The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
February 11, 2020

Background  

Every bread-and-butter issue in Liberia these days is a subject for street protests. Three major street protests involving the mass gathering of people were held in Monrovia between September 2018 and January 2020. On September 24, 2018, a previously unknown group, The Coalition of Citizens United to Bring Our Money Back (COCUBOMB), staged the first major street protest to demand governmental accountability for an alleged “missing” 16 billion Liberian banknotes. Another previously unknown group, the Council of Patriots (COP), staged the second protest on June 7, 2019, and the third on January 6, 2020. The second protest centered around a multiplicity of issues, including demands for the President of Liberia to publish his assets, fire certain cabinet officials, reshuffle the cabinet, cancel the government’s salary harmonization scheme, and reverse a policy decision at the national seaport, while the third protest sought to pressure the government to address the issues raised during the June 7 protest.

Emboldened by Article 17 of the 1986 Liberian Constitution, which states in part that “All persons, at all times, in an orderly and peaceable manner, shall have the right to assemble and consult upon the common good, to instruct their representatives, to petition the Government or other functionaries for the redress of grievances,” many Liberians seemed beholden to the idea of an unfettered constitutional right to free expression and free assembly, and the right of individual citizens to know and to consent to every governmental undertaking. As a result, every Tom, Dick, Harris, Sarah, or Mary in Liberia nowadays thinks he or she knows best what the priorities of government ought to be, and who the government should hire and not hire to serve in various public offices. Even minor policy differences among government functionaries are no longer resolved behind closed doors but in the public glare, and major socio-economic and political issues and related high-level policy initiatives are now discussed openly in the public without any regard for legitimate public information and legitimate national security information.  

In this article, I rely on some historical facts about protests and the reality of the economic situation in Liberia in times past to argue that although protests are an inherent component of free expression in a flourishing democracy, they cannot by themselves solve any local or national problems. Rather, in my view protests can only stimulate dialogue between the governed and the governor on specific issues of general concern, whether or not such issues arise from perceived expectation or discontent, in the hope of reaching an amicable solution. But to be successful at reaching an amicable solution for whatever issues raised by the protestors, the protests themselves must be peaceful and non-violent, less adversarial and more persuasive, and beholden to the legal, social, and security requirements of the particular society within which the protest is staged.

Historical Antecedents

Liberia faced serious threats to its territory during the 1900s from mainly French and British colonialists and intermittent internal wars between the Liberian government and the local indigenous ethnic groups. After annexing large portions of Liberian territory to British Sierra Leone and French Guinea and Ivory Coast during the Scramble for Africa in 1884-5, Great Britain and France still sought in the 1900s to annex more Liberian land, including British annexation of Kanre-Lahun District of Luawa Chiefdom in the Kissi kingdom to Sierra Leone in 1911. From 1910 to 1921 the Liberian government was heavily engaged with internal wars with various ethnic groups, beginning with the first Grebo war in 1910; the Kpelle and Gbandi wars from 1911-14; the Kissi and Gio and Mano wars in 1913; the Kru wars from 1915-16; the Gola and Gbandi wars from 1918-19; and the Joquelle Kpelle wars from 1916-20, and so on (Akpan,1985, pp. 263-272).

The net results of these political acts pressured the Liberian government into virtual bankruptcy, with huge financial deficits in operational costs, a declining revenue base, and huge drops in trade and foreign aid. President Arthur Barclay (1904-1912) sought to lower the political pressure by granting the indigenous peoples of the Grebo, Kru, Bassa, Kissi, Kpelle, and other local ethnic kingdoms Liberian citizenship in 1904. President Barclay also sought to mitigate the financial situation by borrowing heavily like his predecessors from the French and British governments, and also from Liberian, French, British, German, and Dutch merchants operating in Liberia at the time. In particular, the Barclay administration borrowed 1.1 million British pounds (£1100000) in 1906 and the equivalent of 1.7 million US dollars ($1700000) from British and other European financiers in 1912 at very high-interest rates (Akpan,1985, p. 274) in order to meet payroll, basic operational costs, and other exigencies of the government.

Because the loan repayment depended on Liberian customs revenue generation, the Liberian revenue collectorate “was administered by British officers as from 1906, and by an 'International Receivership' as from 1912, to ensure and facilitate repayment to creditors” (Akpan,1985, pp. 273-275).  Liberia’s indebtedness to foreign creditors, therefore, enabled Great Britain, France, Germany, and other foreign powers to constantly interfere in the internal affairs of Liberia to the consternation of Liberians. Hence, as these political and economic challenges mounted the Liberian people wanted immediate answers from the government, leading to the anti-Barclay and pro-Barclay protests in 1909. The anti-Barclay protestors might have felt that the president unnecessarily mortgaged the future of Liberia by acquiring huge debts and subjecting management of the country’s revenue collectorate to foreign creditors, while the pro-Barclay protestors might have felt on the contrary that the actions taken by the president were a necessary price that Liberians had to pay to secure a peaceful and functioning homeland. 

Current Socioeconomic Conditions

Today, the Liberian revenue collectorate is not under foreign control, and Liberian territory is not being encroached upon for annexation. But the current political and economic situations in the country greatly paralleled what they were in the 1900s under President Barclay, and in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early 2000s under President Samuel K. Doe, interim presidents Amos C. Sawyer and Charles Gyude Bryant, and President Charles Taylor, respectively. Liberia’s current liquidity and cash flow problems are quite alarming, with huge drops in foreign aid and foreign direct investment, grants, and international NGOs participation, in addition to the withdrawal of the UN Military Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which used to pump millions of dollars monthly into the Liberian economy on the basis of such recurring expenditures as building and fleet rentals, air travels, military gear and hardware purchases, repairs, and other general operational costs, including security support to the Liberian government. Liberia is still burdened, however, with huge foreign and domestic debts and related balance of payments issues, which payment regimes often constrained the government to be delinquent in meeting payroll and other financial obligations on time. The banking system and mobile money services are stressed to the limits and performing poorly in meeting customer demands for withdrawals of cash amid shortages in Liberian dollar supplies and high prices of basic commodities on the markets. 

At the same time, the reality for past and present generations of Liberians remained basically the same: Liberia has not changed much since 1847 in terms of its socio-economic and politico-cultural development. After 172 years of national independence, Liberia still lags far behind its West African neighbors in road connectivity, technological innovations, modern academic institutions equipped with science laboratories and other scientific and pedagogical tools, electricity and water supplies, intrastate transportation and passenger rail services, shipping and airline services, medical facilities equipped with the latest medical tools and equipment, and other basic infrastructural development. Liberia is still fighting hard to dismantle and destroy its cultural heritage at the urging of “foreign partners,” while its neighbors are celebrating their cultural heritages locally at the highest level of society and exporting the same to other countries inside and outside the sub-region. Liberians still lack a begrudging sense of national unity and commitment to nation-building and appeared to still be settling for that “Woe-Meme Mentality” (i.e. in Liberian parlance the mentality of outsmarting another in the most degrading and teasable manner) that has generated so much mistrust, animosity, and brisk sentiments among Liberians to the point of undermining national development and progress.

Brisk sentiments after the1985 elections drove Liberians to a protracted 14-year civil war when differences over results of the 1985 multiparty elections could have been settled through court actions or dialogue. Brisk sentiments have become the new norm in Liberian society since the 2017 elections, and it appeared that many Liberians are fighting frantically to delegitimize and ostracize the current government by the public suggestions that the Liberian people made a “mistake” in 2017 in electing the current head of government. This prophecy of doom has become part and parcel of the national public discourse amid concerted efforts clandestinely and overtly to cast doubts over every policy initiative or priority project of the government as being against the welfare of the Liberian people. And it appeared that political cynicism has given rise to the frequency and vehemence of the current waves of street protests in Liberia and not necessarily because of the current economic situation in the country. Liberia has had her share of economic woes in the past and repeated street protests never became the answer. Yet, the September 24 protest organizers called on the foreign powers to whom they presented their petition to impose economic sanctions on Liberia until the “missing” 16 Liberian banknotes were accounted for—absent any prior investigation, as if the goal of the protest was to strangulate the new government of needed cash and render it useless in the eyes of the people rather than to establish the facts in the case. Hence, it must dawn on Liberians that economic recovery or economic revival is never the handiwork of coordinated street protests and sanctions but a concerted national effort to secure an environment for the free flow of goods and services at affordable prices through relevant policy initiatives and actions.

The Liberian Protest Dynamics
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On April 14, 1979, the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) staged the first major protest demonstration in my generation involving a huge mass of Liberian citizens against proposed hikes in the price of a 100-pound bag of rice, the national staple. The peaceful demonstration later turned violent resulting in massive looting of businesses across Monrovia and the loss of more than 100 human life after the police tried to quell the demonstration by shooting live bullets into the crowd.  Comparatively, PAL and the COP shared the same advocacy strategy regarding mass protests but differed on how key issues were to be formulated and packaged for presentation to the government for redress. PAL dwelled on a single protest issue at a time and appeared to have respected the organs of government by moderating its public utterances and engaging government representatives at every turn. The COP dwelled on multiple issues at a time and appeared abrasive, indifferent, cheeky, and full of self-adulation in its public utterances while clinching to constitutional rights and downplaying the authority of the organs of government. These differences in how each protesting group interacted with the organs of government can, perhaps, be attributed to the fact that PAL operated under a governing system that was an autocratic one-party state, while the COP operated under a multiparty democratic state.  
PAL succeeded, nonetheless, in registering a political party, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), which was the first opposition political party registered in Liberia in 24 years (1955-1979) since the birth of the Independent True Whig Party in 1955. But what little rapprochements existed between PAL and the government of President William R. Tolbert, Jr. soon evaporated with PAL’s second public demonstration in March 1980 in the form of a candlelight vigil to ask the president to step down. The leaders of PAL were arrested and jailed and rumors had it that they were scheduled to be secretly executed when the 1980 coup changed their plight. The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission even identified the 1979 rice riot as the baseline or genesis of the political conflicts in Liberian history, but that timeline excluded many incidents of great acrimony throughout Liberian history, including the ethnic wars already cited. 

The COP, on the other hand, demanded answers to an array of issues that threaded deep into the operations of so many government ministries and agencies that it would have been impossible to implement the COP’s demands without first restructuring the political, economic, and social institutions and the governing system in Liberia. But no protests—whether for or against a sitting government—have ever impelled any government administrations to take any actions at repelling the deteriorating political and economic situations in the country contrary to their best judgments; based, of course, on thorough institutional evaluation of the political, cultural, social, economic, diplomatic, and national security implications of the prevailing circumstances. Moreover, protests are neither intended as an opposition tool to remove a democratically elected government from power on fiat nor are protests meant for groups opposed to a sitting government to outrightly recalibrate society on the whims. Rather, protests are the means by which a citizen or a group of citizens can appeal to and prevail on a governing authority to make some adjustments in particular policies and programs in order to best serve the needs of the particular segment of society for which the policies and programs were originally intended.

Indeed, one of the key dynamics of the current waves of protests in Liberia is the issue of constitutional right to know. It took the 1980 coup, the 1984 national referendum, and the 1985 general elections to bring Liberians face-to-face with the workings of democracy for the first time since independence in 1847. As a result, many Liberians tend to believe that government has responsibility to directly inform and seek their approval for every policy initiative contemplated by the government (be it concessionary agreement, loan, program design, or financial decision) when in reality such inquiries become the prime domain of the national legislature, which has both oversight and impeachment powers over the other two branches of government. For while a citizen or a group of citizens has the right and freedom under the Liberian Constitution to know and act on whatever the underpinnings of each government administration might be, direct participation of the average citizens in the daily running of government is generally procured through their elected representatives in the national legislature,  or through a court of law if and when the citizen or a group of citizens feel that a particular portion of a new government program or policy may otherwise jeopardize their interests.

Many Liberians also do not know that democracy is a partisan-based adversarial system that thrives on a winner-takes-all mantra after an election. That is in the absence of a power-sharing agreement between or among two or more political parties, the winner of an election at the presidential level has the inherent moral and constitutional rights to formulate a government and bring people on board who will be loyal to the national leadership and work to implement the policies and programs of the government of the day. And there are no “ifs and ands” about all public officials adhering to these political and constitutional requirements when called upon to serve a particular government administration. Yet, many Liberians still believe they are deserving of cabinet and other top posts in government based on education and experience alone when it is loyalty to a particular government administration plus education and experience that can lead to increased productivity, efficiency, and creation of a positive legacy by that government administration.

Besides, the notion that “government is continuity” doesn’t necessarily mean that each government administration should or will be the same. The reality is that a government is distinguished by administrations (e.g. the Tolbert Administration, the Doe Administration, the Barclay Administration, etc.), and each government administration has the right to chart its own course of action to create the legacy that it wants and desires. It is based on this legacy that a government administration may or may not be reelected. And every new government administration has the legal right and authority under the Liberian constitution to identify priority programs and set policy guidelines for implementation befitting of whatever legacy it wishes to create. This is why it would be highly unlikely that any newly elected government administration will endeavor to recalibrate and reprioritize its policies and programs in adherence to protest demands by any group, whether chartered or unchartered.

Conclusion

 For the older generation of Liberians born in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, it was almost a taboo to use profanity or unkempt speech before a parent or guardian, or any older person for that matter, let alone criticize government leaders publicly or engage in street protests without severe reprimands. But times have changed. Liberians of the current new generation are now part and parcel of an emergent democracy made possible by the 1980 coup and a new constitution that guarantees the rights of individual Liberians to free speech, free assembly, and free press.  Today, people inside and outside the media landscape can now insult and make the wildest allegations against any Liberian public official or business executive at will without remorse or consequence. The line between national security information and public information has blurred so much so that it now appears that Liberia has no national security interests to preserve. And street protests have become the new negotiation tool in the workplace and the general public sphere.

The current socio-economic situation in Liberia has gotten worst to the point that many Liberians sincerely want the freedom to initiate street protests on the whim when it suits their political interests, but they do not want police interrogations, justice ministry interventions, and counter-protests to their causes. But, as the anti-Barclay and pro-Barclay protests in 1909 showed, Liberians can reasonably disagree on national socio-economic and political issues and related policy matters without trying to tear the country apart through foul language, threats of war, and acts of gross disrespect to the presidency and the government of the day. The anti-Barclay and pro-Barclay protests of 1909 also showed that protests and counter-protests on the same day, the same time, and the same venue are also an inherent part of democracy. Hence, Liberian protestors and protest organizers must learn to recalibrate their general attitude toward Liberia’s emergent democracy, and what the roles and responsibilities of individual citizens ought to be to make Liberian democracy work for the betterment of all Liberians.

The constitutional right of individuals to freely assemble and present their petitions to public officials is also not absolute.  Article 15 of the constitution grants Liberians “the right to freedom of expression” and “the right to hold opinions without interference,” provided that each person or group is held “fully responsible for the abuse” of the freedom and opinions so expressed.   Hence, reading through Articles 17 and 15 concurrently, one is apt to see serious defects in the law as to what is meant by “an orderly and peaceable manner” and “at all times” in Article 17. Similar defects can be found in reference to the right to individual free expression and opinions and the responsibility clause in Article 15. Does Article 17 hold that Liberian citizens and residents are free to assemble at any time of the year, the month, the week, the day, or the night, at the homes or offices of public officials and private citizens for the expressed purpose of presenting grievances and petitions? Will there not be qualms about invasion of privacy, disturbance of the peace, and public nuisance? Or does the phraseology “an orderly and peaceable manner” in Article 17 mean that two, three, or even five different groups of protesters can converge at the same venue on the same day and the same time? In either case, what might be the role of state security agencies in the protection of every citizen against unwanted protests and invasion of privacy and the general enforcement of law and order? Under these scenarios, the recent suggestion by Senate Pro-Tempore Albert Chie for the national legislature to provide some clarity on these constitutional issues seems timely. 

Finally, as much as people have the right to hold government accountable for corruption and other vices, those spearheading these charges must themselves be accountable to the government and people of Liberia by presenting not propaganda but the facts. Liberian protesters and protest organizers will also have to be more moderate in tone, less confrontational and defiant, and learn to target one or two issues for redress at a time rather than trumpeting a laundry list of issues that may not be easily addressed. Accordingly, a few questions are quite in place for careful introspection by all Liberians as to how Liberian democracy can grow and prosper: 1) Can a group of citizens under whatever nomenclature be adamant in demanding security protection from government for its planned street protests but at the same time want to be able to decide at will what day and time to engage in street protests without regulatory permission?  2) Can any political parties or groups of citizens refuse to officially present their petition to the government and still demand an immediate response from the government? 3) Can a government use teargas and water cannons to disburse a crowd of protestors from cooking at a national historic site?  The answers you provide to these questions could very well be the starting point for future discussions on the progress of Liberian democracy.  
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References

Akpan, M. B. (1985). Liberia and Ethiopia, 1880—1914: the survival of two African states. In  A. Adu Boahen (Ed.), UNESCO
general history of Africa—VII: Africa under colonial domination 1880-1935. (pp. 111-282). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dodoo, L. (2020, January 15). Liberia: ‘pro-temp Chie wants laws on protest reviewed. Frontpage Africa [Monrovia]. Retrieved
from http://frontpageafricaonline.com

Liberian Const. Art. 15 and 17.

Senkpeni, Alpha Daffae (2018, Sept. 24). Liberia: ‘Bring Back Our Money’ Campaigners Gathering in Monrovia to Petition
International Community. Frontpage Africa [Monrovia]. Retrieved from http://frontpageafricaonline.com.

Worzi, A. (2019, June 9). CoP releases final petition, gives gov’t one month to respond. Daily Observer [Monrovia].
Retrieved from https://www.liberianobserver.com.

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About the Author:  Nat Galarea Gbessagee is an educator, technical communicator, social commentator, and former director of public affairs at the Liberian Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism in Monrovia. He can be reached at ngg06@yahoo.com.

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