Top: Women on a farm in Sarpimah, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/Harry Browne
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – Stakeholders have agreed to mainstream gender equity and inclusion across the agriculture, land, and forestry sectors in Liberia.
The enforcement of gender policies across these sectors has been largely hampered by access to information, a coordinated strategy, traditional practices and norms, capacity, and budgetary constraints.
Women in Liberia make important contributions to both the agriculture and land sectors, but they continue to play limited roles in leadership structures determining the fate of these industries. They produce over half of the country’s food crops, creating 60 percent of agricultural products, and carrying out 80 percent of trading activities in rural areas, studies showed. Meeting the global food needs increasingly depends on the mainstreaming of gender issues into the agriculture and forestry sectors, and would enhance the resource capability of women, according to a World Bank report, but that has been missing.
“We need to create awareness on the policies because people are not even aware of the law. We need to target the custodian of traditional practices to provide information on the importance of the policy,” said James Parker, principal project manager of ProForest at a two-day gender conference in Monrovia that brought together representatives of the government, CSOs, and businesspeople. The nongovernmental organization supports governments and civil society organizations on the sustainable management of forest products and helped organize the event.
“We also need to talk to the government on how it can provide tools and budget support for implementation,” he added in an interview with The DayLight.
Liberia has attractive gender equity laws on the books which have largely failed to be implemented. A gender assessment policy in the country shows the vast disparity in land ownership between women and men. The study revealed women are to be negatively impacted by the lack of implementation of gender policies across the agriculture and forestry industries, including the environment. It underscores gender equality as a major factor affecting the value of the supply chain in the cocoa sectors and revealed how commercial logging and chainsaw mailing have been the major sources of deforestation.
“This is a serious global issue when it comes to women’s control over land,” said Wilhemina Beyan, program director of Social Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SESDev). Which helped organize the event. “In order to make this work, we need to carry on more targeting of traditional leaders and chiefs, including Zoes. We need to create awareness among them and explain the importance of the role of women across these sectors.”
Participants, representing the rubber, oil palm, and forestry industries, agreed to continue building the capacity of women, as well as institutionalizing gender policies across the public and private sectors.
A special report is expected to be prepared from the outcome of the conference to seek donors’ support for specific interventions, they agreed.
“We need to increase advocacy for the protection of women’s rights in the rubber sector, ensuring that they, too, climb to big positions,” Wilhemina Siaway, president of the Rubber Planters Association of Liberia (RPAL) told The DayLight. “We’ll continue to push for equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal participation of women in the society.”
“If we want this thing to work, we must continue to rally everyone to support women’s rights across the sector. Women are an integral part of the oil palm sector, and we must never forget this,” Franklyn Jackson, head of the Association of Liberian Oil Palm Farmers Incorporated (ALOPFI) told this online news platform.
Top: Luke Paye Toe stands at the spot where the graves of his parents used to be before Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) demolished them in 2016. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon
By James Harding Giahyue, Varney Kamara and Gabriel Dixon
SALALA DISTRICT, Bong County/DISTRICT FOUR, Grand Bassa/GARWULA DISTRICT, Grand Cape Mount-It is early morning and Pastor William Binda and two other villagers offer prayer in a short memorial ceremony at the St. John Lutheran Church in Qua-ta.
This is how Binda and many people in this small village in the Salala District of Bong, and their neighbors in Margibi have observed Decoration Day since they say Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) cleared several villages and their graveyards for the expansion of its plantation in 2010. Binda’s grandfather, Dugba Flomo, had been buried in a village called Dede-Ta One but his grave was demolished with a horde of others, their debris dumped in a nearby creek, locals tell The DayLight.
“I feel bad. No way to even go there to decorate,” Binda says in an interview following the short ceremony. “They have [a] rubber farm there. They brushed the whole place, we just pray for our parents [whose graves we lost] for their souls to rest in peace.”
In 2019, Binda and other villagers lodged a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which in 2008 invested US$10 million in SRC to rehabilitate its facilities and expand its plantation. They accused SRC of several counts of human rights abuses, including land-grab, water pollution, and destruction of ancestral graves and shrines, which contravene IFC’s standards. SRC denies clearing graveyards and planting rubber on them. The company told the IFC the land it cleared was part of 100,000 hectares it leased from the Liberian government in 1959, and that it supported the communities to perform cleansing rituals. The IFC is still investigating the matter.
The situation in Salala is a constant feature of Liberia’s concessional history. Beginning with Firestone in 1926, Liberia has leased over a million hectares of land to rubber and oil palm investors. It depends heavily on money generated from agriculture, with the sector contributing US$26,009,261 or 32.66 percent of total revenue in the 2018/19 fiscal year, according to the latest report by the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). Rural people, who had lived on the land even before the country got its independence in 1847, did not participate in the concession-awarding processes. This also happened in Grand Cape Mount, Sinoe and Grand Bassa with Sime Darby, Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) and Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO), respectively—just to name a few.
Because of that, many rural communities affected by these agricultural concessions—like the one Binda lives in—have seen their ancestral gravesites leveled in some of the worst land-grabs in human history. The Liberian Legislature had set aside the second Wednesday in March each year to honor the dead, which goes in line with the customs and traditions of rural people. This has left villagers in concession communities across the country with no graves to decorate—the most relevant part of this 104-year tradition—creating an atmosphere of sadness and anger.
“I am feeling bad on this day because others are cleaning their relatives’ graves but I don’t have any grave to [decorate] on this day,” says Kandakai Blasuah, a 46-year-old father of four in Ballah Town, Grand Cape Mount County, whose sister’s grave was demolished by Sime Darby in 2010. That was a year after the company signed a 63-year US$800 million agreement with the Liberian government to develop oil palm and rubber on 220,000 hectares of land in Bomi, Cape Mount and Gbarpolu Counties.
“On this day, I remember we used to cook food and bring it to the site for everyone to eat. Some people would be brushing around the grave, while others are cleaning and clearing the dirt. After that, we would all sit and joke about the good old days with the deceased,” Blasuah adds.
The communities in Cape Mount got justice for the destruction of their ancestral burial places, sacred sites and shrines. In 2011, the communities affected by the land-grab filed a complaint with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the global watchdog for the oil palm industry. RSPO prohibits its member companies such as Sime Darby, EPO and GVL from acquiring lands, among other things, without local communities’ free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). In 2015, it ordered the Malaysian company to pay US$1 million. Four years later, Sime Darby left Liberia, turning over the concession to Mano Palm Oil Industries Limited, which must continue the payment up to 2069.
Kandakai Blasuah, who lost his sister’s grave to Sime Darby, points to where it stood before the company illegally cleared it in 2010. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
The situation in Grand Cape Mount County involving Sime Darby might be slightly different from the one in Grand Bassa County with EPO. However, in both instances, local communities lost graves to the investors.
In 2008, EPO signed an agreement with the Liberian government to lease 169,000 hectares of land in Grand Bassa, River Cess and Sinoe. The agreement was a takeover and extension of a 1965 deal between the country and LIBINC Oil Palm Inc. In a bid to replant its plantation, the new deal saw EPO clear farms and graves, locals say. Some of the graves were restored but some were not, including those of the parents of Luke Paye Toe, a community leader in Jogbahn Clan.
“I felt discouraged that I can’t see my parents’ graves again,” he tells The DayLight, pointing to a spot on the ground blanketed by palm trees, with sunlight piercing through their upright V-shaped leaves. “Sometimes if (when) I dream about them they tell me ‘We are in the darkness. We are in the bush. What are you people waiting for?’” Toe and other villagers say they will file a complaint with the RSPO.
EPO denies any wrongdoing, telling The DayLight last year that the areas locals speak of fall within its concession. Toe and other villagers say they will file a complaint with the RSPO.
‘Spiritual Divorce’
The emotions Toe shows are common in rural communities with that problem, as villagers in the three counties The DayLight interviewed expressed the same concerns.
Losing the grave of a loved one can have long-term effects on rural people given the role the dead play in their lives, and recovery takes more than damage payments, according to experts.
“It is painfully devastating. The dead are believed to still be around providing protection, guidance, consultations, and other forms of support to the family,” says Rev. Dr. Jerry Kulah, I., dean of the Bishop John G. Innis Graduate School of Theology at the United Methodist University in Monrovia. “They demonstrate this by prayers that are often offered to the dead at the time of their burial, and the occasional visits to gravesites to seek guidance, etc.
“For some rural community dwellers, the destruction of relatives’ graves symbolizes a spiritual divorce from their ancestors. The land on which they are buried belongs to them as well as to the living (current stewards of the land) and the unborn who shall be inheritors in the future,” says Dr. Kulah, adding it would take a reburial or a memorial to appease the spirit of the dead.
Dr. Emmanuel Urey, a land rights expert and the lead character of The Land Beneath Our Feet, an intriguing documentary depicting the 1926 Firestone land-grab, agrees with Dr. Kulah and calls on the government and investors to recognize rural communities are attached to the spirit of their ancestors. He urges actors in the agriculture sector to protect rural communities’ belief systems. He recommends innovative approaches such as surveying and mapping all ancestral graveyards, sacred places and shrines to prevent future problems.
“If the development experts could just take into consideration, the damage they cause by destroying and desecrating burial grounds, they would have a different approach to development,” Dr. Urey tells The DayLight in an interview.
“It is important for local knowledge to form part of the development. Don’t just design the development in Monrovia, in Europe and other places. Go and speak with the people who have inhabited the land for a very long time, they will be able to guide you on how to carry out the development so that it does not negatively impact their lives,” adds Dr. Urey.
Locals say this rubber bush in Lango-ta in the Salala District of Bong County used to be a graveyard. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Efforts to get comments from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Bureau of Concessions did not materialize. We visited the offices of both institutions twice last week but officials we met there said they could not speak on the matter. We will update the story once we speak to them.
Campaigners say the history of concessions in Liberia shows laws and standards are not enough to protect rural people and their traditions.
“The government should give urgent priority to the implementation of the Land Rights Act (LRA),” says Simpson Snoh, an advocate with the Alliance for Rural Democracy, which, alongside other nongovernmental organizations, lodged the complaint against SRC on behalf of villagers in Salala. Snoh says communities that have lost ancestral graveyards must be paid reparations and their ownership of their land recognized henceforth by all players in the agriculture industry.
A native of Tarjuwon, Sinoe County, Snoh is himself a victim of land-grab. A 2018 RSPO report did not find the company cleared graveyards but established it wiped out sacred sites, revered by locals for generations. The Indonesian company had signed a concession agreement with the Liberian government to grow palm on 350,000 hectares of land in the country’s southeast in 2010 for 65 years. The RSPO ordered GVL to remap its boundaries with affected places, negotiate a compensation deal with villagers and stop work in disputed areas. Following the ruling, GVL stormed out of the international certification scheme, only to see its move rejected. Snoh and other victims are still pursuing their case against the company, four years on.
Villagers we interviewed in Grand Bassa and Bong are seeking redress, too.
In Salala, Binda hopes he and other townspeople win the case against SRC the IFC is investigating, and receive damages for the graveyards the company allegedly cleared.
“They should remove their rubber from our land,” Binda says. “They should pay us for [clearing] our people’s grave.”
Others want their land returned.
“I want the spot back to do decoration,” says Emmanuel Kpaingbah, an elder Qua-ta, who lost his relatives’ grave. His late uncle Dede was a traditional healer, famed for curing snakebites. “Money will not do that.”
“Let them give our land back to us,” says Joseph Nelson, the town chief of Ballah Town in Cape Mount who lost his grandparents’ graves. “The new gravesite they identified for us is too small [and] the graves will soon enter the town.
“We are doing this for our future generation.”
Honoring the dead is a huge part of the Liberian way of life as seen on Decoration Day March 9, 2022, in Weala, Margibi County. However, many in rural communities have lost relative graves to agriculture concessions. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
Funding for this story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Community Rights and Corporate Governance Program of the Sustainable Development Institute. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.
Top: Women pose with a fist in Gbonota in Bong County in 2019 with Tenure Facility’s Dr. Raymond Samndong (squatting) and Loretta Pope-Kai of the Foundation for Community Initiatives (third from the right). The DayLight/James Giahyue
By Gabriel M. Dixon
MONROVIA – In 2019, Tenure Facility supported the Protection of Customary Collective Community Land Rights in Liberia (P3CL). approximately half of a million hectares of forestland, the project has reached 24 communities in eight of the 15 counties of Liberia. Twenty of those communities have been certified as landowning communities by the LLA, now waiting for the confirmatory survey to get their deed.
“The Tenure Facility is committed to continuing its support to customary land rights formalization process for all the communities already supported to complete the step and own their land deed,” said Dr. Samndong, the organization’s head for monitoring, evaluation and learning, at a land conference held in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County earlier this month.
An international financial mechanism based in Stockholm, Sweden, Tenure Facility supports rural communities around the world in securing land and forest rights and ownership. Since 2015, the organization has spent over US$3 million on projects that have helped scale up recognition of the rights of rural communities and facilitated the process for communities to claim their rights to customary land in Liberia. The Tenure Facility pilot project in 2015, established the Community Self Identification (CSI) Guide, now integrated into the Land Rights Act of 2018 as the first step of the process leading to the legal recognition of customary land rights.
Before Liberia created its Land Rights Act in 2018, only the government and private individuals owned land across the country. When the state negotiated forest, mining and agriculture agreements that affected local communities, rural people were left out. But that changed with the creation of the Land Rights Act in 2018. Unlike the 1956 Public land law (revised in 1973), the new law guarantees land rights for customary communities, including women and youth.
However, implementation of the law has been a huge challenge, with the Land Authority lacking funding to access remote communities and locals still unaware of the law more than three years since its creation. And despite their rights being guaranteed under the Land Rights Act, women still face challenges from a male-dominated society.
Through its implementing partners—Parley Liberia, Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) and the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI)—Tenure Facility has assisted some communities in the formalization of customary land. The Tenure Facility’s projects have targeted women.
“Gender mainstreaming has been a crucial part of…..increasing women inclusion for the first time in community land governance structures and increased overall the women and youth participation in the entire project implementation,” said Dr. Samndong.
Dr. Raymond Samndong, head of MEL at The Tenure Facility, speaking at the Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa, March 1, 2022. The DayLight/James Giahyue.
The projects also helped strengthen the knowledge of chiefs in the administration of local land across the country. Towns and villages once at loggerhead over boundary disputes have banished their demons.
“Women’s rights are now respected,” said Moses Wegee, the Town Chief of Dumah Town in the Kpatawee Clan of Suakoko District, Bong County. “We know now that our sisters have right to land whether you are blind, cripple or have no husband you have right to your father’s land [like your brothers].”
“This program is very rewarding because we as district commissioners have a lot of problems in the district when it comes to land issues,” said Julia Russell, Commissioner of Wanhasa Administrative District, Lofa County at a land conference organized by Parley Liberia in Gbarnga, Bong County in 2020. “I am very happy that some of the chiefs are getting the idea that they will make the work easier for us. Boundary issues between villages, clans, it’s just a lot of headache,” he added.
Dr. Samndong reveled at the success of the organization’s endeavor in Liberia so far.
“The partners’ good relationship with the LLA has been significant for the success of the project. There have been many owners of this success, in addition to the [Liberia Land Authority], the local actors and the many development agencies that supported this process early on and continuously, like USAID and the World Bank…,” Samndong told over 250 delegates of the Land Conference.
“As a dedicated funding mechanism that was established to provide direct funding to indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities, over 75 percent of our disbursements [since 2017] have gone directly to local communities and Indigenous-led projects around the world,” Dr. Samndong said.
Tenure Facility is working in 13 countries around the world, enabling indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local organizations to build partnerships with champions in governments to advance the legal recognition of their collective land and forest rights.
This strategy has already advanced collective land-tenure security for roughly 7.2 million people across 12 of the 13 countries in which it works, covering 14 million hectares.
“In the next five years, the Tenure Facility is seeking to scale from 13 projects with indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and local community organizations to 48 plus projects,” Dr. Samndong said.
Top: U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Michael A. McCarthy. Photo credit: U.S. Embassy near Monrovia
By Gabriel M. Dixon
MONROVIA – U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Michael McCarthy has criticized the condition of the sanitation system of Monrovia in a witty opinion piece also tearing into the leadership of the country.
In a thinly veiled criticism of the city government and garbage system, McCarthy contrasted the cleanliness of villages he has lived in other West African countries to one of the oldest cities on the continent.
“As a Peace Corps volunteer, I was blessed to live for two years in villages (without electricity or running water) in West Africa,” McCarthy said in an opinion Tuesday as Liberia celebrated the 213th birth anniversary of its first president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts.
“First thing every morning, each household would take advantage of the cool, early morning daylight to sweep inside and outside and dispose of debris. Villagers then coordinated with the local government to deliver waste daily to a designated landfill.
“The state of cleanliness in the city of Monrovia, which is more developed and a far wealthier community, sadly does not compare,” he added.
Monrovia is home to more than 1 million people who produce close to 800 metric tons of solid waste per day. The city alone creates 292,000 metric tons of waste every year. However, only 45 percent or 360 metric tons of waste is collected mainly by the Monrovia City Corporation and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in the sector. The remaining 55 percent or 440 metric tons is uncollected, leading to huge piles of garbage at market places, street corners, empty lots and the backyards of residences.
The city government has often attributed its waste disposal challenges to a lack of funding and capacity. McCarthy said he was “surprised” at the city’s leadership that donors were not supporting solid waste management as they did in the last three years.
“Is there a more basic local government responsibility than the collection and proper disposal of garbage?” He quipped.
Piles of garbage are often seen on the streets of Monrovia such as this one on Center Street. The DayLight/Tom Portland
Records also support McCarthy’s disagreement with the city’s leadership. On 28th June 2017, the World Bank committed a grant of US$17.5 million for the Cheesemanburg Landfill and Urban Sanitation Project for Liberia. The project, which will expire in June 2023, is meant to support increased access to solid waste management services in Monrovia.
Also, in 2021, the United States was among the top-three largest contributors to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), both of whom are World Bank groups and instruments through which the Bank provides loans, guarantees, risk management products, and advisory services to middle-income and creditworthy low-income, and low-interest loans and grants to the world’s poorest countries.
McCarthy’s opposite the editorial (op-ed) entitled: “What would Joseph Jenkins Roberts Have to Say About Liberia Today?” also criticized the Liberian government over corruption, transparency and accountability, human rights, “and other acts that threaten the peace and security of Liberia.” He repeatedly implied Roberts, accredited for being the pioneer for Liberia’s foreign relations, for his support to nation-building and contribution to the Liberian education system, would have something to say about the state of affairs of the country he helped establish in 1847.
It comes barely six months after the Head of the European Union Laurent Delahousse said in October last year Monrovia was the “dirtiest” city in Africa he had lived in. Delahousse came under heavy criticism for that statement he made at an event on solid waste management. He later retracted his statement but it had already sparked a heated debate on the sanitary condition of Monrovia and its environs.
Top: Liberian civil society actors have called on the European Union to include rubber to the list of commodities to be produced sustainably in a proposed regulation. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – Liberian civil society actors have suggested that the European Union include the rubber industry and financiers in the proposed European Union’s new regulation on agriculture products linked to deforestation and land degradation across the country.
The European Union, the second-largest importer of agriculture products from Africa next to Asia, named oil palm, cocoa, coffee, and timbers under its proposed deforestation-free products regulation but did not capture the rubber industry, which occupies 405,008.229 hectares or 14.8 percent of Liberia’s total forestland, according to an analysis by The DayLight.
Deforestation, which involves the clearing of wide areas of trees, undermines biodiversity and heightens the impact of climate change. Liberia, which covers 42 percent of the remaining area of the Upper Guinea Forest containing important animal and plant species, faces increasing threats from plantation owners expand.
“The regulation is good, but we need to look at other issues,” said Jonathan Yiah, a forest campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). “There is a need for us to include issues of accountability that will cover both producers and EU countries, including rights of communities.”
The EU guideline meant to improve governance across agriculture and forestry sectors also failed to include financiers of companies who have received billions of dollars from European Banks that have largely contributed to deforestation. A report by the Global Witness last year found Dutch Banks have spent US3.1 billion through loans provided to oil palm projects in West Africa. Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), the country’s largest oil palm company, reaped US$375 million of this amount through loans it secured from the Utrecht-based, Rabobank the report said.
Campaigners say adding companies’ financiers to the regulation would halt European investment in deforestation-related projects.
“Adding financiers to the regulation will send out a loud message of deterrence for people who may want to continuously use [their] money to exploit the system,” Yiah said at a daylong review of the document over the weekend, founded by the EU.
The proposed regulation on deforestation is a supporting arm of the VPA, a legally-binding trade agreement between the European Union and a timber-producing country outside the EU. Like the VPA, regulation “No 995/2010” seeks to ensure that timber and timber products exported to the EU market come from legal sources and that they are in compliance with the local and international trade regulations. Going forward, exporters must provide documents on land use rights, clearance on environmental protection assessment, sales rights, among others.
The review formed part of an ongoing consultation process taking place across producer countries in West Africa. The review was also meant to strengthen the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and its Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with producer-countries. Next year, European parliaments are expected to finalize the document after their assessment of the inputs of civil society with its enforcement scheduled for 2024.
Top: An elderly woman said she suffered irritation in her eyes after a car crashed with ammonium nitrate onboard in her village. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
By Varney Kamara
SMALL BOMI, Grand Cape Mount – Barely two weeks after a Bea Mountain truck crashed—spilling ammonium nitrate in a roadside village in Grand Cape Mount—residents of the town are now experiencing different illnesses whose signs are consistent with the inhalation of the dangerous chemical, an investigation by The DayLight has found.
This reporter observed villagers coughing, while others spoke of running stomach, severe headache, chest pain in the chest, eye irritation dried throat, and swollen feet. Some of the sick people we interviewed said they were directly involved in the cleaning of the chemical from the village. Eyewitnesses told The DayLight townsmen who helped clear the area after the chemical spillage, were not issued protective gears.
“I am feeling as if one side of my head is bursting. I am also feeling severe pain in my eyes and in my throat,” Dabah Kawa, a resident of Small Bomi, said through an interpreter. “I can barely sleep at night because of the continued coughing.
“I saw the white dusty smoke with people shouting all around the big car. I ran to my house and realized that the smoke had taken over my entire room,” Kawa said.
Thirty-six villagers have fallen sick, according to Zwannah Zoduah, town chief of Small Bomi. “I was in Monrovia when that thing happened but, I came and joined my people, and we all have started coughing seriously,” he said. The sick include women, children and the elderly, this reporter observed.
Used as an explosive and fertilizer, ammonium nitrate can affect humans. People who come in close contact with the chemical can experience a burning sensation on the skin and in the eyes. Other symptoms include irritation of the nose, throat, and lungs, studies showed. High-level inhalation of the substance can lead to severe headaches, fatigue, and blue color to the skin and lips, and even death.
Villagers in Small Bomi are now showing most of these symptoms, nearly three weeks after they participated in clearing the chemical from their town.
Bea Mountain, which imported the ammonium nitrate, said it will shortly issue a statement on the latest development emanating from Small Bomi. “We have done our own assessment of the situation and management is expected to make a statement soon,” said Henry Vincent, community relations superintendent of Bea Mountain Mining Corporation.
A villager says she has experienced chest pain after a car crashed in her village with ammonium nitrate on board. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
On Saturday, 19 February 2022, a truck carrying the company’s explosives crashed in the Small Bomi village, spilling 26 tons of ammonium nitrate. The truck, marked “TR-007,” was transporting the chemical from Buchanan, Grand Bassa, to the company’s Liberty Goldmine in Kinjor, nearly two kilometers away from the scene of the crash. The consignment was part of 5,000 metric tons of chemical compound shipped to Liberia by KAPEKS, Bea Mountain’s Turkish supplier.
Following the incident, authorities at the EPA, the agency which oversees the transportation of chemical materials had said the spillage was “unlikely to cause any adverse environmental or health risk to the residents of the Small Bomi community.” The agency denied the current condition of the villagers was connected to the spillage of the chemical.
“The agency, therefore, submits that the alleged symptoms presented by the patients…are completely unrelated to the 19th February ammonium nitrate accident,” EPA said in a statement to The DayLight on Friday.
Ammonium nitrate can have both long and short-term effects on people, according to experts. The short-term effect may happen immediately or shortly after exposure. The long-term may last for months or years.
The situation in Small Bomi has claimed the attention of health authorities in the area. Doctors at the Sinje Health Center became concerned after they found no evidence of common cold, typhoid, and malaria—the most common sicknesses they treat in that area—after examining two villagers. It prescribed multivitamins, paracetamol, chloramphenicol, and amoxicillin for two patients, according to the prescriptions seen by us.
“After physical examination of the patients, I found out that their condition is stable,” said Daniel Kofa, Medical Director of the Sinje Health Center, announcing the county health team was to shortly conduct an assessment of the situation.
“Given the history of the patients, we have alerted the county health team on this matter. It is a community matter which has drawn interest,” Kofa said.
Top: Bloh Sayeah wrongly likened USAID’s US$10 million Land Management Activity to an ill-fated loan Firestone awarded Liberia in the 1920s. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
By James Harding Giahyue
Bloh Sayeh, a commissioner at the Liberia Land Authority, might have impressed delegates of the just-ended National Land Conference with a piece of a history lesson on the United States of America’s contribution to Liberia’s nation-building process. Just that she got it wrong by comparing a US$10 million USAID—which was launched at the conference—to the controversial Firestone Loan of 1927.
Sayeh recounted the United States’ contribution to Liberia, citing the Quakers, whose advocacy led to the abolition of slavery, subsequently, the formation of the Liberian nation in 1822. However, she incorrectly added the loan to her list.
Fact-check
The former director of the Center for National Documents and Records Agency was wrong in two ways: First, the United States Agency for International Development is an entity of the U.S. government, while Firestone is a private firm. So, a loan from Firestone should not be listed as goodwill from the people of America. Second, and most importantly, the loan proved counterproductive to Liberia and tested U.S.-Liberia relations those days.
To understand The DayLight’s fact-checking of her comments, we need to dig a little more into history.
As a part of the agreement between Liberia and Firestone, the Liberian government was given funding to pay the foreign debts it had incurred and to develop a harbor necessary for rubber exportation. In return for a US$5 million loan at a seven percent interest rate, Firestone was given complete authority over Liberian revenues until it was repaid. Over time the loan took a larger and larger portion of government income: it grew from 20 percent of the total revenue of Liberia in 1929, to 32 percent in 1930, to 54.9 percent in 1931, and nearly the whole revenue in 1932. A member of the American Legation in Liberia estimated that Liberia effectively paid a 17 percent interest rate on the loan.
The loan had always been controversial, owned to the infamous clause “K,” in the last stages of the negotiation. It was the same as the US$8 million loan deal the Daniel E. Howard administration had obtained from the US government but was disapproved by Congress. Clause K had sparked protest in and outside the country. It was only accepted after both parties saw the deal as necessary for their political economies.
At the end of World War I, Great Britain—the leader of the global trade of rubber—decided to restrict the supply of the commodity on the world market. So, Firestone decided to come to Liberia to nullify Great Britain’s dominance of the global rubber market. Liberia’s humid climate was an ideal area for growing rubber. It also found that Liberia had a cheap labor force, and the government too was eager to offer a concession in exchange for U.S. protection against colonial neighbors who were impatient to annex the country, a nation it helped establish in 1822. Moreover, Firestone wanted political control in Liberia to protect its long-term investment. Liberia owed more than US$1 million to British bankers. That was a safeguard to avoid the British direct meddling into Liberia’s internal affairs. Also, Firestone’s action was a strategic decision aimed at protecting its rubber production deal with the Liberian government. Similarly, the U.S. government got interested and supported Firestone’s plans which included a promise to construct a major port. Firestone did not need a port to export the rubber from Liberia but merely proposed it to get the approval and support of the US State Department, which was particularly interested in a port on the West African coast for naval use.
As the price of rubber fell during the Great Depression, Firestone stopped its development of the plantation, using just 50,000 acres and cutting wages in half. Depriving the Liberian government of tax incomes, Liberia missed a loan payment to the company. Firestone asked the U.S. government to send a warship to Monrovia to enforce the debt payment, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt disallowed the “gunboat diplomacy,” writing in a memorandum to the State Department that, “At all times we should remember that (Harvey) Firestone went to Liberia at his own financial risk, and it is not the business of the State Department to pull his financial chestnut out of the fire except as a friend of the Liberian people.”
In 1932, the Liberian Legislature passed the Moratorium Act, suspending payment of the Firestone loan until terms could be negotiated that were more in line with Liberia’s ability to pay. The U.S. suspended diplomatic relations but did not take further action. To date, there’s no record to show that the government paid back Firestone this money.
Top: Some of a 26-kilogram consignment of ammonium nitrate spilled into a private yard in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County last month. Photo Credit: Philip Zodua
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – An explosive-manufacturing company, which supplies Bea Mountain in Liberia, smuggled arms and explosives to Libya in 2018, an investigation by The DayLight has revealed.
In September 2018, the UN Panel of Experts’ report found KAPEKS violated an arms embargo on the northern African nation. The weapons were seized on board the El Mukhtar vessel in the southern and central Mediterranean during a special security operation carried out by the European Union (EU) military, the UN said at the time.
During the operation, the EU troops discovered and seized boxes labeled “KAPEKs.” It is one of several Turkish companies that exploited Libya’s weak law enforcement, resulting in widespread criminal networks, sexual abuse, and impunity, the panel added.
“The Panel has received footage of LNA specialized units defusing [improvised explosive devices (IEDs)] in Benghazi featuring large boxes containing detonating cords manufactured by an explosive manufacturer based in Turkey and surrounding areas,” the report found.
“Part of that footage shows the seizure in early 2017 of large boxes wrapped with multiple layers of plastic foil on board a vessel sailing from Misrata. The boxes seized contained explosives including detonating cords and featured stickers of the manufacturing company,” it added.
The UN placed the embargo on the import and transfer of weapons to Libya as part of the Security Council Resolution 1973. The panel had identified arms smuggling as one of the multiple factors that fueled the war in Libya, threatening the country’s peace, security, and stability. The panel further raised concern that such illicit maneuverings increased attacks against state institutions and installations. It uncovered that the embargo had been largely ineffective, leading to human rights violations against civilians, migrants, and asylum-seekers.
Unlike Libya, ammonium nitrate explosives supplied by KAPEKS are being used for industrial purposes in Liberia.
However, the Turkish firm has appeared in the news twice in the last two years in relation to its supply of ammonium nitrates to Bea Mountain in Liberia.
The first was an illegal shipment of 4,000 metric tons of the explosive chemical in 2020 via the Port of Buchanan. That importation breached the Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements for the shipment of chemical substances. The law prescribes a 20-year prison term, a fine of US$50,000 for a violator, or both. It is not clear whether a fine was paid for that violation.
Then a truck transporting 26 metric tons of the chemical compound crashed in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County on its way from Buchanan to Bea Mountain’s Liberty Goldmine in Kinjor. The ill-fated consignment was part of 5,000 metric tons of the chemical, whose shipment had met all legal requirements, according to official documents. EPA’s Executive Director Wilson Tarpeh said “the incidence is unlikely to cause any adverse environmental or health risk” to residents.
KAPEKS did not respond to The DayLight’s queries into this matter up to press time.
KAPEKs, established in 2007 by a group of Turkish engineers, is an explosives enterprise headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The company has some of its businesses scattered across different African countries, including Libya. It is the main supplier of ammonium nitrate to Bea Mountain, also a Turkish firm. Bea Mountain has a 25-year mineral development agreement with the government of Liberia for the extraction of gold in the Garwula and Gola Konneh districts of Cape Mount.
Top: Sarah Tugbo receives Jargleoken’s self-identification certificate from Commissioner Ellen Pratt of the Land Authority. The Gwelepoken District community in Maryland was one of 31 communities certified at the just-ended Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – Thirty-one communities from Lofa, Maryland and River Gee have been formally recognized as landowning communities, a key requirement in the Land Rights Act.
Covering an estimated 627,458.93 hectares, 14 of the communities are from Maryland, 13 from River Gee and four from Lofa. Their certification was one of the highlights of the just-ended National Land Conference, held in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County.
“I feel so good and I am very glad for my community to be certificated,” said Paramount Chief Alvin Daniels of Mimunken, River Gee in an interview with The DayLight after the end of the conference. “We have power over our own land.”
“We were in darkness,” said Sarah Tugbo of Jargleoken, Gwelepoken District of Maryland County. “We feel free, they [taught] us well and we know what is right and good.”
Nora Bowier, the lead land rights campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) speaks at the just-ended Land Conference. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue
The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) supported the communities as part of a one-year USAID-funded Integrated Land Resource Governance (ILRG) project, costing over US$300,000.
Nora Bowier, SDI’s lead land-rights campaigner, told The DayLight in an interview the communities had also completed their bylaws, and set up governance bodies, with some having already completed cutting boundaries with neighboring areas. Having reached that far, all 31 communities will the Liberia Land Authority will survey their territories alongside a GPS-coordinated mapping to conclude the process to get their deeds.
Bowier said SDI, which has now supported 75 communities in the process to obtain their titles, noted many challenges working in those areas.
“One of the challenges is women’s capacity communities and members of the CLDMC are many,” Bowier said.
She said the sizes of communities as well as members of the governance bodies—referred to in the land sector as community land development and management committee (CLDMC)—was another issue.
“We have realized the number of CLDMC are very huge, some up to 100 members. Bringing one hundred people to convene meetings is hard. So, we are thinking about scaling down the group, though we want to bring about equal representation.”
Top: Plastic materials form a huge part of Liberia’s solid wastes. The DayLight/Tom Portland
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – A United Nations resolution to end plastic pollution has been adopted, setting the foundation for the creation of an international treaty to combat the global crisis.
On Tuesday, 175 countries, including Liberia, met in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and approved the landmark deal to end plastic pollution, which has claimed global attention. The conference was the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly known as UNEA 5-2.
“This is the most important international multilateral environmental deal since the Paris Climate Accord,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The adoption of the UNEA-5.2 resolution came four months after the 2021 Glasgow Climate Change Conference, where more than 100 nations agreed to reduce methane emissions, currently responsible for a third of human-generated warming. Delegates at the COP26 agreed to cut the emissions down to 30 percent by 2030.
Both COP26 and the UNEA have a common goal of reducing the impact of pollution on climate change. During the conference, member states were urged to speed up the implementation of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), non-binding national plans highlighting climate change mitigation, including climate-related targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, policies, and measures governments aim to implement in response to climate change.
The resolution leaves member states with the challenge of abiding by commitments they made both at the COP26 and the UNEA conference in combatting climate change and or global warming which has been heightened by plastic pollution.
Liberia, a country that has huge stockpiles of plastic pollutants spread across different garbage in Monrovia and other coastal cities, says it is committed to global efforts in lowering the impact of pollution on climate change.
In July last year, 43 months after the signing of the Paris Accord, the Liberian Government revised its NDCs to collect and collate wastes. The plan would allow the government to harmonize and integrate environmental issues and concerns into the overall national development planning, it said. In August 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA) adopted a National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) aimed at tackling issues such as environmental pollution. That said, it is not clear what has been achieved relative to the government’s pledge to cut down greenhouse emissions to 60% by 2030.
The Nairobi-UNEA’s resolution sets the stage for the creation of an international treaty banning plastic pollution, an ambitious goal that has been earmarked for 2024.
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles such as plastic bottles, bags and microbeads, which can affect land, waterways and oceans. It occurs when plastic has been gathered or assembled in an area and begins to negatively impact the natural environment and create problems for plants, wildlife, and even the human population. Often, this includes killing plants’ life and posing dangers to local animals, experts say.
Plastic, which has its evolution in the creation of natural materials more than a century ago, has become a top debate among global environmental champions. Despite its immense contributions to science and modernization, its pollution impact on climate change and the ecosystem has braced the global community struggling for a solution.
Pollution from plastics exacerbates climate change and can be extremely harmful to the environment. In 2019, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) estimated that the production and burning of plastic would add 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. By 2050, it was projected that the figure would rise to 2.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year.
Plastic pollution also has health implications, a major global concern.
Studies showed that plastic pollution can lead to respiratory illnesses such as cough, mucus, severe and changing reduction in lung functions, and can even lead to fatalities. Last year, there were nine million premature deaths globally caused by plastic pollution, according to a UN report on the environment, which recommended the banning of “forever” substances, cleaning of polluted sites and possible relocation of affected communities.
Africa, a continent with 1.3 billion people (16 percent of the world’s population), produces five percent and consumes four percent of global plastic volumes, according to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), a global conservation non-governmental organization working to reduce pollution impact on the environment. As of last year, China, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa are among the biggest plastic polluting nations in the world, according to the UN.
