Posted February 28, 2007
US Students Asked, "What Liberia Did With The Loans?"
By Thomas Kai Toteh
Senior Staff Writer
tnyantk@yahoo.com
It was about 10: 30 a.m. when the African History in a
World Setting class professor, Bismarck Myrick called on group one for the
regular current events on Africa.
The student went before the class, introduced herself
and said, “I am doing my current events on Liberia.” Class was silent as
usual.
The student summarized the news from the donor
conference held in Washington. The United States has promised to write off
US $391 million of Liberia’s debt to help the country recover from its
14-year civil war. She gave the breakdown and details of other developments
related to US assistance to Liberia.
At the conclusion of her reading of current event on
Liberia, the professor asked, “Is there any question?” One African-American
female student raised her hand. She wanted to know what Liberians can show
for this huge amount of money over the years.
The professor told the student it is the US government
way of identifying with Liberia’s reconstruction. “The country was ravaged
by civil war,” he said.
In addition, three African-American students asked,
“Was the money used to build infrastructures before the war?” The professor
said no. He told the students, “Liberian governments are corrupt.”
“Then why would our government want to write off their
debt if the money was misused?” “Will Liberia continue to look out for
handout?” another student asked.
I raised my hand to answer some of the questions. But
time was out. I was disappointed by the professor, who was US ambassador to
Liberia in 1993 and is also an African-American. He told the students “it’s
due to corruption,” but failed to elaborate to the young students who don’t
know Liberian history.
In reality his response was partly right, but who were
the corrupt officials? Is the debt in question today decades-old or
centuries-old? The 18 late presidents of Liberia were African-American
descendants, though Liberians called them Americo-Liberians later on.
The United States government continued to pump money
both in loans and donations to Liberia under one party rule and corruption
at its highest level only because Liberia was used to promote its cold war
agenda. Where did the money go? The money was taken back to the US and got
back into US economy by corrupt officials headed by Joseph Jenkins Roberts
and all his successors who came from the United States.
The late Samuel Doe after his administration was
rewarded with US$5 million, for toppling the one-party rule, once got mad
about US foreign policy in Liberia and launched the project, “Let’s pay US
debt.” I remember every town and village in Liberia including Monrovia and
other urban areas embraced the project. This was not too long when Charles
Taylor allegedly broke jail in the U.S. and launched his deadly armed
struggle.
This is the question that US Students Asked, “What
Liberians did with the Loan?”
The debt will be written off. We hail President Sirleaf
for her good diplomacy. We are desperate for financial aid no matter what
conditions follow later. But will Liberia continue to look out for handouts?
