Liberia is celebrating two major anniversaries this year — 200 years ago freed slaves from the U.S. arrived here and 25 years later they declared the country to be independent.
Amid the festivities for Independence Day on Tuesday, many Liberians say the West African country’s promise is unfulfilled and too many of its people still live in poverty.
“Liberia has gone backward 50 or more years,” says Richard Cooper, a 67-year-old farmer in Louisiana township, outside the capital, Monrovia.
“We have had government after government, people coming into and going out of power, doing their own things without consulting or satisfying the masses,” he told The Associated Press on a dusty road in front of his two-roomed home.
“We put governments in power so that in return they will meet some of our needs, but now the masses are suffering,” Cooper said, munching on popcorn. “Liberia should have been a
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