James Fasuekoi

Kendeja: The Story of “Sacred Land” Sold to U.S. BET Founder

Some 60 years ago, the idea to erect a national cultural center was born with a dream to preserve Liberia’s rich cultural heritage. The center’s objectives would be to coordinate the country’s cultural activities, preserve its treasures and folklore, foster unity among its people, as well as promote and market Liberia’s cultural image abroad.

This idea was what the late Bai Tamia Moore, a man whose name became a household word in Liberia, had dreamed of. Best known in Liberia and abroad for his impressive literary works on Liberian folklore, the late Moore, who hailed from one of the country’s high profile tribes, the Vai, reportedly pressed for the construction of the cultural center in Kenema. His insistence for the creation of the center in Kenema was apparently due to the historical significance of the area. It has been said that the first choice of a site to construct the center was a certain part of Kendeja in Kenema where the settlers first met the natives, negotiated and signed an initial agreement for their resettlement upon their arrival to the then Grain Coast in 1822.

The Vais and Golas are the original inhabitants of Kenema, located a few miles southeast of the capital, a town from which the name Kendeja is derived. Both the Vai and Gola, along with the Bassa, are among the country’s coastal tribes and were the first group to meet the former American freed slaves. The Mandingos, situated in the Bopolu Chiefdom, which is less than about 60 miles north of Monrovia, probably encountered the settlers much earlier than other tribes in the hinterland.

To the legendary Liberian folk writer, Bai Tamia Moore, the piece of land which became known as Kendeja, the home of the Liberia National Cultural Troupe for many years, was not only a symbol of peace and unity, but a sacred ground meant for peaceful assembly and celebration of our rich culture. And what other way could we Liberians have kept this “sacred ground” memorable and alive other than building a strong cultural institution where locals and foreigners could come and get a glimpse of our cultural heritage?

During my interview with scores of artists from the National Dance Troupe, as well as various cultural dance troupes of Liberia, it became clear that the first group of boys and girls recruited to take on the task of building Kendeja and a dance company came from the Vai and Gola tribes of Western Liberia. This was followed by the Kpelle, Gio, Kru, Bassa, Krahn from central, north and southeastern Liberia. Other tribes including the Kissi, Lorma, and Mandingo came later. The late Faith Healing Temple founder and pastor, Wilhelmina Dukuly, along with Mr. Bai Tamia Moore, were reported to have personally recruited and brought the first batch from Bomi County. Those also named to have personally contributed to Kendeja’s founding were the late Kekura Kpoto, who headed the House twice; Peter “Flomo” Ballah, former National Cultural Troupe director and head of the Flomo Theater; Jallah K.K. Kamara, former executive director of the Liberian Cultural Ambassadors and one time stage director for the  National Cultural Troupe; one Jangaba Johnson and James Emmanuel Roberts, otherwise known as “Kona Khasu”, now Deputy Minister for research and planning, Ministry of Education.

And no doubt, the Kendeja National Cultural Center grew, and became one of Africa’s cultural havens. It became a true embodiment of Liberia’s enviable traditions with a full representation of each of the sixteenth tribes in the country, beginning from body arts to bush schools for boys and girls. Also on display were authentic traditional huts, styled after those typically erected and inhabited by each tribe in the interior. This was boosted by a modern high school; clinic and later a theater that was near completion prior to the civil war.

By the late 70s, the national troupe had achieved much of its goals. It had traveled the African continent, and beyond exhibiting authentic Liberian cultural values at festivals, won distinction and numerous awards, thereby setting Liberia on the world’s cultural map. Countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, Algeria, Ethiopia, Somalia and the former Zaire are among the nations where the group set impressive records, which many of the artists attribute to the intervention of former President William R. Tolbert.  Although born to a settler Americo-Liberian family, a group known to shun anything resembling African culture, Tolbert’s deep admiration and love for his country’s culture and traditions transcended mere rhetoric. His dream for Settler/Native unity led him to declare himself a Kpelle originating from Bong County. Most members of the Liberian National Cultural Troupe lauded the outspoken former Baptist Church preacher and described him as the “most supportive” among the country’s past leaders, not only of Kendeja but Liberian culture as a whole.

This assertion has to be true in that President Tolbert in 1978 invited the then Liberian Jungle Dance Troupe to play at his birthday party in his hometown of Bentol, outside Monrovia. At the end of the ceremony, and satisfied with the group’s splendid performance, he declared the troupe as the “true Ambassadors of Liberian culture,” thus giving birth to the name “Liberian Cultural Ambassadors.” In the same year, under his patronage, the “Cultural Ambassadors” visited Gambia on a special jetliner and performed for Gambia’s first family, Mr. and Mrs. Dawuda Jawara. This was immediately followed by the troupe’s second trip to a foreign land, this time to California, USA, where they performed at Disneyland and a couple of universities and took part in a street cultural festival in downtown Los Angeles.

When African leaders assembled in Liberia in 1979 for the Organization of African Unity Conference (OAU), the biggest since the historic 1963 Sanniquellie meeting of three African Heads of State, both the Liberian National Cultural Troupe and the Cultural Ambassadors spent days and nights at the Roberts International Airport and the Unity Conference Center in Virginia, welcoming foreign guests attending the conference. Tolbert felt so proud that his support for the country’s cultural life was not a loss.

When President Tolbert died in a military coup in 1980, the tide, however, turned, and support for Kendeja, the National Cultural Troupe as well as the second National Troupe, Beasau, based in Western Liberia, was drastically reduced to almost nothing. The Liberian Ministry of Information, under which all three groups operated, had difficulty in obtaining funds for their smooth running, and as a result seemed to lack interest in boosting the culture and arts of the country. The foremost priority of the PRC’s young military leaders was about stepping up the salaries of soldiers to keep the army happy so as to eliminate any idea of a coup.

It didn’t take long before the government enlisted the help of Mr. Jallah K.K. Kamara, an expert in the cultural performing arts, then executive director of the Liberian Cultural Ambassadors, to head the newly established Cultural Bureau and Tourism as part of a strategy to accelerate the promotion of the nation’s cultural heritage, as well as effectively manage the tourism sector that has lain dormant over many years. And that was after Mr. Kamara’s Cultural Ambassadors had staged one of its most acclaimed and publicized repertoires in the nation’s history, the “Redemption of the Liberian People”, a masterpiece that chronicled the oppressive era of the True Whig Party rule for more than a century, a ballet dance drama which drew the young military leaders to the arts.

Having grown up in show business as a performing artist while studying in Europe, Mr. Jallah Kamara, also a renowned businessman, knew exactly what was needed to overhaul the cultural performing arts sector; within months, he moved swiftly and overhauled Kendeja, its school, clinic and dormitories thereby attracting more locals and foreign visitors to the center. He also refurbished the historical Providence Island in Monrovia, where the former freed American slaves first landed and settled in 1822. Besides, he vigorously persuaded leaders of the new government to allocate needed funds in order to increase stipends and feeding of the 200 member national troupe. He then began marketing our cultural heritage through performing arts at home and abroad, bringing closer even those who had previously shunned our culture and traditions. As part of his cultural awareness program, Mr. Kamara introduced annual national cultural festivals in Monrovia, in addition to county tours, to give wider exposure to the National Troupe and several solo artists and actresses who demonstrated exceptional skills in the arts. Among this group were folk singers and dancers like the all popular Fatu Gayflor, Tarloh Quiwonkpa, Burr Gonkatee, also known as “Nimba Burr;” Caesar Gartor and Zaye Tete. Backed by the Kendeja All Stars Band, these artists from the National Troupe gradually pushed their way to stardom and soon became celebrity national icons.

This new face of Liberian culture soon turned Kendeja into a destination resort for many escaping the hassle of busy city life; and sure, there was fun to be had with the full blast of the superb Kendeja All Stars Band backed by a full display of African ballet and acrobatic maneuvers every other weekend. This fertile cultural soil attracted two of the worlds most traveled and famous ballet troupes: the Pan African Ballet of Sierra Leone and Guinea’s highly celebrated Les Ballets Africains, (Ballets of Africa). The two groups at the invitation of the National Cultural Bureau visited Liberia at different times in the 80s, but the forty or more performing actors, dancers, actresses and drummers of Pan African Ballet decided to remain in the country at the end of their tour of Liberia, in the spirit of African brotherhood. With the help of the Cultural Bureau, Pan African Ballet established a base near Iron Factory and opened a cultural center where local artists received training in chorography, drumming, singing and various dances belonging to the Fula, Mende, Sousou and Mandingo of Sierra Leone while members of the visiting troupe were also taught Liberian drumming, folksongs and dances by local artists.

Despite such a promising future on the Liberian cultural scene, things regrettably began to go downhill after a row between Former Information Minister, Momolu Gataweah and Jallah Kamara over the proposed re-incorporation of the cultural bureau into the Ministry of Information reached a peak. In the end, Minister Gataweah got the upper hand with some backing from Capitol Hill; the National Cultural Bureau and Tourism that had been established via a PRC decree and recognized as an autonomous entity was dragged back under the Ministry of Information (MOI/MICAT). The Pan African Ballet, fed up with the red-tape bureaucratic procedures surrounding the hosting of public shows for its upkeep, finally took their exit sometime around 1986 as Liberia’s political climate got warmer and warmer.

Mr. Gataweah’s successful fight against Mr. Jallah Kamara, however, did not yield the anticipated good. If anything, the change proved inimical to the interests of Liberia’s culture, Kendeja, and the National Troupe. Some of the very things that had placed Liberian culture on the back burner and kept the arts from flourishing from previous years such as inadequate government financial support, especially for the country’s cultural hub, fell right back in place. Mr. Kamara’s biggest fear had come true; but there were yet even bigger troubles ahead to come, troubles that threatened the very survival of our cultural life. With Mr. Jallah Kamara partly out of the national cultural scene, he returned to manage his Cultural Ambassadors Dance Troupe, and with no motivation on the part of cultural officials to continue Kamara’s legacy, the marketing of Liberian cultural performing arts came to its lowest ebb with practically no signs of recovery as the Ministry of Information’s attention shifted heavily towards its lifeline, the news (LINA included), photo and television departments, propagating the policies of the government of the day.

When the civil war reached the outskirts of Monrovia in 1990, rebels of Taylor’s National Patriotic Front stormed Kendeja in search of perceived enemies and murdered some of Liberia’s cultural icons, among them, Liberia’s only Yoga master and leader of the “Wonder Boys” of Kendeja who was not so lucky to escape, superstar, Jacob Dweh. He happened to belong to one of the “wrong tribes” at the time NPFL rebels were in pursuit of the Krahns. The killing sent many of the artists fleeing Kendeja, thus leaving valuable treasures vulnerable to the rampaging rebels and thieves. By the time the first round of the war ended in 1996, with the disarming of the country’s 60,000 militias in preparation for the general presidential elections, only the frames of most of the structures were left to form part of the center’s relics. Kendeja’s once strategically beach-lined coconut grove that added beauty to the center had been cut down and harvested by hungry residents and intruders. This ugly scene prompted interim head of the Transitional State Council, Madam Weade Koba Wreh, to rally support for refurbishing the center. Her project, “Rescue Kendeja” attracted the United States Embassy in Liberia, which did not only provide material support but also sent in a team of volunteer workers headed by its former military attaché, retired Gen. Kathleen List, to help with repair works of the village. It was a whole day affair amid the beating of drums, sasa and other instruments as Americans and Liberians danced and sang while giving a facelift to our mother cultural village.

The war era over, life at the center hardly picked up as residents-artists relied on self-initiatives and occasional handouts from the MOI/MICAT or elsewhere to survive. Resident-entertainers were reduced to welcoming guests of the government as well as taking the arts to national functions such as inaugurations, Independence and Flag Day celebrations. The leadership of MOI/MICAT in post war Liberia, starting with Amos Sawyer’s Administration to the present, have never seen fit and obligated to venture into the national cultural awareness, let alone try to negotiate an international cultural visit for the National Troupe as a means of generating much needed funds to aid the country’s crippling economy. Mountains of opportunities, especially in the post-war era, have come and gone without any attempt by the Ministry of Information or its cultural branch that has lain completely dormant for years to make an impact on the cultural scene. One such window of opportunity came in 1999 when the friendly government of Taiwan sent its national cultural dance troupe to Liberia to participate in that year’s July 26th Independence Day celebrations. Diplomatically, the Liberian Government should have reciprocated similarly, at least by sending the Liberian National Cultural Troupe or a combination of professional artists to Taiwan as part of strengthening bilateral ties between the two nations, but that didn’t happen. Such a diplomatic blunder can be attributed to administrations’ placing of weak minded individuals lacking cultural orientation or connection to run the Ministry’s Culture and Tourism Bureau.

There is evidence of the complete failure of any cultural undertaking by the ministry officials during the past decade; rather, they have been very often more concerned with fighting for foreign travel with local entertainment groups and grabbing fat allowances through the personal initiatives of others. Classic examples are the 1997 Liberia Cry for Peace visit to the United States and 1999-2000 West/North African tour secured by Ambassador Juli Endee, during which some officials vowed they would stop any group from leaving Liberia unless their names were selected for the trips. This sort of behavior is a clear manifestation of how far some overzealous directors and subordinates can go to intimidate professional artists. Unless Liberian artists begin to stand up and challenge this sort of loose attitude by some top officials, there is no way that progress can be made in this area.

There is no wonder why members of the Liberian National Cultural Troupe have been praying that government could someday choose culturally-oriented individuals to lead the ministry come a new Liberia, so as to hopefully give some attention to the plight of Kendeja, the troupes and our culture in general. But judging from recent cultural development as regards the sale of our mother cultural center, it has no doubt become apparent that any thought of the present government advocating, protecting and encouraging cultural preservation in Liberia is in itself delusional. The recent sale of one of the country’s most valuable treasures, the Kendeja Cultural Center regarded as “sacred ground”, to American billionaire and BET founder, Robert Johnson, is proof. The deal, described by an observer as an “affront with no less then a compromise of our cultural dignity”, was hastily struck between the “Johnson’s Group” and the Liberian Government, which is choking on foreign debts and in total desperation for hard currency. Critics say is all about “licking fingers and feeding deep pockets”. The duration of the lease deal, local papers said, is 50 years at the cost of USD $800,000 per year to be paid to the government.

As typical of most regimes in Africa, manufactured reasons are always there as justification when government operatives are inflicting pains on those they rule; and in the present case, there were plenty of reasons for the sale of Kendeja, according to the government spokesman, Information Minister Laurence Bropleh. One of the reasons the minister claimed for the sale of the center was due to the government’s determination to create job opportunities for its citizens. The number two reason is the government’s contention that there was perennial encroachment upon Kendeja’s land throughout the interim period by prominent people and ordinary citizens, thus making it to almost lose its cultural relevance. But are these sufficient reasons? What then becomes the government’s responsibility to the nation and its people? Is this the new way out now of our many problems?

In a country beset with division arising from long years of civil war, does the government, which claims to be working towards reconciliation and uniting the country, understand the adverse effect of its action? That the “Johnson-Johnson” deal has begun causing friction among some members of the Liberian National Cultural Troupe at home and abroad; that acquiesce and the tendency by local members to accept a $1,000.00 each from government and allow the project to go on without protest is seen by some as a conspiracy? The opposition is such that even if the BET founder and the president ignore the public and continue with the construction of Mr. Johnson’s five-star hotel, it could seemingly come back to haunt them someday, for as this writer has discovered, it is a battle that may not end anytime soon.

In order to understand the depth of this issue, this writer, himself, a cultural artist and a former chief war dancer of the Liberian Cultural Ambassadors Dance Troupe, spoke to a cross section of Liberian artists, culture lovers, entertainers, and journalists at home and abroad during the week. Among them was Nimely Vinney Napla, National Cultural Troupe former stage director, chief war dancer, and director of “Tennego”, the Junior National Cultural Troupe, who said he joined the group in 1974.

“I feel really hurt that this is happening to the center. Although I was born in New Kru Town, I consider Kendeja as my home because I went there in my teens,” he said. Mr. Nimely, who said he blames President Sirleaf for sacrificing the cultural village for monetary gains, further noted that the president failed to acknowledge his Pan African Dance Company after the group made a surprise appearance as a moral booster just before she delivered a speech at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, last August.

He explained that it was the first time that he (Nimely) got to know the BET founder after the president introduced Mr. Robert Johnson as a former Harvard University schoolmate, saying the billionaire would soon be taking an investment to Liberia as part of the country’s development package. Nimely then wondered whether this entire deal may have long been arranged, adding, “If I had known that was their plan to give up our center, I would have told our people in Liberia to protest the sale.”  He also accused fellow National Troupe members, whom government’s representatives met and discussed the sale of betrayal, saying, “They should’ve consulted us (members overseas), before doing anything; but they went ahead and took the money.”

“I miss President Tolbert . . . he did well for the center,” the sensational chief war dancer and former director said, his voice bristling with anger. “Where will Ma Gbessie, Ma Yata and Ma Zoe go?” Nimely asked, speaking with this writer from Minnesota. “We need to find a special place for them.” The three elder artists are Godmothers and Zoes who head the traditional bush school for girls of Kendeja and the National Cultural Troupe.

Nimely revealed that he was 13 when he arrived in Kendeja and began learning carving, costume design and both male and female cultural dances. In 1979, although an ethnic Kru, he was allowed to join the Poro Bush of the Gola tribe of Western Liberia. The “Wula” dancer maintained he got his “Vinney” name from the bush school. Most tribal groups of Liberia are somewhat closely interrelated and often allowed members of other tribes to join initiation rites in their bush schools.

The case of Nimely, a Kru, entering a Gola Poro Bush, signals how uniquely Liberians are connected. Both Gola and Vai hold seasonal bush schools for young men in the cultural village of Beasau in Bomi. It is climaxed by a big dance festival during which special dances unique to both tribes such as the “Wula” are led by talented and skillful young boys. The “Wula”, known as “the signed dance”, is as complicated as a puzzle. It’s similar to the Dahn Male of the Gio and Mano tribes of Nimba, where musicians must be alert in order to guess and match the drumming to the dancer’s next move. The “Wula” is one of those steps that the visiting foreign troupes from Guinea and Sierra Leone had a hard time picking up or copying, and not all Vais and Golas can make the moves either.

Liberia’s celebrated folk singer, Fatu Gayflor, said she is unhappy about the deal. “I feel very bad and disappointed at how the president took the matter. You cannot develop the country by trashing the cultural center,” she told this writer during a telephone interview from her Delaware home. The cultural icon expressed surprise at the president’s move and attributed it to the lack of a cultural connection, especially on the part of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her government spokesperson. “They don’t have culture at heart, because if they cared for Kendeja, they would have first built the new center and relocate the artists before breaking Kendeja,” said Singer Gayflor who still make appearances in the U.S.

The singer said she performed for the Ellen Johnson Campaign in the U.S., hoping that “a lot of good things could come from her administration” if she became president. But, she maintains, “it seems they don’t want to have anything to do with their past.” She stresses, “It is not just about Kendeja. You did it to Liberia and what do you have now as for pride?”  The folk singer, who went to the National Troupe at the tender age of 13 says she was happy for the opportunity to become a member of the National Troupe, a group she noted that lived like one family for too long to be broken apart. She stated that some of them who came to the Center as children know no other family besides those they met at the Kendeja Cultural Center. Most of the former residents of Kendeja, according to her, have never rented in their lives and do not know what it means to rent. She worries about where these people will go. She revealed it is possible that she, too, could have been living at Kendeja had she not made it to the U.S. and feels that the move to relocate the cultural village was tantamount to breaking up the Kendeja family. However, she differs with those members who blame Liberia-based members for cutting a deal for the sale of the home of the group on the ground, insisting that those members in Liberia had no choice: “African leaders have the habit of forcing things on their people whether the people like it or not”. Fatu Gayflor yearns for a time when African leaders will learn to listen to their people as well as involve them in decision making.

Ophelia Lewis of Atlanta, Georgia, is a publisher, webmaster and author of two novels. Ms. Lewis, who had not read the stories of the sale of the cultural village maintains, “We have to preserve our cultural heritage even though we are in for bringing in companies to create jobs for our people.”

Eric Paasewe, popularly known in Liberia as “Kaikpai”, meaning “skinny” in Vai, was a street corner acrobatic until he was picked by an official of the National Troupe and taken to Kendeja at age 11, where he became immersed in the performing arts. He is the Director of Paasewe Productions based in Columbus, Ohio, and sees the government’s action as essentially out of place: “There are people in the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Government who don’t respect our traditions. Some of them still think negative about our culture.”

Mr. Paasewe, who along with his wife regularly conduct workshops on Liberian folk songs and dances in the Ohio area, said some Liberians still think that they came from somewhere else and therefore have no interest in Liberian culture; this he noted has to stop because a nation without a culture is lost!  He further cautions: “As Liberians, whether Americos or Natives, we all need to respect our cultural heritage,” adding,” This kind of thing cannot easily happen in places like Guinea, Ivory Coast or Senegal where the people appreciate their culture.”

While at Kendeja, Mr. Paasewe also attended the Poro Bush School and became one of the National Troupe’s best actors and dancers until he was expelled, along with a female actress, after both allegedly managed to reach President Tolbert and broke news of a corruption scandal involving several officials at the center. He later joined The Liberian Cultural Ambassadors and became one of its celebrated stars, traveling extensively with the troupe until he departed the country a year following the November 12, 1985 abortive invasion. He is well remembered for his hilarious role in the Cultural Ambassadors’ “One Million Dollars” ballet, “The King’s Only Daughter”.

Janjay Pearson is an actress and member of the National Cultural Troupe and Cultural Ambassadors of Liberia. She presently lives in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, and teaches young Americans African folk songs and dances with an emphasis on Liberian culture. In her reaction to the recent sale of Kendeja, Janjay equated Kendeja to Liberia’s Hollywood where according to her, recruits were turned into national icons. She described Ellen Sieleaf’s action as “uncultured,” adding, “Could America do for us what she [Ellen] has done by giving out our historical and birthplace for money? Let her ask Bob Johnson,” Janjay stressed.

She then suggested that all Liberian artists along with culture lovers get together and write a strong letter against the already concluded deal to the buyer, Robert Johnson, educating him of the sacredness of Kendeja and the perpetual harm their action would cause the country, thereby demanding an immediate halt to his Johnson’s pending hotel project there.

Gbassay Zinnah is the Chief Drummer for Nimely’s Pan African Dance Company. He, like Nimely, joined the National Troupe at age 13, learning to become a drummer. His first trip with the group came in September 1984 when he traveled to Seoul, South Korea, for a dance festival. For him,”Kendeja is Liberia’s life line . . . one important part of our country has been cut off.”

“Now that Kendeja is no more, where do we have to show our children tomorrow?” he questioned. He rejects the idea of any relocation because, according to him, there was enough land that the government could give for the hotel construction project, or better still, build the hotel side-by-side with Kendeja, in which case the hotel would still serve its purpose.

Kendeja, he said, was a historical site and as such, the Liberian Government should not have treated the center in such a manner. “She, [Ellen] cannot tell me she does not know the importance of Kendeja,” he said. “The selling of the center was all about money”. The drummer, who was at one time a member of the Liberian Cultural Ambassadors and Liberia Cry for Peace, while protesting the sale, refuses to blame the sale on Monrovia-based National Troupe members.

Fernon E. Flomo, a choreographer, dancer and singer living in Philadelphia, shares a similar view with Drummer Gbassay Zinnah, that the Robert Johnson hotel business could have merged with Kendeja and added to the development of the center as opposed to selling it. He worried about the impact the relocation would have on those who were born at the center and had lived with their children there.

Mr. Flomo who hails from Bong County where traditional life, strangled by the civil-war and now has begun to flourish, described the Liberian leader’s action as “too much of a price to pay,” noting, “Every Liberian tribe is represented at the center.” He is a founding member of “Kergiema,” a dance troupe based in Philadelphia which draws its name from the Kpelle tribe, meaning, “We Are Together.”

Blamo Doe, a chief drummer for “Kergiema” and former drummer of “Cry for Peace”, spoke to me in Allentown, Pennsylvania, during a rehearsal. He agrees with Fernon Flomo and says, “We [Liberians] need to preserve the center because of its importance to our country. Let it be part of the hotel.”

Kekura M. Kamara, comedian and former television presenter, appeared to neither for or against the government’s move, emphasizing that the “government should have first relocated the center and its inhabitants before doing otherwise.”  He added, “Now that it has happened, the government should prevail on the Johnson Group so it could in addition to the hotel build a large conference hall with a theater like the Palais De Congress of Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan which can accommodate over 2,000 spectators.” This, according to Mr. Kamara, executive director of Malawala Balawala Films Production Company, could alleviate any further embarrassment in terms of existing shortages for larger hall to accommodate a record breaking crowd, since the nation’s largest public auditorium; the E. J. Roye is no more. Mr. Kamara, also a founding member and former technical director of the Liberian Cultural Ambassadors Dance Troupe, observed that past governments have never considered what he referred to as Economic Tourism, saying “cultural preservation is suppose to go with tourism in order to bring economic viability to the country, and that’s where the hotel business comes in.” He spoke from the Liberian Port City of Buchanan where he led his group to stage peace building programs.

A Kendeja folksinger, Tarloh Quiwonkpa, took the issue even further. She sees the government’s action as a declaration of “war against our culture” and urged fellow artists and cultural lovers to “fight and stop it.” She described it as “despicable”, the “mortgaging” of the center, saying, “It’s a shame and ploy to abolish Liberian culture which serves as a source of power to native Liberians.” She questioned the motive behind the deal, and said, “Why couldn’t they choose Cooper Beach, B.WI. C.W.A., B.W. Harris or Lott Carey Mission? Because they feel we are country people and we won’t do anything!”

Tarloh Quiwonkpa underscored the importance of education and admonished Liberian artists, especially members of the National Cultural Troupe, to go to school and learn in order to better defend their rights. “They could not have done this to educated people,” she said. She noted that, “They turned to the center, aware that our brothers and sisters [referring to members of the National Troupe] are not academically equipped, and that’s why they took advantage of them and convinced them to sell it just to gain more profits.” She warned that “unless our people learn to empower themselves through education, these people will continue to oppress us.”

She further appealed to government to examine policies it introduces during this administration, because according to Mrs. Quiwonkpa, any bad laws written and passed into law by the present government can be appealed or amended in the future as long as they are not in the best interest of the country and people.  She cited the ongoing Firestone Rubber Plantation Company crisis involving laborers paid below average wages by the company as an example of bad laws, and said only education is the key to such a problem. The Firestone Rubber Company is U.S. owned and headquartered in the state of Ohio. It has been continually criticized for underpaying its employees while the company’s staffs including expatriates earn decent salaries in line with U.S labor laws.

Mrs. Quiwonkpa, who spoke from Minnesota where she presently lives and works as a health care practitioner, is the widow of former Armed Forces of Liberia’s Commanding General, the late Gen. Thomas Quiwonkpa, killed by Samuel Doe’s Government troops in the aftermath of a failed coup he led in 1985. Mrs. Quiwonkpa caused a stir at home and abroad when a few months into the country’s general presidential elections in 2005, she sent an embarrassing and provocative open letter to the mass media, addressed to Mad. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, then a candidate, demanding an explanation as to Ellen’s role in her late husband’s death. This placed Mrs. Quiwonkpa in the center of a political row with some former exiled political rivals to Doe’s Government, whom she alleged, accompanied Gen. Quiwonkpa to stage a coup.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, now president of Liberia,  allegedly among those who lured the late military general from his hideout in America into leading an ill-fated plot, has continued to shun the issue; it seems Tarloh isn’t giving up her fight for redress either. Her promise to this writer, that she would strictly address the Kendeja issue and avoid the emotional temptation of mentioning her late husband in connection with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was just too hard to resist.

“I felt that a piece of me was being taken away” she lamented, after she got hints about the big sale, which the president claimed will create job opportunities, although it is not yet clear how many Liberians will benefit from such a project for which one of the country’s most valuable treasures has been sacrificed. “I felt terrible just how when Quiwonkpa was killed and she Ellen has not come out to say anything,” Mrs. Quiwonkpa said of the Kendeja land sale.

“Kendeja means a lot to me. It is there that I grew up to be an adult. It was in Kendeja I met my husband. And I have no family other then those I met in Kendeja. Why should they take our home and family away from us?” the leading African singer quarreled.

Mr. Jallah K. K. Kamara was sought to be interviewed for this story but could not be reached. Other Liberian leading entertainers contacted for an interview including Burr Gonkatee, also known as “Nimba Burr” and Liberia’s Cultural Ambassador, Juli Endee, had not responded up to press time. Ambassador Endee appeared to be very busy during a brief telephone conversation and said she was in the middle of a highway headed to Monrovia following a visit to rural Liberia.

At the time of writing, the Cultural Union of Liberia and its sister organization, the Musicians Union of Liberia, had not issued any official comment on the Kendeja saga, thus giving momentum to wider speculations in some quarters that both could be in favor of the government’s action.

 

Copyright © 2008 James Fasuekoi