Liberia Can Learn From The Haitian Tragedy 

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

     Almost three decades ago, and before the senseless civil war killed thousands of Liberians and destroyed the entire country, the Liberian nation experienced a devastating landslide that wreaked havoc on the mining town of “No-Way’ camp in the Mano River area, resulting in deaths and untold suffering of countless Liberians who survived the tragedy.

     The scene was an unfortunate one that destroyed lives, and could have been avoided had the nation’s political leaders showed leadership by paying close attention to the region, and its citizen’s plight by enforcing tough labor and occupational safety laws, and holding the National Iron Ore Company (NIOC), and other multinational companies accountable for health and safety issues that compromised the lives of the Liberian people.

     As always the case now and then, the Liberian politicians ignored the suffering of their people, and like the Haitian politicians today who were forewarned by experts about the recent earthquake because a similar earthquake occurred 200 years ago in Haiti, the Liberian politicians were aware of the grave consequence the abandoned mining site posed to the locals and the surrounding environment, however, did nothing to address the problem but fell asleep.

       Flooding in Monrovia (2007)                             Damaged homes in Haiti (2010)                    

     As a result of the neglect, which was partly attributed to the accident, 200 Liberians died; and since it was a military regime at the time led by Samuel Kanyon Doe, the aggrieved had to tread carefully so as not to offend the sensibilities of the painfully clueless and paranoid despotic military/civilian regime that was quick to leap to conclusions about its alleged political enemies than showing leadership.

     However, the questionable (financial) collaboration of some members of the Liberian government with mining companies and other multinational companies often encouraged those companies to conveniently flaunt Liberian laws as slave-like wages, and unbearable labor and sub-standard safety conditions were encouraged as Liberian workers, who often worked long slave-like hours with zero employment benefits were subjected to the worst ever labor conditions in that part of the globe. Environmental concerns were never at the top of the lists of those mining companies, either.

     Since the 1982 landslide tragedy that killed 200 Liberians in an area that should have been off limit to residents but was left open and unattended as individuals took upon themselves to build homes out of desperation for a place to live, the Liberian nation has been a breeding ground for countless other disasters, i.e., violent tornadoes, violent storms, fires, erosion from the Atlantic Ocean, and floods from the prolonged rainy season; some of which can be averted if practical and effective national policies were put in place to address those issues.

     The trend to let things remain as they are 1) because the Liberian government is inattentive and insensitive to the concerns of its people 2) the government is inept and corrupt 3) and does not have a national plan to address any of those issues but can afford to appropriate money for pet projects such as per diems and air fares for traveling officials including President Sirleaf, and government officials known to steal from the national coffers to purchase Victorian homes overseas where their wives and children resides while those government officials work and live in Liberia on a part-time and seasonal basis with no sense of patriotic fervor in their bones, is dangerous and can have consequences.

     Unfortunately, and as it is now, there is no national risk reduction or disaster management plan in Liberia to seriously address natural and man-made disasters.

     Alfred Tarlue, who as head of the so-called “The National Disaster Relief Commission” told IRIN news during a 2007 interview that the commission “exists in name only.” Tarlue was also quoted by IRIN news as saying that since 1990 when Liberia’s war intensified, “no resources have been allocated for the commission’s operations.”

     “We do not even have the skilled manpower to forewarn disaster or coordinate responses for disaster victims, much less a vehicle or a computer to do our reports,” Tarlue said chillingly.

     While it is true that the No-Way camp tragedy killed many innocent Liberians, it also left others homeless, vulnerable and psychologically drained at the time, and should have been a wake up call for the political leadership to prepare the country and the Liberian people for disaster preparedness, since the nation is often tested by both man-made and natural disasters through out its century-plus history of existence.

    Unlike Haiti, which just encountered a 7.0 earthquake on January 12, Liberia has been spared at least for now, and I am sure all Liberians prayerfully shares with me their hopes that their country will never have to deal with such natural disaster like an earthquake.

     Because it is too slow and costly to rebuild a nation (remember the devastating effects of the civil war and the snail-like pace of the national reconstruction process?), and because it is emotionally grueling to loose friends, neighbors and loved ones, and because lives lost cannot be brought back, it is good public policy to be proactive in implementing common sense national disaster relief plan such as land-use decisions, appropriate engineering and construction designs, training and hiring paramedics and firefighters (not those checker-playing jokers on Ashmun Street, who years ago were always waiting to crown a ‘king’ before marching many miles to find a non-existing water hydrant before comically "putting out a fire"), and involving communities in preparedness awareness to reduce the risks of a potential disaster.

     Because sea-erosion is a major domestic/national security crisis that affects all of coastal Liberia often washing away beaches, homes, and human lives, it is important for the Liberian government to address critical issues such as digging and hauling sand from the beach to mix cement to make concrete blocks (bricks) to construct concrete homes, which also helps to exacerbate the problem. 

     This is a tough call politically and culturally, but something drastic has to be done on the national level to find alternative means of building concrete homes and mixing cement with sand from the beach, which means the nation’s appetite of building homes out of sands from the beach must end immediately.    

     It has been twenty-eight years since the 1982 man-made mining tragedy changed the lives of the Liberian people in No-Way camp, and seven years since the self-serving civil war that engulfed the Liberian nation finally came to an end.

    If we haven’t yet learned anything from those disasters, at least, we ought to learn from the Haitian tragedy of 2010.