Charles Taylor... a history lesson.....

[HysteryDiagnosis]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/04/1517214

DAVID GOODMAN: The U.S. relationship with Liberia is a long and sordid one. It dates back to 1816 when the first U.S. Navy warships delivered settlers, the first settlers to Liberia.

This was part of the American Colonization Society that was headed by then president James Monroe, who then got to have his name attached to the capital of Liberia, Monrovia. The operation then was sort of a bizarre mix of missionary zeal and ethnic cleansing.

It was an attempt to have free African Americans leave the country because southern slave owners were afraid of what they represented, that they might inspire slaves to revolt, and it was also the hope of a lot of churches that they could Christianize this African territory at that time.

The relationship continued in the mid 1800’s when officially Liberia was established by freed American slaves, but in the 1900’s, it took on a much stronger economic dimension. In 1926, Harvey Firestone of Firestone Tires was granted a lease under strong pressure from the U.S. government which he had got a million acres of Liberia. Now having traveled in the Firestone rubberplantation, this is the largest rubber plantation on earth.