“The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is working with our colleagues in Liberia and in the US to stop Firestone's exploitation of Liberia and her people…We have launched lawsuits against Firestone in Liberia and in the United States, and we are waging a public pressure campaign in advance of the April 3rd court date to show Firestone that the world is watching, and it doesn't like what it sees. Please visit ww.stopfirestone.org to learn more about Firestone and the lawsuits, and to send a letter to Firestone president Dan Adomitis demanding an end to Firestone's modern-day slavery and other abuses.”

Moves to try former Liberian President Charles Taylor for crimes against humanity in a Sierra Leone court are a warning to the world's warlords that they cannot escape justice, the court's chief prosecutor said. Newly-elected Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said on Friday (March 17) she had asked Nigeria, where Taylor lives in exile, to consider handing him to a UN-backed Special Court in Freetown, which has indicted him for his part in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war.

Newly elected Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will address the US Congress on Wednesday in what will be a crucial opportunity to secure funds to rebuild a country left battered by war. Underlining the close historic link between Liberia and the United States, Sirleaf will be the first African leader to address a joint meeting of the US Senate and House of Representatives since South African President Nelson Mandela more than a decade ago. As Africa’s first female president, Sirleaf may grab extra media attention for the plight of Liberia.
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* Sirleaf reveals new government

Last year, two out of three women in Liberia became the victims of sexual violence. During the fourteen-year civil war, rape was used systematically as a weapon of war. Although the conflict has ended, violence against women continues unabated because the war has destroyed social values and norms and left a far greater tendency to resort to violence.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisation, Liberia Watch for Human Rights (LWHR) welcome the launching of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on January 20, 2006, in accordance with Article XIII of the Liberian Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The Liberian TRC is notably mandated to conduct investigations and publish a report documenting gross human rights violations, violations of international humanitarian law as well as abuses that occurred, including massacres, sexual violations, murder, extra-judicial killings and economic crimes, such as the exploitation of natural or public resources to perpetuate armed conflicts in Liberia between January 1979 and October 14, 2003.

While fighting stopped in Liberia well over two years ago, thousands of refugees sheltering in camps in the lush forest region of neighbouring Guinea have no intention of going home, not now, not ever. Their sights are fixed on the board by the camp entrance that proves there remains a chance of seeking refuge in the United States.

During her installation on 16 January 2006 as Liberia’s president and Africa’s first elected female president, 67-year old Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said her main preoccupation would be to lead Liberia away from its turbulent past. She promised to end corruption in Liberia and work for its re-building after 14 years of devastating civil war. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf urged Liberians to join her in these tasks so that together Liberians could “begin anew, move forward into a future that is filled with hope and promise”. As concerns corruption in Liberia, she promised to “wage war against corruption regardless of where it exists or by whom it is practiced”.

Liberian children are being sold for adoption in dubious circumstances and others are living in sub-standard orphanages, according to rights groups in the West African nation. Some institutions, while purporting to help orphans, are charging huge sums of money for adoptions, the National Child Rights Observation Group (NACROG), said in a report this week. NACROG, comprising representatives of local and international NGOs, civil society, and several ministries, is asking the government to investigate three orphanages and calling for a halt to all adoptions from Liberia.

Liberia's president inaugurated a truth commission Monday (February 19) to investigate crimes and human rights abuses committed in the war-battered country over the last quarter century. The seven-member Truth and Reconciliation Commission has a mandate to investigate crimes committed from 1979 until 2003, when years of civil war came to an end. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who took over last month from a postwar transitional government, said Liberians must be courageous enough "to face up to the past and revile as an affront to all civilized people the despicable acts our people endured during the past 14 years of our civil conflict."

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) presented its congratulations to Liberia's new President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, at her official inauguration ceremony in Monrovia on 16 January 2006, pledging US$500,000 to support the Ministry of Gender and Development, and women's organizations to promote gender equality and peace in the country. "UNIFEM is proud to have supported the Ministry of Gender and development, and women's organizing throughout Liberia to reach this truly historic achievement," said Noeleen Heyzer, UNIFEM's executive director, who attended the inauguration.

Following Liberia’s credible elections in October 2005 there may at last be real cause for optimism for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fourteen years of civil war. While the new government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been taking the first steps towards economic and security sector reform, IDPs and refugees have been continuing to return home in large numbers. In January 2006 the UN reported that less than 50,000 registered IDPs remained in camps – with some 270,000 already assisted to return to their home areas – and that facilitated IDP return was expected to be completed in April 2006.

Expressing “serious concern” at the volatile situation in Côte d’Ivoire, where United Nations offices were looted and destroyed last month, the Security Council today (February 6) authorised extra troops to boost the strength of the UN peacekeeping mission in the West African nation. Reacting to Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s calls last week for more military personnel, the Council unanimously agreed to a temporary redeployment of troops from the UN mission in Liberia (UNMIL), but the numbers fell short of Mr. Annan’s request for an infantry battalion and a police unit.

In late 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed an Alien Tort Claims Act case in the US District Court in California against Bridgestone, alleging "forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery" on a Firestone Plantation in Harbel, Liberia. The lawsuit states: "The Plantation workers allege, among other things, that they remain trapped by poverty and coercion on a frozen-in-time Plantation operated by Firestone in a manner identical to how the Plantation was operated when it was first opened by Firestone in 1926." Robtel Pailey investigates modern-day slavery in the "land of the free".

In the early 1820’s, Liberia transformed into a land of exile for repatriated American slaves. In fact, the country was a proverbial refuge from the dehumanizing, deplorable conditions of chattel slavery in the United States. So any mention of the word “plantation” should have Liberians visibly shuddering from the historical legacy that many of its descendants endured.

Ironically enough, a recent development suggests that Liberia itself has served as a breeding ground for modern day slavery disguised in the form of what some would call indentured servitude for the American corporation, Firestone. Declared Africa’s first republic in 1847, Liberia has been embroiled in an asymmetrical relationship with the rubber giant since the corporation first landed on the shores of the country in 1926. Eighty years later, human rights groups have sidestepped Firestone’s alleged abusive practices and lodged a class action suit against the American company for violations of child labour laws, cruel and unusual labour practices, and environmental degradation. Practices, they claim, are no different from the moment the plantation opened. Since 1926, Firestone has allegedly relied on forced labour, involuntary servitude, recklessness, negligence in hiring and supervision, unjust enrichment and unfair business practices.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of workers and their children at the plantation under pseudonyms, names Japanese parent company Bridgestone, Bridgestone Americas Holding, Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire and other units as defendants.

The International Labour Rights Fund (ILRF) filed the class-action suit in the name of 12 Liberian workers and their 23 children, who remain anonymous to protect themselves from retaliation. The plaintiffs are bringing their case to the US because the Liberian judicial system has been eroded in the mire of civil breakdown. “The plantation workers are stripped of rights, they are isolated, they are at the mercy of Firestone for everything from food to health care to education, they risk expulsion and certain starvation if they raise even minor complaints, and the company makes wilful use of this situation to exploit these workers as they have since 1926,” the lawsuit claims. ILRF and its allies - Liberian human rights lawyers and activists - serve as an advocacy apparatus for the health and legal rights of Firestone workers in Harbel, Liberia.

The history of Firestone in Liberia is revealing. In 1926, the company signed a concession agreement with the government of Liberia for a period of 99 years. That agreement covered one million acres of land, leased for six cents per acre for a total annual price of $60,000. Large sectors of the indigenous population were displaced to pave the way for setting up Firestone’s largest plantation in Harbel. Even in the company’s infancy, Liberians were recruited to provide forced labour to harvest and cultivate the rubber trees, after which they engaged in “tapping,” the labour-intensive act of using primitive tools to tap the raw latex out of rubber trees for export. Labourers were initially conscripted at gunpoint, and many of the descendants of those labourers serve as plaintiffs in the case against Firestone today.

Despite a surge of civil dissent and democratic outcries in 2005, Firestone signed a new 37-year agreement with the Transitional Government in Liberia to lease the land for 50 cents per acre, a “hike up” from the original leasing agreement. According to a recent report published by the Save My Future Foundation, Firestone exported 167,165 tons of rubber between 2000 and 2003. The price of rubber reaches astronomical highs today at $486 per ton. In the measurement of trade regulations at present, Firestone is receiving $81,242,190 from its production in Liberia. All of the rubber produced in Liberia is sent to the United States for processing into tires, and other materials. No processing, manufacturing, or other value added production is done in Liberia.

The level of poverty in Liberia is so astonishing that people flock to the plantation for a mere pittance. The average tapper generates $900 monthly for the company yet receives barely a tenth of that as compensation from Firestone once fees and services are deducted from wages. As a result, the tappers slog for a mere $3.19 a day. After having worked for Firestone for over 50 years, some retired plantation workers apparently collect less than $50 a month in pension earnings.

Aside from dealing with the poverty of indentured servitude, Firestone labourers must contend with health-related infirmities. The tappers expose their eyes to the potentially blinding latex, applying dangerous pesticides and fertilizers to the rubber trees. The raw latex from the rubber trees is fatal when applied to the eyes, as there have been countless reported cases of workers suffering from permanent eye damage due to exposure. They are forced to carry 75-pound buckets overflowing with the collected latex quota of the day. Unschooled about the dangers of the products they are handling, the workers know not to ask for safety equipment. Many of the tappers have severe scars and bone muscle abnormalities as a result of the tapping.

The labourers work 12-15 hour days, then must enlist the help of their families (including young children and wives) to complete a daily quota in order to ensure a weekly wage. No days off, no paid holidays, no sick leave. A shameful phenomenon in the Firestone scheme is its implied support of child labour. Most of the children are working on the plantations instead of attending school. The few that do attend go to substandard schools in dilapidated conditions. Firestone claims that it provides free education to the children of its workers, but in actuality the workers must pay an income tax automatically deducted from their monthly wages to cover the costs of so-called educational expenses.

The children and their families toil on the plantation by day, and return to the squalor of primitive living conditions at night with no electricity or running water. Firestone blames the country’s more than a decade long civil war for the breakdown of infrastructure, yet members of the Firestone clan aided and abetted the rebel leader-turned president Charles Taylor so as to avoid damage to the plantation when the war raged on. Some of Taylor’s rebel armies were even stationed at Harbel, enjoying the fruits of their fellow countrymen’s literal blood, sweat, and tears.

Miles away from the deplorable living conditions of the Liberian labour force, the company’s managerial staff benefits from the rubber wealth, luxuriating in air-conditioned bungalows and even stopping from their “backbreaking” work as overseers to play a round of golf on the erected course nearby. Mud huts and shanty huts coexist with big, immaculate looking makeshift houses. Firestone claims that the mud huts that exist on the land were created by internally displaced Liberians who flocked to the plantation during the height of civil war in the country. Yet, Firestone owns the land and retains all the responsibilities of its upkeep. Furthermore, some of the conditions existed before the civil war and were entrenched for years.

The entire scenario represents a microcosm of inequitable trade rules benefiting large Western corporations that exploit raw material within the developing world, leaving the indigenous people with environmental spills, physical ailments, and broken morale. The Firestone case in Liberia is a microcosm of American corporate takeover and a flagrant disregard of indigenous rights. It is an extension of the transatlantic slave trade, and should be exposed as such.

* A native of Buchanan, Liberia, Robtel Neajai Pailey currently serves as Assistant Editor of The Washington Informer, a Washington, D.C. based community newspaper.

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Liberia’s new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, should take prompt action to ensure that former Liberian President Charles Taylor is surrendered to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Campaign Against Impunity said today (January 27) in an open letter to President Johnson-Sirleaf, who was inaugurated on January 16. The Campaign Against Impunity is a coalition of some three hundred African and international civil society groups that was formed to press for Charles Taylor’s surrender to the Special Court.

Members of Liberia's outgoing transitional government have vacated offices to make way for elected successors, taking their computers, desks, chairs and even carpets with them, civil servants told IRIN on Monday. Ministers, their staff, and parliamentarians as well have made off with a whole gamut of government property, leaving offices bare. Some former parliamentarians meanwhile have changed the official plates on their government-assigned 4x4 Cherokee jeeps to private ones, and are cruising around the capital Monrovia to the disgust of angry residents.

“Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s courageous commitment to attack corruption brings the possibility of stability and prosperity to Liberia,” said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International. “Her first months in office are crucial. Rapid and visible progress in delivering on the anti-corruption agenda will assure the people of Liberia that their future holds greater hope and opportunity. This is essential to build new trust between the people and the government, and will help put the country on a sustainable path.”

More than 550 refugees who fled Liberia’s brutal civil war arrived home over the past week – the largest batch since the UN refugee agency began its repatriation programme in 2004, and less than two weeks since Liberia’s newly elected president urged her countrymen to return. This latest convoy from Sierra Leone boosted the number of refugees brought home by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners since October 2004 to 6,559.

Some 2085 Internally Displaced People living in Congo Town in Monrovia told The Analyst that they have been abandoned by the government of Liberia and the international community. “There is no health facility; children are not going to school and nobody seems to care for us. We are suffering,” said the chairman of the IDPs occupying the new health ministry in Congo Town, Mr. Augustus Tarpar.

The IRC Liberia GBV program currently implements a holistic set of services to respond to the needs of women who have experienced gender-based violence and works with all actors to minimise their vulnerability to ongoing violence. The GBV Coordinator will be responsible for providing strategic direction, leadership and technical assistance to the national program, developing new initiatives and liaising with key donors and stakeholders and transitioning the program from an emergency response program to one implemented within a community development framework.

Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, came to power on a huge surge of support from women voters, hopeful that a woman leader would right some of the wrongs done to them during 14 years of civil war. One of her first pledges was to do something about the scourge of rape, using new legislation that came into force the day after her inauguration. A BBC report quotes her: "We will enforce without fear of favour the laws against rape recently passed by the national transitional legislation."