Perspective: The shared U.S.-Liberia history now shaping a North Dakota community
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Their model for resource extraction was the United Fruit Co., which operated plantations in Latin America based on the racist idea that developing countries contained vast pools of Black and other non-White people who could be pressed into “forced labor” — which was acceptable to the League of Nations, as long as it didn’t devolve into slavery.
Foreign interests, aid and loans expanded after the war with the discovery of diamonds and vast fields of iron ore — used mainly for steel. Later came industrial demand for Liberian palm oil as a staple ingredient in processed foods. Open-cast pits, mining, logging and plantations destroyed ecosystems and dumped millions of tons of toxic waste into waterways.
Ten years after leading the coup, Doe was tortured and killed. Then battles between militarized factions destroyed everything. Eventually, the Boston-educated future war criminal Charles Taylor emerged the victor over a country that had completely collapsed. By the time he was finished, a quarter-million people in Liberia had been massacred — about 10 percent of the population.
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