#April in LIBERIA..... April is the hottest month in #Liberia. The temperature easily reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit (i.e. 32 degrees Celsius). The sky often is cloudy. Thunderstorms announce the 7 months rainy season. Air humidity will gradually rise and reach its maximum of 100 per cent in the coastal areas at the end of July. By then the air feels like a hot blanket. April may also be politically hot. Sometimes steaming hot – like On April 14, 1979 the ‘Rice Riots’ took the government of then President Tolbert by surprise. In Monrovia, demonstrators protested against the announced increase of rice, the staple food, but the underlying anger had everything to do with the political exclusion of tribal people by the Americo-Liberian elite. The demonstration turned into an orgy of looting after the police fired live ammunition at the demonstrators killing hundreds of them. Almost exactly a year later, on April 12, 1980, the Americo-Liberian President Tolbert was assassinated in a bloody militarycoup d’étatthat brought master-sergeant Samuel Doeto power, a Krahn from the eastern part of the country ( Grand Gedeh County). Doe thus became Liberia’s first president of tribal origin since the creation of the republic in 1847. During thecoupand for the first time in the nation’s history, Liberians in the streets of Monrovia were halted and asked to speak one of the country’s thirty tribal languages, a move directed at the identification of Americo-Liberians, the descendants of the founders of the republic. Ten days after the coup – still in April – thirteen men were savagely and publicly executed on a beach in Monrovia, after a mockery trial. The former government officials and True Whig Party leaders were executed in a horrific scene, witnessed by a cheering crowd. Sixteen years later another April month brought chaos, fear and death. The first civil war (1989-1996) was in its seventh year when on April 6, 1996 two warlords in the power-sharing transitional government, Charles Taylor (NPFL) and Alhaji Kromah (ULIMO-K), orchestrated the arrest of another warlord, Roosevelt Johnson (ULIOMO-J), causing a flaring up of fighting resulting in the death of many and the displacement of thousands who fled the capital city. In light of the foregoing it is very understandable that when opposition leaders announced an April 12 demonstration against the Sirleaf Administration, the government was not eager to let this happen. 35 civil society groups including the Coalition for the Transformation of Liberia (COTOL) wanted President Sirleaf to resign. The internationally acclaimed President because of her many achievements – notably in the areas of human rights and private sector development – was accused of corruption, nepotism and bad governance. Also reports that the police wanted to demonstrate on April 12 because of payment arrearscontributed to a serious and tense situation. Early April a leaked confidential documentsuggested that the April 12 demonstration was an attempt to topple the Sirleaf government. Financed by the Liberian diaspora in the United States 400 ex-combatants – mainly from the MODELwarring faction, allegedly Grand Gedeans - were to carry out the operation. According to the document published by the Monrovia-based Heritage newspaper the allegedcouporganizers accused the Sirleaf government of being mainly composed of sons and daughters from the regime of the deposed President Tolbert. Moreover, they accused the Sirleaf Administration of a vendetta campaign against Grand Gedeans (read: Krahnpeople). Grand Gedeans in the USA were quick to reject the Heritage newspaper article that quoted the unspecified security
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 08:15:07 +0000
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