Roots • Aug. 7-13, 2015
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H H U IO
B Y JO fc G L O
in Liberia, Apala Barclay s comics reflected societal concerns during a civil war that left more than 200,000 dead. Here he shows examples of
his recent work. Today he finds hum or in the nuances o f American culture.
T H IN LIN E, fr o m p a g e 4
To explain “acquired unmune deficiency”
for an AIDS pamphlet, he says he drew an
image of a boy taking an umbrella from a
girl. He had “acquired” i t Then he puts it
over his head. He was “immune” from the
rain.
His pamphlets were widely distributed,
drawing the attention of newspaper editors,
and the First National Poll asked him to
come on as its cartoonist. The publication
was funded with a grant from United States
National Endowment for Democracy and
sought to promote free elections.
He says the paper would poll the public,
asking questions such as, “Who do you want
to>be the next president?” Or, “Do you think
you can forgive somebody during the war
who killed your parents?”
“You know, all these different questions
that were affecting the fabric of the Liberian
society at that time,” he says. He would find
ways of illustrating poll results as well as
creating political cartoons.
Early on in the civil war, while Taylor’s
forces fought with other political factions for
power, Amos Sawyer sat as interim
president
When Sawyer sought to cripple Taylor’s
forces by changing the national currency,
Apala drew the two in a boxing ring, with
Sawyer punching Taylor with what he called
the “monetary blow.”
Apala’s reccurring back-page comic in the
First National Poll, “Real People, Real
Stories,” gained popularity for its humor and
stories about regular Liberians.
It wasn’t long before he was creating
cartoons for the National Chronicle and
Sports Chronicle as well.
For several years during the conflict,
Aadig also volunteered at a suburban
medical clinic alongside his aunt, who was
the nursing director at a hospital in
Monrovia. He quickly learned how to stitch
up battle wounds one day when he was
alone at the clinic and a man whose hand
was barely attached to his wrist walked in -
he’d had a run in with a machete. The man’s
brother told Apala that if he didn’t reattach
the hand, he would be killed. “I was too
scared to ask how he did it,” says Apala, but
he managed to clean it and suture it
together. He says as far as he knows, “it still
works.”
In December 1994, Apala led a
photographer and editorial assistant from
National Chronicle into the Cow Field
Massacre on Duport Road, where Charles
Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia
had murdered 48 civilians, including
children.
“The soldiers, you could almost see death
in these guys eyes,” says Apala. “They allow
us to go in, we see dead bodies burned. We
see all these gruesome things.”
He found an elderly man hiding in a
vacated building. “We with the U.N. - the
press,” Apala told him. Shooting resumed
and he led the frightened man to a trench
where they hid for three days.
When they returned to the newspaper,
they had everything they needed to report
on the massacre. “We had all these fresh,
live pictures,” he says. “The story came out,
and I think Charles Taylor didn’t like it, and
I was somewhat a marked person for some
time.”
Throughout the civil war, Apala would
stay with distant family members whenever
police or rebels were looking for him.
During those times, he says, a member of
the press would bring him assignments, and
he’d do the work from his satellite location.
His family urged him to stop drawing
.cartoons and working for newspapers
because they worried for his safety, but he
says at the time he felt very strongly about
spreading the message of democracy - and
he was angry. “I was angry at the situation,
at myself, I just wanted to see peace and
people treated better,” he says.
One day on his way to the National
Chronicle to layout the newspaper, he was
stopped and arrested by the police
director’s bodyguard.
“He didn’t have any reason, and so I said,
‘What’s my charge?’ He opened my wallet
and he saw condoms, and he said ‘I’m
arresting you for illegal possession of
condoms,’” Apala says.
He paid a $20 bribe to go free, but took
down the officer’s badge number and the
names of witnesses. Once he reached the
office, he wrote an article about his false
arrest for publication in the newspaper.
The following Monday when he arrived at
work, his coworkers warned him that police
Were upstairs looking for him and the editor.
“I said OK, and I was gone,” says Apala. He
found out later the police intended to flog
him.
“Growing up, I seen all kinds of people
being flogged,” he says. “That’s why it cut
their lives short - they would beat these
people. My friends say, ‘The press union
will come in, and international press will say
this,’ and I said, ‘Look - I’ll be dead and
bruised up before these people come for
me!’”
Despite the threat of arrest or flogging,
Apala continued his work.
“When he wants something he goes for
it,” says Zulo, “No matter what obstacle or
hardship, and sometimes I was afraid for
him because of that, but he kept his sanity
and we went through whatever struggle we
went through and we made it o u t”
Apala never stood solidly on one side or
the other throughout the war, however he
had come to hate many of Taylor’s tactics -
such as his notorious brigade of child
soldiers who were often drugged and
abused.
It’s estimated that between 40,000 and
60,000 children worked in Taylor’s army
during the civil war, according to Human
Rights Watch reports.
In 1999, the height of fighting had
subsided, but Liberia remained unstable. A
prominent military leader approached Apala,
who had done some work for the officer in
the past, like painting military vehicles with
wartime phrases. But this time he wanted
Apala to help train Taylor’s army of child
soldiers. “He was a bad guy,” says Apala of
the official, “I tried to stay away from him.”
Because Apala still has family living in
Liberia, he’s asked that the officer remain
unnamed for this story.
Apala eluded him successfully, but knew
he was growing tired of the runaround.
Apala suspected it was only a matter of time
before he would be targeted once again.
Then he received a scholarship to study
art in Paris.
“Saturday I left Liberia,” he says. “That
Sunday, his boys went and surrounded the
house in the morning looking for me.”
En route to France, he flew to Baltimore
to visit his sister, who’d already fled Liberia.
But he never made it to Paris — fighting in
Liberia escalated soon after he arrived in
the U.S., and fearing the war would
jeopardize his scholarship funds leaving him
stranded in Europe, he decided to stay in
theU.S.
He traveled from Baltimore to New York,
then to Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
“I was just checking things out. I went to
D.C. - stayed there with all the Liberian
people. I knew I didn’t want to be in Liberia
in America, so there was no way I was
staying in the D.C. or Baltimore area - no
way.”
In 2005 he moved to Portland. “It’s rainy,
just like Paynesville,” he says.
Although it’s been 16 years since he left
Liberia, Apala remains cautious, asking that
Street Roots not disclose the neighborhood
he lives in or the names of his wife and
daughter. He says he’s willing to stand
behind his words but doesn’t want to put
anyone else in danger.
Living in Liberia taught him to be grateful
for what he has today - but also that
“nothing is promised,” he says.
“One minute my family had things, the
next minute we were at the bottom. It
prepared me to come to this country and
work from nothing to where I am at today.”
He worked in construction for a while,
then as a custodian. Today he works as a
medical assistant in downtown Portland,
where he helps low-income and homeless
patients at Central City Concern’s Old Town
Clinic. Formal training at the clinic allowed
him to build upon the skills he acquired
while volunteering at the medical clinic
outside of Monrovia.
At home with his wife, Apala has his
hands full with his first child, a baby girl.
But when he finds the time, he can be found
in his basement drawing comics and
cartoons.
Editor's note: Check future issues o f Street
Roots for cartoons by Apala Barclay.