Last Post from Liberia

Tomorrow I fly home. On the way here I made a friend on the airplane. Tomorrow at least two acquaintances here will be on the same flight to London. It is a small town.

Friday they gave me an embarrassingly lavish farewell ceremony at work. They brought in a cultural dance and drumming troupe and several official people to make speeches on my behalf. Some of them I really hadn't worked with at all, but they were asked to come and make speeches anyway. It's a culture of meetings and formal events. They had a gowning ceremony and gave me a very dressy embroidered suit with a matching hat and necklace. It's quite beautiful, a very nice gift.

Afterwards I ate Palm Butter and have spent the weekend saying farewells around Monrovia, running last minute errands, enjoying a last trip to the beach, playing pass the pigs, packing, tracking down various people to whom I've promised various things before I leave. Busy but satisfying. Photos in the gallery ----->

Sad news and impending semester make me ready to go home to the U.S. and almost ready for another year of law school. I won't write again here before I'm back. The summer's been fantastic. Thanks for reading.

Nathan

Better Photos, interesting news. Clock running down.

Chris Herwig, the photographer who I met while visiting Sapo National Park has some great updated photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/herwigphoto, including nice shots from Sapo, and also from Palm Grove Cemetary in Monrovia, subject of a recent Wall Street Journal Feature. If you're interested, I can forward a copy of the full article (only an abstract is available without subscription).

Court actions have begun against the accused conspirators to a coup plot, including Charles Julu, who was a leader in a failed coup at least once before in Liberia. Conspirators are charged with Treason. One thing that is amazing to an American observer is how swiftly criminal charges move to trial here, since we are so used to long procedural delays and clogged court schedules in the U.S.

And this week the Ministry of Mines and Energy issued legal permits for diamond mining and export for the first time since the U.N. banned Liberian diamond trade in 2001. There was also a US$50 million dollar gold mining investment plan announced this week, by an incredibly friendly and unpretentious Alaskan named Leonard Kragness who I met over lunch last month where we discovered we had a few mutual acquaintances in Alaska, where he was a long-time gold investor and former owner of the Talkeetna Air Taxi service.

At times the world is really quite a lot smaller than we expect.

And me, personally... I'm counting the short days until I fly back to New York and trying to feel ready for the shift of gears to getting back to law school.

More rain, short news

As my last week kicks in, I find there is still more rattling around in my head then is either put down on paper or in this blog, and that is equally true for both work purposes and for general observations about this place. Today it is wet again.

It has been an exciting month at Firestone plantation, though I've only sporadically had direct involvement. Union Elections happened. Two weeks before, the opposition candidates won a court order barring the incumbent leadership from taking any actions on behalf of the FAWU (Firestone Union) until they had complied with the law requiring them to make available financial and administrative records from the last 2 years to any union member who requests them.

Then on the morning of the election the same court recognized the same leadership it had enjoined from taking any official actions and issued an injunction barring and voiding the election. Ground for that are not clear. The government spent something like $20,000 to facilitate a full election for the ~8,000 laborers spread over the vast network of towns and districts that comprise the Firestone plantation. The election went ahead. The reform candidates won in a landslide. The American Steelworkers and the Liberian Federation of Labor both had observers certify it as free and fair. Firestone management denounced it as illegal and unrigged. Guess which candidates they favor?

So the workers went ahead and had an inauguration ceremony. Something like 5-8,000 people showed up. Had a series of boisterous speaches. Carried the newly elected leaders on their shoulders over a mile to the union offices where the broke down the door and changed the locks to install the new team. Firestone management is not pleased, but international labor unions are lining up behind the FAWU and the legitimacy of the election. It will be a hot issue to watch.

Rapid response update

Well I've proven to be a pretty irregular blogger.

And I've more or less conceded that a full and detailed travelogue of the trip to Sapo is not going to happen.

Suffice to say it was a wonderful trip, though we left 36 hours behind schedule, drove through two nights, cracked the drive shaft in the overloaded pickup, spent an unscheduled day having it welded back together, stopped for lots of roadside meals and tea, visited small remote towns and a gorgeous wild forest.

In Sapo I saw fresh tracks and dung of chimps and forest elephants and got a decent look at a clan of Diana Monkeys. Did a nice bit of canoeing on the Sapo River and learned a lot about local community conditions and the frustrating attempts to enforce prohibitions on extractive use in teh Park since there are a set of illegal gold mining camps and a constant pressure of hunting.

Bushmeat is a major delicacy. In fact the driver of our international-NGO vehicle stopped to buy a monkey for his family table on the way back to Monrovia.

In Liberia, we've had independence day a set of arrests for an attempted coup, a denouncement of said Coup by Senator Prince Johnson, who's most famous for cutting the ears off of former President Doe on video tape.

They've also tentatively agreed to restart the university after a month of closure due to faculty and student strike over arrears of "research stipend" payments that turned into a violent set of protests.

More soon. Previous post attempts cut off by finicky internet connections. Will try to keep it short and sweet for my remaining time here.

Return from Sapo. etc.

Have returned from my site visit to Sapo National Park and nearby community forestry and livelihood projects. An amazing journey, well worth the 2-days each way, of travel, digging the truck out of mud holes, waking up to a broken driveshaft and all-day delay in Seclepea (where I sat by the river and visited with Nigerian soldiers deployed to a remoted UNMIL checkpoint) and the saddle sores on my back and tailbone from bouncing on the vinyl seat of an unsuspended Toyota Hilux over many hours of hard driving.

At Sapo I shared a room in the Park Warden's resident with a Canadian photo-journalist named Chris Herwig who's living in Monrovia at Sapo. He has a wonderful photo essay on the wheelbarrow workers of Monrovia available online here: http://www.herwigphoto.com/ebarrow/index.htm.

Will post more more information, stories and pictures soon. Apparently no fuel tanker has come into Monrovia for quite a while and the whole city is now under a serious fuel shortage, which has reduced the number of taxis on the road by about 75%. Commute times for UN and NGO staff are way down as traffic volume has plummetted, but the sidewalks are crowded and I got quite soaked by a splattered puddle walking from home to the hotel with enough fuel reserve to keep their generator (and thus their internet connection) up and running.

Heading out soon.

Updates...

In my life:
I've moved again, this time for keeps, to a luxurious apartment complex inhabited principally by senior UNMIL staff, clustered around a beautiful, clean swimming pool. The pool is used surprisingly little. My first move, of course, was to start swimming every evening in the dark. Day one I swam straight into the side and raised a big bump on my head that's still healing five days later. Of all the dangers in Liberia, I bump my head in a swimming pool. They don't call it the world's safest post-conflict country for nothing.

Sunday morning I will leave Monrovia for a week to visit Sapo National Park and nearby community development pilot projects undertaken by the extension and community support staff at the Forestry Development authority. I'm pretty excited to escape the city and see the high forest for at least a few days.

Less personally and more news-worthy:

The Charles Taylor trial has resumed. The ex-president himself finally appeared in the courtroom after "boycotting" the trial to date. He claims he is indigent, though UN Security Council reports suggest he may still be worth as much as 80-100 million dollars. In spite of that the court has been shockingly tolerant. They say he has no right to non-appearance but have allowed it to continue. In light of his claim of indigence they initially allowed a budget of $50,000 per month to pay for his defense. He claimed this was not enough and will now be allowed $100,000 per month in court funding. Legitimacy can be expensive. The special court for Sierra Leone in which Taylor faces trial is funded by voluntary international contributions.

In the "other" Charles Taylor trial, Judge Cecilia Altonaga ruled for the prosecution on a motion to dismiss in the Federal prosecution of the former president's son "Chuckie" under the Anti-Torture Statute. It's a seldom used federal law and will be significant trial to watch for its legal and precedential value, even outside of the interest in truthful fact-finding about atrocities committed during the Liberian conflict.

Here in Liberia, the Firestone Plantation workers vote in Union Elections tomorrow. Firestone is an enormous employer, and has been accused of maintaining wage and working conditions akin to indentured labor on the plantation and encouraging child labor. The attempt at serious union reform is therefore highly politically charged.

Locally, gas prices have gone up, which means taxis are now adding L$5 (US$.08) to most local fares. I've been meaning for a while to just post a list of prices of Liberian and imported goods here, since the latter can be almost shockingly expensive. Email to prompt me if you're getting bored with my slow rate of posting. But don't expect anything before the 14th, and then hopefully I'll have stories of forest adventures and pygmy hippos.

Technical Error.

Looks like I duplicated photo albums, so most recent pictures are here. Will try to consolidate and fix ASAP, bandwidth permitting...