Soon, alongside the lorries bound for Bosnia-Herzegovina, we were filling and dispatching shipping containers from our warehouses in Glasgow and receiving reports and warm thanks from Father Garry and the recipients of this aid. He amused us by explaining how they were removing the huge, heavy shipping containers from the trucks that transported them from the port (some of these, rather than being returned empty, were kept for use as secure stores). In the absence of a crane, they tied the container securely to a tree and the lorry would then accelerate away leaving the container to crash on to the ground. It didn’t always work first time and a number of palm trees had simply snapped in two.
By early 1997, the fighting in Liberia had lulled and Father Pat and I decided it was a good time to visit. Sadly, my first experience of Africa was one of a war-ravaged, dark city. There was no electricity in Monrovia, home to more than a million people, and as we drove through the late evening from the airport, I could see groups of people huddled round flickering fires within the eerie carcasses of roofless buildings. The SMA Fathers had a little flat in the centre of town, which like virtually every other building here had been looted of every single thing it once contained. Even the light-bulb fittings and electrical sockets had been ripped out – not that they would have been much help to us anyway. We unpacked our bags in the dark with the aid of torches and lay down in the hot, sticky blackness for a few hours’ sleep.
Liberia was founded in 1847 by American freed slaves to become the first independent African republic. The descendants of those Americans became the rulers of the country and during the 1970s Liberia was considered a relatively prosperous country with huge potential given its enormous natural resources. But a coup in 1980 ushered in an era of gradual decline and eventual descent into civil war by the end of that decade. Various armed factions, divided along tribal lines and motivated by a desire to control the lucrative gold, diamond, iron, rubber and timber industries, had become engaged in a brutal conflict that had already claimed the lives of over 150,000 Liberians. Over 60,000 people had taken up arms, many of them children who were forced to become slaves or ‘child soldiers’ by armed groups who had ransacked their villages and killed their parents. The notorious warlord, Charles Taylor, leader of the NPFL faction which had controlled much of Liberia’s territory for several years, had recently emerged victorious and a fragile peace had now held for a few months. ECOMOG, a West African peacekeeping force, was helping to provide stability and elections were planned for May. As we drove out of the city at first light, we were stopped at checkpoints and asked by Guinean soldiers for our passports. Nearby, a huge rusting tank was parked in a petrol station, as if waiting for an attendant to appear and ask if he should fill her up. Every single building in the city appeared to have been raked by gunfire and many had been shelled. Among the rubble people had rigged up pitiful shelters for their families with pieces of plastic. As he drove, Father Garry gave us updates on the war, explaining its complexities and answering our questions with colourful and disturbing anecdotes. His love for the people here was clearly deep. I had the impression that because they were suffering profoundly then so was he. He spoke fiercely about justice and how there could be no lasting peace without it. He quoted Old Testament prophets on this subject. He also told us a little of his own early life story; how he had been raised Methodist and left home at sixteen to join the British army. He was enormously impressive; a warrior priest, the like of whom I had rarely met before. We crossed the main bridge over the St Paul River (which I recognized as the scene of recent fierce battles shown on news reports) and passed the port where our containers from Scotland had been arriving. Finally, we reached the enormous sprawling camps on the edge of the city, home to hundreds of thousands of people who had been forced out of their villages. These never-ending rows of hastily erected mud-wattle huts were the home of the Gola people, among whom Father Garry had lived and worked for over twenty years. It was to these people that he had been distributing the contents of the containers. And those gifts were immediately and delightfully evident as we walked between the homes and talked to Father Garry’s friends, who emerged to greet us. Many were wearing Scottish football stripes, or other shirts whose slogans made their origin clear. Glasgow’s 10k Sponsored by Irn-Bru, read a T-shirt worn by one of a group of young people who gathered round us eager to say hello to Father Garry and his guests. Some of them, such as Abraham who was sitting in a wheelchair sent from Scotland, wanted to thank us for the gift. We sat and talked for a long time with them. The conversation was an excited one. Some of them believed it might be time to risk a return to their village of Jawajeh, which they had fled in terror three years earlier when one of the factions, Ulimo J, had taken control of that part of Liberia. The men had just heard encouraging news passed back by those who had already left the camp for the villages – they believed the fighters had now left those areas. They sought Father Garry’s advice. Eventually he suggested we all go back together later in the week. That way he could give them a lift and carry some supplies. I noticed that as well as the smiles and laughter that this offer elicited, looks of fear, even dread, flitted across some faces too.
Later we visited lots of families in their makeshift homes. Most of them had obviously known Father Garry for many years and the welcomes were warm and sincere. As we crowded into little rooms to talk, it was nice to smell that wonderful Gleneagles soap, now in a very different setting, and to recognize the candles which provided their only light in the hours of darkness. Many of the children were obviously severely malnourished, some with swollen bellies and depigmented hair caused by kwashiorkor. They held my hands and stroked my forearms, fascinated by this enormous, very hairy white person. Some of the babies cried when they saw me and cowered into their laughing apologetic mothers. Later we crowded into a little makeshift chapel where Father Garry and Father Pat celebrated Mass, and the people sang with all their hearts and prayed that God would deliver them from these camps and bring them safely home to their villages. They prayed, too, for all the people in Scotland who had helped them in their time of need.
Afterwards, Father Garry received news that our latest container had been released unexpectedly early from the port and was on its way to us now. Father Garry implored those around us who had heard the message not to spread this information. ‘Please be quiet about this,’ he pleaded, ‘we don’t want to distribute the contents of this container immediately as we want to be able to give it to those returning to villages in the coming weeks. We want to encourage and support people to go home to their farms, not stay here forever in these camps. For now we want to unload it into our store. So we do not want large crowds here.’
I looked at the ‘store’ to which he pointed. It was a previously emptied shipping container sent from Scotland, on the doors of which were roughly spray-painted ‘WITH LOVE FROM SCOTLAND’. I smiled at a memory of one of our volunteers, Debbie, who had surprised us all just before the truck bearing that container pulled away from our Glasgow warehouse doors. As the truck driver had climbed into the cab to start his long journey towards the port, she had suddenly clambered on to a stack of pallets beside the lorry and produced a can of white spray paint from her jacket. While we laughed uproariously she, like the experienced graffiti artist that she obviously was, handwrote her message with a flourish. When I last looked, that container with those words as clear as ever, still sits at our HQ in Liberia today, more than eighteen years later!
But Father Garry’s plea was in vain. By the time the truck rumbled up, hundreds of people in rags had gathered offering to help. Their desperation was obvious. I had always enjoyed loading and unloading trucks – especially being able to distribute ones that I had helped pack in Glasgow. In fact I had personally collected most of the goods in this load from homes and schools and churches in Scotland. I knew many of the people who had made the gifts. It was usually a thrill to be able to return home and reassure those good people that I had indeed seen their gifts being given to those
in need with my own eyes. But this unloading was certainly not one I enjoyed. Father Garry and Father Pat had driven on to say Mass in the other camp and left a group of us to take charge. These people around us were hungry. And they had hungry, naked children at home. They were in urgent need and it was very difficult for them to understand why we could not give this particular container of aid to them. In the absence of a secure, walled compound we decided to make a human chain to move the aid as swiftly as possible to the store, while others tried to keep the pressing, ever-growing, mass of people back. Some began to shout angrily and by now several thousand people had congregated in the fading light. Zinnah, who had worked with Father Garry for many years, and who was calmly organizing the team, told me not to worry and explained that he had sent a message asking for ECOMOG troops to come and help us. To my great relief, a few minutes later, several Nigerian soldiers climbed out of a pickup truck and restored order. Wheelchairs, bundles of clothing, farming tools, boxes of spectacles and bags of familiar soap were carried speedily into the other container which was then firmly padlocked, as the disgruntled and frustrated throng dispersed into the evening.
While the unloading of that container had been difficult, especially for those in need who had had to watch, I absolutely understood how important it was to encourage and support the return of the people to their villages and farms where they could resume their previous self-supporting way of life. There was a risk of aid dependency developing in the camps and it was certainly easy to understand why some would be less than enthusiastic about a return. Apart from the traumatic circumstances in which many had left the villages, the option of returning to overgrown farms in areas that currently had no health care or schooling was not an easy choice to make for families.
But, certainly, the strong men clasping machetes, who squeezed into Father Garry’s truck a couple of mornings later, were clearly determined to rebuild their old lives. With fourteen of us squashed into the pickup, we drove out of the city, through ECOMOG checkpoints into what had been rebel-controlled territory for many years. From time to time, as we drove through the war-scarred landscape, with remains of various buildings visible at the sides of the road, the men would start to sing. I could see how emotional these returning exiles were, Father Garry included. We eventually reached Tubmanburg, the county capital and former mining town, where Father Garry used to live. He showed us what was left of his house – not much more than a pile of rubble – and pointed out his looted church. He had chosen to stay here, behind enemy lines, for much of the war to help the most vulnerable – the blind, those with leprosy, amputees, elderly and other sick people – who had congregated around his church. He had been cut off from all his colleagues in Monrovia for fifteen months. During this time, he had experienced hunger, armed robbery, and escaped on foot from ambush and artillery attacks. In 1996, over 300 children died of hunger and related diseases here. He showed us the little mounds of earth near his church where he had buried them.
‘While those children starved, the people who caused their deaths continued to dig for diamonds,’ he said sadly. ‘They say here now that even the trees are crying for the lack of children. Those mangos that weigh down each branch because the kids haven’t been here to pick them, they are their tears.’
We squeezed back into the pickup and continued on our way, leaving the tar roads and making our way slowly through overgrown forest tracks. Sometimes we had to wait while the men used their machetes to clear fallen trees or overhanging branches that blocked our way. Eventually we stopped in a clearing, over which towered some enormous cotton trees. As the men scrambled out of the car, I realized that this was Jawajeh and began to notice tumbled-down houses among the undergrowth. The men eagerly slashed some of the overhanging branches as they began to explore. Then they stopped and waited for Father Garry and Father Pat. They spoke quietly with them and then sat down in a circle under the trees. They had asked the two priests to say Mass there in the remains of their village. I noticed, through the trees, a man and woman sitting outside a derelict mud-brick house that had been daubed in the graffiti of Ulimo J. They were watching us.
‘A fighter,’ said one of the men quietly and then ignored them as the priests, in their white cassocks, began to say the words of the Mass. After we had received Communion the men stood and began singing, quietly at first, ‘Jesus Come, Devil Go’. As we walked through the village around their various broken homes covered in vegetation and graffiti, they sang all the louder while their priests liberally sprayed holy water with a palm leaf all around them. In a space where a house had once been lay two human skulls.
Paul, who was about the same age as me, and in fact the village chief, showed me his own roofless home. ‘I think I must knock it down and start again,’ he said sadly, after a brief survey.
Before we left them in the village, they had already begun a ferocious attack on the encroaching forest with their machetes. They were determined to clear a farm for planting. This, for them, was the first priority. Only when they had planted new crops, made their homes habitable and satisfied themselves that their village was once again safe would they take their wives and children back from the camps.
Later that week, we returned to Jawajeh. In our pickup was a pile of fruit, bags of rice, cassava seeds, new machetes, hoes, wire for trapping animals and a cockerel and hen who would be tasked with beginning a new chicken population here. We could not believe how much of the forest the men had already cleared with their bare hands. They were delighted with the supplies we brought and said they believed they would be harvesting cassava by August. Meanwhile they would live on whatever they could catch or find in the forest. They told me about bush yams, palm cabbage and other wild food to be found in the forest, but asked if we might be able to send them supplies of rice from time to time.
And so it was that our work in Liberia happily entered a new phase. For a time, at least, our focus moved from emergency response to supporting people as they returned to their old homes and worked to rebuild their lives. Much of my time during the remainder of that first visit was spent organizing the purchase of supplies for returnees to seventeen other villages in Bomi County. We used donations to buy thousands of machetes, large quantities of seeds and various other essential supplies. We also funded the rebuilding of village schools and the setting up of a mobile health clinic that would serve this area. This work was incredibly direct and effective. ‘£1.75 will buy a machete,’ we wrote in our newsletter, ‘£10,000 will rebuild a village school.’ People gave the money, and we bought the machetes and rebuilt the schools. Our donors had huge confidence in our very direct approach and they understood that all we were doing was based on a genuine partnership with our friends here. We were supplying some of the basic things they desperately needed in order to become independent again. The mobile clinic we funded grew and began visiting villages across Bomi County, providing the only primary health care available. The local nurses and midwives we employed, and the medicines we shipped, were saving lives every day. As the farms began to produce food there was great hope that the Gola people were entering a new era of peace and self-sufficiency. But the peace was short-lived.
Charles Taylor, the victor turned president, continued to terrorize the population and bleed the country of its natural wealth for his own personal gain. By 1999 a new rebel group called LURD had emerged and Liberia’s ‘Second Civil War’ began. This war, like all wars, was barbaric, but perhaps particularly so. Probably no conflict in the last hundred years has made use of child soldiers in such an extensive way. Both Taylor and LURD were guilty of this hideous crime, and eventually perhaps as many as 20,000 children were forced to become ‘ammunition porters’ or child soldiers. Other human rights abuses and cruelty became prevalent. The military leadership of many warlords was based on a confused dark mysticism and their young soldiers were often introduced to cocaine, khat and other drugs as a way of control. There were numerous reports of torture, cannibalism and ritualistic killi
ngs. The abuse and rape of women was widespread. LURD soon gained control of much of the rural areas, including most of Bomi County, and once again the people of those villages, who desired only to raise their crops and their families in peace, were forced to run for their lives. History had repeated itself. Our friends found themselves back in the camps outside Monrovia, and our focus once again became sending them emergency help.
The Shed That Fed a Million Children Page 9
