Word: americo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...explicit social statement. The film is "an explanation of something that happened in history, with different viewpoints, so that people could evaluate what happened themselves--they need the ambiguity and contradiction," said Young, who rewrote the original script--adapted from the novel With His Pistol in His Hand by Americo Paredes--in the six days before production began...
Like most of his political predecessors, Tolbert was one of the "settlers," or Americo-Liberians, descended from the freed American slaves who founded the West African nation in 1847. Throughout Liberia's history, the settler group dominated both the government and the economy of Africa's oldest republic, despite the fact that it represented only about 3% of the country's 1.7 million people. Tolbert, a Baptist minister who had served 20 years as vice president, made a degree of headway in reforming the top leadership after he assumed the presidency in 1971. Alarmed by an outbreak...
...peace-loving nations," and ended his speeches with the P.P.P. opposition slogan, "In the cause of the people, the struggle continues." Western diplomats believe his coup was motivated primarily by resentment against the long-dominant settler community. But Doe has said he is not out to persecute the Americo-Liberians, emphasizing: "I can assure you we are not for discrimination." He pledged himself to fight both the country's raging inflation and its 50% unemployment rate. One of his first decrees, which was both a gesture of gratitude and a bid for future support, was to raise the monthly...
...downfall surprised few Liberia watchers. Though the country was long one of the most stable in black Africa, there was increasing dissatisfaction with Tolbert's autocratic ways and with the corruption and inefficiency of his top-heavy bureaucracy. Perhaps most resented was the dominance of the so-called Americo-Liberians, descendants of the freed American slaves who began settling on the western Guinea coast in 1822. Though the vast majority of the country's 1.7 million people are impoverished tribal Africans, most of the political power and wealth have traditionally been controlled by the "settlers," the Americo-Liberians...