is endemic. It is very rare indeed for people to visit
these region from the west, without being part of one of the complicit
bodies. I was fortunate enough to spend a year or so in the region and
was particularly shocked at what the NGOs are actually doing there.
Read more at the link supplied.

related link:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/africa/accounts/chekov.html

"this stage they will send in peacekeepers to safeguard their conquest of power."

If you view the world as a power struggle of the US to control everything then you will always come to these conclusions. to a limited extent you are right in as far as the US obviously will be more reluctant to do things that are obviously against its own interests. But unlike most of the other countries in the world somtimes it will do it anyway.

It seems everytiime this sort of situation occurs you (pl) do this
A) both you and the USA know everything so if they disagree with you it must be because they are intentionally doing it wrong
B)The USA unlike any other country must act in the interests of the world and not its own interests.
C) You compare the results with utopia as opposed to the alternative. therefore negitive effects cound against the USA positive ones dont count for it.

- if one is to use those grounds then it is also equally relevant to look at the world in any of a hundred other ways for example some people might say "its an african thing" or its a function of history or its a function of GDP or culture or experience with civilized society or experience with an institution (the legal system for example) etc.

Guinea are backing LURD in Liberia and channeling US aid to them. Why is the US constantly destabilising Third world countries?

"So while Bush has called for the ouster of Taylor--who has provisionally accepted an offer of exile in Nigeria--Washington's solution is to replace one warlord with another. If the U.S. does move to intervene militarily, it's because Liberia sits near substantial oil reserves in the Gulf of Guinea. U.S. oil companies--including Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco--are expected to invest more than $10 billion in African oil this year."
http://www.counterpunch.org/sustar07122003.html


This is an article of July. I did not find much other articles about the Intervention in Liberia.

greetings, Guido(Belgium)

It is! I read Noam Chimsky and i say its the US fault!

The only thing the United States should do is dissolve.

Surprise, surprise - the anti-american nuts are blaming it all on America. When will the blame america first crowd ever learn? I guess their brains have turned to sludge from hanging out with those niggers all the time. Liberia proves that blacks are inferior and should be subjecated to white rule. They are barbarian savages - more animal than human. These filth make me sick. They do not have the brain capacity for freedom. Enslaving them was the only benevolent option. The brown horde is out to destroy western civilization, we must defend outselves from these deranged monkeys. The white nigger lovers are traitors to democracy, and should be sent to reeducation camps to fix their broken heads.

feed children into it before it turns on us to feed

Could you kindly explain what you meant when you said ". The brown horde is out to destroy western civilization" Are you rational enough to back your one-celled, uneducated fuck of a hick brain of yours? Think before you speak or write. You sound like a puppet. The people of Africa are far more human than you will ever be...There is a word in the dictionary which spells
C-O-M-P-P-A-S-I-O-N...look it up. Oh and do you even know what democracy is? Your writing makes no sense.

First off I want to thank Chekhov for his lucid well thought out posts. Definately better than the filler material on the IMC front-page, which sounded like the Lib-humanitarian interventionist jargon we've been getting out of some US, Canadian and British media outlets.

I agree that its not worth dialoguing with the racists and pro-imperialists on the list. They simply function from assumptions that are way off the map. As someone who has observed the operation of imperialism in the Balkans, the Andes, and the Middle East from direct experience I can say that the people supporting the intervention are echoing the views of neoliberal elites in Third World countries and that the majority of Third World peoples know who the enemy is - the USA, France, Britain, and their various satrapies.

Now the real tragedy of Liberia is that the elections scheduled for October have effectively been cancelled until late 2005/early 2006. Instead an unelected 'transitional council' has been imposed on the country, in the classic formula of post-war 'peacebuilding' regimes imposed by the USA. The contras of the LURD - if you want to see murderous thugs, just view the AP raw footage of what these guys have been doing in their neck of the woods - are now being embedded into the governance structures of Liberia, even though they have barely any popular legitimacy given that they were trained as a brutal killing machine and little more.

The government will be run by a "Chairman" and a vice-Chairman - with obvious shades of corporate governance structures - and the elected Parliament and the country's Supreme Court and constitution will be sidelined in the process. Going along with the 'corporate' theme of the post-Taylor order in Liberia, newsreports coming from Accra, where peace talks are being held indicate that the new Chairman of transitional authority will be a Liberian businessman.

The two year election delay is designed to give the new government a space to dissolve the parliament, purge the judiciary, establish control over the media, incorporate US-trained operatives into the security services, and impose neoliberals in the ministries of finance, the economy, trade, etc. (as per post-war models in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Solomon Islands, etc, etc.)

This is also the same model used and imposed on the DR Congo, where the genocidal butchers of the RCD-Goma and MLC have been given key posts in government under intense pressure exerted upon the government in Kinshasa by Western governemnts.

For all those who believe in the 'humanitarian' motives of Western countries in Africa, I can only say you're severly deluded. Just consider the following record that the West has established since 1997:

- backed a coup to depose democratically elected Lissouba government in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and continued support for the Sassou-Nguesso dictatorship that has taken its place

- support for the brutal regime of Ange Felix Patasse in the Central African Republic

- backing for the dictatorship of Yoweri Museveni in Uganda (which has carried out a brutal counter-insurgency in the norht and west of the country and has been implicated in the Congolese genocide and the plunder of its resources, as well as the destabilization of southern Sudan)

- backing the dictatorship of Paul Kagame (who's RPA has carried out the worst attrocities in the occupied Kivu provinces of the Congo, and has done everything to crush the indigenous Mai-Mai resistance - while imposing a fascistic/militaristic police state over Rwanda)

- supported the brutal ECOMOG intervention forces in West Africa, the Kamajor militias in Sierra Leone (who were equal to the RUF in ferocity), the brutal Conte regime in Guinea and the jingoistic, xenophobic and chauvinist governments of Ivory Coast

- support for the neoliberal regime in Ethiopia which rules by terror over the Ogaden and Oromo inhabited regions and has carried out depradations against neighboring Somalia and Eritrea

- support the one-party state in Eritrea (which has given the US vital listening posts in the red sea area) and has been a vital regional ally for Israel

- continued to fuel the war in Angola

- supported the proxy armies in the DR Congo and the pliant neoliberal 'opposition' in the country that collaborated with the occupation forces (remember 3.3 millinon peopel have died in this conflict, overwhelmingly victims of hte US-backed occupation of the eastern DRC)

- material support for the LURD

- backing the dictatorship in Mauritania, which recently crushed a popular revolt against its support for the war in Iraq

- backing the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt

- backing the fascistic regime in Morocco and selling out the Western Sahara liberation movement (denying Saharawis their right to self-determination)

- destabilizing the Zimbabwean government to protect the interests of a racist white-settler elite and squeezing it economically (including the use of food aid as a weapon) in order to remove the democratically elected head of state - in elections ratified by most world governments, including the whole Non-Aligned Movement - and to secure Zimbabwe's withdrawal for the DRC (where Zimbabwe was invited to stop the Rwandan-Ugandan aggression)

- backed the minority putschist regime of Pierre Buyoya in Burundi which has killed hundreds of thousands in order to preserve the rule of an extremists Tutsi military faction over the whole country (after disposing of the democratically elected government in 1996)

- backed the brutal Obasanjo regime, who's forces have killed, tortured and imprisoned thousands in the Niger river delta for protesting oil exploitation and environmental dessication (and who recently stole an election and crushed national strike with lethal force against unarmed demonstrators)

- backed the corrupt government's of Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Swaziland, Togo etc., etc., etc.

The list can keep going. But you get the picture. The real problem in 'Africa' - adn the global South in general - is not the fact that the West hasn't intervened enough, but that it continues to consistently intervene in order to prop-up the most retrograde forces in our (meaning Southern) societies that are more than happy to serve their imperial interests. For those supporting Western intervention here in the North, you ahve to realize that you are simply supporting the brutally racist and militaristic status quo and only ensuring that hte right of African peoples to meaningful self-determination is further suppressed. Some of you are simply deluded by corporate propaganda that has sold you on the 'humanitarian' side of imperialism - nothing new there, if you look into the discourses of 19th century imperialism - or has played to residual 'Christian morality', but others are jst simply sick ass racist f*cks and imperialist nostalgics...

To a world without racism and fascism!

cheers!
Kafka

First off I want to thank Chekhov for his lucid well thought out posts. Definately better than the filler material on the IMC front-page, which sounded like the Lib-humanitarian interventionist jargon we've been getting out of some US, Canadian and British media outlets.

I agree that its not worth dialoguing with the racists and pro-imperialists on the list. They simply function from assumptions that are way off the map. As someone who has observed the operation of imperialism in the Balkans, the Andes, and the Middle East from direct experience I can say that the people supporting the intervention are echoing the views of neoliberal elites in Third World countries and that the majority of Third World peoples know who the enemy is - the USA, France, Britain, and their various satrapies.

Now the real tragedy of Liberia is that the elections scheduled for October have effectively been cancelled until late 2005/early 2006. Instead an unelected 'transitional council' has been imposed on the country, in the classic formula of post-war 'peacebuilding' regimes imposed by the USA. The contras of the LURD - if you want to see murderous thugs, just view the AP raw footage of what these guys have been doing in their neck of the woods - are now being embedded into the governance structures of Liberia, even though they have barely any popular legitimacy given that they were trained as a brutal killing machine and little more.

The government will be run by a "Chairman" and a vice-Chairman - with obvious shades of corporate governance structures - and the elected Parliament and the country's Supreme Court and constitution will be sidelined in the process. Going along with the 'corporate' theme of the post-Taylor order in Liberia, newsreports coming from Accra, where peace talks are being held indicate that the new Chairman of transitional authority will be a Liberian businessman.

The two year election delay is designed to give the new government a space to dissolve the parliament, purge the judiciary, establish control over the media, incorporate US-trained operatives into the security services, and impose neoliberals in the ministries of finance, the economy, trade, etc. (as per post-war models in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Solomon Islands, etc, etc.)

This is also the same model used and imposed on the DR Congo, where the genocidal butchers of the RCD-Goma and MLC have been given key posts in government under intense pressure exerted upon the government in Kinshasa by Western governemnts.

For all those who believe in the 'humanitarian' motives of Western countries in Africa, I can only say you're severly deluded. Just consider the following record that the West has established since 1997:

- backed a coup to depose democratically elected Lissouba government in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and continued support for the Sassou-Nguesso dictatorship that has taken its place

- support for the brutal regime of Ange Felix Patasse in the Central African Republic

- backing for the dictatorship of Yoweri Museveni in Uganda (which has carried out a brutal counter-insurgency in the norht and west of the country and has been implicated in the Congolese genocide and the plunder of its resources, as well as the destabilization of southern Sudan)

- backing the dictatorship of Paul Kagame (who's RPA has carried out the worst attrocities in the occupied Kivu provinces of the Congo, and has done everything to crush the indigenous Mai-Mai resistance - while imposing a fascistic/militaristic police state over Rwanda)

- supported the brutal ECOMOG intervention forces in West Africa, the Kamajor militias in Sierra Leone (who were equal to the RUF in ferocity), the brutal Conte regime in Guinea and the jingoistic, xenophobic and chauvinist governments of Ivory Coast

- support for the neoliberal regime in Ethiopia which rules by terror over the Ogaden and Oromo inhabited regions and has carried out depradations against neighboring Somalia and Eritrea

- support the one-party state in Eritrea (which has given the US vital listening posts in the red sea area) and has been a vital regional ally for Israel

- continued to fuel the war in Angola

- supported the proxy armies in the DR Congo and the pliant neoliberal 'opposition' in the country that collaborated with the occupation forces (remember 3.3 millinon peopel have died in this conflict, overwhelmingly victims of hte US-backed occupation of the eastern DRC)

- material support for the LURD

- backing the dictatorship in Mauritania, which recently crushed a popular revolt against its support for the war in Iraq

- backing the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt

- backing the fascistic regime in Morocco and selling out the Western Sahara liberation movement (denying Saharawis their right to self-determination)

- destabilizing the Zimbabwean government to protect the interests of a racist white-settler elite and squeezing it economically (including the use of food aid as a weapon) in order to remove the democratically elected head of state - in elections ratified by most world governments, including the whole Non-Aligned Movement - and to secure Zimbabwe's withdrawal for the DRC (where Zimbabwe was invited to stop the Rwandan-Ugandan aggression)

- backed the minority putschist regime of Pierre Buyoya in Burundi which has killed hundreds of thousands in order to preserve the rule of an extremists Tutsi military faction over the whole country (after disposing of the democratically elected government in 1996)

- backed the brutal Obasanjo regime, who's forces have killed, tortured and imprisoned thousands in the Niger river delta for protesting oil exploitation and environmental dessication (and who recently stole an election and crushed national strike with lethal force against unarmed demonstrators)

- backed the corrupt government's of Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Swaziland, Togo etc., etc., etc.

The list can keep going. But you get the picture. The real problem in 'Africa' - adn the global South in general - is not the fact that the West hasn't intervened enough, but that it continues to consistently intervene in order to prop-up the most retrograde forces in our (meaning Southern) societies that are more than happy to serve their imperial interests. For those supporting Western intervention here in the North, you ahve to realize that you are simply supporting the brutally racist and militaristic status quo and only ensuring that hte right of African peoples to meaningful self-determination is further suppressed. Some of you are simply deluded by corporate propaganda that has sold you on the 'humanitarian' side of imperialism - nothing new there, if you look into the discourses of 19th century imperialism - or has played to residual 'Christian morality', but others are jst simply sick ass racist f*cks and imperialist nostalgics...

To a world without racism and fascism!

cheers!
Kafka

"We cannot oppose the "war" in Iraq, and then support "intervention" or worse, "humanitarian intervention" in Liberia."

Where you you people in 1860 when you could have been useful?

"We cannot oppose the "war" in Iraq, and then support "intervention" or worse, "humanitarian intervention" in Liberia."

Where were you people in 1860 when you could have been useful?

just for starters.. are you saying "poor mugabe in zimbabwae"?
that goes to show how you must be viewing all the other conflicts.
You know if you get kicked off your land as a settler the worst suffering isnt yours - you probably have a little money left - the worst is your employees (who are "collaborators") and the people your farm was going to feed. As If I have to argue based on some racist principle where only some races have rights...

And we know why the rwandan problem exists (in the rwandan region of africa) its because some morons decided NOT to get involved........... basically what you seem to be advocating.

France is alleged to have supplied Sassou-Nguesso in his fight to take over control from Liboussa in Congo-Brazzaville. Once Sassou-Nguesso took power, royalties on the earnings of the Elf OIl Company were cut by 50%.

Scottie,

Wake up dude! The issue is and never has been Mugabe. He was all good and fine for the British and US elites when the Matabeleland massacres where being carried out by his troops in the mid-1980s. But then suddenly the old boy starts yielding to pressures from below to resolve the Land Question - which the British had promised to resolve under the terms of the Landcaster House agreements - and the whole 'international community' (read Britain and the USA) goes into a tizzy.

Fact is that far more print and tv time has been spent on the deaths of white-settlers on Zimbabwe than all the victims of the Congolese genocide. IF this isn't a racist double-standard I don't know what is. If you're so blind as to completely ignore the land question in your discussion of Zimbabwe and adopt the racist discourses of the Commercial Farmers' Union then be my guest, but please don't pretend you know anything other than what you're told by the hard-hitting alternative journalism of CNN and BBC.

You employ the logic of the sick imperialists and neo-fascists running this world when you reduce the problems of an entire country/region to the misdeeds of a few bad leaders in the said country/region...where the 'obvious' solution then simply becomes 'regime change' in favor of more obediant leaders who will obediantly shake hands with the West and set things straight.

Its easy to screw history, global economics, power relations, etc. in your analysis when you live in a world of privilege created from the blood of others. Its good that you know what Southern peoples really want, its true, we're all yearning for the cold steal of an imperialist bayonette at our throats telling us what to do. How we all miss the day's of the White Man's Burden, please bring back your Marines to save us hapless vicitims of our own self-created chaos! Give me a break!

The fact that the Non-Aligned Movement voted to ratify the elections in Zimbabwe and condemn the sanctions imposed on it by Western creditors is inconsiquential to you. The fact that Zimbabwe has been starved of food aid and credits, doesn't matter either.

No. You 'know' the 'truth' because you've been told by CNN and BBC that its all Mugabe's fault! You're such a genius! And yes, you're right, the workers on the farms have suffered a great deal. But it guess what, it wasn't the ZANU-PF that oppressed them...Or are you so deluded by your racist discourse that you believe the myth in how well they were treated by their white "Master" that you think that all the workers on the farms are crying crocadile tears now that their oppressors are gone???

And yes of course, the West didn't 'intervene' in Rwanda and that's why the mess was caused, right? Forget that the French supplied the genocidal Habyarimana regime with weapons to the very end, or that the USA backed the aggressive RPF, which has since staged a genocide in the eastern DRC and is now in the process of 'democratically' stealing elections....Learn some history guy other than that spoonfed to you by crappy journalists and the books based on their works...

As for Liberia, we can see that the situation is much better now that the West intervened. Thank god that Taylor is out, now there's so much more 'peace' through large-scale massacres and 'democracry' through cancelled elections and an externally appointed 'Chairman' to lead the government...

Monday August 25, 9:07 PM
Up to a thousand villagers feared killed in Liberian massacre

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030825/1/3dn95.html

(AFP) - Many civilians were killed and villages torched in a massacre in Nimba county northeast of Monrovia, a senior Liberian military official told AFP.

"I have received a report from our security officers that many villages there had burned down and that there have been lots of massacres," said General Benjamin Yeaten, deputy head of the government army.

"My understanding is that there was a massacre but we are not exactly sure how many people have been killed, it could be a hundred, it could be a thousand," he added, without saying who the perpetrators were.

He did say that the two main rebel groups in the country, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), had carried out attacks in Nimba in recent days.

Citing a witness who had fled the assault at Bahn, in Nimba, 250 kilometres (150 miles) northeast of the capital Monrovia, local public radio reported that MODEL rebels had stormed the town, opening fire on the local population before disappearing back into the surrounding forest.

The attack left a thousand people dead, the witness said.

"Our information is sketchy. We know there are fightings in the area, both LURD and MODEL. LURD is fighting in Bong county and MODEL fighting in Nimba, so it's difficult to know who is who," said information minister Reginald Goodridge.

There has been sporadic fighting since the government, MODEL and LURD signed an accord on August 18 to put an end to 14 years of nearly uninterrupted civil war in Liberia.

Thousands of Liberians fled fighting south of Monrovia Sunday after reports of skirmishes between rebels and government forces.

Ross Mountain, the UN special humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, said up to 10,000 people were on the move after reports of fighting near Harbel, 65 kilometres (40 miles) south of Monrovia on the road to Buchanan.

Buchanan, the country's second port city, has been under the control of Liberia's second rebel group MODEL, since the end of July.

Meanwhile, the main rebel group LURD urged the international community to put pressure on troops still loyal to exiled president Taylor to pull out of Monrovia to allow humanitarian agencies to work in the capital.

LURD also accused the government fighters of violating a ceasefire agreement by allegedly infiltrating the lines of peacekeepers and arresting LURD soldiers.

Taylor stepped down earlier this month and agreed to leave the country for exile in Nigeria, bowing to international pressure.

I refuse to wake up. I'm happier being a brainwashed moron.

On the other hand, others who would call me a brain-washed moron do so because they are unable to refute my postings. They are also frustrated from losing all the time. Look past them for they are not important at all. The rest of the world does.

I AM CARTER A LIBERIAN WHO IS PRESENTLY DWELLING IN LIBERIA.PERTAINING TO USA INTERVENTION IN LIBERIA ,I REFERTO IT AS A MUST.THE FACT IS THAT ,THE USA IS THE POLICE OF THE WORLD AND IS THEREFORE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DISTABILIZATION IN ANY COUNTRY FOR THAT MATTER.THEY SHOULD NOT LOOK FOR ONLY COUNTRIES THAT THEY CAN BENEFIT FROM AFTER ASSISTANCE RENDER TO THAT COUNTRY.
IN LIBERIA AND USA RELATION MOST PEOPLE CAN SAY THAT THE USA IS MORE CLOSER TO LIBERIA THAN ANY DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD,IN THIS VIEW USA SHOULD TAKE LIBERIA AS HERS ,THOUGH NOT COLONIZED BY HER ,BUT IT WAS THROUGH HER INFLUENCE THAT LIBERIA BECAME A COUNTRY ON HER OWN.INFACT AMERICA HAS INSTALIZATIONS IN LIBERIA,LIKE THE OMEGA TOWEL,VOA,EMBASSY,FIRESTONE RUBBER COMPANY,WOOD COMPANY,TO NAME BUT A FEW.DON'T YOU THINK THAT THESE BUSINESSES NEED SECURITY? OFCOUSE THEY DO.NOW WITH AMERICA TOTALLY INVOLVE INTO LIBERIAN AFFAIRS,THERE ARE OTHER NATURAL RESOURCES THAT LIBERIA HAS AND THE USA CAN TAKE THE CONTRACT TO MAKE THEM INTO TANGIBLE GOODS AND BY SO DOING THEY CAN NOW BENEFIT FOR THEIR GREAT ASSISTANCE FROM THIS LITTLE COUNTRY OF OURS.
WE NEED YOU A M E R I C A . THERE ARE A WHOLE LOT OF LEARNT LIBERIANS IN THE AMERICA DOING CASUAL LABOUR,SOME ARE INVOLVED IN CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES,OTHERS ARE JUST NOT WORKING SIMPLY BECAUSE THEIR COUNTRY IS AT WAR AND WITH AMERICA COMING IN WE LIBERIANS BELIEVE THAT THIS WILL BE A TOTAL END TO OUR LONG LASTED CIVIL WAR.ON THE HAND,THE USA WILL BE PARTLY CLEANING HERSELF OF CRIME AND ALSO CAUSE MORE JOBS TO BE AVAILABLE.

You got any brothers or sisters over there you'd like to sell to me? I need some slaves to work my plantation...

Yes, I am unable to refute your postings.

Are you coming to the KKK rally tonight? Trent Lott will be there!

"Wake up dude! The issue is and never has been Mugabe. He was all good and fine for the British and US elites"

Moral judgements should not depend upon what "eletes" say.... So why do yours?

"Fact is that far more print and tv time has been spent on the deaths of white-settlers on Zimbabwe than all the victims of the Congolese genocide. IF this isn't a racist double-standard I don't know what is."

By the way black peopel are suffering from mugabe also. It is not just a black vs white situation as if that makes any difference morraly to anyone here other than you. Because Congo is a worse situation than zimbabwae does not make zimbabwae a "good situation" besides what does "media attention" matter? the world comunity has been pretty impotent on both issues.

" If you're so blind as to completely ignore the land question in your discussion of Zimbabwe and adopt the racist discourses of the Commercial Farmers' Union then be my guest"

Feel free to explain the land issue without refering to "race" if you cant then yours is the racist position.

"You employ the logic of the sick imperialists and neo-fascists running this world when you reduce the problems of an entire country/region to the misdeeds of a few bad leaders in the said country/region.."

No they have lots of problems. Mugabe just happens to be one of them.

"Its easy to screw history, global economics, power relations, etc. in your analysis when you live in a world of privilege created from the blood of others."

It is easy for you (or chomsky etc) to screw history global economics and power relations etc too .. and you do.

"The fact that the Non-Aligned Movement voted to ratify the elections in Zimbabwe and condemn the sanctions imposed on it by Western creditors is inconsiquential to you."

Practicallly - NAM is powerless
Morally - NAM is a mixture of all sorts of moraly repugnant groups and people with vested interests and as such does not hold any particular moral high ground.

"No. You 'know' the 'truth' because you've been told by CNN and BBC that its all Mugabe's fault!"

You seem to be under the impression that because thee is another reason (such as a natural period of bad harvests) that that would mean that it cant be mugabes fault and the fact that the US opposes him means that his election must have been fair..

" You're such a genius! "

well as it happens...

"But it guess what, it wasn't the ZANU-PF that oppressed them..."

Have you seen interviews with previous farm workers in zimbabwae? or have you jsut been eading zanu pf propoganda? Yes the whites were better off than the blacks on average. Yes some blacks probably resented that but the farm workers are not the ones who benifit from the process on the whole since it is a political process.

"And yes of course, the West didn't 'intervene' in Rwanda and that's why the mess was caused, right?"

YES

" Forget that the French supplied the genocidal Habyarimana regime with weapons to the very end"

Hmm that is a black mark .. feel free to prove it.

"or that the USA backed the aggressive RPF"

DUH! they also backed the agressive soviets in the war against the AXIS..
You really need to stop and think before you type.

"which has since staged a genocide in the eastern DRC"

The are like all the other people in the world who you would forsake. They couldn't wait for you to guarantee their saftey so they did it by themselves. "vigilantee justice" is more violent and less fair than police justice.

"As for Liberia, we can see that the situation is much better now that the West intervened."

West intervened? they sent a handful of trups in to acompany the nigerians. but its better than nothing.

I actually believe in the existence of a supreme being, so what do I know? Not a whole hell of a lot!

What do you mean by that?
Abnd it what way would it be relevant?