Saturday, December 23, 2006

This blog was maintained while I was conducting research in Liberia, and for a few months after I returned to the U.S. (The posts from when I was actually in Liberia can be found under December 2005 and January 2006.)

I am now back in Liberia, working with a human rights organization. My new blog, "Plantains and Palm Trees," is accessible here: http://allabuja.blogspot.com

Prostitution and School Fees

In Monrovia I heard anecdotal evidence that young girls prostitute themselves at night to afford school fees. A few days ago Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA) published an article describing this trend in refugee camps. As Liberia becomes more stable, many non-governmental organizations are shifting funds away from refugee camps to focus on development projects. As a result, schools in refugee camps that used to be subsidized are either shutting down or charging attendance fees. Because work opportunities in refugee camps are limited, girls are apparently turning to commercial sex to raise the funds necessary to attend school.

I don't know enough about the reallocation of development funds away from refugee camps toward development projects to have a position on this. But I think the impact of this shift deserves more attention.

The CISA article is available here.

On Charles Taylor and my Job Search

Hello everyone. Much has happened in Liberia since my last post on this blog. Under lots of pressure from the U.S., Ellen Johnson Sirleaf asked Nigerian President Obasanjo to hand over Charles Taylor to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor was dramatically captured while trying to flee into Cameroon. He now occupies a cell in Freetown, but probably will be transferred to The Hague. Despite the very real risks that would accompany trying Taylor in West Africa, I do not think he should be sent to The Netherlands. I agree with John Leigh, the former Sierra Leonean ambassador to the U.S., who has argued that an essential component of nation building is improving a country's administrative capacity to enforce justice. Leigh says that transferring Taylor to The Hague, "would defeat a main purpose behind the establishment of the court in Sierra Leone: to teach Africans, in their own countries, the fundamentals of justice and to drive home the principle that no one is above the law. The special court has the potential to help raise West Africa's standards for accountability, transparency, fairness and the humane treatment of defendants." I feel the same way.

Also, since last posting on this blog, I have completed my thesis! I have posted my introduction, appendix, and references here. If you are interested in reading the whole thing, send me your email address and I will email it to you. I truly welcome any comments - positive or negative - from anyone. I would be especially interested in feedback from Liberians or Lebanese in Liberia. My permanent email address is shelbygrossman@gmail.com

I refuse to write a concluding entry to this blog, if only because I really hope that I will be able to live in Liberia for an extended period of time at some point in the future. So while entries will be sporadic, I will continue updating occasionally. Again, thanks for reading, and for all of your thoughts, criticism, and comments about my blog over the past few months!

A TRC sans Teeth

Yesterday Ellen Johnson Sirleaf inaugurated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission mandated to investigate human rights violations from 1979 to 2003. Like the South African TRC, however, it will not have prosecutorial powers. Analyst article available here; BBC article available here

I have an article in this semester's International Horizons. You can view it here. If you've read my blog, though, some of the article may be a little repetitive.

New Years and Batteries

Below are some pictures I had burned onto a CD. Enjoy!


New Years at the Mamba Point. Almost everyone there was Lebanese, so it made for nice interview networking.

Women often carried large loads of goods in baskets on their heads. I'm not sure how they did it.

New Years at the Mamba Point, with the son of the hotel's manager.

The hat matched my shirt.

New Years at Mamba Point. The hotel flew a South African band in for the week. This was the first time I saw a single Lebanese woman.

Somewhere around Firestone. This truck (?) looks like it could be from the 1950s.

Village near Firestone.

Sarah found some mens shoes in the lounge at the convent, grabbed my purse, and danced along to some European music television show. The TV remote that she is holding never worked, because everytime the convent staff put batteries in it, someone would steal them.

Some guys trying to hang up an Ellen poster. On the right, a young girl is balancing a load of snacks on her head.

Hard Drives and Taylor

A few days ago my hard drive crashed. I lost everything on my computer, including all remaining Liberia pictures that I hadn't gotten around to posting on this blog. Oh well. If my Emory IT friends manage to salvage anything worth posting, I'll put it up early next week.

BBC: Taylor 'not priority' for Liberia
"Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says prosecuting her predecessor Charles Taylor is 'secondary' to her agenda."

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4655186.stm

"Liberia Gets First Traffic Lights" -BBC

"Liberia's capital, Monrovia, has got a working set of traffic lights for the first time since war broke out more than 16 years ago...People who drove in the city before everything was destroyed in the 14-year war say the war-time drivers need to learn how the lights work. But some of the new drivers argue that, even though up to the outbreak of war they had not driven, at least they saw traffic lights before the country collapsed."

Full article available here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4647710.stm