Reconstruction of Liberia Will Require Toil, Patience, and Prayer
Episcopal News Service. March 21, 1991 [91084]
Nan Cobbey
If the nation of Liberia -- torn apart by a bloody 14-month-old civil war -- is to survive, the church must assume a major role in saving it.
That is the view of George Browne, Episcopal archbishop of West Africa and bishop of Liberia, who has been functioning as negotiator and peace seeker between the rebel factions.
Browne, one of only two denominational leaders to remain in the country during the war, made that observation to Bruce Woodcock, an emissary of Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning. Woodcock was sent to Liberia to find the archbishop, who had been out of contact with the church and the world outside Liberia for nine months.
Churches will have to do more than they have so far, however. Little money and almost no support have reached the West African country founded by freed American slaves 144 years ago, Woodcock learned.
The nation of 2.5 million has seen almost half its population displaced since rebel leader Charles Taylor began his drive to oust President Samuel K. Doe's government in December 1989.
As fighting grew more intense and a second rebel group broke off from Taylor's and took over parts of the country, food production was disrupted, transportation became dangerous or impossible, hundreds of thousands fled, and the society's infrastructure broke down totally.
As many as 50,000 people are believed to have died from the violence or from starvation. Peace talks were scheduled but were boycotted by Taylor, who apparently feared assassination.
Today, the situation is improving -- but not by much. Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches (NCC), issued an appeal eight months ago for $1 million to provide relief and medical care. Barely $300,000 had been collected by mid-March.
The United Nation's appeal for $14 million to help Liberian refugees both inside and outside the country has realized but $1 million. Observers at both institutions blame the war in the Persian Gulf for distracting public interest.
That is not an adequate explanation for Kenneth Best, publisher of the major newspaper in Liberia before the war. The Episcopalian journalist, visiting the United States in early March, accused American churches of a callous disregard for the suffering of Liberian citizens.
"Where were the churches during the war? Did they pressure Washington? Where is their humanitarian aid now?" Best asked at a press briefing at the NCC offices in New York.
"Liberian churches are offspring of American churches. And what does one do when one sees his offspring dying? Just sit there and watch?"
Browne, for one, isn't doing that. On a tape sent back with Woodcock, Browne described his difficulties. He spoke of rebel leader Prince Yormie Johnson and of Amos Sawyer, interim government head.
"They have expressed over and over that the only salvation for Liberia is the church... and, strange enough, we have only two church leaders who are [still] permanently resident. One is the bishop of the Episcopal Church; the other [the Rev. Levy Molton, president of the Liberian Council of Churches] is head of the Baptist Church. So we are stuck, Molton and I, with seeing what we can do to put the pieces together."
Woodcock described the conditions in Liberia to an audience at the Episcopal Church Center. "You can't begin to describe the destruction experienced by those living in Monrovia. There are no basic services operating in the city. There is almost no food. There is a total dismantling of government and social services. People must do everything for themselves."
Freelance journalist Kenneth Noble, the only Western journalist to remain in Liberia through the war, according to Best, described a capital city without electrical power, without running water, in which almost every building is scarred or burned.
In an article in the New York Times, he told of the "ubiquitous palm trees" that once lined the streets. "The trees began disappearing last fall when, as starvation spread in this war-shattered capital, thousands were cut down and their edible hearts eagerly and desperately eaten."
The threat of starvation was and is real. A videotape of conditions in the capital of Monrovia, made by Hiram Ruiz of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, shows bodies and bones in fields and on public streets.
The city's hospitals were looted and abandoned; medical care and medicines were virtually nonexistent. Hunger grew until malnutrition among children reached 80 percent and the death rate was 50 a day.
The population of Monrovia, once 450,000, dropped to 150,000 during the fighting but is now climbing again. In the past two months, said Woodcock, it grew to 500,000 and is expected to reach a million by year's end.
Many of those flooding into the capital are looking for homes that may no longer be standing. Others are fleeing occupied areas of the country or returning from neighboring countries where they've been living as refugees.
According to William Sage, coordinator of the immigration and refugee program for Church World Service, close to 750,000 sought refuge in Sierra Leone, Gambia, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast. "And that's a conservative estimate." There are also "massive displacements," he said, within Liberia itself.
In order to meet needs for food, shelter, and medical care, the UN and the NCC will continue their appeals, but the response will have to grow if the two are to make any serious or long-term difference.
Some help is reaching Monrovia, however, and the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief is helping to provide it. Working through Church World Service and other ecumenical organizations, the fund has allotted $94,000 in aid for food, medicines, and supplies; refugee rehabilitation; and even mediation efforts.
Church World Service has sent two public health teams to Monrovia and hopes to send more. Ruth Ann Ehrhardt, a nurse from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, returned on March 12 to report that the clinic where she worked is serving an average of 130 to 140 people a day. Malnutrition, diarrhea, and anemia are prevalent.
"One area of concern is dealing with the tremendous number of orphans and street children separated from families," Ehrhardt said. UNICEF and other agencies are trying to help these children, reunite families, and, if no family remains, locate foster or adoptive homes.
Another concern is nutrition. Church World Service, along with eight other agencies, opened a "therapeutic feeding center" for the most severely malnourished children.
As for the Episcopal Church in Liberia, all but one of its eight parishes in the capital are open and functioning. However, other church facilities are not so lucky.
Cuttington College, the Episcopal school founded in 1889 that had an enrollment of more than 1,000 before the war, is being used as a base for Charles Taylor and his rebel forces.
St. Peter's Church in Caldwell, to the east of Monrovia, has been taken over by rebel leader Prince Yormie Johnson to house 600 of his troops. He is also using the diocesan conference center as his base. The conference hall, built with United Thank Offering assistance, has become his warehouse.
Browne said that he will reject offers for aid in reopening Cuttington College as a school until he senses the political situation is safer. "The campus is still used by the military" he said. "I do not see our opening any of the Episcopal schools in Liberia [yet]." There are seven Episcopal Church-supported schools in the country.
Browne's plans, instead, focus on refugee resettlement. In a preliminary plan sent back with Woodcock, Browne outlined his idea to create a center at each end of the capital, on the main access roads, to house those returning. He wants to provide shelter, help for malnourished children, and assistance with the reconstruction of homes. His intention is to refine the plan with the Liberian Council of Churches.