I’m searching for a tour guide on a dusty street in Ségou, a town about 150 miles north of Mali’s capital, Bamako. This alone is unusual. Normally, guides loiter outside hotels and restaurants, eagerly wooing any foreigner who enters this charming riverside town.

These days, they’ve all but given up. Ever since the military coup in March, and the takeover in the north by Islamic extremists, tourists have been staying away.

I finally find a group of tour guides — all young men — playing cards, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. One of them tells me that since the crisis began they’ve been sitting around doing nothing.

“We don’t have a job. We don’t know what to do. We all live off tourism. When there are no westerners, we just sit. All the youth are unemployed. Frankly, we are fed up,” he says.

Café overlooking the River Niger without any patrons. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

When I ask him if he sold anything today, he tells me no, not a thing.

At the once-popular Hotel Djoliba, the manager, a Canadian named Gino Pelletier, sits on the empty patio with a cup of coffee.

“People would leave Bamako and stop overnight in Segou and then continue on the road to Timbuktu, so you would see 60 to 70 people just coming down and filling the hotels,” Pelletier says. “Since the coup, I haven’t seen any tourists.”

He says they’ve laid off half of their staff since March, and stopped buying vegetables from local vendors for their restaurant.

“It’s an economic crisis,” he says. “If I don’t buy, then the woman who is selling the carrots or the salad doesn’t sell. So this has an impact on her family.”

The troubles actually began in 2009 when an al-Qaeda affiliate operating in the north kidnapped four European tourists and later executed one. Foreign embassies started issuing travel warnings. Now, with a military coup and Islamist extremists occupying the north, Mali’s tourism sector, the country’s third largest industry, has collapsed.

Mariam Keita selling her pots on the side of the road, though sales are very slow without visitors. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

“I feel sick,” Keita says. “If westerners were coming to buy my pottery, then I would make some profit, I could help my husband out, pay for rent and electricity. I could provide for the family. But it’s tough.”

As I leave, I buy a small round pot for a dollar, a tiny fraction of what most tourists would spend in the past. Mali used to get 170,000 tourists a year, and each spent on average $100 a day. Without that cash influx, you can see the trickle down effect on Malian families — in the empty streets, empty pockets, and empty stomachs.

Over the past six months, more than 400,000 Malians in the north have been forced to abandon their homes. About half of them are living in refugee camps in neighboring Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea.

Many others are staying in the Mali’s southern capital.

In the cliffside outskirts of Bamako, the Yattara family home is crammed full of relatives who have fled the north of Mali to the capital city in the south.

Founé Dicko, who speaks in Tamasheq, a northern dialect, says there isn’t enough food for everyone, and her 10 children are not going to school.

The family matriarch Nassourou Yattara seems overwhelmed trying to host her extended family and feed 40 additional mouths, but she can’t send her relatives back to the north.

“These are my sisters and brothers,” Yattara said. “I have to shelter them. They can’t go somewhere else, even though I have nothing.”

But some of her family members have already gone home, fearful of what awaits them yet unwilling to stay away any longer. They’re not the only ones.

At a chaotic bus station in Bamako, some displaced northerners load their belongings on top of a battered green bus heading north.

In Mali, northerners are known as proud people — embarrassed to be a burden on their relatives, tired of being hungry and trapped in the expensive city, far away from their land, businesses, livestock and homes.

Haidara Cidy, a retired businessman, says that pride is driving them home, despite the danger.

“I want to be back where I belong, where I have my home,” Cidy said, “even if I do not fight personally.”

A displaced child from north, who is not going to school. (Photo: Tamasin Ford)

The situation in Mali couldn’t be more complicated. A coup in March created a power vacuum in the country, and several rebel groups capitalized on that. Tuareg separatist rebels declared an independent homeland in the north, but soon lost control to several radical Islamist militias. Al-Qaeda-linked militants — including the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Ansar Dine, and the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) — are now controlling most of the north and imposing a strict form of sharia law.

Mali’s interim government, which is considered weak, has been seeking international intervention to bolster its poorly-trained, ill-equipped, and undisciplined army to help oust the Islamists radicals in the north. But displaced northerners are becomingly increasingly frustrated by what they see as ‘lack of urgency’ by the international community.

“We need help,” said a Malian woman named Hawa. She didn’t want to give her full name or have her picture taken because she’s afraid to risk the safety of her family in the north.

“Our government won’t be able to manage this situation. Maybe we don’t have petrol to give to the world, we don’t have diamonds, but we are still human beings.”

Hawa was hoping for a quick military offensive to drive out the rebels and Islamist militants, and she feels betrayed by recent reports of more measured plans to train the Malian army and negotiate with warring factions.

“We feel that we are not important, our country is not important, and our lives are not important,” she said, starting to cry. “There is no priority on this. Nobody cares about it.”

At a community centre in Bamako, women from northern cities gather to share their stories. One woman cloaked in a white gown shows me a photo she secretly snapped with her cellphone inside a hospital in Gao. The picture shows a boy on a cot with his amputated arm and leg wrapped in bandages. The woman says he was punished for defending his family’s store.

“The rebels used to take all the phones because they don’t want people to take these kinds of photos,” the woman said.

A local health worker named Adama Kouyate translates for the women and runs a radio program for internally displaced persons in the capital. He says it’s a terrible situation for the people who stayed behind in the north. [http://www.malihealth.org/]

“They are being killed. A lot of children cannot eat. Women cannot go out,” he said. “I think that’s a shame, it should be stopped right now.”

But the women at this community center know there’s no quick solution. And they seem defeated by that reality.

Then the battery-operated microphone cuts out.

But the 39-year-old mother of two perseveres. As a woman running for parliament in Sierra Leone – she has bigger challenges.

“Contesting election in Africa, especially in Sierra Leone where women are marginalized,” she said, “women have been in the back, in the kitchen for so long, contesting with men, strong men, it’s not an easy battle.”

Sierra Leoneans vote this weekend in the country’s third election since the end of its brutal civil war. The West Africa country has made a lot of progress. There are better roads, more reliable electricity, improved health care and increased foreign investment. But the status of women continues to lag, and cultural and economic barriers continue to keep them out of the political arena.

Women make up 52 percent of Sierra Leone’s population, yet account for only 13 percent of members of parliament and 19 percent of local councilors.

Rosaline Smith doesn’t hide the fact that she’s more privileged than most Sierra Leonean women. She spent eight years living overseas. She has a college degree. Her husband is a successful businessman who’s willing to fund her campaign. All that gives her the confidence to ignore intimidation.

“They said, ‘do you think this whore is going to lead us? We’re not going to let that happen,’ but I don’t let things like that bother me,” Smith said. “[It’s] just intimidation to make you feel bad.”

Smith is one of just 38 women who are running for parliament in Sierra Leone’s election on Saturday – compare that to 548 men. More women were interested in running, but their political parties rejected them.

“We still have a serious challenge of chauvinism in this country,” said Marie Jalloh, a member of parliament for the ruling party. “We still have to work harder as women. The male dominance is so much everywhere in our political parties. I felt so disappointed.”

Marie Jalloh relaxes on a plush red couch inside the country’s parliament building. She was elected in 2007, but was rejected by her party this time around.

Still, Jalloh is frank about women’s lack of readiness to run in post-war Sierra Leone. Most are illiterate, too poor to pay for an expensive political campaign, and scared of entering the patriarchal political arena.

“The general perception is that politics is a man’s game. It’s dirty,” explains Monica Timbo of Campaign for Good Governance, a local organization that has lobbied for more female participation.

During the election campaign, Timbo has collected stories from women candidates who were called prostitutes, publicly ridiculed for having children out of wedlock, and received physical threats. “Most women don’t want to subject themselves to that. And they think, if you go into politics, you have to do corrupt, negative things. It’s a man’s world,” Timbo says.

Women’s groups in Sierra Leone have campaigned for years to get a 30 percent quota for women in elected and appointed positions – the only way, they say to get women into government. A draft bill was dismissed in parliament before the election.

Making matters worse, the two main political parties in Sierra Leone – All People’s Congress (APC) and Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) – failed to keep their promise to run more women.

Opposition leader Julius Maada Bio appointed a female running mate for vice president, but failed to uphold his party's promise to run more women for parliament. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

“It is extremely difficult,” Bio said. “I will only be able to secure the interests of women if I’m in power.”
He said that if he were to put up more women as a symbol, she would just lose, and so would he.

Many African countries surpass the global average of 20 percent female representation in their national parliaments; Rwanda has the highest number of women in parliament in the world with 56 percent.

In Freetown, Rosaline Smith stands a good chance of winning – mostly due to the ruling party’s popularity in her area. If elected, she knows she’ll be one of only a few women in government and likely face more discrimination inside the House of Parliament.

Supporters of Charles Taylor in Monrovia. (Photo: Travis Lupick/Flickr)

A United Nations-backed court has found former Liberian president Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone. Back home in Liberia, the reaction is complicated. Many there still revere Taylor; while others are upset that he hasn’t been charged with crimes in Liberia. Bonnie Allen has the story.

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Edward Conteh (right), is the president of the Amputee and War-Wounded Association. He says thousands of people were killed, raped, or mutilated in Sierra Leone's civil war. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

On Thursday, there will be a verdict in the historic trial of Charles Taylor.

Taylor is the former President of Liberia, but he’s accused of orchestrating the brutal war in neighboring Sierra Leone, aiding frontline forces by sending cash and guns in return for diamonds.

The UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone tried Taylor on 11 counts – including murder, rape, and the use of child soldiers.

If convicted, Taylor would become the first African Head of State to be found guilty of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His trial has attracted international attention. But nowhere is it being followed more closely than in Sierra Leone, where thousands were killed or mutilated.

Edward Conteh is one of the survivors. Riding in a small yellow taxi in the capital Freetown, Conteh lifts his left arm — amputated just below the elbow — to gesture up the road: “It’s up there where they amputated my hand.”

It was 1999. A rebel group called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had joined forces with a new military junta to invade the city, murdering and mutilating anyone in their path.

Conteh was hiding out with in a house with his nine children.

“There was no food, no water. I had a little girl, four years old, she started crying.”

After three days, desperate to feed his children, Conteh ventured out in search of food. A rebel soldier found him and chopped off his arm with an axe. Amputating hands was a trademark of the RUF fighters in their campaign of terror.

But Conteh blames a man who never even set foot in Sierra Leone; Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia. Conteh calls Taylor the “Godfather” of Sierra Leone’s war.

“Why? Because he was the one sponsoring them. If there was no sponsor, then these things should not have happened.”

Taylor is accused of backing and arming the rebels in Sierra Leone, sending them cash and guns in return for so-called blood diamonds. The Special Court for Sierra Leone moved his trial to The Hague out of fear that it would destabilize the West African region.

The trial has lasted three years.

While it’s clear that thousands of people were killed and that children were used as soldiers and sex slaves, proving that Taylor was responsible is another matter.

Thirteen people were originally indicted by the war crimes court; eight have been convicted. Three have died, including RUF rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, and his deputy commander, Sam Bockarie. Eldred Collins, a founding member of the RUF, was arrested, and imprisoned for 16 months, but never charged. He insists that Charles Taylor is just a scapegoat.

“He did not take any active part in the Sierra Leone issue. Charles was not here. He was in his own country. He never did enter,” Collins said, adding that Taylor never had any authority over the RUF.

But that doesn’t convince people like Edward Conteh, who’s now President of the Amputee and War-Wounded Association.
On the outskirts of Freetown, Conteh visits with men who had both their hands chopped off during the war.

Among them is Mohamed Sesay, who testified at the Taylor trial.
He said RUF fighters asked him ‘long sleeves or short sleeves?’ to determine where on his arms they should swing the machete. The fighters told Sesay they would chop off his hands so he couldn’t vote for Sierra Leone’s president at the time, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, known as “Pa Kabbah”.

Sesay said he’ll be glued to the radio on Thursday, hoping for a guilty verdict for Charles Taylor.

“He was able to do everything,” Sesay said. “He was able to give them guns, he was able to take diamonds.”

Edward Conteh plans to be in The Hague to witness the verdict in person.

“Charles Taylor should be locked in solitary confinement where he cannot breathe the free air that we breathe for the rest of his life”

This week, it welcomed its largest group of tourists in decades, when a cruise ship docked in Monrovia. Bonnie Allen has the story.

Mama Tormah, head zoe for the Sande Society and one of the most powerful traditional leaders in Liberia, has confirmed that she transferred traditional land over to the Poro Society for men this past November so that it can use the bush for its ceremonies and training. The women have been monopolizing the land since 2005 for their bush schools and the initiation ceremony of female genital cutting.

“We have given [the traditional land] to the men – it is their time now,“ Tormah told PRI, while sitting on her porch, dressed in a blue and yellow ‘lappa’ gown. The gray-haired grandmother never had the chance to learn to read or write, and said this suspension of activities will allow young girls to stay in school rather than being forced into the bush.

“When the time comes for the women [to resume operations], by that time, our children will be big big and willing to go.”

Tormah refused to discuss female genital cutting (FGC), but the land transfer effectively shuts down Sande bush schools and FGC – often called mutilation – for four years. The Government of Liberia, which has never taken a public position on the issue, is now seizing the opportunity to work with traditional leaders to phase out the cultural practice altogether.

“Government is saying this needs to stop,” declared Liberia’s newly-appointed Gender Minister, Julia Duncan Cassell, during a sit-down interview in her office. “The process is on in making sure that it’s stopped.”

In Liberia, two out of three teenage girls – sometimes younger – are pulled out of school and taken into the bush for several weeks or months for traditional training called “Sande bush”. The girls learn proper hygiene, hair braiding, basket weaving, and how to take care of their future husbands. As part of their initiation, part or all of a girl’s clitoris is cut off.

It happened to Kulah Borbor when she was 16.

“They will lay you down and sit here,” Borbor said, pointing to your chest. “[They] will tie your hands like this (over your head) and tie your face so that you will not see the instrument they will use.”

Borbor said her clitoris was cut off using a razor or knife, she’s not sure, while a group of women held her down. “It was a lot of pain. I can’t measure that pain with any other pain.”

Last year, a 17-year-old girl, Lotopoe Yeamah, allegedly died from severe hemorrhage after undergoing the practice in a small village in north central Liberia.

The 2007 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey, the most recent statistics, showed the prevalence of circumcision among Liberian women ages 15 to 49 is about 58 percent. The procedure is usually practiced by 10 of Liberia’s 16 tribes, and is reportedly intended to reduce sexual pleasure and, consequently, the likelihood that a woman will be promiscuous.

The Sande and Poro societies in Liberia forbid anyone from revealing their secrets. When a Liberian reporter, Mae Azango, recently published an expose on female cutting, she received threats and had to go into hiding. The societies are so powerful that membership is necessary for social, economic, or political influence in villages across two thirds of the country.

Likewise, despite international pressure, and a female President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian government hasn’t taken a public position against female genital circumcision. But with the moratorium on Sande bush, the Liberian government is now, for the first time ever, taking action at the national level.

“There has been a statement put out by the Ministry [of Internal Affairs] asking all of our mothers, our aunts, our sisters, to start to desist from such practices,” said Gender Minister Cassell, indicating that the Government of Liberia wants to abide by its obligations under international human rights laws.

She revealed that the government has been talking privately to traditional leaders for some time, and it has concluded that an outright ban would cause a backlash.

“You can’t just stop something that years and years ago your ancestors started. You have to be able to work along with [traditional leaders].”

Liberia is one of nine African nations with no laws banning the procedure. The recently passed Children’s Act states that Liberian children should not be subjected to “any unnecessary or uncultured practice” that inflicts physical pain, but the phrase “uncultured” is vague and undefined.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the government department that normally sanctions traditional practices, has been refusing permits to any Sande Society as of January 2012 according to Joseph Janga, assistant minister of culture. He wrote a letter to the traditional chiefs and zoes in December that diplomatically “requests” they stop Sande bush activities, but when interviewed by PRI, said he will dispatch inspectors in April to report any zoes who violate the “order”.

In August 2009, the United Nations committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) criticized Liberia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs for issuing permits to practitioners of “female genital mutilation” and said it was “an explicit form of support for the practice and thereby undermine[s] any efforts to eliminate it.”

Mama Tormah (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

Liberia’s Gender Minister said the next step will be to empower traditional zoes economically. Already, eighty “cutters” from two counties were trained in small business management in September 2011.

“If we don’t do something then these people will go back to where they came from. So we are going to go from county to county now and ask them, ‘Look, if we want them to do this, what are we going to give them in place of that?’ Because for some of them it’s their livelihood.”

As Mama Tormah sits on her porch, watching school girls in yellow uniforms cram into a nearby school alongside boys, she is both diplomatic and defiant.

“We know the country has changed. We are in modern days. So, we are changing the system small small until we reach to the end,” said Tormah. “But it can’t be the way they want it to happen, as quickly as they want it to happen. We’re not ready for people to say, ‘No more Sande’. We can’t do that. You will damage the country.”

John changes how he walks and talks — and he has a girlfriend.

“Most of the gays in Liberia are sometimes married to women or have girlfriends because they want to do some cover up,” he said.

Staying undercover has become even more important for John. In December, President Obama issued a policy encouraging countries to stop criminalizing homosexual activity, though he didn’t outline any consequences for countries with poor records on gay rights. The message seemed to be aimed at African countries, such as Uganda, which is considering harsher penalties for gay sexual activity.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then gave a speech in Geneva proclaiming that “gay rights are human rights.”

John said that didn’t go down that well in Liberia.

“I’m not really happy about what Hillary Clinton said because it made things worse.”

John, a slight man, said he’s been afraid to go out in public with his gay friends for fear that someone will identify one of them and attack them.

“If you and your brother are walking down the street talking, they may actually jump on you and beat you.”

John said a gay couple was beaten by a group of men on the beach about a week ago, and a gay rights activist — who isn’t gay — was almost mobbed at a radio station last week. The police had to be called in.

Meanwhile, Liberia’s former first lady, and now senator, Jewel Howard Taylor, recently proposed a bill that would make same-sex marriage a first-degree felony, with a penalty of 10 years to life in prison or death (although no one has been executed in Liberia for decades).

Homosexual activity is already a criminal offense in Liberia, but Taylor said the laws need to be strengthened.

“It is a problem in our society,” Taylor said. “We consider deviant sexual behavior, criminal behaviour.”

Much of the recent debate here is rooted in misinformation about the Obama policy. Liberia receives more than $200 million a year from the U.S., and the Liberian media have repeatedly reported – incorrectly — that the Obama policy makes American foreign aid contingent on advancing gay rights. One newspaper headline declared: “‘No Gay Law, No Help,’ Obama threatens African Leaders.”

Liberia was created by freed slaves from America, and most Liberians idolize the U.S.
But this issue has tainted views here of the U.S. and of Obama.

“We don’t think Barack Obama will be doing Africa good if he should be imposing immoral behavior on the people of Liberia,” said Elijah Greene, who works as a driver in Monrovia.

Dekontee Sharty, who sells vegetables on the street, said America is “our big brother. We felt very bad, because we expect them to bring good things to Liberia, not to encourage wickedness.”

Of course, homophobia was prevalent in Liberia before the U.S. gay rights policy, something that the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is quick to point out.

“These views are not a result of policies from the U.S. government,” she said.

However, the backlash has sparked unprecedented hate speech, threats, and physical violence.

Thomas-Greenfield said she’s spoken privately to Liberia’s president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf about the misperceptions, but she doesn’t plan to tackle the issue publicly.

“I think our policy has been extremely clear from Washington that there is not a connection between our long-term aid and policies related to this issue, but knowing how occasionally irresponsible the press is here, my view was that we should not feed that frenzy.”

Meanwhile, gay men, such as John, say they’re more scared for their safety than ever.

“Right now, for a guy like me to stand up and say, yes I’m a gay, and I need my rights would be very difficult. It would be too dangerous.”

So while John said he appreciates the goal of the U.S. gay rights policy, so far it’s backfired.

Emmanuel Dolo is trying to apply on-line for a scholarship, but he’s not having much luck.

“The Internet here is very slow. Sometimes you pay for 60 minutes and you only get to use 20 minutes. It just keeps loading and loading,” Dolo said. “It’s frustrating.”

In Liberia, businesses and internet providers must pay for expensive satellite service, which is far beyond the reach of most Liberians.

Elliott Blidi, a project coordinator in Liberia for the West Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Program, said Liberia has the lowest access to internet penetration in the region.

“In West Africa, Africa in general, our penetration is very low – about 0.02 percent. During the civil war years, the cables that were available, the financing and political will were not there to bring it in,” Blidi said.

But eight years out of war after the end of Liberia’s civil war, that is finally starting to change. Last week, a French ship arrived on the Liberian coast, carrying with it a fiber optic cable, two inches thick and 10,000 miles long. The ship is dragging the cable from France to South Africa.

Spectators watch the fiber optic cable being brought to shore in Liberia. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) cable system, run by a consortium of telecom operators led by French Telecom, will provide broadband connectivity to more than 20 countries in Africa and Western Europe.

A crowd gathered on a sandy beach near downtown Monrovia, watching as a diver emerged from the sea, pulling a rope. Eventually, the underwater cable popped out of the ocean onto the beach, which prompted cheers from the crowd.

It was a moment of celebration for Ciata Victor. She’s a Liberian businesswoman who returned home after the war ended in 2003, armed with a degree in computer engineering technology. But she said it’s been difficult to work here.

“I moved my company home from America to Liberia and internet access has been extremely challenging. I have paid as high as $449 a month for internet access,” she said.

After lagging far behind, Africa is on the verge of an internet boom, according to a recent World Bank study. As of 2010, there were 12 submarine cables in sub-Saharan Africa and another five under construction.

For Liberia, as well as Gambia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the ACE submarine cable is the first connection to a fiber optic system.

Elliott Blidi is confident that internet use here will increase by 75 percent in the next four years, even though many here have never used a computer.

Blidi said the explosion in cell-phone use proves it’s possible.

“Any illiterate person, any farmer who has never sat a day in school can use a cell phone. Any old mother sitting in the market can use a cell phone. If you can use a cell phone, then it’s just a next step to going online,” Blidi said.

The entire ACE cable must be in place before broadband service can begin in Liberia. That’s expected to happen by mid-next year.

Meanwhile, the Liberian government and local companies must do their part — install wires, cables, and towers to share the technology with the country.

Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) candidate Winston Tubman has pulled out of Tuesday’s vote, alleging fraud.

Nobel Peace laureate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s Africa’s first elected female head of state, is running for another term.

She was first elected after Liberia’s first post-war election in 2005.

These are the first elections organized by Liberians since the 14-year conflict ended. The previous ones were run by the large UN peacekeeping mission.

Justice Minister Christiana Tah told the BBC that security would be stepped up for the elections following the violence and that an investigation would be opened.

She could not confirm the number of casualties. Some CDC officials say four people died.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World, a coproduction of The BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. There were classes and gunfire in the Liberian capitol Monrovia in advance of tomorrow’s presidential run-off. The incumbent, Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is ahead in the polls. Her opponent, Winston Tubman, has called for his supporters to boycott the election. Reporter Bonnie Allen was at a demonstration in Monrovia earlier today when the shooting broke out.

Bonnie Allen: I’m here at the compound of Winston Tubman as the emergency response unit begin to storm the compound. [sound of gunfire] Liberian national police are firing into the crowd with live bullets. These are not the rubber bullets that are usually used to control crowds in this kind of situation.

[person speaking in Bassa]

Allen: Tubman supporters have pulled out yet another dead body covered in blood. A fight has just broken out between United Nations peacekeepers and Liberian national police who are clearly using excessive force.

Werman: Bonnie Allen is now on the line with us from Monrovia. You were witnessing some pretty dramatic and unexpected stuff earlier today, Bonnie. How are things now on the streets of Monrovia?

Allen: Well, tensions are certainly high in Liberia’s capitol Monrovia tonight. The UN peacekeepers are deployed across the city. Liberia’s riot police are on standby. There are some reports of looting and, just generally, there’s a sense of disbelief. This is some of the worst violence Liberia has seen since it’s civil war and, given the fact that it comes on the eve of the presidential election tomorrow, it’s disheartening for many. It’s also a rather shocking turn of events because Liberia has been applauded in recent weeks for it’s peaceful election period. For the fact that it’s organizing it’s own election and, then, when the president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the Nobel Peace Prize…it all just seems to be unraveling.

Werman: These are the first elections since Liberia’s long civil war ended…elections to be organized by Liberians. As you pointed out they seemed to be going pretty well. How did it go sour though?

Allen: Well there is a long history of disputes over the free and fair elections in Liberia. Back in 2005 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won. She was hailed as the first democratically elected female in Africa but she was actually second in the first round behind George Weah. Then she won in the second round and there are a lot of supporters of George Weah the famous soccer star who said he was cheated. So here we are 6 years later. George Weah’s back on the ticket, this time as a vice president next to Winston Tubman. And Winston Tubman is a Harvard trained lawyer and he’s said that there are voting irregularities that there were problems with the ballot counting. That elections commission was biased and that Sirleaf used government revenues to campaign. So there are a lot of allegations. There haven’t really been a lot of credible evidence provided. But the supporters are people who feel that they were robbed before and so they’re obviously very susceptible to the message.

Werman: Now, if the shooting today came from the authorities, does that mean that they were under order of the president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to shoot.

Allen: That’s not clear. The Minister of Justice said that it will be under investigation. I’m not sure what that means for tomorrow but a spokesman for the National Elections Commission confirmed that the runoff will go ahead tomorrow although the turnout is in question because it looks like one candidate has boycotted and none of his supporters will show up. Also, today, when I was speaking to the supporters of Tubman, it seemed like they were furious that people were shot and killed. Many of them were issuing very serious warnings that they would burn down polling stations tomorrow. So I would say the country will be on very high alert tomorrow.

Werman: Reporter Bonnie Allen speaking with us from Monrovia, Liberia. Bonnie, thanks so much.

Allen: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Sao Marwlo drives a motorcycle taxi in the capital Monrovia seven days a week. He’s 19, and he can’t afford school fees to finish high school. He only earns about $60 a month. He said he won’t be voting for Sirleaf.

“The Old Ma, she really fooled us,” Marwlo said, using Sirleaf’s nickname, Ma Ellen. “She promised us a lot of things, and she never did it.”

He said Sirleaf promised free education for all and well-paying jobs, but she didn’t deliver. He’s most angry that Liberia’s police force remains largely corrupt. He said police can arrest people like him for no real reason, just to extort money.

Liberian youth like Marwlo could be a deciding factor in the presidential election. More than half of Liberia’s registered voters are under the age of 32.

Famous soccer star, George Weah (left), is running for Vice President and boosting the popularity of presidential candidate Winston Tubman. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

Their platform isn’t much different from Sirleaf’s, but Weah’s presence on the ticket is a huge draw for young men. They’ve latched onto the ‘vote for change’ mantra.

“I’m voting for George Weah,” said one young man in Monrovia. “George Weah is the person who can make a better change.”

Weah is hailed as a native Liberian, far removed from the elite politicians who have historically ruled Liberia. He grew up in a slum and achieved fame and fortune as a professional athlete.

That impresses many young men more than Sirleaf’s Nobel. They say Weah will find them good jobs.

Still, for many it’s an unrealistic expectation. In a slum known as Sugar Hill, some ex-combatants sit down to talk to me, their eyes glazed over from smoking marijuana.

Mohamed Kuma, 22, is a former child soldier. He first held a gun when he was 12. A decade later, he steals cellphones to survive.

“I don’t got a job to do,” Kuma said, “so at the end of the day, I will still come on the street to steal. I will always steal from people.”

The International Crisis Group suggests that ex-combatants, like Kuma, pose the greatest risk to Liberia’s fragile peace this election. In the past week, many Liberians have withdrawn their money from the bank and stocked up on rice just in case violence breaks out. Steven Forkpa, a Monrovia store owner, said people are nervous.

“It put fear in people, so that’s why they’re buying more rice than ever before,” he said.

More than half of registered voters in Liberia are under the age of 32. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

At Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s last campaign appearance, the Nobel laureate called for peace.

It’s considered unlikely that Sirleaf or any candidate will achieve an outright victory on the first ballot. Tensions could continue to simmer if, as expected, the vote goes to a run-off in early November.

As news reached the women in Monrovia, Berniece Freeman celebrated.

“Leymah sat on this very field, we started it together, and she got this award,” Freeman said. She added that the award is for all Liberian women who sat in the rain and the sun, who were raped, whose families were killed.

Berniece Freeman and Cecelia Danuweli, standing on the soccer field where Liberian woman staged their peace movement. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

More than 200,000 people died in Liberia’s civil war. An estimated 70 percent of women experienced some kind of sexual assault during the conflict. The Women in Peacebuilding Network, led by Leymah Gbowee, recruited more than two thousand women to assemble in Monrovia, where they prayed, sang, and fasted for days, dressed all in white. They organized a sex strike. Their message to men — No Peace, No Sex.

They eventually got a meeting with Liberia’s then-president, Charles Taylor, and called for a ceasefire and peace talks. The war ended shortly after.

Two years later, Liberia elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female president.

Today, Cecelia Danuweli, a mother of six, said Sirleaf has given Liberian women pride and dignity.

“She has brought us together as women, she has made us realize that what men can do, women can also do,” Danuweli said. “She has also given us that motivation to learn, and to go higher in education. All of these women here, they know what their rights stand for. You cannot just trample upon them, no way.”

In the past six years, Sirleaf has reformed property laws to give women the right to own land; she’s introduced tough punishments for rape and increased girls’ enrollment in schools. She’s also built market halls for women, and rolled out microfinance programs. Sirleaf said she views today’s award as a recognition of her long years of as an activist in Liberia, one who advocated for reconciliation and women’s rights.

“I’ve paid a heavy price that many people don’t realize,” Sirleaf said, speaking in Monrovia Friday after the award was announced. “I’ve gone to prison more than once, at a time that many people did not know of the struggle.”

Sirleaf added that award sends a signal to Liberians, calling on them to be peaceful and do more for reconciliation.

But the timing of the Nobel announcement is provoking controversy at home. It comes just four days before the presidential vote, something that could potentially help Sirleaf win re-election.

“I certainly hope so,” she said, “and I hope Liberians will see this as a plus. They will see this as a message to them.”

Sirleaf’s challengers have been quick to criticize the prize. Her main opponent, Winston Tubman, called it “a provocative interference” in Liberian politics.

“She doesn’t deserve this honor,” said Tubman in a telephone interview. “I feel it is undeserved because she has brought war here; she is warmonger. She didn’t stop the war at all.”

In a slum of Monrovia, a group of ex-combatants complained today that Sirleaf brought rebels to Liberia.

“We don’t want anybody who brought war to Liberia,” they said.

Indeed, Sirleaf has admitted that she gave money to Charles Taylor to launch his rebellion in 1990 to bring down the dictator, Samuel Doe. But Sirleaf maintains she didn’t realize that mass atrocities would follow. She has said that if she cast her lot with a war criminal, she did it unwittingly.

In 2009, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that she be banned from public office for 30 years for her early involvement in the civil war.

Today’s Nobel Peace prize honors Sirleaf and Gbowee for their non-violent struggle in Liberia for the safety of women and women’s rights.

Liberia made history in 2005 by electing Africa’s first female president, largely due to the overwhelming support of women voters. Now, that president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is trying to woo the women’s vote in her bid for re-election.

As the 72-year-old Sirleaf criss-crosses Liberia on the campaign trail, marching bands and traditional drum groups welcome her, and large crowds wait for hours on the side of the road just to catch a glimpse of her.

She’s known here as “Ma Ellen”; her most loyal supporters are usually women. One supporter in the capital told me, “I’m voting for Ma Ellen because I want her to finish what she has started. She’s developed our country, built roads, clinics.”

When Sirleaf was elected in 2005, more than half of her support came from women. She’s counting on that again.

“The women have always played a big role,” Sirleaf said. “They played it in the 2005 election, and it’s going to be one of the essential elements of my victory, if I have victory. I have worked for them. I expect them to vote for me in appreciation.”

Sirleaf is a Harvard-educated economist, who’s won international acclaim for her work in Liberia, a country devastated by 14 years of civil war. She’s negotiated nearly $5 billion dollars in debt relief, and another $13 billion in committed foreign investment.

She’s also dramatically increased government revenues. Sirleaf said when her government took power, the annual budget for the country was a “paltry” $80 million. “It’s still small, but at least, today it’s $516 million, so that’s a huge increase, and the economy is just opening.”

Sirleaf is working on fixing roads, rebuilding schools and restoring health services. But not all of those who supported her appreciate what Sirleaf has done in her six years as Liberia’s president.

Saybah Jallah switching her vote away from Ellen Johnson Sirleaf due to poverty and unemployment. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

But Jallah said she won’t vote for Sirleaf again.

“My husband, he’s not working. My children are not going to school. I struggle.”

Mamie Folay isn't voting for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf this election because of the high price of rice. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

Sirleaf has also been criticized for not being tough enough on corruption, after declaring it a “major public enemy” at her inauguration ceremony.

In a sit-down interview, Sirleaf said she inherited a government system that had “lost all of its morality.” She conceded that she should have been faster to crackdown on those who “abuse the public trust.” Still, Sirleaf said people need to understand that it takes time to turn things around in a country like Liberia.

“They figured there would just be a quick fix, a magic wand, and everyone would have a job, everyone would be wealthy,” Sirleaf said. “It took us awhile to mobilize the resources, it took us awhile to fix the infrastructure, it took us awhile to get our institutions functional. Now we’ve done it. The hard work is over. We just have to tell them, be patient.”

If re-elected, Sirleaf has vowed to create 20,000 new jobs every year, open technical and vocational training colleges across the country, pave more roads, and restore Liberia’s hydroelectric dam.

Sirleaf faces tough competition in the October 11 election. Her main opponent is the Congress for Democratic Change presidential candidate, Winston Tubman, who is also Harvard-educated, a lawyer, and a former United Nations official. His running mate is soccer star George Weah, who beat Sirleaf in the first round of voting for president in 2005. Weah’s rags-to-riches story and native ancestry resonates with poor Liberians, who historically reject the more elite, Americo-Liberian descendents.

The Tubman-Weah tickets have been endorsed by an influential Senator Jewel Taylor, the ex-wife of Charles Taylor — Liberia’s former president who’s currently being prosecuted for war crimes in the Hague for war crimes in Sierra Leone. In 2005, Jewel Taylor threw her support behind Sirleaf, but not this time.

“Somehow the gains made by Liberia, major corporations coming into Liberia, they’re not transmitted into tangible benefits for Liberians, especially for the provision of jobs,” Taylor said.

Still, Sirleaf remains a formidable campaigner, one who delivers fiery speeches. As she commands the microphone in a packed church, she reminds women here that she’s kept the peace, in a country that can’t afford another war.

That may be her most powerful argument.

Sirleaf needs more than 50 percent of the vote on Oct. 11th to win outright. Anything less would require a run-off between the top two contenders. With 16 presidential candidates, and a history of regional and tribal loyalties dividing the vote in Liberia, it’s uncertain whether any candidate can win in the first round.

Twesigye is the victim of an acid throwing attack.

“It’s sad for me to be in environment with many people,” Twesigye said. “You see people looking at you, wondering what has happened to you. It has changed my life.”

Twesigye said his ex-girlfriend is to blame. They dated in college for three years, but Twesigye broke up with her when he moved to a different town to start a job. Six months later, he said, the ex-girlfriend confronted him and splashed sulfuric acid in his face.

“Immediately, I felt a lot of pain and I couldn’t see anything,” Twesigye said.

According to the police, the ex-girlfriend confessed to the acid attack. Inspector Constantine Tarasi said she was jealous that Twesigye was seeing other women.

“She said she was very disappointed he was no longer interested in her,” Tarasi, and that he was seeing other women.

Deus Twesigye before and after the attack.

Twesigye’s story is all too common here, according to Dr. Ben Khingi, a plastic surgeon who treats two or three acid-attack victims every month at Uganda’s national hospital.

But acid attacks are not common in Africa, compared to places like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where hundreds of women are burned and disfigured every year. Khingi said the victims in Uganda are both women and men, and he’s no longer surprised when a woman has engineered the crime.

“Most of the people who do it are women,” Khingi said. “But also some men have been paid to do it.”

It’s not entirely clear why acid attacks have caught on in Uganda, said Doreen Ayebare, with the Acid Survivors Foundation in the capital, Kampala. But she points out that throwing acid can be done from a distance, and that acid is cheap and readily available. The attacks are also rarely prosecuted.

Ayebare said most of the attacks are crimes of passion.

“It’s rejected love; I wanted you, you don’t want me. You’re cheating on me. You rejected me,” she said.

Why throw acid?

“Most of these people want to destroy,” Ayebare said. “If I can’t have you, let no one have you.”

There can also be an economic factor. Cambodia is another place where women commit acid attacks. A recent study there suggests that women are so dependent on men economically and socially that they seek revenge when their relationship with a boyfriend or husband is threatened.

In Uganda, that’s often the case as well.

Dorothy Komuhendo sells shoes on the side of the road in Kampala. She married a man who already had one wife. Komuhendo said that when the husband paid attention to her and gave her money to start a business, the other wife hired someone to pour acid on her.

The second wife wanted to burn her so that she would die, Komuhendo said. “It was out of jealousy.”

Komuhendo survived, but spent the next year undergoing skin-graft surgeries. She said she was lucky. The acid burned her back and neck, but not her face.

Deus Twesigye was not so lucky. But unlike most acid-throwing incidents, his case has gone to trial.

His ex-girlfriend now denies that she wanted revenge, and she said she can’t remember confessing to the crime. She said that she only remembers saying, “Deus, I’m sorry for how you look.”

Deus Twesigye said regardless of the trial’s outcome, he’s the one who will serve a life sentence.

Ivorian refugees in Liberia (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

In south-eastern Liberia, just a few miles from the border with Ivory Coast, David Hotto uses a machete to hack through the bush.

The Ivorian refugee has found some work cutting sugarcane, to earn a little money.

“I’m farmer,” Hotto said. “I do it to eat.”

Hotto fled to Liberia in April, one of the 160,000 Ivorians who fled across the border to escape violence in their country. Hotto said militants loyal to elected President Alassane Ouattara invaded his village because he and his neighbors supported Laurent Gbagbo, the former president who refused to cede power. Gbagbo has since been ousted, but Hotto said it is still too dangerous to go home.

“Everybody holding arms,” he said. “There’s no real government now in place.”

Ouattara has vowed to create a national unity government and reconciliation process. But there is still no national army. Hotto said he won’t go back until Ouattara disarms all the rogue young men who picked up guns to fight – on either side.
While Hotto lingers, things are becoming difficult in the Liberian village where he is waiting it out.

Its population has more than doubled. In some homes, a dozen refugees squeeze into one small bedroom.

Most of the people who fled Ivory Coast during the violence have refused to move into formal camps. They are staying put in border villages that are closer to home, and similar to their own farm communities.

The refugees are spread out across 200 small villages. It has become a huge burden on already impoverished areas.
“We got no food to eat,” said Kemah Sandi, a widow and mother of seven. She is feeding and sheltering Ivorian refugees because they come from the same ethnic tribe and speak the same local dialect.

“They tell us, ‘oh, you my Ma now. You take care of us.’ You can’t say no,” Sandi said.

But eight years after the end of its own civil war, Liberia remains one of the poorest countries it the world, and it still hasn’t been able to ramp up agriculture production. The country imports more than half of its staple foods.
Now, the refugees are jeopardizing next year’s rice crop.

Mary Gaye uses a long wooden pole to pound the little seed rice that she has left, barely enough to bother planting. The Liberian woman has been feeding 15 refugees in her house since December.

“I’m really catching a tough time,” Gaye said. “They’ve been here so long.”

The refugees staying in her home, like most of the Ivorian refugees, are supporters of Ouattara. They crossed the border early in the crisis, when Gbagbo’s army attacked.

Officials from Ouattara’s new government recently visited this area to tell refugees it’s safe to return home.

But Jean Paul Tumule said his farming tools were looted back home and he didn’t get his crop in, so he will stay in Liberia where he can get dry rations from the World Food Program.

“The crisis is not over. We’re in the middle of it,” said Ibrahima Coly, who is in charge of the United Nations refugee agency’s efforts in Liberia. He predicts most refugees will stay in Liberia for a year, and he is worried that Liberia can’t handle it.

“This country is coming from war. The local population is struggling to survive,” Coly said. “If we don’t have funds, the situation will be more and more difficult.”

Coly said he needs $120 million to meet their needs, but so far, donor countries have given less than half that amount.
As the rainy season gets under way, international aid agencies are scrambling to fix bridges, build washrooms, install water systems, and improve limited health services to remote areas. All those, before six months of torrential downpours wipe out roads and cut off access to those border villages.