Garm
July 20th, 2010, 12:06 AM
MONROVIA, LIBERIA—The unlikeliest of activists — a rampaging elephant that locals claim was supernaturally possessed — has aired rural Liberians’ frustrations with the country’s profitable timber industry.
The elephant killed a logging worker in June when it charged onto the local company’s property, and had also been known to menace other employees and local farmers in previous weeks.
...
“Some people said there was a human being or two working in the elephant, but it’s been two days since the killing of the elephant,” he said last week. “If this was true, one or two persons would have died by now.”
He said he now believes that locals claimed the elephant was possessed “to make all sorts of demands” to the logging company.
But local advocacy group leader Hilary Mentoe reacted indignantly to these assertions and threatened legal action over the suggestion that locals would use supernatural tactics to make their case against the logging industry.
“We are proud and decent people; how could we transform ourselves into an elephant to destroy lives and properties?” he told a local newspaper.
http://www.thestar.com/news/oddities/article/837742--liberian-elephant-rampages-against-logging-company
The elephant killed a logging worker in June when it charged onto the local company’s property, and had also been known to menace other employees and local farmers in previous weeks.
...
“Some people said there was a human being or two working in the elephant, but it’s been two days since the killing of the elephant,” he said last week. “If this was true, one or two persons would have died by now.”
He said he now believes that locals claimed the elephant was possessed “to make all sorts of demands” to the logging company.
But local advocacy group leader Hilary Mentoe reacted indignantly to these assertions and threatened legal action over the suggestion that locals would use supernatural tactics to make their case against the logging industry.
“We are proud and decent people; how could we transform ourselves into an elephant to destroy lives and properties?” he told a local newspaper.
http://www.thestar.com/news/oddities/article/837742--liberian-elephant-rampages-against-logging-company