MONROVIA, LIBERIA, August 20—The world woke up today to see Army troops, barbed wire and Coast Guard ships surrounding the West Point shantytown in this city of 1.3 million residents. The excuse: the Ebola epidemic. West Point residents immediately revolted.

Fifty thousand poor workers and their families were cut off from food, fresh water and any semblance of reasonable sewage sanitation. Sacrificing workers is always the capitalists' answer to crisis.

West Point doesn't have any more Ebola cases than any other part of Monrovia. What it does have is a lack of medical care facilities. Young people are forced to queue in close proximity to each other to get food, increasing the risk of infection.

Workers in West Point confront riot cops enforcing Liberia quarantine

The US-armed troops shot at workers trying to force their way out. The soldiers killed Shakie Kamara, a 15-year old boy who had gone to buy tea and bread at a shop near the entrance to West Point.

The Defense Ministry said the wounds in Shakie's legs were caused by barbed wire. The hospital staff revealed he had actually died from deep bullet wounds and denial of prompt medical care.

A week later, after consultation with Obama, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf tried to calm things down with a half-hour tour of West Point. Her entourage, surrounded by concentric circles of heavily armed guards wearing surgical gloves, handed out a few envelopes of cash.

Masses confronted the president anyway. "We [are] suffering! No food, no eat!" one man yelled.

"We want out," another demanded.

"I wouldn't die of Ebola but of hunger," yet another said, explaining his underground escape with his girlfriend from the armed cordon.

Capitalist Leaders Have Blood on Their Hands

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Sirleaf ordered the military siege. She trained at Harvard University, and then served the bosses at the World Bank and Citibank.

"So we know what kind of piece she wants," commented a Boeing shop steward. "She wants a piece of the exploitation."

There is something to this. She appointed her son to run the National Oil Company in alliance with US oil behemoths. He diverted millions to the family coffers, according international investigators.

Meanwhile, Sirleaf's allies set up a sweatshop: Liberian Women's Sewing Project. Bosses Chidegar Liberty and Adam Butlien employ over 500, ninety-five percent of them women, all from West Point. Each worker must attend a U.S.-designed business class to rationalize the brutal exploitation.

Butien is a self-proclaimed third-generation US entrepreneur and Liberty a multi-millionaire from a Liberian business family. They expounded on the efficacy of this kind of "foreign aid" at Stanford Business School recently.

The foreign aid they're talking about is the "fair-trade" agreement. It allows special treatment of these African imports to the US New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls this agreement "one of the best aid programs for Africa."

We should support an "apparel maker in Liberia [that] would be competitive only if it paid very low wages." In this way, the US can support Sirleaf, "a wonderful president." ("My Sweatshop Column," Nicholas Kristof, 1/14/2009)

All this sits well with Sirleaf who received the 2013 Entrepreneur of the World Award herself. It might not sit so well with the 500 garment workers locked in the West Point ghetto!

West Point slums in the shadow of rulers' luxury

The spokesperson of the US State Department expressed alarm the day after the West Point revolt. He was afraid US allies in the region would be "de-stabilized."  Nothing about the racist and sexist genocide of this diseased capitalist system!

The siege of West Point was finally lifted on August 30, after thousands escaped and many more openly revolted.

Liberia, founded by ex-US slaves, has essentially been a US puppet since the mid-nineteenth century.  Now the Chinese are trying to get a "piece of the exploitation." They employ about 1,500 workers in their Liberian factories.

Capitalism is a system of crises. The general economic crisis has been compounded by this medical crisis. The imperialist rivalry in Liberia and throughout Africa will make matters only worse.

The West Point rebellion shows again the potential to build the International Communist Workers' Party in Africa and worldwide!