Guns, Rebels and War

Just a week ago, I became fully aware that I am living in a post-civil war country. Not too far from where I am living is the Bangladesh headquarters because Bong County is the Bangladesh Section for Liberia (each county is guarded by a different country that makes up the UN). But, when you walk passed it every day, it almost feels normal to see a few men in a watch tower holding guns and their headquarters surrounded by fences and barbwire.

Now, more than ever, I am convicted about the anticlimactic effects that war has on a country. Talking to people about their stories during the war is devastating, Many of them went to the refugee camps in the Ivory Coast, but many people could not flee and had to hide out in the bush. A few nights ago, I was talking to some guys who had almost been captured by the rebels to become one of them.

Here, many young men drive motorbikes and many of them were the rebels that fought against their own people. After the war, the government gave money to the rebels if they turned in their weapons, hoping that they would invest it in education. Some did, but many bought motorbikes.

So, here I am, in Liberia, 6 years after the war has ended. I know that Liberia has made a lot of progress, but it is clear that the war disrupted so many lives. There is a whole generation that did not receive any schooling and many adolescents whose parents were killed in the war. Liberia is a country of orphans, displaced peoples. The ground is littered with garbage, which I was told used to be huge piles of garbage that people would have to walk over. Frames of houses that were being built during the war are now abandoned. The church here was starting to build at a new location, but that has been put on hold for many years now. The hospital was completely destroyed. In fact, there was a massacre at Phebe Hospital, when the rebels came in and just started shooting everyone that was hiding out in the building.

Think of all the countries that go to war. I can’t help but think of Iraq and how many children have lost their parents and will never know peace. Soon, we will pull out the troops and then what? Leave them to sort things out after years of war?