No one is talking about how and why these things are happening to young women in Liberia on a scale unseen before the war.
Blame it on those who were barking gloom and doom orders of destruction: “Level Monrovia and we will rebuild it” said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from the comfort of America to her battlefield frontline commander, General Charles Taylor.
And the notorious Charles Taylor said: “a good (Samuel) Doe is a dead Doe,” simply to get rid of the first indigenous/native/tribal leader in the history of Liberia since independence from 1847 to 1980.
It is good that the United States government and other governments are getting copies of each newspaper publication in Liberia through their embassies and eventually to the US State Department and by extension to the White House.
This much I knew during the presidency of Barack Obama. These heartbreaking stories are then reflected in the U.S. State Department’s Annual Human Rights Reports and are the basis that determines some of US government aid to Liberia and other countries.
So yes, these kinds of stories have far reaching impact and do raise questions about how US aid to Liberia is spent by the government. Corruption is one reason these young women are forgotten by government. And for Liberia, the country’s sad history of Americo-Liberian/Congua domination and marginalization over the natives is well noted by decision makers in Washington. Two examples stand out.
The most recent came from former US Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former White House National Security Advisor to President George Bush and also former Stanford University Professor.
On a visit to Ukraine about two years ago, she said of the people in Ukraine: “if you think you are experiencing economic and political difficulties, you are lucky you are not living in Liberia where conditions are worst,” to paraphrase her.
When President William Tolbert, Jr. addressed the US Congress, the US House Speaker then (Tip O’Neal then I guess) and the Vice President said something like, “he is a decedent of the freed slaves that left America for Liberia but they are there treating the natives as slaves and won’t even allow the natives to form their own opposition political parties in a one-party state in which natives could not vote and see no reason to vote.”
Those sentiments are facts then and now today in Liberia. A source who attended a meeting at the White House between Dr. Rice and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf confided to me that Dr. Rice told Ellen it is about time native George Weah is elected President of Liberia for a change from the domination of you the Americo-Liberians over the natives. To which Ellen angrily replied and she is native and told Dr. Rice that her mom is Kru and her dad is Gola.
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the former college professor, my source said then told Ellen that to be told you are Congua is based on how you conduct yourself and your lifestyle in Liberia. When you say you are part Congua and native but you live like the Congua, conduct yourself like the Congua, then obviously you are a Congua, Dr. Rice reportedly told an angry Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Dr. Rice is right because if you look at how Ellen has conducted her entire adult life and her governance as President, no doubt she is Congua. When you walk, talk, act, live like the Congua then you are a Congua, and these natives I refer to as the “Born-Again and Baptized” Congua who have graduated into the ranks of the original Congua from the slave plantations of the Americas.
Back to the girls and one of them in particular seems to be directing her cry for help at Ellen the first woman President of Liberia and Africa as a whole. Said Ms. Gift a prostitute: “Sometimes I want to leave the streets, but I don’t know where I will go. For now, I want to do sewing, but I need people to talk to me like (another) female who will inspire me,” said Ms. Gift the hopeless Liberian prostitute.
Please FrontPageAfrica, find Ms. Gift and tell her I feel her pain and hear her cry for help. I agree to sponsor her to help her get on her own feet and leave the prostitution life style in which she and others are trapped I will buy her sewing machine by May this year. FPA Publisher Rodney Sieh has my phone number.
Jerry Wehtee Wion
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA