Liberia

WASHINGTON -- Ann Shumard knocks you over with her enthusiasm. There's always one more tidbit to add, another slip of information to get hold of and catalog."

THE TREE-LINED streets of Long Reach are far removed from the battle-scarred ruins of Liberia. Ten years of civil war in the small West African country have left an indelible mark.You can ask the Rev. John T. Johnson about that.The 72-year-old Assembly of God minister has come to Long Reach from his home in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, to visit his son David, his daughter-in-law Rachel Angeline and grandchildren Elliott, 5, Naomi, 21 months, and Aaron, 3 months.On Sunday, Johnson stood before about 100 church and community members at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center and described his country's agony and his efforts to rebuild schools, hire educators and bring children back into the classroom after the long conflict.

Thursday's Howard County edition of The Sun incorrectly reported a concert date. Columbia Pro Cantare will perform the U.S. premiere of the "Celebration Mass" by Czech jazz composer Karel Ruzicka on May 2.The Sun regrets the error.Two members of Aurora Dance Company are warming up on the stage of Howard Community College's Smith Theater and talking about "South Park.""I haven't watched that show," says one."I get my mom to tape it for me," says the other. "I'm never home to see it. I'm always here!"

CHARLES Taylor's little Libya-trained force started Liberia's civil war in 1990 to overthrow the dictator Samuel Doe, who was duly murdered by a rival warlord. Mr. Taylor is more responsible than any other individual for the anarchy, brutality, population displacements, societal breakdown and massive misery that descended on his country, which was founded by freed American slaves and modeled on U.S. institutions.Now an election has been held. Mr. Taylor appears to have won three-fourths of the vote for president in a field of 12. Admittedly, many demoralized and dislocated Liberians did not vote, but among those who did, Mr. Taylor is the overwhelming choice, perhaps because he threatened more war if he did not win. Jimmy Carter, the world's chief inspector of elections, said this one was better run than those he observed in Bosnia, Croatia and Haiti.

A headline for a photograph in yesterday's editions mistakenly referred to an election in Nigeria. The election was in Liberia.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 7/23/97

A headline for a photograph in yesterday's editions mistakenly referred to an election in Nigeria. The election was in Liberia.The Sun regrets the errors.

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Under the unusually attentive eyes of a world that normally ignores it, this African nation founded by American slaves went to the polls yesterday in what is hoped will be its first free and fair election.Liberians were selecting a president from 12 candidates and a Parliament through proportional representation.Former President Jimmy Carter is here to watch, along with a White House special envoy and delegations from the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of African Unity and other organizations.

Baskets from Cameroon grasslands, textiles from Liberia -- decorative arts from nine different West African countries will be on exhibit starting Feb. 19 in the art gallery on Montgomery College's Rockville campus. The collection of more than 70 items gives a fascinating glimpse of daily life, from cooking and furniture to entertainment (such as a musical instrument from Sierra Leone).For hours and directions, call (301) 279-5115.Visionary giftsThe new American Visionary Art Museum and its Joy America Cafe have gotten most of the press, but don't overlook the museum shop at 800 Key Highway.

CREDIT GEN. SANI ABACHA, Nigeria's military strongman, with the moral leadership that imposed an agreement by DTC Liberia's brutal warlords to disarm and hold elections. All but one of the anarchic Liberian faction chiefs went to Nigeria's capital of Abuja during a meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and did not leave until they had signed on.Under this agreement, which is identical to one hatched a year earlier, all factions agree to disarm their 60,000 youthful so-called troops during August and to contest honest elections sometime afterward.

PARIS -- It is convenient to ignore Africa, whose problems are enormous, with little practical consequence for the rest of the world. And it is politically correct, because to discuss Africa as a problem is to make invidious distinctions between Africans and others.Yet Africa's societies have only recently become part of the modern world. In most places no mediating ''civil society'' exists, of the kind that makes democracy work. The educated middle and professional class is small, the people poor and often illiterate.

Edith Johns felt lucky that she rarely got sick and never faced big medical expenses. But in August, while running to catch a bus in Baltimore, she tripped and broke her foot. Her doctor bills came to more than $1,000. Johns, 55, has been without full-time work since December, when she said she was laid off after four years as a file clerk at Russel Motor Cars in Catonsville. Since then she has been without medical insurance. "After you lose your job, they sent me something about COBRA," health insurance for the unemployed, she said.

Maryland entered a "sister states" agreement with two counties in Liberia yesterday in hopes that the state's 19th-century role in founding the African republic can be translated into a 21st-century role in sparking its economic development. The West African nation is looking to rebuild now that dictator Charles Taylor has been replaced with a democratically elected president, and officials say they are eager for Maryland to be a partner. "Let me hasten to inform you that Liberia is rich in culture and natural resources," Bong County Superintendent Ranney B. Jackson said during a ceremony yesterday outside Gov. Martin O'Malley's office.

HARBEL, Liberia -- They come in broad daylight, with guns, machetes, knives and buckets of acid. The invaders of Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire's rubber plantation in Liberia are hunting what they call "elephant meat": To them, the company is so big that anyone can take a hunk of flesh and no one will notice. Some people who stand in their way get hacked to death. Acid has been hurled on the faces and bodies of others. During 14 years of civil war in Liberia, the plundering of plantations and other assets became so common that the country was brought to its knees.

CHICAGO -- A reporter asked Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf why she had come to America. She responded with five words that open doors, launch jetliners and move motorcades almost everywhere on the planet: "I was invited by Oprah." Of course, it is important to note that Ms. Sirleaf also was drawn by a humanitarian mission. She brought with her Musu Gertee, a 9-year-old Liberian girl who was fitted with a prosthetic replacement for the right arm and hand she lost in a rocket attack three years ago. Oprah Winfrey's staff alerted Ms. Sirleaf's government to Musu after the child was featured last year in a Chicago Tribune report about Liberia's young war victims.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- Unshaven and looking haggard, Africa's most wanted war criminal, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was placed in a detention cell at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone yesterday after his early-morning arrest while trying to flee Nigeria carrying large bags of cash. A U.N. helicopter carrying Taylor landed in the compound of the U.N. Special Court in Freetown. Taylor, handcuffed and wearing a bulletproof vest over a white tunic, stepped out and was bundled into a four-wheel-drive vehicle and driven about 100 yards to the door of the detention center.

The U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone unsealed an indictment nearly three years ago charging Liberian President Charles Taylor with 17 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law during that country's civil war. But he's still a free man. The indictment, handed down June 4, 2003, charges that Mr. Taylor "bears the greatest responsibility" for murder, rape, torture and the use...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Nigerian authorities said yesterday that former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was indicted on war crimes charges by a United Nations tribunal in Sierra Leone, had disappeared from his oceanfront retreat in Nigeria, in what analysts saw as a blow to justice and Liberia's hopes of recovering from its devastating civil war. With Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo scheduled to meet with President Bush today in Washington,...

JOHANNESBURG -- Nigeria's government agreed yesterday to hand over former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who faces international war crimes charges, to Liberia's new democratic government, effectively ending the former warlord's more than two years of asylum in Nigeria. Taylor, who left Liberia in 2003 under an internationally brokered asylum deal, faces charges in neighboring Sierra Leone of backing a rebel movement there infamous for hacking off limbs. He is also considered one of the key figures responsible for a 14-year civil war in Liberia that left 250,000 people dead.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has asked Nigeria to extradite her country's former leader, Charles Taylor, to face war crimes charges, a move cheered by human rights advocates but one that is also laden with risks for her battered West African country. An international court in Sierra Leone, which borders Liberia, has a cell waiting for Taylor, who has been indicted on 17 counts of war crimes. The United States has been putting intense pressure on Nigeria and Liberia to ensure that Taylor faces trial for his role in Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. In Sierra Leone, Taylor is accused of supporting rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, whose trademark was mutilating civilians and cutting off their limbs, as well as using children as soldiers.

PHILADELPHIA -- Two groundbreaking female political leaders moved onto the world stage this week: the first woman to be elected head of an African state, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and the first woman chosen president in a major Latin American country, Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Neither seemed a likely winner. Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf beat a popular (male) soccer star in a country brutalized by a civil war led by vicious warlords. Ms. Bachelet prevailed in a macho, Latin, conservative Catholic country where memories of military dictatorship haven't dimmed.