The BBC has a story that got me wondering what kind of hole Liberians have dug themselves into. You’d think that this West African country had reached its lowest point when mindless lunatics like Master Sergeant Samuel Doe and Gen. Butt Naked called the shots. But it turns out things could get lower, much much lower. The BBC reports that residents of Monrovia are complaining about a ring of grave robbers that are believed to have desecrated over 2000 graves. Yes 2000!

I am no expert on grave robbery but in my humble estimate I think it takes quite some time to dig up a grave, take out the casket and then leave the cemetary. It beats me how people can do this more than 2000 times without being caught. How hard can it be to catch people who repeatedly dig up graves in a known cemetary? Come on Liberians.

This story is yet another sad reminder of what war does to the human psyche. I have been to a few African countries and in all of them I noticed a deep respect for the dead – demonstrated in elaborate funeral rituals. It is unimaginable that Africans could routinely do what a section of Liberians are doing to their dead. It is apparent that, over the years, the war has demystified human life to these thugs and so for them anything goes, including emptying graves for their contents. This is a new nadir.