What causes the 1979 rice riot in Monrovia, Liberia What are the Coursework

What causes the 1979 rice riot in Monrovia, Liberia What are the effects of this riot This is a cause and effect essay - Coursework Example Moreover, the negative effects of the rice riots continued for long period. Most importantly, the administration was forced to get down and give the way for new government. As it was resisted by the ruling regime, all intensified efforts were made to throw away the administration and in that process, the public life was paralyzed for a long period in the name of civil war. The inflation and prices of other commodities also increased considerably (AllAfrica.com, 2005). The people faced difficulty in having access to necessary services like health and education and hence their quality of life suffered severely. Hence, keeping these points in consideration, the present essay is an attempt to answer the following thesis statement. The main reason for the origin of rice riots in 1979 is the increase in rice price by 39%. The Tolbert administration wanted to increase the rice price to encourage the local rice production and to discourage the imports of rice from other nations to Liberia (Broderick, 2007). On 14th APRIL, 1979, the price of parboiled rice was hiked from $22 per 100 lb. bag of rice, to $30 which has angered the general public severely as the price rise of rice affected their daily intake and consumption of rice leading to malnutrition. They couldn’t tolerate this decision and started conducting the demonstrations in Monrovia to which the government responded with firearms. This has led to death of forty people several others were wounded which has fuelled the crisis further and civilians felt that the government was forcefully controlling them to continue the price rise of rice (Emmanuel, 2008). Moreover, the President Tolbert even called some foreign troops from neighboring Republic of Gui nea for establishing peace, but the people felt it as another forceful measure of imposing the rigid decision taken by the