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Liberia

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: African Countries;
Countries

   SOS Children works in Liberia. For more information see SOS Children in
   Liberia, Africa
                  Republic of Liberia

   Flag of Liberia Coat of arms of Liberia
   Flag            Coat of arms
   Motto: "The love of liberty brought us here"
   Anthem: All Hail, Liberia, Hail!
   Location of Liberia
   Capital
   (and largest city)    Monrovia
                         6°19′N 10°48′W
    Official languages   English
   Government            Republic
    - President          Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
    - Vice-President     Joseph Boakai
         Formation       by African-Americans
    - ACS colonies
      consolidation      1821- 1842
    - Independence       26 July 1847
                         Area
    - Total              111,369 km² ( 103rd)
                         43,000 sq mi
    - Water (%)          13.514
                      Population
    - July 2005 estimate 3,283,000 ( 132nd)
    - Density            29/km² ( 174th)
                         75/sq mi
        GDP ( PPP)       2005 estimate
    - Total              $2.903 billion ( not ranked)
    - Per capita         $900 ( not ranked)
        HDI  (2003)      n/a (unranked) ( n/a)
         Currency        Liberian dollar^1 ( LRD)
         Time zone       GMT ( UTC)
       Internet TLD      .lr
       Calling code      +231
   ^1 United States dollar also in common usage.

   Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west
   coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire.
   Liberia, which means "Land of the Free," was founded as an independent
   nation for free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans. Recently
   it has witnessed two civil wars, the Liberian Civil War ( 1989– 1996),
   and the Second Liberian Civil War ( 1999– 2003), that have displaced
   hundreds of thousands and destroyed its economy.

History

Settlers from America

   The American Colonization Society established Liberia as a colony for
   African-Americans in 1822. African-Americans gradually immigrated to
   the colony and became known as Americo-Liberians, where many present
   day Liberians trace their ancestry.

   On July 26, 1847, the Americo-Liberian settlers declared the
   independence of the Republic of Liberia. The settlers regarded Africa
   as a " Promised Land," but they did not become reintegrated into an
   African society. Once in Africa, they referred to themselves as
   "Americans" and were recognized as such by local Africans and by
   British colonial authorities in neighboring Sierra Leone. The symbols
   of their state — its flag, motto, and seal — and the form of government
   that they chose reflected their American background and diaspora
   experience. Lincoln University founded as Ashmun Institute in 1854
   played an important role in supplying Americo-Liberians leadership for
   the new Nation. The first graduating class of Lincoln University, James
   R. Amos, his brother Thomas H. Amos, and Armistead Miller sailed for
   Liberia on the brig Mary C. Stevens in April, 1859 after graduation.

   The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the
   Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South.
   These ideals strongly influenced the attitudes of the settlers toward
   the indigenous African people. The new nation, as they perceived it,
   was coextensive with the settler community and with those Africans who
   were assimilated into it. Mutual mistrust and hostility between the
   "Americans" along the coast and the "Natives" of the interior was a
   recurrent theme in the country's history, along with (usually
   successful) attempts by the Americo-Liberian minority to dominate
   people whom they considered uncivilized and inferior. They named the
   land "Liberia," which in European languages, and in Latin in
   particular, means "Land of the Free," as an homage to their freedom
   from slavery.
   Joseph Jenkins Roberts, First President of Liberia
   Enlarge
   Joseph Jenkins Roberts, First President of Liberia

   The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American religious
   and philanthropic groups, but the country enjoyed the support and
   unofficial cooperation of the United States government. Liberia’s
   government, modeled after that of the United States, was democratic in
   structure, if not always in substance. After 1877 the True Whig Party
   monopolized political power in the country, and competition for office
   was usually contained within the party, whose nomination virtually
   ensured election. Two problems confronting successive administrations
   were pressure from neighboring colonial powers, Britain and France, and
   the threat of financial insolvency, both of which challenged the
   country’s sovereignty. Liberia retained its independence during the
   Scramble for Africa, but lost its claim to extensive territories that
   were annexed by Britain and France. Economic development was retarded
   by the decline of markets for Liberian goods in the late nineteenth
   century and by indebtedness on a series of loans, payments on which
   drained the economy.
   President Edwin Barclay (right) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt
   during World War II, 1943
   Enlarge
   President Edwin Barclay (right) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt
   during World War II, 1943

Significant mid-twentieth century events

   Two events were of particular importance in releasing Liberia from its
   self-imposed isolation. The first was the grant in 1926 of a large
   concession to the American-owned Firestone Plantation Company; that
   move became a first step in the modernization of the Liberian economy.
   The second occurred during World War II, when the United States began
   providing technical and economic assistance that enabled Liberia to
   make economic progress and introduce social change.

1980 coup under Doe

   In a late night raid on 12 April 1980, a successful military coup was
   staged by a group of noncommissioned Krahn officers led by Master
   Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe, and they executed the President of nine
   years William R. Tolbert, Jr. in his mansion. Constituting themselves
   the People’s Redemption Council, Doe and his associates seized control
   of the government and brought an end to Africa’s "first republic".
   Significantly, Doe was the first Liberian head of state who was not a
   member of the Americo-Liberian elite.

   In the early 1980s, the United States provided Liberia more than $500
   million for pushing the Soviet Union out of the country, and for
   providing the US exclusive rights to use Liberia's ports and land
   (including allowing the CIA to use Liberian territory to spy on Libya).

   Doe favored authoritarian policies, banning newspapers and outlawing
   various opposition parties. His tactic was to brand popular opposition
   parties as "socialist", and therefore illegal according to the Liberian
   constitution, while allowing less popular minor parties to remain as a
   token opposition. Unfortunately for Doe, popular support would then
   tend to realign behind one of these smaller parties, causing them to be
   labeled "socialist" in their turn.

   In October 1985, Liberia held the first post-coup elections, ostensibly
   to legitimize Doe's regime. Virtually all international observers
   agreed that the Liberia Action Party (LAP) led by Jackson Doe (no
   relation) had won the election by a clear margin. After a week of
   counting the votes, however, Doe sacked the count officials and
   replaced them with his own Special Election Committee (SECOM), which
   announced that Doe's ruling National Democratic Party of Liberia had
   won with 50.9% of the vote. In response, on 12th November, a
   counter-coup was launched by Thomas Quiwonkpa, whose soldiers briefly
   occupied the Executive Mansion and the national radio station, with
   widespread support throughout the country. Three days later,
   Quiwonkpa's coup was overthrown. Following this failed coup, government
   repression intensified, as Doe's troops killed more than 2000 civilians
   and imprisoned more than 100 opposing politicians, including Jackson
   Doe, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and BBC journalist Isaac Bantu.

1989 and 1999 civil wars

   In late 1989, a civil war began, and in September 1990 Doe was ousted
   and killed by the forces of faction leader Yormie Johnson and members
   of the Gio tribe. As a condition for the end of the conflict, interim
   president Amos Sawyer resigned in 1994, handing power to the Council of
   State. Prominent warlord Charles G. Taylor was elected as President in
   1997. Taylor's brutal regime targeted several leading opposition and
   political activists. In 1998, the government sought to assassinate
   child rights activist Kimmie Weeks for a report he had published on its
   involvement in the training of child soldiers, which forced him into
   exile. Taylor's autocratic and dysfunctional government led to a new
   rebellion in 1999. More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been
   killed in the civil wars. The conflict intensified in mid- 2003, and
   the fighting moved into Monrovia. As the power of the government shrank
   and with increasing international and American pressure for him to
   resign, President Charles Taylor accepted an asylum offer from Nigeria,
   but vowed: "God willing, I will be back." This statement proved correct
   on March 29, 2006, when he was extradited from Nigeria . He is expected
   to face 17 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity before a
   United Nations tribunal holding proceedings in the Hague to address
   alleged crimes committed during the brutal civil war.

Transitional government and elections

   After the exile of Taylor, Gyude Bryant was appointed Chairman of the
   transitional government in late 2003. The primary task of the
   transitional government was to prepare for fair and peaceful democratic
   elections. With UN and ECOMOG troops safeguarding the peace, Liberia
   successfully conducted presidential elections in the fall of 2005.
   Twenty three candidates stood for the October 11, 2005 general
   election, with the early favorite George Weah, internationally famous
   footballer, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and member of the Kru ethnic
   group expected to dominate the popular vote. No candidate took the
   required majority in the general election, so that a run-off between
   the top two vote getters, Weah and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was
   necessary. The November 8, 2005 presidential runoff election was won
   decisively by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist. Both
   the general election and runoff were marked by peace and order, with
   thousands of Liberians waiting patiently in the Liberian heat to cast
   their ballots.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf presidency

   Daughter of the first indigenous Liberian to be elected to the national
   legislature, Jahmale Carney Johnson, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was born in
   rural Liberia. Widely celebrated for being the first elected female
   head of state in Africa, Johnson-Sirleaf’s election focused much
   international attention on Liberia. A former Citibank and World Bank
   employee, Johnson-Sirleaf’s impressive career also includes heading the
   U.N. Development Programme for Africa . (Owing to the complexion
   inherited from her maternal Grandfather, a German who married a rural
   market woman, Johnson-Sirleaf has often been thought to be a member of
   the Americo-Liberian elite, although she is quite proud of her
   indigenous Liberian roots). Long involved in her country’s fight for
   peace and justice, Johnson-Sirleaf was jailed twice during the Doe
   administration. Jailed once for eight months, she narrowly escaped with
   her life before going into exile. Delivering a message of hope and
   reconciliation in her inauguration speech, Johnson-Sirleaf hopes to
   bring her credentials as an economist to bear and enlist the help of
   the international community in rebuilding Liberia’s economy and
   infrastructure. As of this writing, she is working to have Liberia’s
   external debt of $3.5 billion cancelled, and is inviting international
   investment. She has extended a special invitation to the Nigerian
   business community to participate in business opportunities in Liberia,
   in part as thanks for Nigeria’s help in securing Liberia’s peace.
   Exiled Liberians are also investing in their homeland and participating
   in Liberia's rebuilding efforts.

   In addition to focusing her early efforts to restore basic services
   like water and electricity to the capital of Monrovia, Johnson-Sirleaf
   has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address crimes
   committed during the later stages of Liberia's long civil war. She is
   also working to re-establish Liberia's food independence. [To view
   recent presidential speeches, go to: .] Johnson-Sirleaf also tackled
   head-on the greatest looming threat to Liberia's peace and stability
   early in her presidency by requesting that Nigeria extradite Liberia's
   most infamous war criminal and war profiteer, Charles Taylor.

Extradition and trial of Charles Taylor

   In March 2006, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf sent a letter formally
   requesting the extradition of Charles Taylor from Nigeria to face
   justice. While Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo confirmed receipt
   of the request and notified the Chairman of the African Union, Denis
   Sassou-Nguesso, and the Economic Community of West African States (
   ECOWAS) Mamadou Tandja on March 17, 2006, Nigeria’s plans to comply
   with the request were not immediately clear. After representatives from
   Liberia and Nigeria met to discuss the issue, Nigeria announced on
   March 25, 2006 that it would allow Liberian authorities to arrest
   Taylor. It was long feared that Taylor, a multi-millionaire, could
   easily slip into hiding to escape charges before the UN International
   War Crimes Tribunal sitting in Sierra Leone, and by March 28 Taylor had
   reportedly disappeared from his Nigerian compound. He was recaptured by
   alert border guards at dawn on March 29 trying to cross into Cameroon.
   Taylor was quickly flown to Liberia, where he was shuffled onto a
   waiting UN helicopter to face charges for crimes against humanity in
   Sierra Leone (although the venue for this trial has since shifted to
   The Hague and Taylor was flown out of Sierra Leone on June 20, 2006).
   The timing of Taylor’s appearance before the tribunal is crucial as the
   court’s mandate is set to expire later in 2006. The web site, Trial
   Watch, reports that in September 2006, a provisional date of April 2,
   2007, was set for the trial.

Administrative divisions

   Liberia is divided into fifteen counties, which are subdivided into
   districts. The counties are:
     * Bomi
     * Bong
     * Gbarpolu
     * Grand Bassa
     * Grand Cape Mount

                         * Grand Gedeh
                         * Grand Kru
                         * Lofa
                         * Margibi
                         * Maryland

                                        * Montserrado
                                        * Nimba
                                        * River Cess
                                        * River Gee
                                        * Sinoe

Politics

   Liberia's government is based on the American model of a republic with
   three equal branches of government, though in reality the President of
   Liberia has usually been the dominant force in Liberian politics.
   Following the dissolution of the Republican Party in 1876, the True
   Whig Party dominated the Liberian government until the 1980 coup.
   Currently, no party has majority control of the legislature. The
   longest serving president in Liberian history was William Tubman,
   serving from 1944 until his death in 1971. The shortest term was held
   by James Skivring Smith, who controlled the government all of two
   months. However, the political process from Liberia's founding in 1847,
   despite widespread corruption, was very stable until the end of the
   First Republic in 1980.

Geography

   Map of Liberia

   Satellite image of Liberia, generated from raster graphics data
   supplied by The Map Library
   Enlarge
   Satellite image of Liberia, generated from raster graphics data
   supplied by The Map Library

   Slightly larger than the U.S. state of Virginia, Liberia is situated in
   Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean. The landscape is
   characterized by mostly flat to rolling coastal plains, which rise to
   rolling plateau and low mountains in the northeast. The climate is hot
   and humid with a lot of rainfall. Winters are dry with hot days and
   cool to cold nights. Summers are wet and cloudy with frequent heavy
   showers.

Economy

   Historically, the Liberian economy depended heavily on iron ore and
   rubber exports, foreign direct investment, as well as the export of
   other of its natural resources, such as timber. Foreign trade was
   primarily conducted for the benefit of the Americo-Liberian elite, with
   trade between foreigners and indigenous Liberians severely restricted
   throughout most of its history by the 1864 Ports of Entry Act. Little
   foreign direct investment benefited the 95% majority population, who
   were often subjected to forced labor on foreign concessions. Liberian
   law often did not protect indigenous Liberians from the extraction of
   rents and arbitrary taxation, with the majority surviving on
   subsistence farming and low wage work on foreign concessions.

   While official export figures for commodities declined during the
   1990’s civil war as many investors fled, Liberia’s wartime economy
   featured the exploitation of the region’s diamond wealth, with the
   country acting as a major trader in Liberian, Sierra Leonian and
   Angolan conflict diamonds, exporting over $300 million in diamonds
   annually. Timber, iron ore, rubber, and other commodity exports
   continued during the war, in part due to illicit agreements struck
   between Liberia’s warlords and foreign concessionaires. Looting and war
   profiteering destroyed nearly the entire infrastructure of the country,
   such that the Monrovian capital was without running water and
   electricity (except for fuel-powered generators) by the time the first
   elected post-war government began to institute development and reforms
   in 2006. Although some official exporting and legitimate business
   activity resumed once the hostilities ended (for instance, Liberia
   signed a new deal with steel giant Mittal for the export of iron ore in
   summer 2005), as of mid-2006 Liberia is dependent on foreign aid, and
   carries a debt overhang of $3.5 billion. The UN ban on Liberian diamond
   exports, which was renewed at the end of 2005, as well as the
   enforcement of the Kimberly Process by international diamond traders
   has effectively shut down Liberia’s diamond industry, (although there
   are fears that foreign traders are hoarding the country’s diamonds
   during the ban). The country currently has an approximate 85%
   unemployment rate, the worst in the world.
   Nineteenth-century Liberian two-dollar bill.
   Enlarge
   Nineteenth-century Liberian two-dollar bill.

   The Liberia dollar currently trades against the US dollar at a ratio of
   57:1. Liberia used the US dollar as its currency from 1943 until it
   reversed dollarization in 1982. Its external debt ($3.5 billion) is
   huge in comparison to its GDP (approx $2.5 billion/year); it annually
   imports approximately $4.839 billion in goods while it exports only
   about $910 million. Inflation is falling, but still significant
   (dropping from 15% in 2003 to 4.9% in the 3rd quarter of 2005);
   interest rates are high, with the average lending rate listed by the
   Central Bank of Liberia at 17.6% for 3rd quarter 2005 (although the
   average time deposit rate was only 4.4%, and CD rate only 5%, barely
   keeping pace with inflation). It continues to suffer with poor economic
   performance due to a fragile security situation, the devastation
   wrought by its long war, its lack of infrastructure, and necessary
   human capital to help the country recover from the scourges of conflict
   and corruption.

   In 2005, lawsuits were brought against the company
   Bridgestone/Firestone for its alleged role in using slave labor in its
   rubber plantations in Liberia. Workers also briefly staged a strike at
   the company’s million-acre (4,000 km²) plantation at Harbel in early
   2006, but the strike could not be sustained by the poorly funded labor
   union. Liberia has one of the world's largest national registries of
   ships, due to its status as a " flag of convenience".

Demographics

   As of 2006, Liberia has the highest population growth rate in the world
   (4.91%).

Education

   The University of Liberia is located in Monrovia. Opened in 1862, it is
   one of Africa's oldest institutes of higher learning. Civil war
   severely damaged the university in the 1990s, but the university has
   begun to rebuild following the restoration of peace.

   Cuttington University was established by the Episcopal Church of the
   USA (ECUSA) in 1889; its campus is currently located in Suakoko, Bong
   County (120 miles north of Monrovia).

   According to statistics published by UNESCO for 1999-2000 (the most
   recent available for Liberia as of 2005) 61% of primary-school age and
   18% (estimated) of secondary-school age children were enrolled in
   school.

Culture

   Liberia was traditionally noted for its hospitality, academic
   institutions, cultural skills, and arts/craft works.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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