Is there hope left for Liberia?

Liberia, located on the west coast of Africa, has overtime become one of the most violent, unstable countries. During the mid 1800’s, Liberia was a place where former slaves from America moved to declare their independence with the help of American President James Monroe. Since then, the two countries have had an unofficial cooperation. However it seems this cooperation has not always benefited Liberia.

During World War II, the U.S. began providing assistance to Liberia after they had been through many hard years both politically and economically. In 1980, this backfired on the U.S. when Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe started a military coup and proceeded to kill the President of Liberia at the time. He then took over the Liberian government.

In 1985, Liberia held their first election since the Doe took control. Doe made sure he won the election with a series of changes in certain election committees. Because of the obvious corruption, many civilians rebelled against Doe. Doe responded by killing over 2,000 civilians and imprisoning over 100 opposing politicians. After that, civil war broke out.

VBS.TV, also known as Vice, is a group of journalists who create videos and articles on many different topics ranging from the environment, to drugs, to problems in other countries.

Recently, they have created a series of eight videos titled The Vice Guide to Liberia. Knowing really nothing about the current situations in Liberia, I was curious to see what this series was all about. With the first video I was immediately intrigued.

Liberia has become almost a hell on Earth. Civil war is nothing close to an end there. Children are being trained as killers by warlords who all engage in cannibalism. Women and teenagers are being raped and killing people is as common as shaking someone’s hand. Along with that, there is also extreme poverty and drug addiction running rampant in the country.

The warlords of Liberia are among some of the most violent people in the world. Not only will they shoot anyone on the opposing side but they will eat them too. They have been known to slice open an innocent person, rip out their heart, and then eat it. It has not been said why many of these warlords engage in cannibalism.

From their comments it seems like they just enjoy knowing that what their eating is of complete innocence. It is amazing to think, that an area where America once attempted to help people by training soldiers, there are now cannibals essentially running the country.

Despite all of the corruption and disaster encompassing Liberia, some of the people of the slums have managed to avoid having to join a warlord. In part three of the series, Vice travels to West Point where there is no plumbing and barely any electricity. While there, they encounter a teenager who raps to them about AIDS, which is just one of the long list of problems the country encounters daily. Seeing this young man rap was very moving. Rap today, has become something that is consumed by sex, money and drugs, and this teenager, with almost nothing, was rapping about a real issue he was encountering first hand. You could feel the passion in his eyes and words he had to want to try to fix his country.

After seeing this boy, the film turns to a visit with a 12 year old smoking heroin and describing how he has raped a woman. Although it is almost unbelievable, this 12 year old describes the majority of the population of Liberia. While the rapping teenager, represents the minority.

One would think that the U.S. would take more responsibility over what happened in Liberia but we have yet to see that happen. Although we have done certain things such as give Liberians who could get to America a temporary protection status, this does little for those who can’t get to America. And that gesture is only “temporary.” In 2009 the U.S. government was threatening to send thousands of Liberians back to their country. I think this temporary protection was not really a gesture at all. The state of Liberia has not changed, if anything it has gotten worse. That temporary protection was just dangling freedom and security in the faces of people who are going to have to go right back to fear and danger.

Helping the people of Liberia, should have involved helping the country. Not just a select few. As a country already in massive amounts of debt, does America owe it to Liberia to try to help them prevail against the warlords of Civil War? Whatever the government ends up deciding, they better play their cards very carefully. We don’t need Liberia to become the next War on Terror.