Except, says a veteran of Baby Doc's Haiti whom I encounter in the bar of the Mamba Point Hotel, it is a poorer and more dangerous place. Human rights abuses go with the territory. Press censorship in Liberia is stringent. Dissent is brutally stamped out. In the countryside forced labour is not uncommon, while young boys are press-ganged from the streets to fight Taylor's enemies in the north.
People have a nasty habit of dying in 'accidents' or disappearing.
The filthy flats, houses and shanties are bare of possessions. Without running water, women wash their cooking pots in the street. Civil servants have not been paid for seven months. There are streetlights only if you live in the vicinity of Taylor's palatial bunker. The lack of light is not much of a problem for visitors.