By IPS Correspondents
MONROVIA, Apr 15 2004 (IPS)

The guns in Liberia’s civil war have been silent for several months now, as the country makes tentative efforts to establish lasting peace. But in many respects, inhabitants of the capital – Monrovia – have simply exchanged one sort of war for another: the battle against criminal activity.

Fourteen years of intermittent fighting have stripped government departments of the personnel and equipment needed to perform their duties, however – and Liberia’s police force is no exception.

“We cannot go to the crime scene without logistics such as vehicles, communication equipment, forensic kits and crime scene tools,” says Christian Massaquoi, chief of police.

A similar complaint was voiced by Acting Justice Minister Edward Goba.

“The police have only two pick ups. You see them plying around with lots of officers in the back of the two pick-ups,” he said, adding “Given the size of the population in the city – about 1.5 million – two pick-ups are just two grains of rice in the ocean. They are nothing as compared to the population.”

The result is that citizens have taken to meting out mob justice to real and perceived criminals. The first incident occurred less than two weeks after a transitional government was installed to manage Liberia, following former President Charles Taylor’s exile in Nigeria.

Various African leaders – including Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South African head of state Thabo Mbeki – negotiated Taylor’s departure after two rebel groups had taken control of most of the country.

On Oct. 28 last year, residents of the sprawling commercial district of Duala in western Monrovia set fire to a 20-year old man accused of stealing agricultural products. About three weeks later, a crowd in the northern suburb of Barnersville burned two relatives of an alleged robber to death after the suspect himself escaped.

In the eastern suburb of Paynesville, another man accused of robbery was allegedly tortured to death on Nov. 28, his death sparking a reprisal killing that claimed the life of a trader. The trader’s warehouse was also burnt down, allegedly by a gang of thieves.

The killings continued in December and January, when two suspected robbers were lynched in the West Point and Paynesville suburbs respectively. Now, a spate of abductions of people who were allegedly killed during cult rituals has aggravated matters.

On Mar. 18, a police station in Paynesville was burnt down after authorities refused to surrender a suspected child kidnapper to a crowd. To date, six people have reportedly been abducted and mutilated in practices that are widely believed to improve the fortunes of those who carry them out.

The incidents prompted women and religious leaders to stage a protest march in Monrovia last month to express anger at the transitional government’s paralysis in the face of the killings.

This week (Apr. 12), Liberia’s transitional head of state, Gyude Bryant, told journalists that he was prepared to sign death warrants for people who were convicted of the murders, and he appealed to the public to assist police with information as to who was responsible.

A police officer, speaking to IPS on condition of anonymity, said “We have dozens of cases of mob related killing, armed robbery, kidnapping, murder and ritualistic murders since the transitional government came into being in October last year. But, we can do nothing about them now because we have received no credible evidence against anybody.”

In some instances, these pleas for cooperation have fallen on deaf ears.

James Togba, a trader in Paynesville, has few qualms about dispensing summary justice. “This transitional government has let us down so much that I strongly believe that mob justice is the best way for now,” he said. “The local security apparatus has proved unable to protect us against criminals.”

Carpenter Henry Jones sees the lynchings as an important crime deterrent. “When a criminal is burnt to death, another one will be in fear,” he observed.

Jessica Nyanfor, who sells second-hand clothing in Paynesville, also voiced her support for summary justice: “I support mob justice. If the police cannot give us justice, we ourselves can administer our own justice.”

However, Joseph Roberts, a taxi driver, told IPS that “Mob justice breeds long lasting hatred among people. The civilized way of seeking redress is to go through the due process of law.”

Stanley Dorbor, a schoolteacher, agreed, saying that mob justice had been dispensed to innocent and guilty people alike, and that due process offered the best way of ensuring innocent people were not unduly punished.

Liberia’s transitional government will manage the country until elections in Oct. 2005.

Excerpt: