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Wicked CT – In memoriam

April 27, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Yesterday the Special Court for Sierra Leone found Charles Taylor guilty of aiding the RUF during the Sierra Leonean Civil War. The court case that has taken five years is the last of a court that has previously sentenced 9 Sierra Leonean rebel and military leaders with long prison sentences. Taylor has 14 days to appeal and his sentence should be given on May 30.

Not too long ago I was in a Monrovian bar owned by a friend of mine. I complained about a drink where they used American ginger beer instead of making their own “local” version. Local ginger beer is a sweet, nice and affable drink compared to its unpleasant American brother. Nothing comes out of complaining so instead I arranged with the barman that he should buy some ginger and lime and we would meet before opening the following day. So we did and together we made ginger beer and with the skills of the barman created a very tasty drink. We named it CT after Charles Taylor. Charles Taylor was often nicknamed ginger because of his light skin. I hope that costumers ordering a CT do understand that it is an irony – the name was not given to celebrate Charles Taylor, but as a comment on the enigmatic presence of Charles Taylor in Liberia close to ten years after he left the country in 2003. Continue reading

Wicked CT – In memoriam

April 27, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Yesterday the Special Court for Sierra Leone found Charles Taylor guilty of aiding the RUF during the Sierra Leonean Civil War. The court case that has taken five years is the last of a court that has previously sentenced 9 Sierra Leonean rebel and military leaders with long prison sentences. Taylor has 14 days to appeal and his sentence should be given on May 30.

Not too long ago I was in a Monrovian bar owned by a friend of mine. I complained about a drink where they used American ginger beer instead of making their own “local” version. Local ginger beer is a sweet, nice and affable drink compared to its unpleasant American brother. Nothing comes out of complaining so instead I arranged with the barman that he should buy some ginger and lime and we would meet before opening the following day. So we did and together we made ginger beer and with the skills of the barman created a very tasty drink. We named it CT after Charles Taylor. Charles Taylor was often nicknamed ginger because of his light skin. I hope that costumers ordering a CT do understand that it is an irony – the name was not given to celebrate Charles Taylor, but as a comment on the enigmatic presence of Charles Taylor in Liberia close to ten years after he left the country in 2003. Continue reading

Hunting generals in Grand Gedeh

April 15, 2012 / / 2 Comments

One of the fascinating things with a society like the Liberian is that with quite little effort you can meet with people all the way up in the hierarchies. This goes for former rebel groups as well. Some of the top brass officers did not shy away from meeting us in Monrovia. In Grand Gedeh it proved a bit more difficult.  Allegations of training camps, where old and new soldiers were supposedly gathering to prepare for incursions in either Liberia or neighboring Ivory Cost had recently led to the arrests of some former MODEL people. Even if nobody seemed to really know which country was meant to be targeted, everybody knew and talked about it when we reached to Zwedru, the county capital of Grand Gedeh. Obviously it made former generals slightly apprehensive talking to us. Some even said that when they heard that we were looking for them they initially ran away because of fear. In their eyes a European researcher is likely to be connected to the Liberian government, at least from their perspective both appear equally remote and intruding. However after entering into conversation and when we were given time to explain ourselves most let go of their doubts. One thing however that they really wanted us to highlight was that there are no training camps in Grand Gedeh and, for rather obvious reasons, there is no need to train for already trained and seasoned rebel soldiers. Having heard ample training camp rumors before, for instance in Sierra Leone, and knowing how soldiers are mobilized into rebel armies, I agree with them, camps is if anything an obstacle for efficient mobilization of troops in a semi-policed setting like Grand Gedeh, unless the government itself has their stake in it. The presence of camps in Grand Gedeh today is highly unlikely. Yet one should be reminded of the volatile situation on the Ivorian side of the border and from the Liberian side small armed groups have crossed the border into Ivory Coast and attacked villages. Such cross-border attacks are however extremely rare and also most surely appear in isolation. Continue reading

Hunting generals in Grand Gedeh

April 15, 2012 / / 2 Comments

One of the fascinating things with a society like the Liberian is that with quite little effort you can meet with people all the way up in the hierarchies. This goes for former rebel groups as well. Some of the top brass officers did not shy away from meeting us in Monrovia. In Grand Gedeh it proved a bit more difficult.  Allegations of training camps, where old and new soldiers were supposedly gathering to prepare for incursions in either Liberia or neighboring Ivory Cost had recently led to the arrests of some former MODEL people. Even if nobody seemed to really know which country was meant to be targeted, everybody knew and talked about it when we reached to Zwedru, the county capital of Grand Gedeh. Obviously it made former generals slightly apprehensive talking to us. Some even said that when they heard that we were looking for them they initially ran away because of fear. In their eyes a European researcher is likely to be connected to the Liberian government, at least from their perspective both appear equally remote and intruding. However after entering into conversation and when we were given time to explain ourselves most let go of their doubts. One thing however that they really wanted us to highlight was that there are no training camps in Grand Gedeh and, for rather obvious reasons, there is no need to train for already trained and seasoned rebel soldiers. Having heard ample training camp rumors before, for instance in Sierra Leone, and knowing how soldiers are mobilized into rebel armies, I agree with them, camps is if anything an obstacle for efficient mobilization of troops in a semi-policed setting like Grand Gedeh, unless the government itself has their stake in it. The presence of camps in Grand Gedeh today is highly unlikely. Yet one should be reminded of the volatile situation on the Ivorian side of the border and from the Liberian side small armed groups have crossed the border into Ivory Coast and attacked villages. Such cross-border attacks are however extremely rare and also most surely appear in isolation. Continue reading

Liberia post-election: on CDC popularity and odd election results

April 5, 2012 / / 0 Comments

As I have written previously, informed by my previous trip at the time of the elections in October/November last year, the situation after the CDC boycott of the second round of elections, where UP subsequently won a comfortable victory, has in Monrovia been quite tense. Returning in late March it is good to see that people now, a few months down the road, are getting on with their ordinary lives again (but democratic elections has such an impasse on Liberia arresting most activities within the state for a timeframe of close to six months and thus have considerable impact on the national economy). Although I personally felt that CDC made some very irresponsible and strategically bad moves, especially the boycott of the runoff, they still remain much popular, maybe even more today, amongst ordinary people. The main reason for CDC coming out strong is that they are viewed as the party opposed to the resource-grabbing and wealth-keeping UP government. Continue reading

Hunting generals and a few other things

April 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

“Look there is a general”, shouts our assistant, and we all get out of the car to extend greetings with a rather surprised former general with mild looking eyes. We are in Zwedru, the capital of Grand Gedeh County in Eastern Liberia, for a few days doing research former commanders and their roles in the post-war and former generals of MODEL are not too hard to find in Zwedru. However they are afraid to talk as it has been rumored for some time that there are training camps in the county and the police have arrested some former combatants allegedly have something to do with that. “But why should we train?” some former generals ask, “we are already properly trained”. Last year’s election in Liberia created some tensions in the country, between the ruling UP party and the oppositional party CDC. Grand Gedeh is a CDC stronghold. Grand Gedehians also point out that they were loyal and militarily active in pushing Charles Taylor and his regime out of the country but have not received any thanks and benefits from the current government. Their county remains very much marginal in Liberian politics as well as economy. To make the situation more delicate many inhabitants spent long stints of the war years on the other side of the border in Côte d’Ivoire (C.I.) or have relatives there. The change of government in C.I., a government that many Grand Gedehians supported, meant that both Liberians and Ivoirians residing on the Ivorian side had to run away from property and livelihood to take refuge on Liberian territory. Today they say that Burkinabes, but in reality it is people from the north of C.I, have taken over the prosperous plantation economy in C.I., whilst about 69.000 refugees of Ivorian origin and a large but unknown number of Liberians were forced into Liberia. This is naturally creating tension. These are some of the topics that I intend to publish on my blog over the next few days. Findings are temporary and originate from my last research trip in Liberia.

On Sporadic Radicalism

January 27, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Last week I participated in the third Marrakech Security Forum which this year focused on “Issues and security consequences of transition in North Africa”. It also included several panels on the consequences for the Sahel region, as well as the problem of drugs trafficking in West Africa. In this well-ordered event organized by Federation Africaine Des etudes Strategiques/Centre Marocain des Etudes Strategiques  there were participants from some 50 countries, about 120 men but only 10 women, clearly indicating the male biased interest in the security business. Participants came chiefly from the MENA region but to quite some extent also from francophone Africa south of the Sahara. It was a crowd of senior diplomats, high rank militaries and professors. It appeared that everyone was a director of one institute or another other. There were naturally also a number of Europeans and Americans. Many of the more than hundred, too brief, presentations were quite general statements on the political situation in North Africa and in the Sahel region. Interestingly U.S. officials and academics choose to humbly downplay the U.S. role in Africa in the years to come, except for in a few strategic countries. French officials raised concern over the situation in Algeria and also talked about the situation in the Sahel as “war” and showed concern for the increasing interconnectedness of militant Islamist groups in the region and all the way down to Nigeria. Participants from Africa South of the Sahara gave quite divergent views on the possibilities of an “African spring”, but the Sahelialists were equally afraid of developments around AQIM, Boko Haram and other radical groups. Continue reading

On Sporadic Radicalism

January 27, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Last week I participated in the third Marrakech Security Forum which this year focused on “Issues and security consequences of transition in North Africa”. It also included several panels on the consequences for the Sahel region, as well as the problem of drugs trafficking in West Africa. In this well-ordered event organized by Federation Africaine Des etudes Strategiques/Centre Marocain des Etudes Strategiques  there were participants from some 50 countries, about 120 men but only 10 women, clearly indicating the male biased interest in the security business. Participants came chiefly from the MENA region but to quite some extent also from francophone Africa south of the Sahara. It was a crowd of senior diplomats, high rank militaries and professors. It appeared that everyone was a director of one institute or another other. There were naturally also a number of Europeans and Americans. Many of the more than hundred, too brief, presentations were quite general statements on the political situation in North Africa and in the Sahel region. Interestingly U.S. officials and academics choose to humbly downplay the U.S. role in Africa in the years to come, except for in a few strategic countries. French officials raised concern over the situation in Algeria and also talked about the situation in the Sahel as “war” and showed concern for the increasing interconnectedness of militant Islamist groups in the region and all the way down to Nigeria. Participants from Africa South of the Sahara gave quite divergent views on the possibilities of an “African spring”, but the Sahelialists were equally afraid of developments around AQIM, Boko Haram and other radical groups. Continue reading

‘war as a violent mode of participating in today’s global economy’: reading danny hoffman’s war machines

November 21, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Below is my review of Danny Hoffman’s fantastic book The War Machines: young men and violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia recently published by Duke University Press.

Malaria in insecure spaces. The first time I heard of Danny Hoffman was at an international conference and it was a fantastic story. Some of the senior academics shook their heads at the risks he had taken, blaming it on his “youth”, but I was rather impressed. My reading was that surviving this situation was dependent on his skillful building of trust and mutual respect with his research subjects: rebel soldiers. Hoffman had caught a serious stroke of malaria whilst being in the deep Sierra Leonean bush with rebel soldiers. He was saved by rebels who carried him across the border to Liberia for medical attention; clearly risking their lives, but thereby saving his. Continue reading

‘war as a violent mode of participating in today’s global economy’: reading danny hoffman’s war machines

November 21, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Below is my review of Danny Hoffman’s fantastic book The War Machines: young men and violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia recently published by Duke University Press.

Malaria in insecure spaces. The first time I heard of Danny Hoffman was at an international conference and it was a fantastic story. Some of the senior academics shook their heads at the risks he had taken, blaming it on his “youth”, but I was rather impressed. My reading was that surviving this situation was dependent on his skillful building of trust and mutual respect with his research subjects: rebel soldiers. Hoffman had caught a serious stroke of malaria whilst being in the deep Sierra Leonean bush with rebel soldiers. He was saved by rebels who carried him across the border to Liberia for medical attention; clearly risking their lives, but thereby saving his. Continue reading

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