Articles about Liberia
Posted by Patrick McKelvey on February 6th, 2009Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed takes place in 2003, during the final year of Liberia’s Second Civil War. Below, we have compiled a digest of articles chronicling Liberia throughout that year, including articles that provide general context, as well as items devoted specifically to the effects of war on women and children. (For a more distilled play-by-play of Liberia in 2003, please see this blog post.)
Liberia: International Contact Group Urges Government and Rebels to Hold Ceasefire Talks
UN New York, Mar 1, 2003
Representatives of countries concerned about the situation in Liberia have issued a statement urging ceasefire talks between the country’s Government and the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). More...
The Golden Tulip Declaration of Liberian Women Attending the Peace Talks in Accra
Accra, Ghana, 15 March 2003
Preamble
We, the representatives of the various Liberian Women’s Organizations at the Accra Peace Talks on Liberia held a one-day Strategic Planning Meeting under the Chairmanship of Her Excellency Madame Ruth Sando Perry on Friday 15th Day of August A.D. 2003 at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra to analyse lessons learnt at the Accra Peace Talks from 4 June 2003 to present and to strategize on the inclusion of women within all existing and proposed institutions including all components of the current and in-coming Liberian Government (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary) and within all structures to lead the post conflict peace building process. More…
Charles Taylor-Preacher, Warlord, and President
BBC International, June 04, 2003
By Mark Doyle, BBC World Affairs Correspondent
Charles Taylor is a frustrated showman.
There is nothing this naturally confident man would like more than to strut the African stage playing the flamboyant statesman. More…
UN-Backed Sierra Leone Court Indicts Liberian President Charles Taylor
UN New York, June 4, 2003
A United Nations-backed court in Sierra Leone announced today that it has indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes and issued an international warrant for his arrest. More…
LIBERIA: Child Soldiers are Back on the Frontline
IRINnews Africa, June 9, 2003
© UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003
ABIDJAN, - As Liberian President Charles Taylor fights for his very survival, child soldiers, many of them orphans of the conflict, are back at the forefront of the fighting. Every day they can be seen riding around the streets of the capital Monrovia in pick-up trucks proudly toting their automatic rifles. More…
Eyewitness: Monrovia mother’s search
BBC News, June 27, 2003
Beatrice is a 32-year-old wife and mother, resident in the Liberian capital, Monrovia. She tells BBC News Online how the fierce fighting of the past few days has affected her family.
My family are missing. I am so confused and worried because I don’t know their whereabouts.
It all started on Sunday when I left my husband James, 40, and my daughter Agnes, 4, and my son Jim, 8, in Clara Town to go in search of food across the bridge (to Bushrod Island). More…
In the Mud, Liberia’s Gentlest Rebels Pray for Peace
New York Times, July 1, 2003
By Somini Segupta
In a part of the world where one quickly becomes inured to the sight of scrawny, red-eyed, gun-toting teenage boys, there was an astonishing sight today along this capital’s main road.
In an empty field, in a heavy downpour in the middle of the rainy season in one of the world’s wettest countries, was a small group of women, nearly all dressed in white, throwing their arms to the sky and dancing and singing, drenched from head to toe, calling to God to bring an end to war. More…
A War America Can Afford to Stop
New York Times, August 1, 2003
By Chester. A. Crocker
The news that peacekeeping troops from Nigeria and other West African countries will head into Liberia next week and that Charles Taylor, the country’s thuggish ruler, may go into exile at that time is to be cheered. But it should not become an excuse for the United States to delay or decide against sending ashore its own forces to ensure Liberia’s return to security and political stability. More…
Liberia’s Women Killers
BBC News, August 26, 2003
“Black Diamond” and her comrades may look like any bunch of street-wise girls with attitude but they have the military hardware to back up the look.
“Mortars are my favourite weapon,” says the leader of a group of Liberian women rebel fighters - the Women’s Artillery Commandos (WAC).
Even her enemies on the government side acknowledge her military strength. More…
At 14, a Liberian War Veteran Dreams of Finding a Way Home
New York Times, August 25, 2003
By Tim Weiner
”The war came before the rains in 2000,” Dukuly Togbah remembered. ”I was 10 years old.”
Dukuly is a smart, tough country boy from the northern hills. He was one among the thousands of child soldiers who have fought this nation’s grisly battles for 14 years.
He is 14 himself, born on Independence Day, July 26. His story is the story of Liberia. When he was in the first grade he started to fight with rebel forces and, when captured, he was forced on pain of death to fight for the government. He survived it all by the skin of his teeth. More…
The sisters-in-arms of Liberia’s war
Christian Science Monitor, August 26, 2003
By Nicole Itano
MONROVIA, LIBERIA - Black Diamond could be the prototype for an action hero, a sort of African “Lara Croft.” She’s all sleek muscle and form-fitting clothes, with an AK-47 and red beret.
She has a bevy of supporting beauties, equally stylish, who loiter nearby, polished fingernails clutching the cold steel of semi-automatic weapons. But this is no video game or action flick; it is one of Africa’s most intransigent and brutal conflicts, where child soldiers brag about killing the “dogs” on the other side, and ragtag militias rape and pillage their way across the countryside. More…
Letter From Africa; Of Liberia’s Many Sorrows, and Their Roots
New York Times, September 3, 2003
By Tim Weiner
A few nights ago, a well-dressed man from the Foreign Ministry walked out on the veranda of the Mamba Point Hotel, ordered a beer, and proceeded to explain what happened here.
The hotel looks out on the Atlantic Ocean, over a beach where many bodies are buried, and into the horizon where three American warships bob in the mist. Here is where the diplomats, aid workers and reporters drawn to the disaster of Liberia gather to discuss, over drinks and dinner, the death and destruction around them. More…
Waiting for Their Moment in the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman
New York Times, November 16, 2005
By Helene Cooper
You can’t get to Bukavu, Congo, from Monrovia, Liberia. Like just about everywhere else in Africa, the two places are separated by dense rain forests, interminable wars and impassable dirt roads that don’t go anywhere.
Yet they might as well be the same place. “Oh, finally, now I’m home,” I thought as I crawled out of the tiny single-engine plane and jumped onto the landing strip of what passes for Bukavu’s airport. It was about six months ago, and I was on a reporting trip throughout Africa. It was a weird trip for me because I was there to write about poverty and development, yet everywhere I went, from Accra, Ghana, to Mekele, Ethiopia and Kisumu, Kenya, I kept thinking that none of those places, for all of their endemic poverty or corruption, seemed as bad off as my own home country, Liberia. More…
All Sides in Liberian Conflict Make Women Spoils of War
New York Times, November 20, 2003
By Somini Sengupta
On that burning hot morning, peace had already been declared in this war-beaten country, West African peacekeepers were on the ground and President Charles G. Taylor had already left the country, ushering in what was widely seen as an end to strife.
Yet the lingering sound of gunfire sent Annie Joe running frightened through the woods and into a group of four or five men with AK-47’s on their shoulders. More…
Posted by Patrick McKelvey, Literary Intern at McCarter Theatre
