For Liberians, old ties to US linger

On a fading billboard near the road that leads downtown, Uncle Sam reaches down to shake the hand of a small African boy. "We've come a long way brother," the sign reads. "But we're still suffering."

The image of Uncle Sam is, for Liberians, a prescient symbol of their relationship with the United States. People here talk about their big brother across the Atlantic, the world's superpower, as if bragging about the success of an elder sibling.

But even as a handful of US Marines landed at the US embassy in Monrovia Thursday, Liberians are feeling like the abandoned stepchild.

The arrival of the seven marines, intended to help West African peacekeepers and prepare for the possible landing of a larger American force, was played down by American officials here, who restricted access and were quiet about the mission's details.

Although the United States is helping fund the West Africans and the American ambassador has been actively involved in helping to negotiate a cease-fire between the government and rebels, Liberians are still waiting to see the thousands of US Marines they hear are somewhere offshore. The US maintains that President Charles Taylor must leave the country first.

"America and Liberia are almost the same, so they should come help us when there is a problem," says Edwin Sanders, as he cut hair outside Monrovia's heavily fortified American embassy. "We want to see the American Marines, we want them to help the Nigerians."

Although globalization has sent America culture to even the most distant corners of the world, Liberia is without a doubt the most American of African countries. Store shelves - many now looted or locked - are filled with imported foods like Snickers and Jiffy Cake Mix, and the English language has a vague Southern twang beneath its African rhythms. Even the flag has red and white stripes, with a single star on a blue ground.

Founded in 1847 by freed American slaves, settlers modeled Liberia after the society they left behind, even adopting the system of indentured servitude they escaped. While they dominated Liberia's politics and economy for more than 150 years, the Americo-Liberians, or the "Congo people" as locals called them - since some of the freed slaves came from there - never constituted more than 5 percent of the population. Yet the American imprint lingers.

In a two-story white house near the sea lives 77-year-old Miriam Peal Goe, a member of one of the last of the old Americo-Liberian families still in Monrovia. The house is cluttered with sleeping mats and pots, brought here by refugees taking shelter from the war, but on the wall hang two pictures of a young, stylish Mrs. Goe in a 1950s hairdo and square-necked dress. There's seemingly little left of that young, smiling mother in the toothless woman standing nearby. But Goe, whose father was an American preacher and mother the descendant of American slaves, remembers those days well.

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