Liberia's Broken Promise

After 14 years of civil war, a rebel army composed primarily of teenagers with outdated rifles attacked Monrovia, Liberia's seaside capital. The fighting has killed hundreds of civilians, filled refugee camps and led to an outbreak of disease. It has also pushed hundreds of thousands of civilians into Monrovia, swelling the normal population of 1 million. The rebels seized the main port and airport and now control food, water and fuel coming into the country. Looting is widespread. Bodies are scattered throughout the streets.

Many have called upon the U.S. to intervene, citing its "special relationship" with Liberia - which was founded by freed U.S. slaves. Few accounts have detailed, however, precisely what the nature of this "special relationship" has been and why, from a moral perspective, it imposes obligations on the U.S..

Liberia detrimentally relied on a number of promises and representations - explicit and implicit - made by the U.S. over the past century and a half. Historically, the United States has acted in such a way as to represent that it will provide for Liberia's economic well being and security. But over history, it has often let Liberia down - at no time more conspicuously than now.

In a contract case in which detrimental reliance is shown, the remedy is damages. In this human rights crisis, the proper remedy is aid; humanitarian intervention; and the U.S.'s sending troops immediately to stabilize Liberia and protect innocent persons there from further atrocities.

In the early 19th century, Paul Cuffe, a wealthy African-American merchant from Massachusetts, became convinced that the only way that American blacks could become self-governing was to emigrate to Africa. To this end, he created a transportation company called the American Colonization Society. With the U.S. government's approval, the Society began to resettle free American blacks in Liberia.

Those pioneers were the original Americo-Liberians. In the small tropical nation, they quickly became the ruling group, assuming all positions of power and influence. Soon they constituted a U.S.-friendly elite. (It was also an elite whose skin color was typically lighter than that of the original Liberians. Sadly, then, the Americo-Liberians created a hierarchy that, in this respect, mirrored the racial hierarchy they had endured in the U.S..)

In the 1920's - in large part because of the presence of this friendly elite, and that of a considerable U.S. naval fleet just offshore - the U.S.-based Firestone Tire and Rubber Company founded the largest rubber plantation in the world in Liberia. The company installed Americo-Liberians in positions of power, and the small elite rose to economic prominence.

Subsequently, Liberia's president, William Tubman - who ruled from 1944 to 1971 - allowed the CIA to build the largest spy station in all of Africa within his borders. During the Cold War, the U.S. sank billions of dollars into developing surveillance equipment in Liberia. Liberia also functioned as a U.S. outpost from which the U.S. sought to undermine national liberation movements throughout the continent.

After Tubman's death, his successor, President William Tolbert, angered the U.S. by courting favor with China and Cuba. Tolbert also angered most Liberians by showering privileges on his fellow Americo-Liberians. The ethnic and class conflicts between the Americo-Liberians and the darker Liberians grew.

In 1980, Tolbert was murdered by Samuel Doe - an illiterate warlord trained by the U.S. Green Berets. Doe became the first "true" Liberian to rule the country. Doe assassinated most of the former cabinet members as well as his fellow insurgents, and unleashed a wave of ethnic-based terror.

Doe also exploited America's Cold War fears concerning Africa. Famously, President Reagan - who handed Liberia more than $5 billion during the early 1980s - invited Doe to the White House, addressing him as "Chairman Moe."