LIBERIAN TRIBES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 12 January 1931, Page 2

LIBERIAN TRIBES

TERRIBLE REVELATIONS PERSECUTION AND ILL=TREATME NT (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) GENEVA, 10th January. Terrible revelations, of persecution, flogging and ill-treatment of Liberian tribes were made in the report by the League of Nations’ Commission of Inquiry initiated by British representations. The report covers 124 pages. There were 264 witnesses, including three members of Cabinet, judges and officials; but the majority were chiefs and natives. The report says the forcible recruitment and shipment of natives to Fernandopo was aided by the Frontier Force armed messengers and Government officials, and proceeded until 1928. It records the capture of 340 men in the summer of 1927, and another 250 in September. Those refusing to go were tied up and. flogged and then handed over to the Liberian consul at Fernandopo and distributed among plantations. Out of 700 many died and others were sent home penniless. Compulsion was practised on Liberian chiefs by excessive fines, intimidation, bribery and exportation, an instance of which occurred in Wedado country where after murder by tribesmen a demand was made for 200 men, despite the chief declaring that the town did not contain so many, Cattle and rice were carried off, and old men taken as hostages and forced to work on officials farms until the 200 surrendered, and were shipped to Fernandopo. The report recalls that towns and villages were devastated by slave raids, including the town of Sonoken which was reduced to 651 inhabitants, the women exceeding the men by 40 per cent. All that remains of the town of Janotah is a breadfruit tree. The remainder became a rice farm, but the tribe is compelled to pay £6O annually for five years’ backsheesh upon huts formerly standing. The report instances traffic in boys at Fernandopo. When the paramount chief protested, pleading that he was building motor roads, foodless and payless, the president disclaimed ordering deportations, whereupon the chief was seized and carried off, while the frontier force arrested forty men, whom they tied with sticks behind the legs, and also flogged men and women indiscriminately, many dying from ill treatment. They killed domestic animals and fined four villages, whose chiefs were flogged in the presence of tribesmen. The report declares that forced labour was used for porterage, and the construction of publie( utilities under systematic intimidation and ill treatment. Labour was recruited for public purposes and used for private plantations of high officials and private citizens. Some Ame-rico-Liberians criminally abused the pawn system whereby a member of a family was pledged for debt, taking a woman to attract male labour. The Commission’s reconmmendations include the replacement of the Liberian district officers who are dishonest and corrupt by Europeans and Americans, ilJegaiising domestic slavery and the pawn system, the abolition of shipments to Fernandopo, more strict control of the frontier force, arid a wider education view, breaking down the barrier between the civilised and the uncivilised.