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While the rest of us are just beginning to listen to
news reports about the West African nation of Liberia and its outlaw
president Charles Taylor (not to be confused with 11th District Rep.
Charles Taylor, R-NC), Paul Johnson of Whittier has been paying attention
to events there for more than a decade.
Johnson, who two years ago moved to Jackson County from Charlotte, where
he worked for international construction firm J.A. Jones, spent a few
weeks in Liberia in 1989. Sent by his company to the Tennessee-sized
country to estimate repairs to a Voice of America generating station,
Johnson found an English-speaking nation of some 3 million people.
With recent references to the country's bloody civil war, Johnson finds
himself wondering why it took so long for Liberia's suffering to show
up on the national radar screen.
"If you haven't been to a country, you read an article and go on,"
he said Tuesday. "If you've seen it, you read the story and think
about when you were there. You wonder about the people you met and what
might have happened to them."
When Johnson was in Liberia 14 years ago, there were rumblings that
hinted of the strife to come.
"People there were uneasy about the way things were going,"
Johnson said. "I heard talk of 'rebels,' but it was only after
I got back that I began to hear names."
Keeping abreast of events in the small country was not an easy task,
Johnson said.
"It was difficult to find out what was going on," he said.
"Liberia wasn't really a news item."
And that's unfortunate, Johnson said, given that country's historical
connection to the United States.
"It seemed ironic," he said. "Certainly we can say we
had direct relations with the country, yet we totally ignored it. It's
too bad."
About a month ago some 700 people died in Liberia, yet there was barely
a mention of it in the mainstream media, Johnson said.
"What would the news coverage have been if those people had been
in Palestine or Israel?" he asked.
A few months ago, grenades were lobbed into the U.S. Embassy in Liberia,
Johnson said, and even that hardly rated a mention in news reports.
"I was in that embassy," Johnson said. "We always spoke
to embassy officials to find out what we needed to know about doing
business in a foreign country. When I read about hand grenades going
off, I thought about being right there."
Much of the information Johnson has accumulated over the past 14 years
has come courtesy of his journalist son, Paul, currently a business
reporter with the High Point Enterprise.
"He'd share articles with me - I'd read whatever I could,"
Johnson said.
Memories from his brief stay in Liberia are lasting and pleasant, Johnson
said. He recalled one everyday occurrence that resembled a photo straight
out of National Geographic.
"I saw a woman with her baby strapped on her back, crossing the
street at a fast walk, balancing a large, loaded basket on her head,"
Johnson said. "She was an example of grace in motion - she floated
across the street."
And he remembers the day a driver named Moses (Johnson said American
names persist and that reading a Monrovia telephone book is much like
reading one from south Georgia) took the group out into the
countryside, to what a sign proclaimed the world's largest rubber plantation.
Stopping by a group of men, Johnson saw a whiskey still, which he said
looked exactly like the moonshine stills that once proliferated in mountain
counties like ours.
"They made liquor from sugar cane they grew," Johnson said.
"I asked Moses to find out how strong it was. They conversed awhile
in the local dialect and Moses said it was 80 proof. I said 'No, it
can't be that strong,' but after further discussion the man insisted
that was right. When I still shook my head, he gave me a taste. It must
have been 200 proof!"
According to a recent article in USA Today, ties between the U.S. and
the African nation stretch back to 1822, when freed American slaves
landed there. Liberia's capital, Monrovia, is named after President
James Monroe, who sent U.S. soldiers to escort the former slaves. Liberia
patterned its government, formed in 1947 after U.S. democracy and adopted
English as the country's official language. Liberia was used during
the Cold War as a staging ground for covert actions against Libya.
Liberian President Taylor, backed by Libya, staged a 1989 coup attempt.
A peace agreement in 1996 led to elections, which Taylor won, but fighting
began again in 2000 as groups sought to oust Taylor. Hundreds of thousands
have died during the past 14 years and more than 1 million are homeless
as a result of the continued conflict.
"If people could just realize that many Liberians are originally
from this country. They have American names," Johnson said. "Isn't
it too bad the civil war had to go on so long before the media noticed
it. Think of the people who died."
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