			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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THE HEART OF DARKNESS
by
Eric Margolis   11 April 1996

Liberia, a small West African nation of 2.4 million, is back
in the news, As usual, the news about this odd, sinister 
backwater is all bad.  

Heavy fighting raged anew this week in the fly-blown,
bullet-riddled capitol, Monrovia, named after US President,
James Monroe.  In a scene reminiscent of Congo in the early
1960's, US special forces evacuated embassy personnel,
American citizens, other whites from  downtown Monrovia,
where mobs of drunken, drug-crazed, teenage soldiers and
tribesmen were killing, looting and running amok. 

Civil and tribal war has flared in Liberia since its 
military dictator, Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, was
overthrown in 1990. Doe, an illiterate and remarkably
murderous thug, enjoyed personally shooting or bayonetting
political enemies and cabinet ministers. He was captured by
rebels led by a certain Prince Johnson. who forced Doe to
eat his own ears and genitals. His captors then cut Doe up
into bit-sized chunks and ate him with pepper sauce, thus
digesting one of Africa's more loathsome tyrants.

Liberia has never been a happy place.  It was founded by
American abolitionists in 1822 as a refuge for freed black
slaves from America.  In a testimony to the innate goodness
of human nature, the freed American slaves promptly enslaved
the local tribesmen, setting up an oligarchy that ruled
until 1980.

The US dollar was Liberia's currency;  English  the language
of its elite.   Liberia became a virtual American colony in
West Africa.  The economy of this rubber republic depended
on the Firestone Company.  CIA and NSA ran major stations 
in Monrovia. Tiny Liberia became the largest recipient of US
aid in Africa. Wags called it, `the African Israel.'

Liberia's snoozy colonial status ended abruptly when Sgt.
Doe seized power in 1980. He executed the entire government
on Monrovia's beach, inaugurating a decade-long reign of
terror that brought back to this writer vivid memories of
Papa Doc's Haiti.  A hodgepodge  of rebel groups took the
field against the greatly unloved Doe.

One, led by Charles Taylor, who had fled the US under
indictment for embezzlement, was suspected of being financed
by Libya's Khadaffi, then Washington's chief bogeyman. This
provoked the US to organize a West African intervention
force, led by Nigeria.  France, fearful that Nigeria had
designs on its West African neo-colonies, backed and armed
anti-Nigerian groups. CIA was rumored to be behind the
carnivorous Prince Johnson.  As Nigerian warplanes bombed
Monrovia, a chaotic melee erupted between rival gangs and
West African soldiers, all of whom were heavily stoned on
palm wine, speed and powerful, local pot.  

This week, a  warlord with the grandiose name,  General D.
Roosevelt Johnson, led war parties of Krahns - Liberia's
largest tribe - against Taylor forces in Monrovia. Witch
doctor  medics provided the Krahns with  `bullet-proof' juju
amulets.

No one seems able to stop the mayhem in Liberia, which has
so far killed an estimated 80,000 to 150,000, and made one
million homeless.  By now, the war has degenerated into
primitive tribal warfare.   Nigeria, the  only nation
capable of imposing a military solution, is currently in
America's black book because of its recent hanging of Ken
Saro-Wiwa, the darling of many western liberals and
ecologists. He and eight other executed Ogoni tribal
activists may, or may not, have been guilty of murdering
some Ogoni chiefs.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, gangs of primitives named the 'Armed
Forces of Liberia'  fight the `United Liberation Movement
for Democracy,' which is split into two warring factions. They
battle one another, and the the `National Patriotic Front,' also
split in two factions, which fight the `Liberian Peace Council.'
They all occcasionally fight `ECOMAG,' the Nigerian-dominated
`peacekeeping' force, backed by `ECOWAS,' the West African
Community, which is secretly opposed by France,  Ghana and
Burkino Faso (formerly Upper Volta).
 
Evelyn Waugh, the viciously funny British satirist, would
have relished such tragi-comic madness. The Clinton
Administration, which faces getting sucked into this mess,
is not at all amused.  


@copyright  Eric Margolis  1996

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