by JONATHAN ORT
Twenty-one years after Liberia’s political elite acquiesced to “negative peace,” the US now champions the fight against impunity. Except when their own companies are involved.
At a hearing this summer about a war and economic crimes tribunal for Liberia, US Rep. Chris Smith twisted the history of Africa’s first republic. Ignoring that many of the Black emigrants who established Liberia were not born enslaved, Smith claimed, “Liberia was founded by free American slaves.” Ignoring Washington’s perennial imperialism against Monrovia, he extolled “attention by Congress to Liberia” as “helpful and appreciated.” Ignoring Black settler rule under an anti-Black world order, he asserted that Liberia “vigorously rejected” not only slavery but also “all of the evils associated with it.” Ignoring Liberia’s Indigenous populace and sovereignty alike, he touted its “relationship with the better aspects of the ‘old country.’”
It is no coincidence that Smith used the occasion to peddle such falsehoods. The movement to prosecute those who committed atrocities during Liberia’s successive civil wars (1989–2003) is gaining momentum. In May, Liberian President Joseph Boakai signed Executive Order 131, establishing the Office of a War and Economic Crimes Court for Liberia. Fifteen years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia (TRC) urged that an extraordinary criminal court prosecute perpetrators, accountability could finally arrive.
Liberia’s tribunal, however, has already come under attack. It is the latest theater where US policymakers are wrestling for neocolonial control. Smith epitomizes the threat. He has pressed Liberia to give Alan White—a lobbyist registered with the US government—influence over the proceedings.
White’s conflicts of interest are as numerous as they are naked. He and his business partner have lobbied Congress on behalf of Liberian powerbrokers, including a client whom the TRC urged be prosecuted. White’s firm pledged that its lobbying would “take advantage of the US Government’s leadership role in the establishment of the Liberia War and Economic Crimes Court.” While promoting his dubious agenda, White has impugned human rights defenders in Liberia and the US.
The US State Department, meanwhile, is also backing the tribunal. Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, has visited Liberia repeatedly and offered to conditionally fund the tribunal. Though attacks against her by White and his associates are scurrilous, Van Schaack’s support has its own strings attached.
“I want to emphasize,” Van Schaack said in an address to the Liberian public, “that the creation of a war and economic crimes court is not about laying blame or dredging up a painful history.” Her remarks beg the question: What, exactly, is the court about if not blame?
No one trying to steer Liberia’s tribunal from Washington has admitted that the US and its corporate interests fueled the mass violence, which killed as many as 250,000 Liberians. While purporting to champion accountability, Washington has neglected its own complicity.
Africa is a country for more