I
THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 1981.
pay a call on 'Old Shad'
this benevolent dictator who
sports a top-hat and tails
THIS
IIS report comes from a small, steamy town on the West Coast of Africa. The temperature is over 90 degrees. The low clouds drifting in from the Atlantic seem as if you could reach up and touch them.
This is the kind of oppressive, damp, unhealthy atmosphere that once made this part of Africa the "white man's grave." Even the walls are sweating.
This is Liberia-the oldest republic in Africa, of which only Negroes can be citizens. A country that was established long before Nkrumah, Tehombe, or Kenyatta was born. A country older than Italy, Finland, and Egypt.
Now that new Airleans coin- tries are being declared so fast That the map-makers can't keep up with them, what is an ohl African State Bke? I came here to And out.
What I love found is part mmpleat comely, part pathus, and part a sucessful effort in drug backward country out * stagnation,
The slaves
20 years
ags Fiberla was largely unexplored. It was saldom visited by Europeens.
Today the picture is different. erlast has a long way to go before it offers even a man Kinni standard of living to the majority of its people. But a start is being unde.
the
Liberia began in 1821 when a Amerionn hat-und of freed slaves were dropped on
to be followed by count, Sonn
Left to fend for them- ultera. selves against disease and hos- tile tribes, they somehow sur- vived.
No vizitor could help admáring fun this once ramshackle country has somehow or other, maintained its independence and kept going over the years.
Gradually, the tribes were (sporndie fighting dominated conthued up to 1944). And the settters built a suciety such as their forefathers had known in the Southern States of Amerien. A society of aristocracy slaves.
and
from
BRIAN GARDNER
A MONROVIA,
adventures
Liborio
despot agme to power. German aut American Investment is pouring in to Auance Iron ore and rubber exploitation.
ibis It With all
inight be thought that Tubman is widely is popular. Nearly everyone
know They grateful to him. that he is the only Liberian who remarkable could have pulled their country run One of the most
been out of the rut. But some would men in Afrien, he hos President for 18 years. Tubman now like to see him go. They war nurinated by hla prede gay (or whisper) that there are
as the then outstanding disadvantages in one-man mile. cosSIT
tried to In 1955 gunman member of the "elite," and won
shoot Tubman at point-blank the election in 1043.
missed. Tubman I saw un
bronze range. He enormous statue of this man. He sits on a threw him in jail for a lime, and throne, bespectacled and smok then released him and told him to come back and try again. cigar, gazing over Ing a large
upturned The gunman did. And again he
faited. one of the wrecked, cars that litter the rondsides.
European strip-tense Junts and bars, Shacks and hovels lean against new concrete buildings. Ancient n bebind the catinon. *J[3 town. point aver the streets and <!
If you go into a shop In the 1116 And the afturom owner lying Mat
on the Lal counter fast asleep, as I did. If you leave your taxi three the driver will be minutes,
over the wheel when sleeping you return.
It's not just the hat and sticky climate that makes people sa exhausted. Nearly everyone has malaria, including the President and most of his Government.
Only nine loclors are lited in the telephone' directory (in cluding Dr New Body).
The money
A water supply began eight years ago. But during my first there was no two days here water in Monroviu at all. The Inain pipe had broken. Appar-
ently it frequently does. I wash ed and shaved in a bucket of dubious-looicing hotel boy mysteriously produce
ed.
water that
+
The guards
Now he is working on the
ronds.
This kind of bravado could only happen in Tubman's Liber- la. Anywhere else in independ ent Africa that man would not have been heard of again.
But Tubman's own policy, of benevolence is working against
I walked through the dusty. baking streets to meet Tubman In the Executive Mansion. Past the lounging guards in Amer-
and into an him. uniforms, Ican ante-room where about 50 of his countrymen were waiting to see him.
As t Tubman
"benevolent" dictator. Anyone can go to see him with complaints ranging from tax matters to what is omleially
described as "women palaver
Calendars
As more people become edu- eated, so the dissatisfaction is growing. Dissatisfaction that the top jobs always go to the same with Dissatisfaction families. corruption..
Tubman has a private force of Criticism I not secret police. encouraged.
PETER CHAMBERS
Rags, bones
and what a totter
told
me...
Freddien, to my astonishment, suddenly stopped whacking his boot in that evil way and in- vited me to meet him at South- all, Middlesox, the following of- ternoon for the horse sales..
Freddie shaves only once in three days, and this day pt wns not one of his shaving days. Standing all of 5ft. 5in, in his stubble, horsew caping Freddie revealed the mo tive behind his invitation in a single sentence of moving simplicity. "You give me 10 nleker," he said, "and I tell you all you want to know."
TINACCUSTOMED like all the rest of us to this heat, Billy Southall
ambled slowly along the sunny side of Walton-street, Chof- sca, paused at the traffic lights, and turned right into Cadogan- gardens.
bunying!
The
Billy knows his way through this aristocratic territory. He
police turn over the very private voice: "On a good sees the familar housekeeper, contents of the cart and if they day, me old cocker, I may make fat, orally-frocked, herself outside the third house and any lead (commonly stol three pahnd."
Inquiries arc not welcome on the left. She is sweeping the en) they are likely to take you Dovement as though the owned along to the station and put you it, not the counell,
un a charge in the bock (the round the back streets of Not- ting Hill and Hammersmith, Captain Cook),
horses are where the tolters'
"Any old raga, banes, IRON{" Billy,
an undistinguished buy gelding (or brown horse in my language), ficked his tired ears at his master's cry. He moved on. He knows the routine. Walk six houses. Woit. Same old thing, day in, day out.
"Rags, bones, IRON!" The sun blessed Billy's back like an electric blanicet and his master Fred told me: "I don't own the Like most rag-and-bone men I hire him from a stable, But he's a good horse and I've had him seven years."
I WAS eventually called in. The President was sitting be: The opposition horse. hind a large desk, in the shadow
of the Liberian flag. and mops cluttered the walls. A portrait of the Arst President leoned against a wall.
President Tubman was smolc-
Soon this bustling Httle port is going to see considerable wealth when the export of newly dis- Ink long cigor, in a glistening covered iron ore gets going. Al gold holder.
Fending off questions, he Only this time they were the ready the money is coming in, and an ambitious programme of
talks about what he merely route, achools, and hospitals is
wants to. He spoke, In a South- under way-partly financed on the credit of the undoubledern draw), about the Congo.. wealth that is coming.
now
aristocracy,
Even
some things in Monrovia, the capital, and on the great rubber plantations are weirdly like the Deep South 200 years ago. Many of the wooden hüllt with ornate houses are verandahs and shuttera. Sume of the lonk live Gone With the Wind,
sris from
The 'joints'
Twenty years ago the revenue of Liberia was £250.000-less than that of on average British firm. Now It la £33,000,000 (about a fifth of this comes from the flag of convenience system by which foreign ships can re- rister In Liberia without ever sighting the place)
The expansion that is going Despite the humid climate, on is under private enterprise. formal dress seems to be donned Unlike any other independent with glee at any excuse. The Afrigtin State, there
are no President
well-known Soclullst or Communis! under- wenkurss for pictures of himself (ones in Liberia. in Inils
Bul and topper, and this To be the only place in West Afrlea where you can sue men sweating Got the midday heat in black homburgs (although
wear only Vacanarai They sometimes shorts and sandals with them).
has
iš
Hidden slavery continued in Liberia until the late 1930's. Today the Top People are sti the "elite" the descendants of the settlers. But the old days of brutality anti neglect against the natives of the Interior, parts of which are st unmapped, Bre ever.
Monrovia Is a rough, tough. wide-open town of over 50,000 people. They say here that it is the only port in the world where you can import ur export any. thing to or from any place in
behind the advance of this country there is one man as one is constantly told on the ratila and In print.
This man is President William
Shadrach Tubman.
But there is one man who is prepared, if not to speak up against Tubman, at least to make a gesture. At the last two elections he stood against him, although careful to remain in the one and only party The True Whigs.
140
Wary
"Yer." said Fred. "Then you may wind up in the factory, or, stabled. as you would say, prison. Sec?"
Snobs
Rag-and-bone men call them- selves totters, except the sans among them, who say they are "general traders."
One really colossal snob of a rag-and-bone- mon described himself as a "waste reclamation worker."
Iron is what they like to get hold of. It fetches 155. cwt. Regs are worth only 6s. ewt, and as for bones, nobody bothers with them any more.
Billy nuzzled Fred's hand. Totiers used to sell bones to In the game friendly spirit I glue factories, but that market also put my hand to the horse's seems to have vanished.
"It's just in
the plastics have come I met William Bright in his mouth. I got it away
explana flat
Ume before Bill's square, yellow in," was the obscure in a dilapidated house on "I can't say I can see what's the main street. Omelals told
typewrit- ilon offered by 01-year-old rag- teeth snicked oft my
and-bone man Albert Brown. what in the Congo. It will be me
ing fingers. he had got "about"
Albert, lotting since he was Rag-and-bone men ore wary a 1-0-0-0-ng time before there's votes against Tubman's 430,000. peace
Their 15, reined up his horse in Lati- in that country. I bay
of inquiring journalists. that with a 1-0-0-0-ng experi-
ner-road, Notting Hill, and talk- I horses back them all the way. "I don't know how many ence of tribal war in Liberia. got," he said. "At the election "Wot d'you mean, why don't ed to me as a friend for five "It took us 100 years to over- before, they said I had only knock on the door?" said Fred. much do you make. Albert?"
into the area and minutes. Then I said: "How I go down come that problem."
one vote. Then the next day the Fresident said he had voted He is a skinny, dark men with for me himself. And his wife. shrewd eyes. "You don't go on
10
property. I tell anybody's So they made 1 18.
"Bul
than 10 you, or you get done for sus." I know more
This means arrested on sus- of my relatives voted for me."
He kept looking out on the piclon street through a crack in the curtains, This is the official upposition of Liberia, and I was the first journalist it had seen for Ave years.
His talk is punctuated with deep chuckles.
Offcials walked in and out. Tubman rambled on about the problems of Africa. A flunkey came in with a silver jug of leed
water.
When faced with a question about the problems of Liberie, he blandiy says: "T'd like to be relieved of that question. Wi
Then you relieve me, please?" he shakes with laughter.
Things
have begun to work since this happy Liberia
In
"I have to be careful," he said. "Because I um alone."
"I think Tubman is fine."
-(London Express Service).
For a split second he stared at me in fear and horror. Then he lashed a horse Into a gal
you could say lop and beforo "income tax" the whole equip age-horse. cart, and Albert- had swayed dangerously cut of sight round the corner,
"Yer," said Fred. "On sus- picion. Sometimes the Law gives you a turnover, and if it lnds Rog-and-bone men tend to be thon frank about their any scrump or bluey, it swags
incomes, and it was only after you into the captain."
Lord-Cadogan, really, has no two days of relentless question- stables and public Idea of the language that goes Ing. in dim
loun
on in his Gardens. What Frad bars of smiliar appearance, that mennt wa
a letter admitted to me in a
133 PRISONERS TO
EVERY
the world without any restric-TT is morning, But be
tlons whatever.
Some of its roads have been
fore the evening
paved. Soine are tracks full of comes the odds are that craters and boulders. Women in behind the high walls of nutive dress stalk about with huge bundles on their heads. 80me English jail an- American cars, horns and ra- other prison officer will dlos blaring, glide past.
POCKET CARTOON by OSBERT LANCASTER
"I'll bet you half my Easter Offering thas Fontwater's just going to tell us that he's got a presentation capy of the original edition signert by the author."
London Expreza Bervice
·4
be nursing the wounds
of a sudden and vicious attack.
It is Tuesday. But before the week ends the odds are that plans, now being thought up secretly In prison workshops. eclls, and exercise grounds, will have matured.
WARDER
No wonder there
is violence!
by CYRIL AYNSLEY
officers awarded strokes of the birch on if separate occasions. The numbers of strokes varied from six to 10.
Now, however you may hate tho principle of corporal In fact, if the Government punishment, the fact remnina had accepted a suggestion in low that it is one of the few Indirect years ago by the Prison Officers defences # prison officer has Association there might have against the unguarded moment been no mass break from Park of violence, hurst, no Sunday violence in Wandsworth, and no Pealon ville incident.
And however reformable men may be, there are still thore who only understand the vie- lence ordered to meet their own violence.
The suggestion was to put the "bad man" from each Jail into Reading Prison. For it is n Even so, Mr Butler, the Home recognised fact that a small Secretary, confirmed only two
Never have so few had to the symptoms of mereasing de- hard core always initiates the out of the 1 birchings which
And another prison break-out look after so many. will be newa.
Lost year 231 asmuits were inflicted on prison officers. And 550 prisoners become casualties of the savagery of their fellow prisoners.
Defiance
Grim facts? The signs
Apprehensive
flance and violence.
Before the wor nd prison officer under 24 years of age or Sft. Din in helglit was appoint- and 5ft. 7in. in height.
violence.
Those are the men of cunning and irretrievable viciousness,
Men of the character of the
cd Now they accept men of 21 two Dartmoor convicts who
planned an attack, on a prison officer. They nominated in
were ordered last year.
Serious
{
There was the case at Exeter.
personal violence to thu
Mr Harley Cronin says: "We other words ordered two other Fifteen strokes ordered for grons believe that
man is not prisoners. who because of ill- mature until he is 24. Not to hemith could not be punished Governor and the report: he infiction of corporal punish- take control of other people. with cat or birch, to carry out ment was necessary in view of
"At places like Wardsworth the assault,
ге
In C Wing of that grim mass of buildings called Pentonville. there are only three officers to look after 40 unlocked prison ers occupied in classes, activi- Kes and recreation-odds of 193 Bro to one against and you can plain that even this appelling imagine their feelings.
you have prisoners who situation is quickly deteriorat-
the scum of the earth and who Ing.
"Of course they are apprehen know more tricks than the most "Alroady this year, both In the rive," says. Mr Cronin, "And experienced prison offrer, lot Increase in attacks on authority who knows what might be going atone youngsters of 21," and the pattern of encups, failed on on the landing? A prisoner criminals are exhibiting a grow. might be murdered thore and
who ing and disquieting deßance.
would know?" Here, in. Tha maa
alarming fact, break-out from this bleak and Parkhurst, the strange five is the hard corý at the prob- minutes' sulien sit-down de- lem; Shöringo of staff. monstration at Pentonville, and
Throughout the eduntry just the violence In Wandsworth,
4,000 of these prison ...And atmost daily, reports over of fresh viciousness galest officers have the unenviable 19 oMects.
sot guarding 27.000 prisoners; "It is becoming frightening." 1 is patendly and absurdly in Mr Harley Croam, Becretary of sufficient,
-the Prison, Offorts Amociation, But this problems it not
told me tid other day,
túmulently how to decount for
Hard core
the serious character of the These are the men, feared by offence, which was unprovoked, other prisonere and increasingly and to preserve prison dia- cured by their guards, who can clpline."
or
order much a demonstration as
Other offeneca "deliberate" bapponed in Pentonville,
"merited ...very serious", start trouble in Wandsworth or exceptional punishment."
But nine times Mr Hutter held his hand
a dozen other jails,
Why, then, not segregate them
And nine times prison officers wondered.
in one prison, where they can terrorise only each other? And, of course, in these days There is a further matter in Mr Cronin commented; "It
discipline of great reform, where benavo- prison
which is there to weaknes at the top, lehce sometimes gols out of step causing anxiety among the small how can we have discipline at withi reality, BoMLO of Mr shny of men who have to guard the bollom?"
of the earthy' Cham. Cronin's "gum
It seems a fair question from take advantage of being allowed This is the controversial that- men who perhaps today, maybe tomorrow, curtafrily gone time to exercles in threes insteach of fer of corporal punishment, pairo, inking at
Last year Visiting Committees will be the Vistima of a vidious or Dourife of Visitors mining attack. incidents of attacks on prison
work, ated at
the various restestiansi sotives they aikawer them.
affandon Expéssé Kurvtesz,
What you want, then?" said Chrissy Arnold, a short, fair- haired man about 30 who runs a stable in Notting Hill. He look- rd at me as though I had got the African horse-sickness and intended to pass it on,
"We don't like you newspaper boys or the television lot round here," he said.
"No, we don't like you," said his mate Freddie, whacking his boot with a very nasty-looking switch.
The sales
·
Chrissy's
чисто
I told him get snamed. This was happening all round us to horses. Eighteen Rold in Suuthall market that day at prices ranging from £14 to £74.
Education
Freddie
his bid lowered drastically and said he would be pleased to take a light ale off me in the White Hart.
It was there that I met "NUI- tlugkom Albert" ("I've been on the road ali ne life"), the only chop I actually liked among all the car-breakers, gipsies, gener- al dealers, horac-copere, totters, and lorry shunters with whom I spent an hour.
It was, you might say, on education meeting Ernest, who said he had just done four years for stealing chickens, and Mr Doyle, on ex-boxer who said he didn't do anything at all.
I'd be pleased now it sohie friendly totter would lend me his horse for a few days. I need a horse.
Well, I understand
The stables have resentment. been scheduled for demolition some time after July, and then where are they going to keep the horses?
There's not even a farrier round here any more." satd Chrissy bitterly. "To get a horse shod we have to take him to there. Paddington, three miles away."
Pm not accusing anybody, But I do know exactly where I after I gave parked my car three chaps a lift to London. And when I returned it wasn't
15
--(London Express Servic#).
**If welms doesn't pay why don't,they natiustalite 11? ??