Global Blueprint: Extraction Goes Global · Episode 4 of 5 · 40 min
From Severed Hands to Firestone: The Tire Company That Funded a Warlord
In 1926 Firestone leased up to a million acres of Liberia for almost nothing and built the world's largest rubber plantation as a company town with segregated housing. During Liberia's 1990s civil war the company struck a deal with warlord Charles Taylor, channeling money and supplies so it could keep operating. Firestone says it acted under duress, and critics call it a deliberate bargain.
Who's who
- Charles TaylorLiberian warlord, later president, convicted of war crimes in 2012
Where it happens
- Harbel, LiberiaSite of Firestone's giant rubber plantation
- Liberia+2 more episodesWest African republic that granted the concession
- Sierra LeoneWhere Taylor's war spread and the court convicted him
Timeline
- 1926Liberia grants Firestone a 99-year lease for up to a million acres
- 1989Taylor launches an armed insurgency
- July 1991Firestone agrees to do business with Taylor
- 1997-2003Taylor serves as president while the war continues
- 2012Taylor convicted of war crimes
- 2014ProPublica and FRONTLINE publish Firestone and the Warlord
Still debated
Firestone's defense is that it paid to protect its people under duress, while critics say it made a lucrative bargain that funded Taylor's war. How much the money mattered to Taylor, and whether the 1926 concession was exploitative or brought infrastructure, are also argued.
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