U.S. Signal to Liberia’s Drug War Carries Extra Weight After Record Busts — and a Cloud Over Its Chief Enforcers

By Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]Monrovia- By any measure, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Joe Zadrozny’s meeting with Liberia National Police Inspector General Gregory O.W. Coleman and Executive Protection Service Director Sam Gaye should have been a routine diplomatic courtesy. Why the timing mattersThe meeting follows two extraordinary seizures in the space of a few weeks. Authorities later incinerated 4.2 metric tons of the drug, sending what Coleman called a message that Liberia was no longer “a place of comfort” for traffickers. The credibility problem the U.S. visit runs intoThat is precisely why Zadrozny’s meeting cannot be read purely as encouragement.