Residents of West Point, Liberia, hope that one day they will be relocated from the beach as the continuous environmental degradation has resulted in most of the land eroding into the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Wade C. L. Williams/IPS

By Wade C. L. Williams
MONROVIA, Jun 25 2014 (IPS)

Mary B owned a shop in West Point, Monrovia’s densely-populated slum community, where she sold liquor just a few yards away from the sea. But last month, the ocean left her homeless and without a business because the devastating erosion of the coastline has resulted in most of the land eroding into the Atlantic Ocean with thousands of homes being washed away by the encroaching sea.

“While a human being or your landlord will tell you ‘I give you notice at a particular time’ then you will pack your things and look for another place, the sea can’t give you notice,” the young woman who preferred to be called Mary B told IPS.

Situated between the Mesurado and St. Paul Rivers on a peninsula projecting out of the Atlantic Ocean, the township of West Point is home to about 75,000 people living in shacks that are predominantly made out of zinc.

Mary B said she had bought the piece of land from the commissioner of the township for 11,500 Liberian dollars, about 130 U.S. dollars, and built her shop on it.

According to the Township Commissioner’s office, residents in the area are primarily squatters, with no legal rights to the land, though it is possible to obtain a Squatters Permit from the administrative office, which grants a certain level of legitimacy to the dwellers.

But for sometime now, residents of West Point have been hoping that one day they will be relocated because of the continuous environmental degradation on the shoreline here.

A report on the threat to the environment in Liberia released by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2008 states that erosion in this West African country is causing the shoreline to recede in some cities, including Buchanan, Greenville, Harper and Robertsport. Beach mining is also said to be the main contributing factor.

Mohamed Carew Alias Kaddafi, 43, is physically challenged and a father of six. A carpenter by trade, he ran a small grocery shop in West Point, which was washed away in the storm.

“We were in the shop, the water came with force and blasted the whole place,” he told IPS, adding that this is not the first time he has lost his business to the sea.

“It happened before in 2007 and I lost my house.”

He may be eager to move elsewhere, but the government has not committed to a relocation plan.

West Point is home to many of Monrovia’s disadvantaged people and many cannot afford the city’s huge rents, which are fixed in U.S. dollars — 150 for a modest two bedroom apartment. To make matters worse the government does not have public housing available.

People in the area have always talked about plans by the government to relocate them, but the Public Works Ministry says the government has no such plans to move over 75,000 people.

However, the government agency responsible for monitoring environmental conditions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says the erosion in West Point and other communities is something the government is concerned about.

“In Liberia, climate change is causing serious coastal erosion and degrading of coastal environment,” Stephen Neufville, acting head of the EPA, told IPS.

West Point and other coastal communities in Monrovia are expected to benefit from the second phase of the Coastal Defence Project otherwise known as Enhancing Resilience of Vulnerable Coastal Areas to Climate Change Risks in Liberia.

But the EPA says that the start of the next phase of the project, which includes Monrovia, where West Point is situated, “depends on when we get the next funding.” The previous funding, they say, was used for the first phase that is currently ongoing in Buchanan.

This project, launched by the United Nations Development Programme and the government of Liberia, is set to help coastal communities in three counties develop defensive mechanism against the effects of climate change that cause sea erosion. The Coastal Defence Project involves building breakwaters to stop waves from eating up the coastline.

But many residents fear that this may be happening too slowly and if nothing is done to relocate them from the area, the sea will continue to cause destruction to their lives and properties.

“For us in West Point, we call the sea the original landlord,” Mary B said.

The land by Boegbor, a town in district four in Grand Bassa County, Liberia has been leased by the government to Equatorial Palm Oil for 50 years. Credit: Wade C.L. Williams/IPS

By Wade C. L. Williams
BOEGBOR, Liberia, May 29 2013 (IPS)

Sackie Qwemie works for Equatorial Palm Oil, the company that took his land in northwestern Liberia.

He has been working on the EPO plantation for three years because the land that he once farmed was given away in a lease to the concession company based in Grand Bassa County, one of this West African country’s 15 political subdivisions.

His job is not a pleasant one, there is a taste of bitterness, but working for the company that has his land is the only way for him to survive.“The people came, they destroyed our bush, our living. Even the creek, the water we drink – they damaged it.” -- Joe Bah, chief of Boegbor.

The farmer, in his early 50s, is among the many villagers and community dwellers who have seen their land taken over by the company, and their crops bulldozed under.

“In the place I used to make my garden they came and cleared my whole bitterballs (a small species of round eggplant), my whole pepper, cassava, everything was destroyed,” Qwemie tells IPS as he sits under a palava hut in Boegbor, a town in district four in Grand Bassa County.

“I had the biggest farm here; I came from the hospital and heard the news that the machine had cleared my farm. Since then I’ve not been on my own farm.” Qwemie, however, does not know how much land he has lost.

The farmer looks weary and angry as he lays out his case, accusing the Liberian government of giving up the land to the company and ignoring the interests of the people it serves. He says this move has created serious hardship for them, as the money paid by EPO is small and cannot meet their families’ needs.

“Now before I eat pepper, I have to buy it. I don’t know what to say, I can’t fight this company because they say the government gave the land to the company,” says Qwemie.

EPO took over the Palm Bay concession area, clearing 34,398 hectares of land for the development of oil palms. The 50-year concession was negotiated and enacted into law in 2011 with the planting of the first new oil palms. It began expansion into district four in Grand Bassa County not so long ago.

This expansion has further upset the local community here, with many resisting any attempt at further expansion.

“The people came, they destroyed our bush, our living. Even the creek, the water we drink – they damaged it,” says an angry Joe Bah, chief of Boegbor.

Bah and his kinsmen maintain that they were not consulted in the leasing of their land to EPO. He says the company used bulldozers to clear the land, including ancestral land and sacred sites, without any remorse or respect for their local culture.

“All this bush here – that was our cassava farm … the people have destroyed it, even our rubber trees. There is no place here for us to make a farm, (to grow food) for us to eat,” he tells IPS.

Local people also accused the government of using the head of the National Traditional Council, chief Zanzan Kawar, the country’s most revered traditional elder, to scare them off from claiming their rights over the land.

“When Kawar is present in any community, all the Zoe people in Grand Bassa County and elsewhere in all the other counties can be present,” says Isaac Gartaryon, president of the youth in the district. The Zoes are traditional high priests who are believed to have supernatural powers and are feared by locals. People dare not speak against them for fear of the consequences.

“So they use that heavy influence … so nobody could talk,” he tells IPS.

Citizens of the land who have vehemently opposed the expansion of the company have come under strong criticism from community elders who hold positions in government and are close associates of company officials, alleges Gartaryon.

“The young people, the women and chiefs were not consulted (about the expansion), so we resisted. But the National Traditional Council still maintains its position and says that as far as they are concerned, the President of the Republic of Liberia has given this land to (EPO) … and anybody (who speaks out against it) will be arrested,” he says.

But EPO maintains that the land it currently occupies is the land that it was leased in negotiations with the government in 2008. The company says it is currently only operating on 13,000 hectares of the land, and has not even occupied the full territory because of the resistance by the local community.

With regard to allegations that the community was not consulted, Thomas Borshua Jr., senior accountant and administrator at EPO, said “I wouldn’t say that is true. We’ve had numerous meetings with the town chiefs, the surrounding villages and we’ve talked to them.

“We are not interacting with people on an individual basis; they have their leaders that were presented to the company to speak on their behalf and those are the people the company dealt with,” he explains to IPS.

Despite Borshua’s assertions that the company only occupies a portion of the land, tractors can be seen moving around the concession, and the sight of newly-felled trees in areas that villagers allege are not part of the company’s 34,000 hectares of land is commonplace. The local residents have vowed to fight on.

“We will resist them in the bushes and we are very serious about that,” says an angry Gartaryon.

Speaking in conversation with Reuters Insider on May 17, in the United States, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the government was taking steps to address the current land crisis.

“There’s no doubt about it, that once we say the communities have rights to what’s on their land. Even if we decide to negotiate concessions because they don’t have the resources to put the land to use, that in effect will benefit them with housing and jobs and social benefits but they will be full participants,” she had said.

Rights organisations here, such as the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) Liberia, which works to raise awareness and increase public participation in natural resources sectors, believe the government should go beyond mere words and do the right thing.

“The issue of land in Liberia is more than just a legal issue; it is matter of livelihood especially for communities living in rural parts of the country,” Nora Bowier of SDI tells IPS.

“If the government is taking vast amounts of land from rural people and granting them to multinationals without ensuring or providing better livelihood alternatives, it is like taking away these people’s rights to live and increasing their poverty conditions.”

Malawi President Joyce Banda (left) and Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at a women's rights event held at the Liberia Ministry of Gender and Development. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Wade C. L. Williams
Jan 31 2013 (IPS)

Fatou Nernee is scavenging through the debris of her home, which was razed to the ground by bulldozers belonging to the Monrovia City Corporation in Liberia. She is looking for something to keep as a treasured memory of a place she called home for over 20 years.

Nernee and many others have been left homeless because of a current cleanup drive by the government ahead of the United Nations High Level Panel (HLP) meeting on the Post-2015 Development Agenda this week.

“They broke my house down yesterday. The police arrested my brother and took him to the station,” Nernee told IPS.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon named Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as co-chairs of a high-level panel to advise him on the global development agenda after 2015, the expiry date for the millennium development goals.

The Monrovia meeting is the third of four HLP meetings, the first of which was held in New York in September 2012. The HLP will be finding ways to build and sustain broad political consensus on the post-2015 development agenda around three themes – economic growth, social equality and environmental sustainability.

The demolition of these homes comes as Sirleaf appointed the five-star, privately-owned Royal Grand hotel –which belongs to Lebanese businessman Ezzat Eid– as the venue for the meeting.

Mayor of Monrovia Mary Broh defended the demolitions.

“We want to make this city the greenest and cleanest city in West Africa,” she said during a press conference.

But Nernee and other residents of the over a dozen demolished buildings and businesses on 24^th Street, which is about 10 blocks away from the Royal Grand hotel, say the government has destroyed their homes and made their lives more difficult.

“It is not easy to find a place to rent in this city. This has made plenty people homeless. Our stuff was in the house when they demolished the buildings,” she said.

Those who are frustrated with the slow pace of progress in LIberia held public protests as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf gave her state of the nation address. Courtesy: Wade C. L. Williams

The HLP meeting is taking place in a country that is the embodiment of global developmental challenges. Liberia’s infrastructure and political institutions were broken down during the country’s two civil wars, which occurred from 1989 to 1996 and 1999 to 2003 and were considered among the bloodiest in Africa.

This West African nation is in the early stages of rebuilding and a lack of electricity and access to cheap energy continues to be a problem. As many as 85 percent of the country’s estimated 4.2 million people are said to be unemployed, according to the U.N. Development Programme.

The government Bureau of Statistics, however, puts Liberia’s current vulnerable employment rate at 77.9 percent. Vulnerable employment is an indicator that is defined as people who are self-employed and holding unsustainable jobs, mostly menial labor.

Sirleaf argues that her government has made considerable progress since she took over in 2006.

While the government continues to announce progress in healthcare delivery, challenges still remain.

The U.N. has reported that the number of women dying of pregnancy- and childbirth-related complications has almost halved in 20 years, yet Liberia continues to have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world with a maternal death rate of 994 per 100,000 live births.

“Liberia is once again considered a true friend to many, a good neighbour in our region, a reliable contributor to international peace and security, and an improving destination for investors. Today, our republic is safer, stronger and better,” Sirleaf told lawmakers on Monday, Jan. 28, the day of her state of the nation address.

Those who are frustrated with the slow pace of progress here held public protests as Sirleaf gave her state of the nation address.

“We have come to inform the visiting guests that everything is not fine in Liberia. This government has been able to make many of our people homeless and jobless,” said Julius T. Dweh Jessen III, one of the protesters.

Ma Mary Frederick, a 74-year-old widow whose husband was killed during the civil war, stood under the burning sun with a placard she could not read, protesting for the payout of her late husband’s military benefits.

“I have seen the first vote, second vote and I can’t get anything from the government,” she said referring to the country’s two democratic elections since Sirleaf became the country’s first post-war president in 2006. “All day we stand in the sun and the police beat us. I have nothing; my grandchildren can’t go to school,” she said.

“We are sitting down at home with nothing good to eat and they made matters worse by breaking down the house I used to live in. Now we are sleeping outside.”

The two contrasting images of a meeting of world leaders at a five-star hotel in downtown Monrovia as blocks away locals decry the demolition of their homes raises questions about the purpose and substance of the meeting and the implications it will have for this post-war country, student activist Janjay Gbarkpe told IPS.

Though not everyone agrees.

Liberian economist Sam Jackson told IPS that the HLP meeting gave Liberia an opportunity to highlight the progress made after the war and a chance to carve out a development agenda.

“Liberia is a post-war country and being a post-war country, the developmental challenges are huge,” he told IPS.

“Therefore it is important for the issues of peace and security to be part of the new global agenda and with Liberia you can see after 10 years of peace and security, what can be accomplished. We are looking at peace and security to be the foundation of economic transformation for the world.”