Blue-Jeans Mayor Presides Over Rebirth of City : Liberia: 36-year-old sociologist Daniel Johnson cites a ‘booming of life’ in Monrovia in spite of the nation’s civil war.

In a capital wrecked by rebels who sometimes wore Donald Duck masks and high heels, it seems fitting that Monrovia’s rehabilitation has fallen to a sociologist in blue jeans.

As mayor, 36-year-old Daniel Johnson inherited a city without water, electricity, sanitation or morale when the interim national government appointed him to the job last year.

He and his staff of 1,000 keep the city running despite a nearly bankrupt federal government and a constant influx of refugees. In the last two years, since West African peacekeeping troops intervened to try to halt the civil war, the city’s population has doubled to about a million.

Johnson notes that Monrovia relies heavily on assistance from international relief organizations. However, it is also the grass-roots efforts of Johnson, his staff and hundreds of volunteers that are putting Monrovia back together.

“With the level of destruction that took place it would be difficult for you to predict that there would be such a booming of life in the city now,” Johnson said in an interview. “I attribute that to the will of the Liberian people to rebuilding their lives and putting the war behind them.”

Yellow taxis carry painted bumper slogans such as “Peace will prevail” and “Good never lost.” Families have created their own businesses such as quilt making. Unlike other large West African cities, Monrovia has few beggars.

Johnson launched programs in sanitation, agriculture, business and education throughout the city’s 168 districts, each grouping about 550 houses.

His latest effort, the Community Services Program, will send about 300 social workers dressed in blue jumpsuits to coordinate programs with the leadership of each district.

Volunteers also clean abandoned homes to house refugees. In August, more than 25,000 people streamed into Monrovia to flee an outbreak of fighting between rival rebel factions in the interior.

On Bushrod Island--where the freed American slaves who founded Liberia first landed in the 19th Century--more than 2,000 housewives go door to door teaching hygiene, family health and basic sanitation.

Johnson said the city wants to improve the purchasing power of women and is encouraging small cooperatives in Monrovia’s markets. Many women lost husbands and sons to the war, forcing them to rely on themselves to keep families fed.

The city also holds workshops for farmers and would-be farmers, urging them to make use of vacant property in the city to grow crops to feed their families and sell for profit.

Johnson said the city has begun negotiating with Monrovia banks on helping small merchants in the markets and farm workers open bank accounts so they can eventually qualify for loans.

The mayor has been criticized by some people for once relying on the help of rebel leader Prince Johnson, who is not related.

Many people consider Prince Johnson a ruthless, bloodthirsty leader. He personally executed several people in public in Monrovia during the civil war, and he ordered the torture-killing of former President Samuel K. Doe.

The mayor defends his former ties to the rebel leader by pointing to Prince Johnson’s break with the main guerrilla leader, Charles Taylor, whose forces launched their rebellion against Doe’s forces in late 1989.

“Prince Johnson was an advocate for the free will of the people, whereas Charles Taylor was just out for himself,” the mayor said.

With the rebel leader’s help, Daniel Johnson began the Community Services Volunteer Movement, which grouped masons, carpenters, health workers and anyone else interested in helping rebuild the city. Food was exchanged for work.

The mayor said he finally broke relations with Prince Johnson because the rebel leader refused to cooperate with the interim government formed after the West African peacekeeping troops intervened.

Recent fighting between rebel factions in Liberia’s interior prompted the mayor to propose setting up a citizens militia and neighborhood watch to supplement Monrovia’s 362-man police force.

At the moment, the West African peacekeeping force is protecting the capital from Taylor’s men, but the seven poor nations that sent the 7,000 soldiers cannot afford to keep them in Monrovia indefinitely.

Taylor has repeatedly refused to follow through on agreements to disarm his troops before elections, and the mayor says he is not optimistic that Taylor will accept a negotiated settlement.

“What else can we do? He is mustering for war,” Johnson said.