Liberia History & Information

Liberia at a Glance 

Area: 43,000 Sq miles, 45% of the land area is prime forest 

Capital: Monrovia 

President: Dahkpanah Dr. Charles Ghankay Taylor 

Government: Democratic – Independent since 1847. 

Languages: Official language is English. Seventeen Indigenous languages are also spoken. They include: Bandi, Bassa , Belle, Dei, Gio, Grebo, Gola, Kissi, Kpelle, Krahn, Kru, Lorma, Mano, Mandingo, Mende, Sapo, Vai. 

Religion: Christian, Islam and traditional African beliefs 

Currency: US and Liberian Dollar. 

Temperature: 68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit 

Transportation:
Airports: Roberts International Airport, Spriggs Payne Airfield
Ports: Port of Monrovia, Port of Buchanan, Port of Greenville, and Port of Cape Palmas

Kenya

United People’s Party Political Action Committee’s Resolution – click here.

Environmental Liberty Imperiled – click here.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Interview Part 1 – click here.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Interview Part 2 – click here.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Interview Part 3 – click here.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Interview Part 4 – click here.

ULAA Team Tries To Restore Community Integrity – click here.

ULAA Team Tries To Restore Community Integrity 2 – click here.

Commission Submits Findings – click here.

Commission Submits Findings 2 – click here.

Commission Submits Findings 3 – click here.

Board Decisions - click here.

UPP Partisan Expelled for Violations – click here.

Findings on the Jardia Complaint – click here.

An Impeachment Treatise to Save the State – click here.

An Impeachment Treatise to Save the State 2 – click here.

An Impeachment Treatise to Save the State 3 – click here.

An Impeachment Treatise to Save the State 4 – click here.

New Leaders For County Organization – click here.

Party Prepares For Elections – click here.

Liberians Call For Teahjay’s Immediate Release – click here.

The Noble Goals Intended – click here.

LURD on Deadlines – click here.

LURD on Deadlines 2 - click here.

LURD on Deadlines 3 – click here.

Treason Trial At Standstill As Rights Group Expresses Concern – click here.

Parties Must Ensure Ceasefire – Brumskine Stresses – click here.

Fawe Calls for “Gender Responsive” Policies – click here.

LURD: Objectives and Goals – click here.

Why Liberia’s Political Parties Are Mute – click here.

Don’t Tolerate Bad Governments, Ghanaian Professor Sounds – click here.

Short On Brains – click here.

Rebels Attack Zwedru – click here.

The Intervention Force – click here.

You want to give your sweetie something sparkly this Valentine’s Day. Maybe it’s even time to pop the question. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, of course … unless the girl cares about funding wars in Africa and wearing a reminder of bloodshed and poverty on her finger, that is.

Unfortunately, the modern symbol of love is also a token of terrible tragedies. If you’re looking to buy with a clear conscience, you’ll want to do a little research before you’re beguiled by the brilliance.

During the 1990s, money from selling diamonds financed several vicious civil wars in African countries. Military warlords and rebel groups alike mined diamonds to buy weapons in Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Liberia. Diamonds from Republic of Congo and Côte d’Ivoire were also used to fund wars in neighboring countries.

These gems became known as conflict diamonds or blood diamonds. Global Witness  estimates that up to 15% of all diamonds sold around the world in the late 1990s were conflict diamonds.

The United Nations imposed an embargo on non-government-certified diamonds from Angola in 1998 and did the same for Sierra Leone diamonds in 2000.

In 2003, the United Nations, over 70 countries, and the international diamond industry launched the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. This voluntary system is supposed to track rough diamonds from the mine to the retailer and ensure that they are conflict-free and legitimately traded.

In addition, the U.S. created several laws such as the Clean Diamonds Act to ban importation of rough diamonds that are not certified by the Kimberly Process. The U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of diamond jewelry — we bought $33.7 billion worth in 2005! But most of what we import are cut and polished stones, according to Global Witness.

While the Kimberly Process has made strides, it also has weaknesses that have been exploited. Some conflict diamonds are still getting onto the market, although thankfully in small numbers. Partnership Africa Canada reports how Côte d’Ivoire continues to launder blood diamonds through other countries and how lack of monitoring keeps retailers from always knowing what they’re selling.

So how are we supposed to know what we’re buying for our loved ones? You’ll have to ask the jeweler some questions, and be prepared to shop around. The Conflict-Free Diamond Council has useful guidelines to consider when looking for a diamond.

Download Amnesty International’s diamond buyer’s guide (PDF) for handy questions to ask your diamond retailer.

To learn more about specific stores, check out the charts from Global Witness and Amnesty International. These PDFs give details about businesses’ conflict-diamond policies and what monitoring organizations they belong to. You’ll find everyone from Wal-Mart to Saks Fifth Avenue included.

You can look up the conflict-free diamond statements of some big-name stores online, such as Tiffany, Ben Bridge Jewelery, and Zales.

Blue Nile, Whiteflash, and James Allen Professional Jeweler are among the many online retailers who sell conflict-free diamonds in accordance with the Kimberly Process.

Some folks prefer diamonds mined in Canada. The CanadaMark certification guarantees that the diamonds are from the Great White North, which is, of course, far from ugly wars.

However, Canadian diamonds aren’t perfect for the environment either. Mining Watch points out that northern diamond mines damage delicate ecosystems and animal habitats. These operations have also disrupted the lives of indigenous people in Canada.

One of the most eco-friendly options is to recycle jewelry. For example, Green Karat uses recycled gems in its designs. This not only ensures that your diamond is free of taint, but it doesn’t hurt the environment with messy mining practices.

Similarly, vintage jewelry from before the 1990s neatly avoids conflict and harm to the planet. If you insist, you can always have the stone removed from an old setting and placed into a ring, necklace, etc., of your own design. Jewelers do this frequently when heirlooms are inherited but styles change. Search antique stores in your town or troll eBay for deals.

One of the most popular uses of a flag is to symbolize a nation or country. Some national flags have been particularly inspirational to other nations, countries, or subnational entities in the design of their own flags. Some prominent examples include:

The flag of Denmark is the oldest state flag Dannebrog, inspired the cross design of the other Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and regional Scandinavian flags for the Faroe Islands, Åland, Scania and Bornholm, as well as flags for the non-Scandinavian Shetland and Orkney. The Union flag (Union Jack) of the United Kingdom is the most commonly used. British colonies typically flew a flag based on one of the ensigns based on this flag, and many former colonies have retained the design to acknowledge their cultural history. Examples: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Tuvalu, and also the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia, and the American state of Hawaii. The Tricolour of The Netherlands is the oldest tricolor, first appearing in 1572 as the Prince’s flag in orange–white–blue. Soon the more famous red–white–blue began appearing — it is however unknown why, though many stories are known. After 1630 the red–white–blue was the most commonly seen flag. The Dutch Tricolor has inspired many flags but most notably those of Russia, India, New York City, South Africa (the 1928-94 flag), and France, which spread the tricolor concept even further. The flag of the Netherlands is also the only flag in the world that is adapted for some uses, when the occasion has a connection to the royal house of the Netherlands an orange ribbon is added. The national flag of FranceTricolore was designed in 1794. As a forerunner of revolution, France’s tricolour flag style has been adopted by other nations. Exampless: Italy, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Haiti, Romania, Mexico. The flag of the United States, also nicknamed The Stars and Stripes or Old Glory. In the same way that nations looked to France for inspiration, many countries were also inspired by the American Revolution, which they felt was symbolized in this flag. Examples: Liberia, Chile, Malaysia, Uruguay, and the French region of Brittany. The flag of Russia, the source for the Pan-Slavic colors adopted by many Slavic states and peoples as their symbols. Examples: Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bulgaria (with green replacing blue). The original tricolor flag of Iran, the source for the Pan-Iranian colors Green, White and Red adopted by many Indo-Iranian or Aryan states and peoples as their symbols. Examples: Tajikistan, Kurdistan, Republic of Ararat, Talysh-Mughan. Some of Iran’s non-Iranian neighboring countries also adopted these colors see Kuwait and Oman. Ethiopia was seen as a model by emerging African states of the 1950s and 1960s, as it was one of the oldest independent states in Africa. Accordingly, its flag became the source of the Pan-African colors, or “Rasta colors” to the ill-informed. Examples: Togo, Senegal, Ghana, Mali. The flag of Turkey, which was the flag of the Ottoman Empire, has been an inspiration for the flag designs of many other Muslim nations. During the time of the Ottomans the crescent began to be associated with Islam and this is reflected on the flags of Algeria, Azerbaijan, Comoros, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan and of Tunisia. The Pan-Arab colors, green, white, red and black, are derived from the flag of the Great Arab Revolt as seen on the flags of Jordan, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine. The Soviet flag, with its golden symbols of the hammer and sickle on a red field, was an inspiration to flags of other communist states, such as East Germany, People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan and Mozambique. The flag of Venezuela, created by Francisco de Miranda to represent the independence movement in Venezuela that later gave birth to the “Gran Colombia”, inspired the individual flags of Colombia and Ecuador, both sharing three bands of color and three of them (Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela) sharing the yellow, blue and red. The flag of Argentina, created by Manuel Belgrano during the war of independence, was the inspiration for the United Provinces of Central America’s flag, which in turn was the origin for the flags of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

National flag designs are often used to signify nationality in other forms, such as flag patches. [Flagslist.com]

Diamonds and the continuous perpetration of war and violence in the countries of Africa have been involved in a long and arduous cycle over so many years. The story is basically the same for many different countries. Rebel factions launch wars against the government. To fund their activities, their main action is to take control of the diamond rich areas in their country and force the people to mine diamonds for them, hence the term diamond war. The rough diamonds are then smuggled out to other countries and sold to the world market. In the midst of this struggle, it is the common people who suffer. They are the ones caught in between the cycle of violence. Though this has been the reality, for over a decade, the international community was unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it.

Diamond War Recognition
It was only in December 1, 2000 that the United Nations came up with a resolution to deal with the situation. Finally, the suffering of the African people became too much to ignore. The UN formally recognized the role that blood diamonds play in fuelling the wars and conflicts in Africa and decided to take some measures in order to put a stop to the vicious activities there.
In the UN General Assembly resolution, it was made clear that sanctions were needed in order for the illegal mining and trading of diamonds to stop. The idea was that if only legitimate diamonds were mined and sold, it would cut off the funds of the rebels and thus contribute to peace and ultimately, development. The UN asserts that everyone involved must participate in order for the measures to be effective.

From 2000 until last year, the UN has carried out many studies and imposed sanctions on individual countries and rebel groups involved in the mining and trading of blood diamonds and diamond wars. Key countries which have had sanctions brought upon them are Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast for their involvement in diamond wars. Sanctions came in the form of arms embargoes, travel, and financial restrictions especially for known leaders of the rebel groups. The UN has also come up with a monitoring mechanism for the countries involved. This monitoring mechanism aims to address the traffic of diamonds as well as arms – diamonds going out of the said countries and arms coming in from Eastern European countries.

Diamonds Wars Continue
Despite the continuing efforts of the UN to curb this illicit trade, reports show that the mining of blood diamonds still occur. This is especially true for the countries with rebel controlled areas. Somehow, blood diamonds still find a way out of these countries and into the world market. Somehow, arms still find their way into the rebels” hands. As the UN itself stated, everyone must participate and be vigilant in this fight against conflict diamonds. From the international diamond market, to the local officials” everyone must give his two cents worth in order for real progress to be made. Until that happens we must live with the reality that everyday, people and children are being abused, maimed, and killed in the name of blood diamonds.