Episcopal Press and News
Renewed Fighting Fractures Hope of Reconciliation in Liberia
Episcopal News Service. November 21, 1994 [94184]
A recent escalation in fighting among ethnically based factions, combined with a reduction in peacekeeping forces, has jeopardized the efforts of the Episcopal Church of Liberia to reorganize itself and minister to its people. After nearly five years of civil war, the Liberian church is beset by problems that mirror those of its strife-torn country.
"A good many entire Episcopal parishes have fled to the Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Sierra Leone -- too many for the church to be fully represented at a general convention," reported Suffragan Bishop Edward Neufville of Liberia during a recent visit to the Episcopal Church Center. "Though we have organized a nominating committee to elect a diocesan bishop and made plans for a convention in February 1995, the new situation has created serious doubts."
The Liberian church has been without a diocesan bishop since the death of Archbishop George Browne in February 1993. Browne was bishop of Liberia and archbishop of the province of West Africa.
"In the rural areas there were no churches operating," reported David Copley, an Episcopal missionary who recently managed a children's ministry in Buchanan, 50 miles south of the capital, Monrovia. "As far as church activities are concerned, most people in Liberia are simply struggling to put bread on the table and it's hard for them to be motivated for anything more."
Copley said that relief agencies had limited their activities to the cities of Monrovia and Buchanan. According to a United Nations World Food Program report, this decision has left at least a half a million people out of the reach of food and other emergency assistance. A group of 20 relief agencies recently issued a statement regretting the suspension of aid operations, but said that activities had to be curtailed because "stolen relief supplies and equipment were being used by armed factions to support their military operations."
In addition to these cutbacks, West African peacekeeping forces recently decreased from 10,000 to 6,000 soldiers due to logistical and economic constraints. According to Eugene Cooper, chairman of the Liberian church's diocesan board, "The population of Monrovia has quadrupled" due to the reduction in peacekeeping forces. "This city is now the only safe haven and that puts great stress on the medical and housing facilities here."
Cuttington University College, a liberal arts institution supported by Episcopal Church in the United States, is located in the heart of the unprotected area beyond Monrovia and Buchanan. It was closed in May 1994 and subsequently taken over by rebel leader Charles Taylor, who used the school buildings to house and train his soldiers. Ironically, Cuttington stayed relatively intact during this period but, according to Dr. Melvin Mason, executive director of Cuttington in Exile, the campus recently sustained severe damage when Taylor's forces were purged from the area by several opposing militias.
"What worries me is that, for a long time, there were only three or four main factions fighting each other," said the Rev. Patrick Mauney, director of Anglican and Global Relations for the Episcopal Church. "Now things seem to have degenerated into a state of warlordism."
Mauney has been trying to coordinate a trip to Liberia which would allow him to view the situation firsthand, show support for the Liberian people and begin to set an agenda for the diocese's besieged process towards autonomy. But, he reports, the trip is in limbo because of the recent escalation of violence. "We're not going to go if we can't see anything," he said.
Hopes raised by peace talks currently underway in Ghana are tempered by the awareness that the many previous talks and ceasefires, 29 by one estimate, have been followed by renewed fighting.
"I regret that the Liberian situation is a peculiarly Liberian problem," Neufville said. "We have not been invaded by another country. We are destroying our own country, destroying ourselves and causing a brain drain. And no one but ourselves can solve our problems."
The Rev. Canon Burgess Carr, a Liberian who was formerly head of migration ministries for the Episcopal Church and is now director of humanitarian affairs for the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, echoed this assessment when asked about the Liberian church. He said that "if the church is not reconciled to itself, if it is split and divided and has no leadership, then it will be difficult for it to bring a ministry of reconciliation to the people and the country."