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hands off liberia!
The United States has announced that is sending an unspecified number of troops and ships to the coast of the West African country of Liberia. These troops are to assist in a possible invasion of the country, which is currently wracked by civil war.
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For the last several weeks international attention has been focused on this war torn country. Contending factions are battling for the capital city of Monrovia, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. This tragedy comes on top of more than a decade of brutal fighting, the human cost of which has led many international relief groups to call on the U.S. and others to militarily intervene – something that the U.S. seems now prepared to carry out, at least in part.
But what will the effect of U.S. troops be in Liberia, and is the U.S. intervening to stop the bloodshed?
Liberia has historically been the site of huge U.S. owned rubber plantations where working conditions were much like that found on slave plantations. But the increasing use of synthetics though in recent decades has decreased the strategic value of Liberian rubber, leading to a drop off in U.S. interest in the country. In fact the current civil war has been raging since 1989, and up until now the U.S. has shown little interest precisely because Liberia was of little value to the U.S. The U.S. is showing an interest in Liberia today as a result of shifts in the international political and economic landscape. Following September 11, the U.S. ruling class has taken advantage of this political windfall by aggressively trying to outmaneuver its economic competitors in Western Europe and East Asia. The recent war with Iraq, for example, was as much an attempt to outflank the U.S.’s European competitors as it was to get at Iraqi oil. Since the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the American powers that be have begun exploring the possibility of grabbing Africa from the economic sphere of its rivals as well.
While Liberia itself does not contain oil, the nearby Gulf of Guinea does. West African oil is growing increasingly important to the U.S. As much as 15 percent of America's oil now comes from West Africa - about the amount imported from Saudi Arabia. By next year, the West African portion is expected to jump to 20 percent. Also, West Africa has long been the playground of French imperialism, who through numerous troop deployments and meddling in the affairs of West African countries, has been able to reap the harvest of the region’s natural resources. But now Washington is maneuvering to outflank Paris in its own backyard. It is casting around looking for bases and a foothold from which to dominate existing oil fields, such as those in Nigeria, and to begin exploiting the untapped reserves in the Gulf of Guinea.
The civil war in Liberia is indeed a tragedy, but it won’t be ended by U.S. intervention. The U.S. government is not motivated by humanitarian concerns, and the setting up of a pro-U.S. puppet in Monrovia will not end the suffering of the Liberian people. Only the Liberian people themselves can overcome their problems. While we welcome and encourage the sending of medical, food and other humanitarian assistance – we must oppose the deployment of troops, which will only increase the oppression already being endured by the people of the region. Instead of sending troops, we call on the U.S. government to immediately cancel the Third World debt, quite selling arms to feuding warlords & to stop interfering if the internal affairs of Third World nations!
