Something happened in Lofa County, Liberia last week. I don’t completely get what, but I think the confusion is important. Below is a “least-common denominator” overview of what I think happened, and then some quick comments about the confusion.
What probably happened
On Friday a woman was killed in Konia, a town in Lofa. I don’t know why. The woman was either 14 or 21. I think she was Loma and Christian, and I think her body was found near a mosque. The killing sparked revenge attacks between two ethnic groups in the region: Mandingo and Loma (aka Lorma). Attackers targeted people (including local political elite), mosques, and churches. UNMIL restored order (or, perhaps more likely, they showed up after things had settled down). Some are accusing UNMIL of siding with Mandingos (who are usually Muslim), as the UN peacekeepers in Lofa are mostly Pakistani. 4 people were killed and probably more than 14 wounded as a result of the clashes, mostly in Voinjama, the capital of Lofa. Simultaneously, taking advantage of the tension, maybe 60 people escaped from the Voinjama prison. Hundreds of people fled from Konia and Voinjama. (As Johnny explains, both towns were hit hard by Liberia’s war.)
The confusion
First, I can’t figure out the exact name of the town. It is alternatively spelled Konia, Kornia, and Konica. (Sometimes different spellings within the same article.) Also, based on 15 minutes of Google-ing, I can’t find the town on any map. As best I can tell it is on the main road in Lofa, about 55 miles in some direction from Voinjama. [Update: It's between Zorzor and Voinjama. Thanks Viktor.]
These points of confusion are not insignificant, but more important is whether or not the fighting should be characterized as religious. Land disputes between Loma and Mandingos in Lofa have been a big issue since the war ended. Mandingo laid claim to land Loma had fled from during the war. When the war ended, and Loma returned, land disputes arose. (Similar dynamics have taken place across the country. Sometimes these disputes have become violent.) Mandingo tend to be Muslim, and Loma tend not to be Muslim. Does this make the conflict religious? Calling the revenge attacks religious, as VOA first did (h/t to Jina) seems akin to a guy who happens to work at a supermarket mugging a guy who happens to be a banker, and then saying that clashes have broken out between supermarket workers and bankers.
This misrepresentation cannot just be attributed to VOA not understanding the historical context. I saw a wire report (not the one shown above) co-written by two people, including one Liberian, that also characterized the clashes as religious. The issue seems to be more about journalists trying to frame the story in a way that fits into people’s ideas about fighting in Africa.
A related point: Was the violence planned? Did the murder of the Konia woman provide an excuse for people to carry out attacks based on personal, unrelated, grievances? These are also important questions raised by Lofa County senator Sumo Kupee. “This thing, to me, was planned by some counterproductive individuals, who were only looking for a space to carry out such action,” Kupee said. On a similar note, I would like to know how the clashes spread from Konia to Voinjama.
Something happens in Liberia. Even days later, the international and local reports are confusing and riddled with inaccuracies. This story line is not new, nor, I would imagine, isolated to Liberia. But the consequences are always important. Inaccurate stereotypes–in this case religious antagonism–get reinforced.
(Please let me know if I made any factual errors in this post.)
The confusion is to be expected. Liberia, as many other African countries does not have the information infrastructure (including conventional infrastructure) to keep up with the speed of international media. The simple fact is: no one knows, fully and in detail, what happended and why. Here in Liberia most people seemed to have a rough idea on the background at least (largely based on the fact that this has happened a few times before), but the investigative team most people are looking to now, arrived in Voinjama only two days ago. So in the absence of fact the media writes based on rumors, fully integrating itself in the “they say” culture of Liberia.
Thanks, Viktor. This all makes sense.
-Shelby
This is what I have learned about the situation from talking to several Liberians who live in the area where this happened, which is also where I used to work. The Christian girl in Konia was killed and her body was found near the mosque. It was mutilated as if she had been killed ritualistically. The Lomas of that area have long suspected that the Mandingo make a human sacrifice when they are building a new mosque (which is not true). A new mosque is being built in Konia, so some Lomas began questioning the Mandingos about this. One source told me some Loma guys started throwing rocks at the mosque, although another denied this. Then one of the Mandingos in Konia called Voinja false saying the mosque had been destroyed. So a bunch of Mandingo youth (mostly Guineans from what I understand) began to attack Christian’s houses and churches. The Free Pentecostal church was looted, and the Catholic compound was burned. About 20 people were injured and four killed. The UN eventually stepped in and the situation was put under control now. However, the atmosphere remain tense. Many people left the town and fled across the border to Guinea.
Unfortunately, some of the Mandingo have turned this into a religious conflict, when the underlying issue is really control of land and resources. The conflict between the two groups actually started long before the civil war, although for the most part they have been able to maintain peaceful relations in the villages. Oral histories tell us that the Loma and Mandingo in Lofa are really one people divided by language and culture. They are both apparently descendants of one man from the same ancestral town of Musadu in Guinea. Unfortunately the adoption of Islam by the Mandingos has caused many of them to feel superior to the Loma “kaflis” (infidels), further widening the divide between them. The Loma tend to hold strongly to their Poro society, forbidding the Mandingos to pray in some of their villages and making them go indoors as they conduct their Poro masquerades.
The good news is that most of the Quardu-Gboni Mandingos have come out to strongly condemn the actions of the trouble makers in Voinjama. In the villages of Quardu-Gboni as far as I know, the Loma and Mandingo are still living together peacefully. When I was working with Samaritan’s Purse in Quardu-Gboni, we helped the Loma and Mandingo come together through community development projects. In Samadu, the Mandingo people worked to help the Loma build a bridge and clear the road to their village of Kpakumai. They are now working together to build a school for both communities with the help of PLAN International. People from Marvinkonnehdu and Selega also worked together to build community swamp rice farms with the aid of Samaritan’s Purse. From the news I heard today, many of the Mandingo people in Voinjama have been going to the Loma people’s houses to apologize for the actions of their brothers. The two groups have even been working together to clean the town. Slowly things are returning to normal.
Thanks very much for this update and background information, John. I hope you are doing well.
-Shelby