The Vice Guide to Travel

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(Now Playing) The Vice Guide to Liberia 1 of 8

Jan 18, 2010

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Welcome to The Vice Guide to Liberia. VBS travels to West Africa to rummage through the messy remains of a country ravaged by 14 years of civil war. Despite the United Nation’s eventual intervention, most of Liberia’s young people continue to live in abject poverty, surrounded by filth, drug addiction, and teenage prostitution. The former child soldiers who were forced into war have been left to fend for themselves, the murderous warlords who once led them in cannibalistic rampages have taken up as so-called community leaders, and new militias are lying in wait for the opportunity to reclaim their country from a government they rightly mistrust. America’s one and only foray into African colonialism is keeping a very uneasy peace indeed. In Part 1, Vice’s own Shane Smith provides a brief history lesson and some essential context for understanding what caused Liberia’s civil war and how things got so bad. Liberia was originally planned and founded as a homeland for former slaves back in 1821. But fast forward a bunch of years and a military coup and you find the First Liberian Civil War in 1989: yet another third-world regime change in which the US-backed opposition, led by Charles Taylor, overthrows a government unfriendly to US interests. Once in power, Taylor’s corrupt, dysfunctional government quickly finds itself under attack by local warlords, leading to the Second Liberian Civil War ten years later. From there things go from bad to total shit.

  • myrtle1721

    This is really. fucking. wild. It's a trip to go from watching some Creators Project thing or a D...

  • atajmaher

    Holy macaroni, I would die instantly if I was in Liberia.

  • Starbusra

    All my hats off to You Shane, I have to do the brown-nose-job! This video was I think the quirkie...

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In the Vice Guide to Travel, correspondents from VBS and Vice magazine are dispatched around the world to visit the planet’s most dangerous and weird destinations.

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