July 2010
Source: The Trial of Charles Taylor
As he took the witness stand for a second week, a Sierra Leonean rebel leader today testified that the Ivory Coast government gave his rebel group a base to stay for far longer than former Liberian president, Charles Taylor – again distancing the former Liberian president from charges that he supported and controlled the neighboring rebels during the brutal 11-year conflict in Sierra Leone.
Issa Hassan Sesay, former interim leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group, currently serving a 52 year jail sentence in a Rwandan jail, has said that from 1996 to around 2000, the Ivorian government provided housing facilities where RUF leader Foday Sankoh was based together with his special adviser David Kallon and an RUF radio operator Memunatu Deen.
Prosecutors have long maintained that Mr. Taylor supported and controlled the RUF rebels during the conflict in Sierra Leone, including the provision of a guesthouse in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, sometime in the late 1990s. The guesthouse, according to prosecutors, served as a residence for RUF commanders when they brought diamonds to Liberia for Mr. Taylor to exchange for arms and ammunition. Mr. Taylor himself has admitted that sometime in the late 1990s, he indeed provided a guesthouse for the RUF in Monrovia – but it was solely to facilitate meetings geared towards bringing the conflict in Sierra Leone to an end. Today, Mr. Sesay testified that another government – the Ivorian one – was far more supportive to his rebel group than Mr. Taylor was, at least in terms of places for his rebel forces to stay.
“Mr. Sesay, what was the distinction between the assistance provided by the Government of Ivory Coast to the RUF and the assistance provided by the Government of Liberia?” Mr. Taylor’s lead defense lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, asked Mr. Sesay.
“Well, the Ivorian government provided housing for the RUF from 1996, so they provided accommodation for a longer period that the Liberian government,” Mr. Sesay responded.
He said that the RUF maintained the residence in Ivory Coast until the year 2000.
When asked about which RUF officials occupied the house in Ivory Coast, Mr. Sesay explained that “it was Mr. Sankoh who was there, but when they arrested Mr. Sankoh in Nigeria, his adviser Pa Kallon was there.
“When they both [Sankoh and Kallon] returned to Sierra Leone in 1999, Mr. Sankoh’s wife Josephine Tengbeh was there up to 2000 with some wounded soldiers,” Mr. Sesay said.
Was there a radio operator based at those premises from 1996 to 2000?” Mr. Griffiths asked Mr. Sesay.
“It did not go up to 2000 — but up to 1998 an operator was there and it was that operator who left and moved to Liberia,” Mr. Sesay said. “She was Memunatu Deen.”
He added that Ms. Deen returned to Sierra Leone at some point in 1998, but that during the signing of the peace agreement between the Sierra Leonean government and the RUF in Togo in 1999, she was again deployed at the guesthouse in Abidjan. She was subsequently relocated to the RUF guesthouse in Monrovia, Mr. Sesay said.
As prosecutors have alleged that Mr. Taylor served as the main source of support for the RUF, defense lawyers now seek to establish that the RUF received assistance from several other sources, including foreign governments and West African peacekeepers. In Mr. Sesay’s testimony, he has pointed out that the RUF did not receive assistance from Mr. Taylor but rather from officials in Burkina Faso who supplied them with arms and ammunition, and Ivory Coast where he says that housing was provided to the RUF leadership.
Mr. Sesay also testified about diamonds that were given to him in 1998 and which went missing while he was in Liberia. According to prosecutors, Mr. Sesay had taken these diamonds to Mr. Taylor in Liberia — an account which Mr. Sesay has denied. The former RUF leader has said that he was on transit in Liberia on his way to Burkina Faso where the diamonds were to be used to purchase arms and ammunition. He explained today that RUF commander, Sam Bockarie, instructed Ms. Deen to pick up Mr. Sesay in Sierra Leone and take him to Liberia to meet RUF associate, Ibrahim Bah. Mr. Bah was to eventually take Mr. Sesay to Burkina Faso where the diamonds were to be delivered and arms and ammunition collected, Mr. Sesay said today. (Prosecutors allege that Mr. Bah was a close associate of Mr. Taylor).
“She [Memunatu Deen] was instructed by Bockarie to come to Kailahun. The purpose for her to come when Bockarie called her was to take me to meet Ibrahim Bah. Ibrahim Bah was to meet us in Monrovia so that we can go to Burkina Faso,” Mr. Sesay.
The diamonds eventually went missing in Monrovia and were never given to Mr. Bah, Mr. Sesay said.
Mr. Sesay refuted suggestions that the diamonds were to be taken to Mr. Taylor, saying that if that were to be the case, he would not have taken several days carrying the diamonds in Monrovia when they eventually went missing.
“If the diamonds were to be given to Mr. Taylor, then they wouldn’t have been missing from me because I was in Monrovia for six days,” Mr. Sesay said.
Mr. Sesay’s testimony continues on Tuesday.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
IS CDC LOSING MOMENTUM? String of Bad Publicity Puts Weah’s Party on the Ropes
Source: FrontPageAfrica
07/14/2010 - Rodney D. Sieh
TWISTED IRONY: The irony of it all remains that the Congress for Democratic Change on its own may be incapable of winning majority votes come 2011. In 2005, Weah placed first in the presidential poll, but only managed 28.3% of the vote. He was defeated by Sirleaf in the November 8 run-off election, winning 40.6% of the vote compared to Johnson-Sirleaf's 59.4%. The party though did win three seats in the Senate and 15 in the House of Representatives. Even with that, critics say the party’s representatives in both houses have done very little to impact the lives of its core supporters in the Monrovia districts of West Point and New Kru Town, pointing to Professor Wilson Tarpeh’s Montserrado County by-elections victory in the CDC stronghold as a sign of things likely to come in 2011, if a viable opposition alternative arises or if the party fails to put its act together.
Monrovia -
Since the second round defeat in the 2005 Presidential elections, George Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change has been struggling to keep its head above water. The aftermath of the defeat, three years later, in 2008, was followed by the resignation of the party’s first constitutional National Chairman, Mr. Cole Bangalu, who went on to renounce his his membership with the CDC after what he described at the time as a thorough study of all of the circumstances. Bangalu would later say he had chosen to disengage from the CDC without any regret in his mind.
The departure of Bangalu was followed by notable departures of the likes of James Kollie and the high-profile resignation of Samuel D.Tweh, who stepped down as head of CDC-USA. Samuel A. Stevquoah, the former Head of CDC’s Media and Propaganda machinery also broke ranks and is now Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Joseph Boakai.
Bangalu leads exodus, CDC yet to recover
Cole Bangalu, Founding Member, former Chairman, Congress for Democratic Change
Prior to his resignation, Bangalu had been suspended by the Party’s Executive Committee because, according to them, he had decided as the Party’s National Chairman to singularly attend the programme officially announcing the 2005 election results by the then National Elections Commission (NEC). The CDC had contested the second round election results won by the Unity Party’s candidate, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. But Bangalu reiterated at the time that though he was the National Chairmanthat led the Party to the second round, there were other Executives in the Party who wanted to play dual roles. “However, I was very tough and strong and did not allow that.”
While many were baffled at that exodus of key CDC stalwarts and the party did not do enough to keep Bangalu in the fold, many viewed Bangalu’s departure as a defining moment in the rapid decline of the party in recent years.
On Tuesday, Bangalu, whose prophecy of what is rapidly becoming CDC’s political demise, appears to be coming through, said, he saw the writings on the wall long before the party’s current predicament.
Said Bangalu : “My basic reason of resigning at the time was due to the lack of respect for functional specification. I think when this is present in every institution, it is a bad sign because it does not afford any opportunity for those who assume leadership and those who are occupying positions are not opportune to function properly. I believe that was the major reason within the movement that we formed. We thought people were not opportune to perform the functions they were supposed. For example, when I was Chairman, I don’t think I was opportune to exercise my responsibilities as Chairman of the party but instead others thought the process needed to be controlled by a few people.”
Tarpeh’s New Kru Town win points to decline
Those few people, critics say are Weah and the party’s secretary general Lenn Eugene Nagbe, who have single-handedly masterminded the party to its current predicament.
Critics of the party point to Weah’s lack of education and persistent stay away from the country and the realities on the ground as a sign that the party is losing grip on its predominantly strongholds.
Eventhough the party won the 2009 run-off by-elections for the vacant Montserrado County Senatorial seat to fill the void left by the late Hannah Brent, the party’s poor showing in its’s once stronghold, New Kru Town raised eyebrows. The borough was won by Wilson Tarpeh, a former Finance Minister now Vice President for Fiscal Affairs at the University of Liberia.
Supporters of Tarpeh say the key to his victory in the area was due to the fact that unlike Weah and the CDC, Tarpeh has actually been working with the borough’s youths, helping them to find jobs and giving scholarships to many in the area. While he came up short in the by-elections, his victory over CDC in New Kru Town did no go unnoticed.
Complicating matters, the party needed the support of several other opposition parties including Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Party, Charles Brumskine’s Liberty Party and Winston Tubman’s Liberian National Union to break through and see its candidate Geraldine Doe-Sheriff defeat the ruling party’s Clemenceau Urey.
Many observers took notice that despite a strong campaign mobilizaton by Weah only 105,800 Voters turned out to vote in the By-Election Run-Off which amounted to 22.36%of the 473, 193 voting populace of Montserrado County. The turn out was higher than the recorded turnout in.the first. Round on November 10. While the increment was invariably an expression of voter interest in the process, the number was still low for the most populous county in Liberia. The CDC candidate Doe-Sheriff won 58,384 -- 56.0% to the ruling party’s Urey, 45,864 - 44.O%.
Fast-forward to recent years, critics of the party remain uncertain whether it is capable of holding on its own and winning in 2011. More importantly, whether its candidate, Weah is capable of running on his own as the head of a ticket against a formidable incumbent.
Bestman saga rocks party
Weah has not hidden his position and has made it quite clear that he will not run second to any other politician.
But that was before June 4, 2010 and the John Bestman incident which has rocked the CDC in more ways than one.
FrontPageAfrica reported that Weah was on the property of his childhood friend, James Bestman when U.S. federal investigators arrived at Bestman’s home valued at US$450,000 in Howard County, Laurel, Maryland and arrested Bestman. Weah, who was on the scene was also questioned by the arresting officers and let go. However, details of what actually transpired remains a mystery amid multiple versions of the event and numerous denials by Weah and his close associates.
Today, the stains of arrest still haunts Weah as his friend, Bestman lingers in the custody of the FBI and as U.S. prosecutors prepare its case against Bestman. One of the key reasons for the delay of the case going to trial, sources say, is the fact that Bestman has cases pending in a number of different states including the states of Virginia, North Carolina, New York and Maryland. Thus, prosecutors are looking to throw additional charges on in a bid to supersede the indictment to add more counts. As a result Bestman remains in FBI custody in the Howard County jail. No bond hearing has been set and Bestman has not yet been arraigned until prosecutors have consolidated the case for multiple jurisdictions.
While Weah insists that he did not sleep on the property the night leading to the morning arrest of Bestman as has been reported and speculated in many circles, many remain unsure especially after Weah, in admitting that he was on the property at the time of the arrest said he was only questioned for 45 seconds. “When I pulled into the driveway, Mr. James came down the stairs and I saw two officers that served him a warrant that he needed to come with them,” Weah said.
Weah says he was questioned by officers on the scene who asked him for his identification and even thanked him afterwards. Weah’s aide and CDC’s Secretary General Lenn Eugene Nagbe had earlier denied that Weah was anywhere on Bestman’s property at the time of Bestman’s arrest.
Just as the CDC were looking to put the Bestman incident behind, one of its prominent lawmakers, Tokbah Mulbah’s actions appear to have once again drawn the party in the line of political fire.
It all came crashing down last weekend, when a truck belonging to the Deputy Speaker, filled with cement, was arrested by a police officer Lexington Beh around the Bonjal area along the Robertsfield Highway. Eyewitnesses say following his intervention via phone for the police officer to release his truck which failed, the Deputy Speaker reportedly went on the scene and a scuffle ensued, thereby leading to Beh being brutally maltreated. Beh remains in critical condition at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia but the aftermath of the incident continues to dog the CDC amid conflicting response from the party.
Conflicting Accounts : Gray, Nagbe at Loggerheads
Just like the Bestman case in which Nagbe initially denied that Weah was ever around the scene of the arrest, the party has put out at least two different version of responses in the beating of officer Beh.
In the aftermath of the incident, Acarous Gray, the party’s deputy secretary general declared that the statement issued by the police against the Deputy Speaker was concocted and falsified as their overdriven action is well-calculated and politically motivated. The guys are blatant liars and petit criminals,” Gray said.
Days after the incident, Gray’s boss, Lenn Eugene Nagbe issued a much calmer response in which the party commended the Justice Minister Christiana Tah, House Speaker Alex Tyler and other Officials of Government for cooperating with the Party’s Leadership to ensure that the situation at the residence of House Deputy Speaker Tokpah Mulbah on Sunday, July 11, did not deteriorate.
Said Nagbe : The CDC as a mass based Party which supports the rule of law, condemns the brutal assault on Policeman Lexington Beah, and calls for those who allegedly committed this act to be made to face the consequence of their action in keeping with law. The CDC encourages Deputy Speaker Tokpah Mulbah to continue to cooperate with the police as they carry out investigation into the incident.
The CDC hereby warns all detractors to abandon their futile efforts of seeking to use this unfortunate incident to besmear the image of the Party and allow the Police to conduct a fair and impartial investigation. Meanwhile, officials of the party have contacted the family of officer Beah and expressed concerns for the well-being of their relative. The CDC again assures citizens, residents, and our international counterparts, alike, of its commitment to the sustenance of peace security, and the rule of law in Liberia. The party therefore urges all of its partisans and sympathizers to observe its core values of peace, stability and justice for all.
Gray on the way out? Speculations arising
As the party struggles to find its way out of its latest turmoil, FrontPageAfrica has gathered that the recent string of bad occurrences and incidents have divided the party and the latest one in particular, the handling of the beating of officer Beh could very well lead to the departure of Gray from the party. Multiple sources within the party have suggested that the relationship between Gray and several higher-ups in the party is on the rocks, pointing to the recent conflicting statement and position over the handling of officer Beh’s beating.
As the 2011 elections nears, the party led by Weah which came closed to winning in 2005 finds itself having to answer questions about whether it is ready for the big time.
The irony of it all remains that the party, on its own may be incapable of winning majority votes come 2011. In 2005, Weah placed first in the presidential poll, winning 28.3% of the vote. He was defeated by Sirleaf in the November 8 run-off election, winning 40.6% of the vote compared to Johnson-Sirleaf's 59.4%. The party though did win three seats in the Senate and 15 in the House of Representatives. Even with that, critics say the party’s representatives in both houses have done little to impact the lives of its core supporters in the Monrovia districts of West Point and New Kru Town, pointing to Tarpeh’s victory in a CDC stronghold as a sign of things likely to come in 2011, if a viable alternative arises.
Like the Bestman saga, the beating of officer Beh, also has the party on the defensive looking for answers as a slew of criticisms pile up. On Tuesday, Vice President Joseph N. Boakai condemned the violent assault on officer Beh, while performing his regular police duties. Veep Boakai said the Unity Party-led Government subscribes to respect for human rights and would not condone such acts on the part of any private citizen or official of government. Boakai, who placed a call to the injured officer Monday, assured the officer (in his hospital bed), that justice will be served and that those responsible will meet the full weight of the law. Briefing the Vice President from his hospital bed, Policeman Beh said he was simply performing his duties required of him by the law when he was brutalized. He told the Vice President that his assailants rained verbal insults on him and his family before physically assaulting.
The U.S. through its ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also criticized officer Beh’s beating. “I would like to use this opportunity to emphasize that no private citizen or official is above the law and entitled to act with impunity against law enforcement officials who are trying to promote public safety and respect for the rule of law”, Ambassador Greenfield said in a press release issued Monday
'Disorganized from within', Sam Jackson says
JACKSON'S THEORY
"The case of the United States of America versus James Bestman could provide a glimpse into the personal lifestyle of the suspected money launderer. Some legal experts are concerned that if monies from any of Mr. Bestman’s alleged criminal enterprise were used to fund Weah or CDC activities, it could mean major problems for the former international football star."
Samuel P. Jackson, Political Commentator
In the quest for viable alternative, political analysts say the recent string of bad occurrences in the CDC does not augur well for the party in 2011. Unless the party change its approach from the way it handled things in 2005, critics say, history will be bound to repeat. But even if the party join forces with other political opposition, it remains to be seen what impact the Bestman episode and the assault and handling of officer Beh will have on the party and its new alliances. But change critics say have come swiftly and timely. As Bangalu said Tuesday, the party the left behind still has its work cut out for it : “When I look at my alternative, I sometimes find solace in my alternative because it is better not to be somewhere where there are these kinds of activities than to remain there thinking that you will change things when you actually will not”.
With barely 15 months before general and presidential elections scheduled for October 2011, political analyst Samuel Jackson sees a downward trend for the party.
Says Jackson : The party, disorganized from within, unwilling to make solid alliances and headed by a football star without any experience in the political arena is teetering on the brink of disaster. Political pundits are shaking their heads in disbelief.
Jackson points to the brewing disaster within the party: the interrogation of Mr. George Weah during the arrest of his best friend James Bestman and the alleged merciless beating of Officer Beh by people close to Deputy Speaker, Mr. Togba Mulbah a stalwart of the CDC during a routine traffic stop.
For Jackson, the party that won the most votes (28 percent) in the first round of the 2005 presidential sweepstakes has not demonstrated the level of maturity or the political astuteness required of a strong opposition. Jackson says the two recent events seem to demonstrate the level of disintegration within the party. George Weah’s flirtation with a known serial criminal, Mr. James Bestman, a man with a rap sheet several pages long within the American justice system has himself to blame. Anyone who has spent any time with Mr. Bestman should know that his life style and associates are indicative of a man with a criminal past and should be avoided at all costs by any aspiring politician. Mr. Weah’s proverbial 45 seconds of interrogation by FBI agents in the driveway of James Bestman’s luxury home in the suburbs of Washington DC is symptomatic of a party hierarchy seemingly unprepared for national leadership.
Some CDC partisans have privately stated they have been uncomfortable with the relationship between Bestman and Weah. But as in most political structures in Liberia, Jackson says hushed tones and behind- the-back bickering are substituted for facing leading politicians with the facts of life.
The case of the United States of America versus James Bestman could provide a glimpse into the personal lifestyle of the suspected money launderer. Some legal experts are concerned that if monies from any of Mr. Bestman’s alleged criminal enterprise were used to fund Weah or CDC activities, it could mean major problems for the former international football star.
In the case of Officer Beh, who lies in the hospital with concerns for his life, the matter is unlikely to rest easy, especially coming after some very disingenuous remarks by members and officials of the CDC. The CDC in an official statement, now denied by some within the party claims that Officer Beh was drunk. Assuming that the officer was in a drunker stupor, does normal restraint mean beating him senseless to the point of death?
|
The statement by US Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield means international attention has been brought to the case of Officer Beh, which indicates the normal Liberian way of sweeping things under the rug may be difficult to accomplish. It means the case will stay within the front pages of the media for a considerable length of time and could erode a substantial degree of popular support from the CDC as more facts are revealed in what will become a closely watched investigation. The CDC is not falling from the weight of outsiders, but it is being destroyed from within, which seems to signal the tragicomedy of the Liberian existence.
In the coming months, the Congress for Democratic will have its hands full as it looks to rediscover its identity in hopes of convincing voters that it has improved its credentials and agenda. To date, it is not clear whether Weah himself will complete his studies before campaign season rolls around or whether that would be enough to convince voters that he has upgraded his education lapses which handicapped his candidacy in 2011. Whichever way it plays out political analysts say the party riding on Weah’s shoulders has taken a hit and it may take a lot of work for Weah’s political voice to convince voters that it remains the viable alternative to the incumbent government.
 |
| LABOR IN VAIN “We see similar things still obtaining and we are going to comment because we labored for the formulation of the CDC to the extent that it became a vibrant opposition party. But that aspect of a lack of respect for functional specificity still exists”. |
 |
| TARPEH HITS STRONGHOLD Supporters of Tarpeh say the key to his victory in the New Kru Town area in last November's by-elections, was due to the fact that unlike Weah and the CDC, Tarpeh has actually been working with the borough’s youths, helping them to find jobs and giving scholarships to many in the area. While he came up short in the by-elections, his victory over CDC in New Kru Town did no go unnoticed. |
TWISTED IRONY: The irony of it all remains that the Congress for Democratic Change on its own may be incapable of winning majority votes come 2011. In 2005, Weah placed first in the presidential poll, but only managed 28.3% of the vote. He was defeated by Sirleaf in the November 8 run-off election, winning 40.6% of the vote compared to Johnson-Sirleaf's 59.4%. The party though did win three seats in the Senate and 15 in the House of Representatives. Even with that, critics say the party’s representatives in both houses have done very little to impact the lives of its core supporters in the Monrovia districts of West Point and New Kru Town, pointing to Professor Wilson Tarpeh’s Montserrado County by-elections victory in the CDC stronghold as a sign of things likely to come in 2011, if a viable opposition alternative arises or if the party fails to put its act together.
Monrovia -
Since the second round defeat in the 2005 Presidential elections, George Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change has been struggling to keep its head above water. The aftermath of the defeat, three years later, in 2008, was followed by the resignation of the party’s first constitutional National Chairman, Mr. Cole Bangalu, who went on to renounce his his membership with the CDC after what he described at the time as a thorough study of all of the circumstances. Bangalu would later say he had chosen to disengage from the CDC without any regret in his mind.
The departure of Bangalu was followed by notable departures of the likes of James Kollie and the high-profile resignation of Samuel D.Tweh, who stepped down as head of CDC-USA. Samuel A. Stevquoah, the former Head of CDC’s Media and Propaganda machinery also broke ranks and is now Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Joseph Boakai.
Bangalu leads exodus, CDC yet to recover
Cole Bangalu, Founding Member, former Chairman, Congress for Democratic Change
Prior to his resignation, Bangalu had been suspended by the Party’s Executive Committee because, according to them, he had decided as the Party’s National Chairman to singularly attend the programme officially announcing the 2005 election results by the then National Elections Commission (NEC). The CDC had contested the second round election results won by the Unity Party’s candidate, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. But Bangalu reiterated at the time that though he was the National Chairmanthat led the Party to the second round, there were other Executives in the Party who wanted to play dual roles. “However, I was very tough and strong and did not allow that.”
While many were baffled at that exodus of key CDC stalwarts and the party did not do enough to keep Bangalu in the fold, many viewed Bangalu’s departure as a defining moment in the rapid decline of the party in recent years.
On Tuesday, Bangalu, whose prophecy of what is rapidly becoming CDC’s political demise, appears to be coming through, said, he saw the writings on the wall long before the party’s current predicament.
Said Bangalu : “My basic reason of resigning at the time was due to the lack of respect for functional specification. I think when this is present in every institution, it is a bad sign because it does not afford any opportunity for those who assume leadership and those who are occupying positions are not opportune to function properly. I believe that was the major reason within the movement that we formed. We thought people were not opportune to perform the functions they were supposed. For example, when I was Chairman, I don’t think I was opportune to exercise my responsibilities as Chairman of the party but instead others thought the process needed to be controlled by a few people.”
Tarpeh’s New Kru Town win points to decline
Those few people, critics say are Weah and the party’s secretary general Lenn Eugene Nagbe, who have single-handedly masterminded the party to its current predicament.
Critics of the party point to Weah’s lack of education and persistent stay away from the country and the realities on the ground as a sign that the party is losing grip on its predominantly strongholds.
Eventhough the party won the 2009 run-off by-elections for the vacant Montserrado County Senatorial seat to fill the void left by the late Hannah Brent, the party’s poor showing in its’s once stronghold, New Kru Town raised eyebrows. The borough was won by Wilson Tarpeh, a former Finance Minister now Vice President for Fiscal Affairs at the University of Liberia.
Supporters of Tarpeh say the key to his victory in the area was due to the fact that unlike Weah and the CDC, Tarpeh has actually been working with the borough’s youths, helping them to find jobs and giving scholarships to many in the area. While he came up short in the by-elections, his victory over CDC in New Kru Town did no go unnoticed.
Complicating matters, the party needed the support of several other opposition parties including Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Party, Charles Brumskine’s Liberty Party and Winston Tubman’s Liberian National Union to break through and see its candidate Geraldine Doe-Sheriff defeat the ruling party’s Clemenceau Urey.
Many observers took notice that despite a strong campaign mobilizaton by Weah only 105,800 Voters turned out to vote in the By-Election Run-Off which amounted to 22.36%of the 473, 193 voting populace of Montserrado County. The turn out was higher than the recorded turnout in.the first. Round on November 10. While the increment was invariably an expression of voter interest in the process, the number was still low for the most populous county in Liberia. The CDC candidate Doe-Sheriff won 58,384 -- 56.0% to the ruling party’s Urey, 45,864 - 44.O%.
Fast-forward to recent years, critics of the party remain uncertain whether it is capable of holding on its own and winning in 2011. More importantly, whether its candidate, Weah is capable of running on his own as the head of a ticket against a formidable incumbent.
Bestman saga rocks party
Weah has not hidden his position and has made it quite clear that he will not run second to any other politician.
But that was before June 4, 2010 and the John Bestman incident which has rocked the CDC in more ways than one.
FrontPageAfrica reported that Weah was on the property of his childhood friend, James Bestman when U.S. federal investigators arrived at Bestman’s home valued at US$450,000 in Howard County, Laurel, Maryland and arrested Bestman. Weah, who was on the scene was also questioned by the arresting officers and let go. However, details of what actually transpired remains a mystery amid multiple versions of the event and numerous denials by Weah and his close associates.
Today, the stains of arrest still haunts Weah as his friend, Bestman lingers in the custody of the FBI and as U.S. prosecutors prepare its case against Bestman. One of the key reasons for the delay of the case going to trial, sources say, is the fact that Bestman has cases pending in a number of different states including the states of Virginia, North Carolina, New York and Maryland. Thus, prosecutors are looking to throw additional charges on in a bid to supersede the indictment to add more counts. As a result Bestman remains in FBI custody in the Howard County jail. No bond hearing has been set and Bestman has not yet been arraigned until prosecutors have consolidated the case for multiple jurisdictions.
While Weah insists that he did not sleep on the property the night leading to the morning arrest of Bestman as has been reported and speculated in many circles, many remain unsure especially after Weah, in admitting that he was on the property at the time of the arrest said he was only questioned for 45 seconds. “When I pulled into the driveway, Mr. James came down the stairs and I saw two officers that served him a warrant that he needed to come with them,” Weah said.
Weah says he was questioned by officers on the scene who asked him for his identification and even thanked him afterwards. Weah’s aide and CDC’s Secretary General Lenn Eugene Nagbe had earlier denied that Weah was anywhere on Bestman’s property at the time of Bestman’s arrest.
Just as the CDC were looking to put the Bestman incident behind, one of its prominent lawmakers, Tokbah Mulbah’s actions appear to have once again drawn the party in the line of political fire.
It all came crashing down last weekend, when a truck belonging to the Deputy Speaker, filled with cement, was arrested by a police officer Lexington Beh around the Bonjal area along the Robertsfield Highway. Eyewitnesses say following his intervention via phone for the police officer to release his truck which failed, the Deputy Speaker reportedly went on the scene and a scuffle ensued, thereby leading to Beh being brutally maltreated. Beh remains in critical condition at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia but the aftermath of the incident continues to dog the CDC amid conflicting response from the party.
Conflicting Accounts : Gray, Nagbe at Loggerheads
Just like the Bestman case in which Nagbe initially denied that Weah was ever around the scene of the arrest, the party has put out at least two different version of responses in the beating of officer Beh.
In the aftermath of the incident, Acarous Gray, the party’s deputy secretary general declared that the statement issued by the police against the Deputy Speaker was concocted and falsified as their overdriven action is well-calculated and politically motivated. The guys are blatant liars and petit criminals,” Gray said.
Days after the incident, Gray’s boss, Lenn Eugene Nagbe issued a much calmer response in which the party commended the Justice Minister Christiana Tah, House Speaker Alex Tyler and other Officials of Government for cooperating with the Party’s Leadership to ensure that the situation at the residence of House Deputy Speaker Tokpah Mulbah on Sunday, July 11, did not deteriorate.
Said Nagbe : The CDC as a mass based Party which supports the rule of law, condemns the brutal assault on Policeman Lexington Beah, and calls for those who allegedly committed this act to be made to face the consequence of their action in keeping with law. The CDC encourages Deputy Speaker Tokpah Mulbah to continue to cooperate with the police as they carry out investigation into the incident.
The CDC hereby warns all detractors to abandon their futile efforts of seeking to use this unfortunate incident to besmear the image of the Party and allow the Police to conduct a fair and impartial investigation. Meanwhile, officials of the party have contacted the family of officer Beah and expressed concerns for the well-being of their relative. The CDC again assures citizens, residents, and our international counterparts, alike, of its commitment to the sustenance of peace security, and the rule of law in Liberia. The party therefore urges all of its partisans and sympathizers to observe its core values of peace, stability and justice for all.
Gray on the way out? Speculations arising
As the party struggles to find its way out of its latest turmoil, FrontPageAfrica has gathered that the recent string of bad occurrences and incidents have divided the party and the latest one in particular, the handling of the beating of officer Beh could very well lead to the departure of Gray from the party. Multiple sources within the party have suggested that the relationship between Gray and several higher-ups in the party is on the rocks, pointing to the recent conflicting statement and position over the handling of officer Beh’s beating.
As the 2011 elections nears, the party led by Weah which came closed to winning in 2005 finds itself having to answer questions about whether it is ready for the big time.
The irony of it all remains that the party, on its own may be incapable of winning majority votes come 2011. In 2005, Weah placed first in the presidential poll, winning 28.3% of the vote. He was defeated by Sirleaf in the November 8 run-off election, winning 40.6% of the vote compared to Johnson-Sirleaf's 59.4%. The party though did win three seats in the Senate and 15 in the House of Representatives. Even with that, critics say the party’s representatives in both houses have done little to impact the lives of its core supporters in the Monrovia districts of West Point and New Kru Town, pointing to Tarpeh’s victory in a CDC stronghold as a sign of things likely to come in 2011, if a viable alternative arises.
Like the Bestman saga, the beating of officer Beh, also has the party on the defensive looking for answers as a slew of criticisms pile up. On Tuesday, Vice President Joseph N. Boakai condemned the violent assault on officer Beh, while performing his regular police duties. Veep Boakai said the Unity Party-led Government subscribes to respect for human rights and would not condone such acts on the part of any private citizen or official of government. Boakai, who placed a call to the injured officer Monday, assured the officer (in his hospital bed), that justice will be served and that those responsible will meet the full weight of the law. Briefing the Vice President from his hospital bed, Policeman Beh said he was simply performing his duties required of him by the law when he was brutalized. He told the Vice President that his assailants rained verbal insults on him and his family before physically assaulting.
The U.S. through its ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also criticized officer Beh’s beating. “I would like to use this opportunity to emphasize that no private citizen or official is above the law and entitled to act with impunity against law enforcement officials who are trying to promote public safety and respect for the rule of law”, Ambassador Greenfield said in a press release issued Monday
'Disorganized from within', Sam Jackson says
JACKSON'S THEORY
"The case of the United States of America versus James Bestman could provide a glimpse into the personal lifestyle of the suspected money launderer. Some legal experts are concerned that if monies from any of Mr. Bestman’s alleged criminal enterprise were used to fund Weah or CDC activities, it could mean major problems for the former international football star."
Samuel P. Jackson, Political Commentator
In the quest for viable alternative, political analysts say the recent string of bad occurrences in the CDC does not augur well for the party in 2011. Unless the party change its approach from the way it handled things in 2005, critics say, history will be bound to repeat. But even if the party join forces with other political opposition, it remains to be seen what impact the Bestman episode and the assault and handling of officer Beh will have on the party and its new alliances. But change critics say have come swiftly and timely. As Bangalu said Tuesday, the party the left behind still has its work cut out for it : “When I look at my alternative, I sometimes find solace in my alternative because it is better not to be somewhere where there are these kinds of activities than to remain there thinking that you will change things when you actually will not”.
With barely 15 months before general and presidential elections scheduled for October 2011, political analyst Samuel Jackson sees a downward trend for the party.
Says Jackson : The party, disorganized from within, unwilling to make solid alliances and headed by a football star without any experience in the political arena is teetering on the brink of disaster. Political pundits are shaking their heads in disbelief.
Jackson points to the brewing disaster within the party: the interrogation of Mr. George Weah during the arrest of his best friend James Bestman and the alleged merciless beating of Officer Beh by people close to Deputy Speaker, Mr. Togba Mulbah a stalwart of the CDC during a routine traffic stop.
For Jackson, the party that won the most votes (28 percent) in the first round of the 2005 presidential sweepstakes has not demonstrated the level of maturity or the political astuteness required of a strong opposition. Jackson says the two recent events seem to demonstrate the level of disintegration within the party. George Weah’s flirtation with a known serial criminal, Mr. James Bestman, a man with a rap sheet several pages long within the American justice system has himself to blame. Anyone who has spent any time with Mr. Bestman should know that his life style and associates are indicative of a man with a criminal past and should be avoided at all costs by any aspiring politician. Mr. Weah’s proverbial 45 seconds of interrogation by FBI agents in the driveway of James Bestman’s luxury home in the suburbs of Washington DC is symptomatic of a party hierarchy seemingly unprepared for national leadership.
Some CDC partisans have privately stated they have been uncomfortable with the relationship between Bestman and Weah. But as in most political structures in Liberia, Jackson says hushed tones and behind- the-back bickering are substituted for facing leading politicians with the facts of life.
The case of the United States of America versus James Bestman could provide a glimpse into the personal lifestyle of the suspected money launderer. Some legal experts are concerned that if monies from any of Mr. Bestman’s alleged criminal enterprise were used to fund Weah or CDC activities, it could mean major problems for the former international football star.
In the case of Officer Beh, who lies in the hospital with concerns for his life, the matter is unlikely to rest easy, especially coming after some very disingenuous remarks by members and officials of the CDC. The CDC in an official statement, now denied by some within the party claims that Officer Beh was drunk. Assuming that the officer was in a drunker stupor, does normal restraint mean beating him senseless to the point of death?
|
The statement by US Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield means international attention has been brought to the case of Officer Beh, which indicates the normal Liberian way of sweeping things under the rug may be difficult to accomplish. It means the case will stay within the front pages of the media for a considerable length of time and could erode a substantial degree of popular support from the CDC as more facts are revealed in what will become a closely watched investigation. The CDC is not falling from the weight of outsiders, but it is being destroyed from within, which seems to signal the tragicomedy of the Liberian existence.
In the coming months, the Congress for Democratic will have its hands full as it looks to rediscover its identity in hopes of convincing voters that it has improved its credentials and agenda. To date, it is not clear whether Weah himself will complete his studies before campaign season rolls around or whether that would be enough to convince voters that he has upgraded his education lapses which handicapped his candidacy in 2011. Whichever way it plays out political analysts say the party riding on Weah’s shoulders has taken a hit and it may take a lot of work for Weah’s political voice to convince voters that it remains the viable alternative to the incumbent government.
 |
| "The case of the United States of America versus James Bestman could provide a glimpse into the personal lifestyle of the suspected money launderer. Some legal experts are concerned that if monies from any of Mr. Bestman’s alleged criminal enterprise were used to fund Weah or CDC activities, it could mean major problems for the former international football star."Samuel P. Jackson, Political Commentator |
Tale of Three Counties: How Independence Day Projects Die After Celebration
Source: FrontPageAfrica
07/14/2010 - Nat Nyuan Bayjay
07/14/2010 - Nat Nyuan Bayjay
 |
| Add caption |
MAKING SACRIFICES: Allen Tubah, pictured here in front of the Twin Perkins Generators which supplies Bong County, heads the BES. Tubah says he and his small team of eleven workers are committed to keep the city’s lights on. Tubah says the BES maintains a client-ship of less than 60 persons for a twin Perkin-generator of 110 and 250 KVA that consumes between 35 to 40 gallons daily. “We are barely sacrificing here because it is even difficult to have the few customers we have on the line paying their bills regularly”, Tubah told FPA.
Gbarnga, Bong County –
When the Unity Party (UP) led government decided to rotate the official observance of the National Independence Day one year into its grip of state power to various sub-political capitals across the nation, one key purpose of such decision was to also rotate and spread the long-centralized developmental agenda in Africa’s first independent nation.
With the Herculean task of restoring basic social services to the Capital proving to be difficult to overcome, many had thought that the rotational policy of celebrating the Independence Day in provincial capitals outside Monrovia would have helped to restore some of these basic services to these capitals of the other 14 counties which has not experienced them for over two decades.
Key among them is electricity which remains scarce and far away from these capitals.
Seven years after the official end to the 14 years civil war, the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) still struggles to fully restore electricity to the capital, settling for a ‘Small Lights Today, Big Lights Tomorrow’ project that has seen a few parts of the capital electrified.
The destruction of the nation’s sole hydro-plant during the war has left thousands of Liberians to only but dream of electric power in their homes while thousands other young Liberians who are 20 years old and below are yet to see electricity in their homes with the exception of those who burn gasoline to run mini-generators and those who are fortunate to be in the city and see it on some of the few electrified street lights.
While the Liberian government continues to state that more than the country’s entire fiscal annual budget is needed to rehabilitate the Mount Coffee St. Paul River Hydro Plant in White Plains, Upper Caldwell which remains Liberians’ hope to being fully able to afford and maximize such an important utility both domestically and industrially, the introduction of an alternative power source in the country seems just the right way out of this electricity nightmare for the ordinary Liberians.
The inclusion of restoring public electricity as a vital project to the host cities of the Independence Day for the past years was met with public overwhelming excitement which has been seen as a gradual return of these host cities to the restoration of electric-power, at least at a minimum skill.
Unfortunately, two of the three previous host-cities of the Independence Day have failed miserably in being able to maintain the electric power that was restore to them when they served as hosts, something that many have considered to be a shame on the county leaderships of the counties involved.
Grand Bassa County & Its Blame-Game Denies Citizens of Post-Independence Day Electricity
Following its inception into power in 2006, the first post-war government identified Grand Bassa County, which is one of the country’s first three original counties, as the first and privileged host of Independence Day 2007 with was the 160th Independence Day celebration. The county’s provincial capital, Buchanan, happens to be the country’s second largest seaport city subsequently making it to be the country’s second major city.
On July 26, 2007, all roads led to the port city following the identification and implementation of some Independence Day projects that the citizens of Grand Bassa County were to be later denied in just few months after the festivities.
The citizens of the county whose last sight of a public electricity was during the morning hours of May 19, 1990 when the then raging war entered the port city had their hope of being able to see street lights once again dashed and let them by the mismanagement of the electricity that went down only within few months after the celebration.
The leadership of the county then got into a blame-game that witnessed the Superintendent of the county and some of the county’s lawmakers being entangled in a deadly political game in which both parties accused one another of being responsible for the lights going off in Buchanan all at the expense of the residents of the port-city.
Superintendent Julia Duncan Cassell alleged that the county’s Liberty Party dominated Legislative Caucus had ‘sabotaged’ the supply of electric power to the city while the accused group of legislators reversed the Superintendent’s accusing finger to her, citing that she mismanaged the city’s supply of electric power.
The swinging war of allegations including the Superintendent’s alleged personal usage of the generator that once supplied the city with electric power to the allegation that the Liberty Party’s lawmakers-as led by Junior Senator Nathaniel Innis and Representative Gabriel Smith’s ‘paying of thugs’ to cut down the electric wires-was the only redress the residents of the county could get while the Port-city of Buchanan remains in complete darkness up to today’s date.
Prior to the hosting of the event, Superintendent Cassell had said projects earmarked for the occasion were all well on course.
The projects included the rehabilitation of the Buchanan Highway, a town hall and a Commissioner’s office in Lloydsville outside Buchanan and the establishment of a juvenile session at the Buchanan Police Detachment.
Madam Duncan-Cassell had also boosted of Buchanan being equipped with internet facility during the July 26 celebration.
The situation led a disappointed and enraged President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf during a visit to Buchanan to ask the citizens of Grand Bassa County to repay for the costs of electricity, though another two years have passed since she made the pronouncement without any result from what was seen as a heavy ‘Presidential Order’ at the time.
Margibi County’s Local Authorities’ ‘Non-Progressive’ Attitude Cost Residents Darkness
Then came Margibi County’s turn when its provincial capital played host to the 2008 Independence Day Celebrations that commemorated the 161st Independence of Liberia.
Margibi ’08 did not prove to be too hectic as far as transportation and lodging were concerned due to its close proximity to the capital Monrovia.
Vital among the projects earmarked for the observance of the national event in addition to the rehabilitation of some of the streets in the city were the restoration (at least partial) of both running water and public electricity.
Kakata is one of Liberia’s major commercial centers that lies right on the major route that leads from Monrovia to the Ivory Coast and Guinea and its re-electrification to mark the celebration soon stepped in the shoes of its neighboring sister city of Buchanan which had apparently set a bad incidence a year earlier.
Frustrated and disappointed citizens of the county only found themselves like those of neighboring Grand Bassa as they lamented what they termed at the time as the ‘non-progressive’ leadership of Margibi County they said was responsible for the breakdown and mismanagement of the electric project that has left Kakata in complete darkness.
Hurray To Bong County! Its County Leadership’s ‘Sacrifice’ Keeps Power On
Obviously determined to not repeat the mistakes of the past two host counties of the Independence Day, the centrally located county of Bong which served as the host for Independence Day 2009 that commemorated the country’s 162nd Independence, one year on, still runs its electricity, making its provincial capital of Gbarnga to be the only electrified provincial capital in Liberia outside Monrovia.
Though similar noise emerged few weeks following the hosting of the Independence Day over the electrification of Gbarnga after power went off for a while, public electricity returned to Gbarnga’s streets following the intervention of a group of retired workers of LEC who grouped themselves and began to manage the city’s electric power. The county leadership gladly accepted the former LEC workers to then proceed with the management of the power in the county.
Named the Bong Electricity System (BES), a small staff who volunteers services, is said to be sacrificially managing the county’s electric power Independence Day project. It is being accredited for Bong County’s upkeep of the electricity along with the county’s leadership.
Bong County’s functionally electricity, though still on a smaller scale, distinguishes the county from Grand Bassa and Margibi Counties as far as maintaining the Independence Day projects are concerned.
However, the maintenance of the electric power comes with a prize which both the management team and the county’s leadership are well living up to the task.
Allen Tubah who heads the BES explained the constraints under which he and his small team of 11 committed personnel are operating to keep the city’s lights on.
During a recent visit to Gbarnga, Tubah revealed to FrontPageAfrica that the BES maintains a client-ship of less than 60 persons for a twin Perkin-generator of 110 and 250 KVA that consumes between 35 to 40 gallons daily.
“We are barely sacrificing here because it is even difficult to have the few customers we have on the line paying their bills regularly”, Tubah told FPA.
Disclosing that the BES is independent of the LEC, Tubah also disclosed that they-former workers of the LEC prior to the war-had to intervene to keep the project running because according to him, LEC had abandoned the project due to the constraints.
Bong County Superintendent, Renney Jackson and Bong County Representative George Mulbah both told FPA that keeping the lights on requires some extra and personal sacrifices.
“We sometimes have to put in our personal gasoline to keep the lights on”, said Superintendent Jackson while Representative Mulbah, also Chairman of the county’s Legislative Caucus, added: “Even the guys that work there are not on salaries. We at times have to dig into pockets just to keep Gbarnga on in order to not be like the other cities that tried but could not make it. This is what some people out there don’t know but will choose to say whatever they wish to say.”
Gbarnga’s Success, Nimba’s Cue
Later this month, Nimba will serve as the host to the 163rd Independence Day and observers are saying that Nimba County should take cue from its neighbor Bong County if Sanniquellie’s electric power is to last and serve residents of the provincial capital after the Independence Day celebrations are over and the President and her guests have left.
According to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) statistics in 2007, Liberia's total production of electricity in 2000 was 450 million kWh, down from 834 million kWh in 1988. Of the 2000 total, 100% came from fossil fuels.
The former Managing Director of LEC, Harry Yuan, in 2007 told Liberian media that Liberian Government needs “US$500 million for the complete rehabilitation of the existing St. Paul Hydro Plant and the construction of an upstream storage dam”.
Gbarnga, Bong County –
When the Unity Party (UP) led government decided to rotate the official observance of the National Independence Day one year into its grip of state power to various sub-political capitals across the nation, one key purpose of such decision was to also rotate and spread the long-centralized developmental agenda in Africa’s first independent nation.
With the Herculean task of restoring basic social services to the Capital proving to be difficult to overcome, many had thought that the rotational policy of celebrating the Independence Day in provincial capitals outside Monrovia would have helped to restore some of these basic services to these capitals of the other 14 counties which has not experienced them for over two decades.
Key among them is electricity which remains scarce and far away from these capitals.
Seven years after the official end to the 14 years civil war, the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) still struggles to fully restore electricity to the capital, settling for a ‘Small Lights Today, Big Lights Tomorrow’ project that has seen a few parts of the capital electrified.
The destruction of the nation’s sole hydro-plant during the war has left thousands of Liberians to only but dream of electric power in their homes while thousands other young Liberians who are 20 years old and below are yet to see electricity in their homes with the exception of those who burn gasoline to run mini-generators and those who are fortunate to be in the city and see it on some of the few electrified street lights.
While the Liberian government continues to state that more than the country’s entire fiscal annual budget is needed to rehabilitate the Mount Coffee St. Paul River Hydro Plant in White Plains, Upper Caldwell which remains Liberians’ hope to being fully able to afford and maximize such an important utility both domestically and industrially, the introduction of an alternative power source in the country seems just the right way out of this electricity nightmare for the ordinary Liberians.
The inclusion of restoring public electricity as a vital project to the host cities of the Independence Day for the past years was met with public overwhelming excitement which has been seen as a gradual return of these host cities to the restoration of electric-power, at least at a minimum skill.
Unfortunately, two of the three previous host-cities of the Independence Day have failed miserably in being able to maintain the electric power that was restore to them when they served as hosts, something that many have considered to be a shame on the county leaderships of the counties involved.
Grand Bassa County & Its Blame-Game Denies Citizens of Post-Independence Day Electricity
Following its inception into power in 2006, the first post-war government identified Grand Bassa County, which is one of the country’s first three original counties, as the first and privileged host of Independence Day 2007 with was the 160th Independence Day celebration. The county’s provincial capital, Buchanan, happens to be the country’s second largest seaport city subsequently making it to be the country’s second major city.
On July 26, 2007, all roads led to the port city following the identification and implementation of some Independence Day projects that the citizens of Grand Bassa County were to be later denied in just few months after the festivities.
The citizens of the county whose last sight of a public electricity was during the morning hours of May 19, 1990 when the then raging war entered the port city had their hope of being able to see street lights once again dashed and let them by the mismanagement of the electricity that went down only within few months after the celebration.
The leadership of the county then got into a blame-game that witnessed the Superintendent of the county and some of the county’s lawmakers being entangled in a deadly political game in which both parties accused one another of being responsible for the lights going off in Buchanan all at the expense of the residents of the port-city.
Superintendent Julia Duncan Cassell alleged that the county’s Liberty Party dominated Legislative Caucus had ‘sabotaged’ the supply of electric power to the city while the accused group of legislators reversed the Superintendent’s accusing finger to her, citing that she mismanaged the city’s supply of electric power.
The swinging war of allegations including the Superintendent’s alleged personal usage of the generator that once supplied the city with electric power to the allegation that the Liberty Party’s lawmakers-as led by Junior Senator Nathaniel Innis and Representative Gabriel Smith’s ‘paying of thugs’ to cut down the electric wires-was the only redress the residents of the county could get while the Port-city of Buchanan remains in complete darkness up to today’s date.
Prior to the hosting of the event, Superintendent Cassell had said projects earmarked for the occasion were all well on course.
The projects included the rehabilitation of the Buchanan Highway, a town hall and a Commissioner’s office in Lloydsville outside Buchanan and the establishment of a juvenile session at the Buchanan Police Detachment.
Madam Duncan-Cassell had also boosted of Buchanan being equipped with internet facility during the July 26 celebration.
The situation led a disappointed and enraged President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf during a visit to Buchanan to ask the citizens of Grand Bassa County to repay for the costs of electricity, though another two years have passed since she made the pronouncement without any result from what was seen as a heavy ‘Presidential Order’ at the time.
Margibi County’s Local Authorities’ ‘Non-Progressive’ Attitude Cost Residents Darkness
Then came Margibi County’s turn when its provincial capital played host to the 2008 Independence Day Celebrations that commemorated the 161st Independence of Liberia.
Margibi ’08 did not prove to be too hectic as far as transportation and lodging were concerned due to its close proximity to the capital Monrovia.
Vital among the projects earmarked for the observance of the national event in addition to the rehabilitation of some of the streets in the city were the restoration (at least partial) of both running water and public electricity.
Kakata is one of Liberia’s major commercial centers that lies right on the major route that leads from Monrovia to the Ivory Coast and Guinea and its re-electrification to mark the celebration soon stepped in the shoes of its neighboring sister city of Buchanan which had apparently set a bad incidence a year earlier.
Frustrated and disappointed citizens of the county only found themselves like those of neighboring Grand Bassa as they lamented what they termed at the time as the ‘non-progressive’ leadership of Margibi County they said was responsible for the breakdown and mismanagement of the electric project that has left Kakata in complete darkness.
Hurray To Bong County! Its County Leadership’s ‘Sacrifice’ Keeps Power On
Obviously determined to not repeat the mistakes of the past two host counties of the Independence Day, the centrally located county of Bong which served as the host for Independence Day 2009 that commemorated the country’s 162nd Independence, one year on, still runs its electricity, making its provincial capital of Gbarnga to be the only electrified provincial capital in Liberia outside Monrovia.
Though similar noise emerged few weeks following the hosting of the Independence Day over the electrification of Gbarnga after power went off for a while, public electricity returned to Gbarnga’s streets following the intervention of a group of retired workers of LEC who grouped themselves and began to manage the city’s electric power. The county leadership gladly accepted the former LEC workers to then proceed with the management of the power in the county.
Named the Bong Electricity System (BES), a small staff who volunteers services, is said to be sacrificially managing the county’s electric power Independence Day project. It is being accredited for Bong County’s upkeep of the electricity along with the county’s leadership.
Bong County’s functionally electricity, though still on a smaller scale, distinguishes the county from Grand Bassa and Margibi Counties as far as maintaining the Independence Day projects are concerned.
However, the maintenance of the electric power comes with a prize which both the management team and the county’s leadership are well living up to the task.
Allen Tubah who heads the BES explained the constraints under which he and his small team of 11 committed personnel are operating to keep the city’s lights on.
During a recent visit to Gbarnga, Tubah revealed to FrontPageAfrica that the BES maintains a client-ship of less than 60 persons for a twin Perkin-generator of 110 and 250 KVA that consumes between 35 to 40 gallons daily.
“We are barely sacrificing here because it is even difficult to have the few customers we have on the line paying their bills regularly”, Tubah told FPA.
Disclosing that the BES is independent of the LEC, Tubah also disclosed that they-former workers of the LEC prior to the war-had to intervene to keep the project running because according to him, LEC had abandoned the project due to the constraints.
Bong County Superintendent, Renney Jackson and Bong County Representative George Mulbah both told FPA that keeping the lights on requires some extra and personal sacrifices.
“We sometimes have to put in our personal gasoline to keep the lights on”, said Superintendent Jackson while Representative Mulbah, also Chairman of the county’s Legislative Caucus, added: “Even the guys that work there are not on salaries. We at times have to dig into pockets just to keep Gbarnga on in order to not be like the other cities that tried but could not make it. This is what some people out there don’t know but will choose to say whatever they wish to say.”
Gbarnga’s Success, Nimba’s Cue
Later this month, Nimba will serve as the host to the 163rd Independence Day and observers are saying that Nimba County should take cue from its neighbor Bong County if Sanniquellie’s electric power is to last and serve residents of the provincial capital after the Independence Day celebrations are over and the President and her guests have left.
According to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) statistics in 2007, Liberia's total production of electricity in 2000 was 450 million kWh, down from 834 million kWh in 1988. Of the 2000 total, 100% came from fossil fuels.
The former Managing Director of LEC, Harry Yuan, in 2007 told Liberian media that Liberian Government needs “US$500 million for the complete rehabilitation of the existing St. Paul Hydro Plant and the construction of an upstream storage dam”.
 |
The city of Gbarnga, Bong County is one of few counties in post-war Liberia enjoying reasonable amounts of electricity daily. |
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Grand Gedeh Supt. Hidden Account Busted
Source: Newdemocratnews
Written by Staff
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Grand Gedeh County Superintendent Christopher Bailey is operating a secret account containing questionable transactions relative to the County Development fund, the General Auditing Commission has busted.
Auditor General John Morlu informed legislators (Grand Gedeh caucus) via a letter dated 9 July that Mr. Bailey’s converted account was uncovered following the GAC’s extended audit procedure and that he (Barley) has not disclosed its existence to auditors.
Mr. Morlu indicated in his communication that US$100,000 has been deposited into the said account with US$28,250.71 being withdrawn and allegedly used for “outstanding liabilities on county sports”.
Viewing the apparent dubious nature of the account and transaction thereto, the Auditor General has recommended to the Grand Gedeh County legislative caucus that the account be frozen until the ongoing audit is finalized.
Efforts exerted to contact Mr. Barley on these issues were unsuccessful but here’s the Auditor General’s full detail on the secret account:
“Senator William Sandy Chairman
Grand Gedeh Legislative Caucus Capitol Building
Monrovia, Liberia
“GAC is completing the audits of the CDF for all counties, including Grand Gedeh. On 8 July 2010, as part of the final analysis of the bank statements, we obtained a bank statement from Ecobank, account number 10210138822012.
“The audit team was not informed of this bank account by Superintendent ‘Christopher B. Bailey. However, through an extended audit procedure, we obtained the bank statements for this second account.
In review of the analysis of this bank statement for Grand Gedeh County, we noted several transactions that require your immediate attention and action. On 9 November 2006, the amount of US$12,760 was deposited and expended by Superintendent Christopher B. Bailey.
On 12 December 2008, the amount of US$20,000 was taken as a loan and on 12 December 2008 the amount was withdrawn.
Furthermore, on 16 June 2010, an amount of US$100,000 was deposited. This amount was payment on the CDF by the Ministry of Finance. Of this amount, US$48,250.71 was withdrawn as payment for outstanding liability on County Sports.
We have not been provided evidence to indicate the substantive authority under which the US$20,000 loan was obtained and for what purpose it was expended. We also have not been provided substantive authority for the deposit and expenditure of the US$12,760. We further have not been provided the substantive authority for the payment of US$48,000 for “County Sports.”
Furthermore, we have not been provided the substantive authority under which the amount of US$100,000 of the CDF was deposited into this second account when all other CDF monies have been deposited in bank account number 10710040322014.
“I have attached the bank statement and recommend that a freeze be placed on both CDF accounts until the audit is finalized. This is intended to prevent fraud, waste and abuse in the management of the CDF for Grand Gedeh.
Written by Staff
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Grand Gedeh County Superintendent Christopher Bailey is operating a secret account containing questionable transactions relative to the County Development fund, the General Auditing Commission has busted.
Auditor General John Morlu informed legislators (Grand Gedeh caucus) via a letter dated 9 July that Mr. Bailey’s converted account was uncovered following the GAC’s extended audit procedure and that he (Barley) has not disclosed its existence to auditors.
Mr. Morlu indicated in his communication that US$100,000 has been deposited into the said account with US$28,250.71 being withdrawn and allegedly used for “outstanding liabilities on county sports”.
Viewing the apparent dubious nature of the account and transaction thereto, the Auditor General has recommended to the Grand Gedeh County legislative caucus that the account be frozen until the ongoing audit is finalized.
Efforts exerted to contact Mr. Barley on these issues were unsuccessful but here’s the Auditor General’s full detail on the secret account:
“Senator William Sandy Chairman
Grand Gedeh Legislative Caucus Capitol Building
Monrovia, Liberia
“GAC is completing the audits of the CDF for all counties, including Grand Gedeh. On 8 July 2010, as part of the final analysis of the bank statements, we obtained a bank statement from Ecobank, account number 10210138822012.
“The audit team was not informed of this bank account by Superintendent ‘Christopher B. Bailey. However, through an extended audit procedure, we obtained the bank statements for this second account.
In review of the analysis of this bank statement for Grand Gedeh County, we noted several transactions that require your immediate attention and action. On 9 November 2006, the amount of US$12,760 was deposited and expended by Superintendent Christopher B. Bailey.
On 12 December 2008, the amount of US$20,000 was taken as a loan and on 12 December 2008 the amount was withdrawn.
Furthermore, on 16 June 2010, an amount of US$100,000 was deposited. This amount was payment on the CDF by the Ministry of Finance. Of this amount, US$48,250.71 was withdrawn as payment for outstanding liability on County Sports.
We have not been provided evidence to indicate the substantive authority under which the US$20,000 loan was obtained and for what purpose it was expended. We also have not been provided substantive authority for the deposit and expenditure of the US$12,760. We further have not been provided the substantive authority for the payment of US$48,000 for “County Sports.”
Furthermore, we have not been provided the substantive authority under which the amount of US$100,000 of the CDF was deposited into this second account when all other CDF monies have been deposited in bank account number 10710040322014.
“I have attached the bank statement and recommend that a freeze be placed on both CDF accounts until the audit is finalized. This is intended to prevent fraud, waste and abuse in the management of the CDF for Grand Gedeh.
Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton.
Source: eNotes.com
Jul, 2010
"Liberia."
The beginnings of Liberia as a modern state are rooted in American circumstances that led to a back-to-Africa movement among a relatively small number of African-Americans, and which was supported by white American sponsors. With multiple motives, some far from charitable, the American Colonization Society launched the Liberian experiment in the early years of the nineteenth century. Liberia's initial purpose was to serve as a beachhead for the redemption of Africa from its perceived state of degradation. The agencies of this redeeming work were to be, in order of importance, the white man, the westernized black man, and then at the bottom of the heap, the non-westernized African peoples. Much of what became public policy in early Liberia rested on this hierarchical vision of human civilization. Liberia labored under this vision through the rest of the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the twentieth century.
The Rise of President Doe
A paradigm shift occurred at the end of World War II, when Liberia's supporters and its citizens moved from a commitment to their founding mission of civilizing and Christianizing the peoples of Africa and adopted in its place a philosophy of natural rights and its offshoot of democratic governance and respect for fundamental human rights. In a real sense Liberia was in the throes of this shift when the coup d'état of 1980 occurred.
Immediately prior to the coup, during the administration of President William R. Tolbert (1971–1980), a national reform movement was initiated. Tolbert had clear reformist proclivities, but he was not a strong political leader. Challenging Tolbert were several politically progressive groups, notably the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) and the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA). They were perceived as legitimate alternatives to the regime then in power.
There were many confrontations between advocates of change and those who wished to preserve the status quo before the fateful challenge occurred. Then the government announced the possibility of an increase in the price of rice, the country's staple food. The PAL demanded that the price of rice be left unchanged and signaled that, unless the government acceded to its demands, it would call for a mass rally to press its case. When the government replied that the price increase was only under discussion, and refused to grant PAL the necessary demonstration permit, PAL defiantly called for the rally anyway.
An unprecedented clash ensued between a throng of demonstrators and the government's security forces on April 14, 1979. Many of the demonstrators were killed, scores were maimed, and millions of dollars worth of property was destroyed or damaged. The demonstrators were expressing widespread disgust and anger with the entire political system, and voiced their dissatisfaction with the president, who symbolized that system.
The government attempted to put down the dissidents, but its efforts failed because the society was perilously divided, especially within the nation's security forces. The police were prepared to carry out government orders, but military personnel refused to fire into the demonstrators, pointing out that their own children and kinsmen might be in the crowd. Abandoned and insecure, the Tolbert administration sought and received military assistance from President Sekou Touré of Guinea. When Guinean military forces arrived in Liberia, the Liberian military and a great many Liberian civilians were deeply offended.
On April 12, 1980, seventeen enlisted men in the Liberian Army led an attack on the President's mansion under the leadership of Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe. They assassinated President Tolbert and overthrew his government, creating a new governing body, the People's Redemption Council (PRC), and Doe assumed the interim presidency.
The coupmakers' declaration of intent upon seizing power convinced most observers that the new government would implement progressive policies. They released all political prisoners and invited key figures in the opposition to help them form a new government. A progressive political agenda was announced, and it appeared that Doe and his followers were about to impose significant changes on the country by fiat. Accompanying the expression of intent, however, was a pattern of behavior that belied the stated progressive aims. Military personnel and other regime figures quickly adopted opulent lifestyles, lording it over their subordinates. More ominous still, the new regime began singling out individuals and families that they deemed associates of the deposed Tolbert administration. This development became clearer when, in the weeks following the coup, the PRC suddenly and publicly executed thirteen senior officials of the old regime. The executions touched off an international chorus of outrage and condemnation for this gross violation of rights, as did the apparent targeting of dissident Liberians for execution or persecution.
Regardless of internal and international outcries, these persecutions and secret executions continued. Soon, deadly conflicts sprang up within the PRC itself, as personality differences led to political purges. Several senior PRC members were executed on President Doe's orders. Eventually, Doe found himself in conflict with Commanding General Thomas Quiwonkpa, a popular soldier and a senior member of the PRC. After several bloody encounters between the Doe and Quiwonkpa factions, Quiwonkpa was forced to flee the country.
Fall of the Doe Regime
In 1985 two major events transpired. The first was a purported democratic election. When the people voted against Doe's military regime, the government illegally intervened in the process and reversed the outcome, declaring Doe the winner. The second event was Quiwonkpa's reappearence in Monrovia on November 12, 1985. Upon his return to Liberia, he attempted to lead a coup against Doe and install the candidate who was popularly believed to have won the election. Quiwonkpa's coup attempt failed. Incensed, President Doe carried out a rash of retaliatory killings. Estimates as to the number executed during this period range from 500 to as many as 3,000. The victims were largely drawn from the police, military, and security personnel of Nimba county, which was the home region of Quiwonkpa. The many who were killed were buried in mass graves in Nimba.
The Western media soon created a shorthand for understanding the gathering conflict, blaming the violence as arising from an ethnicity-based conflict between the Krahn (Doe's people) and his Mandingo supporters versus the Dhan and Mano peoples of Nimba County. This was only partially true, however. Doe was in fact lashing out at all opponents, real and imagined, regardless of their ethnic background. As a result, his presidency devolved into a reign of terror.
Doe was inaugurated President of Liberia in January 1986. He soon found it difficult to rule, however. The violence that followed the elections, coupled, in a curious way, with the events that immediately followed his own coup of 1980, engendered covert protest that eventually became open acts of rebellion. By the start of 1989, Liberia became increasingly unsafe.
A fallout in Africa at the end of the cold war was the emergence of the warlord insurgencies threatening to destabilize national governments. On Christmas Eve of 1989, the insurgent leader, Charles Taylor, announced to the Liberian and international media that he was heading an insurgency under the banner of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). His goal was to bring down the Doe regime and end the reign of terror. He set himself the goal of completing the unfinished work of Thomas Quiwonkpa.
Taylor's rebels advanced from the border between Liberia and neighboring Ivory Coast. As they penetrated Nimba County, Doe responded by initiating a scorched earth policy, sending his soldiers to raze whole villages and kill everything that moved. This tactic quickly galvanized the people, first in Nimba County, then in the nation as a whole. As the insurgency gathered momentum, the brutality on both sides was unparalleled in the history of Liberia. The violence was not limited to a clash between armies; tens of thousands of civilians died, and countless others were maimed or otherwise injured by the war.
The extreme violence early in the civil war was a consequence of problems at three levels. First was the inter-ethnic hostility that existed between Doe's Krahn and Mandingo supporters and the remnants of Quiwonkpa's Dahn and Mano followers, who now rallied behind Charles Taylor. Second, the Liberian population was, and is, comprised of a great many other ethnicities, distinguished by language and culture, so no true sense of shared national identity could be called upon to mitigate the violence. Finally, Liberia suffered from international neglect after the Cold War ended and Africa ceased to be viewed as strategically important to the United States, its traditional ally. The result for the Liberian people was that more than 200,000 of Liberia's 2.6 million people were killed, another 800,000 became internally displaced persons, and more than 700,000 fled abroad to live as refugees.
As the rebel groups approached Monrovia in early 1990 and engaged Doe's Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), the slaughter increased. Some 2,000 Dhan and Mano, mostly women and children, sought refuge at the International Red Cross station in the main Lutheran Church compound in Monrovia. Although the Red Cross insignia were clearly visible, AFL death squads invaded the refuge on the night of July 29, 1990, and massacred the more than 600 people who sheltered there. In the days that followed, the death squads roamed the streets of Monrovia and its environs, attacking any civilians suspected of being sympathetic to the rebels or lukewarm toward Doe's regime.
By mid-1990 Doe's control of the country was limited to the area around the presidential palace. Prince Johnson, leader of the breakaway Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPF), risked a meeting with Doe at the Barclay Training Center (a military barracks) in Monrovia on August 18, 1990. Doe suggested that Johnson join him in a "native solidarity" alliance against Taylor, who was accused of representing "settler" interests (meaning the interests of descendents of the African Americans who came to the region in the nineteenth century). Johnson declined the offer of alliance and returned to his base on the outskirts of Monrovia.
A few days after this meeting, Doe led a foray into territory held by Johnson's forces in order to visit the leaders of the Economic Community Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a peacekeeping force that the economic community of West African states (ECOWAS) has created in an effort to help resolve African conflicts. During this foray, however, Doe's entourage was attacked, most were killed, and Doe himself was captured. Badly injured and bleeding from serious leg wounds, he was taken to Prince Johnson's compound. There he was tortured and then left to bleed to death, the whole gruesome episode captured by Johnson's video camera. On September 10, 1990, he died and his naked body was placed on public display.
Taylor's Rise to Power
With Doe's death, the struggle for power intensified. The rival factions headed by Taylor and Johnson now faced a third challenger: a civilian Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU). This entity was the creation of an ECOWAS-sponsored summit meeting held in the Gambia, where the leaders of Liberia's neighbors in West Africa sought ways to end the conflict. Professor Amos Sawyer, a Liberian national, was chosen the head of the IGNU by a representative body of Liberian political and civil leaders.
Two years later, the conflict still raged on. Taylor attempted to seize Monrovia, in October 1992. His self-styled "Operation Octopus" was a bloody military showdown in which he pitted an army of children (their ages ranged from 8 to 15) against the professional soldiers of ECOMOG. Thousands were slain, including five American nuns serving homeless Liberian children. Taylor's coup attempt failed.
By 1996 a coalition government composed of former rebel leaders and civilians had been put in place, but endemic distrust led to a second showdown in Monrovia. Three members of the ruling Council of State, Charles Taylor of the NPFL, Alhaji Kromah of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia, and Wilton Sankawolo, the civilian chair of the Council, attempted to arrest another government minister, Roosevelt Johnson, for allegations of murder. Seven weeks of fighting ensued and, once again, thousands of Liberians—mostly civilians—were killed. This phase of the civil war ended when regional and international peace facilitators decided to hold new elections, in which warlords were permitted to participate. Taylor, according to some observers, won the vote, but other election observers have suggested that many who voted for him did so only out of fear. Taylor promised peace, but he was unable to establish legitimacy for his presidency at either the domestic or international level.
In fact, just as Liberia appeared to be settling down, neighboring Sierra Leone erupted into war, with the May 25, 1997, overthrow of that country's elected government. Taylor had undergone guerilla insurgency training in Libya in the late 1980s alongside Foday Sankoh and other West African dissidents. An informal pact was made between Taylor and Sankoh that they would remain in solidarity as they embarked upon violently changing the political order in the subregion. Sankoh fought with Taylor's NPFL, and when in 1991 Sankoh's RUF appeared on the Sierra Leone scene, a close relationship characterized their leaders. Thus, when the 1997 coup brought Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) into power, however briefly, Taylor was prepared to recognize Sankoh's claim to legitimacy and assist his Sierra Leonian ally.
The destabilizing effects of Taylor's support of the RUF were not only felt in Sierra Leone, but throughout much of West Africa. This led the United Nations to order an investigation. The resulting UN Security Council Panel of Experts Report implicated the President of Liberia in the exploitation of Sierra Leone's diamond mines through his ties with the RUF, and of using a portion of the proceeds to keep the RUF supplied with arms. The charges were clearly documented, but Taylor stoutly denied them. Despite his denials, in May 2001 the UN Security Council imposed punitive sanctions on Liberia.
The End of Taylor's Regime
In 2002 the war in Sierra Leone was largely contained, due to massive international intervention, and democratic elections were held. Sankoh's RUF, now transformed into the Revolutionary United Party (RUP), was roundly defeated. For his part in supporting the RUF, Taylor's government in Liberia was now internationally viewed as a pariah regime. Taylor's troubles, however, had begun three years earlier, when a group of Liberians formed a rebel group called Liberians United For Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). LURD's stated objective was Taylor's removal from power because of his atrocious human rights record and the impunity that generally characterized his leadership.
LURD stepped up its attacks in early 2003, and a new rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), made its appearance in March. MODEL quickly gained ascendancy in the southern part of the country, whereas LURD's power was concentrated in the north. In March, LURD's forces opened several fronts, advancing to within a few miles of Monrovia. Tens of thousands of civilians were displaced during the fighting. On June 4 of the same year, Taylor was indicted by the UN sponsored Special Court in Sierra Leone for his complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from his activities in that country. U.S. President George W. Bush publicly called on Taylor to resign and leave the country, thus increasing the pressure on Taylor's regime.
On July 17, a LURD offensive into the capital resulted in hundreds more killed and displaced persons. International intervention finally produced a respite, as international facilitators set up peace talks in Ghana. Taylor bowed to the pressures on August 11, when he handed power over to his vice president and accepted exile in Nigeria. The peace talks concluded on August 18, and on August 21 a new leader, Gyude Bryant, was chosen to chair an interim government. To maintain the peace, the UN Security Council sent 15,000 peacekeeping troops and set up a rescue operation to help deal with the aftermath of two decades of bloody civil wars.
SEE ALSO Peacekeeping; Sierra Leone
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adebajo, Adekeye (2002). Building Peace In West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Adebajo, Adekeye (2002). Liberia's Civil War, Nigeria, ECOMOG, and Regional Security in West Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Dunn, D. Elwood (1999). "The Civil War in Liberia." In Civil Wars In Africa: Roots and Resolution, ed. A. Taisier and R. Matthews. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
International Crisis Group (2003). "Tackling Liberia: The Eye of the Regional Storm." Africa Report (April 30) 62: p. 49.
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (1986). Liberia, A Promise Betrayed: A Report on Human Rights. New York: The Lawyers Committee.
Reno, William (2001). Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Daniel Elwood Dunn
Jul, 2010
"Liberia."
The beginnings of Liberia as a modern state are rooted in American circumstances that led to a back-to-Africa movement among a relatively small number of African-Americans, and which was supported by white American sponsors. With multiple motives, some far from charitable, the American Colonization Society launched the Liberian experiment in the early years of the nineteenth century. Liberia's initial purpose was to serve as a beachhead for the redemption of Africa from its perceived state of degradation. The agencies of this redeeming work were to be, in order of importance, the white man, the westernized black man, and then at the bottom of the heap, the non-westernized African peoples. Much of what became public policy in early Liberia rested on this hierarchical vision of human civilization. Liberia labored under this vision through the rest of the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the twentieth century.
The Rise of President Doe
A paradigm shift occurred at the end of World War II, when Liberia's supporters and its citizens moved from a commitment to their founding mission of civilizing and Christianizing the peoples of Africa and adopted in its place a philosophy of natural rights and its offshoot of democratic governance and respect for fundamental human rights. In a real sense Liberia was in the throes of this shift when the coup d'état of 1980 occurred.
Immediately prior to the coup, during the administration of President William R. Tolbert (1971–1980), a national reform movement was initiated. Tolbert had clear reformist proclivities, but he was not a strong political leader. Challenging Tolbert were several politically progressive groups, notably the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) and the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA). They were perceived as legitimate alternatives to the regime then in power.
There were many confrontations between advocates of change and those who wished to preserve the status quo before the fateful challenge occurred. Then the government announced the possibility of an increase in the price of rice, the country's staple food. The PAL demanded that the price of rice be left unchanged and signaled that, unless the government acceded to its demands, it would call for a mass rally to press its case. When the government replied that the price increase was only under discussion, and refused to grant PAL the necessary demonstration permit, PAL defiantly called for the rally anyway.
An unprecedented clash ensued between a throng of demonstrators and the government's security forces on April 14, 1979. Many of the demonstrators were killed, scores were maimed, and millions of dollars worth of property was destroyed or damaged. The demonstrators were expressing widespread disgust and anger with the entire political system, and voiced their dissatisfaction with the president, who symbolized that system.
The government attempted to put down the dissidents, but its efforts failed because the society was perilously divided, especially within the nation's security forces. The police were prepared to carry out government orders, but military personnel refused to fire into the demonstrators, pointing out that their own children and kinsmen might be in the crowd. Abandoned and insecure, the Tolbert administration sought and received military assistance from President Sekou Touré of Guinea. When Guinean military forces arrived in Liberia, the Liberian military and a great many Liberian civilians were deeply offended.
On April 12, 1980, seventeen enlisted men in the Liberian Army led an attack on the President's mansion under the leadership of Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe. They assassinated President Tolbert and overthrew his government, creating a new governing body, the People's Redemption Council (PRC), and Doe assumed the interim presidency.
The coupmakers' declaration of intent upon seizing power convinced most observers that the new government would implement progressive policies. They released all political prisoners and invited key figures in the opposition to help them form a new government. A progressive political agenda was announced, and it appeared that Doe and his followers were about to impose significant changes on the country by fiat. Accompanying the expression of intent, however, was a pattern of behavior that belied the stated progressive aims. Military personnel and other regime figures quickly adopted opulent lifestyles, lording it over their subordinates. More ominous still, the new regime began singling out individuals and families that they deemed associates of the deposed Tolbert administration. This development became clearer when, in the weeks following the coup, the PRC suddenly and publicly executed thirteen senior officials of the old regime. The executions touched off an international chorus of outrage and condemnation for this gross violation of rights, as did the apparent targeting of dissident Liberians for execution or persecution.
Regardless of internal and international outcries, these persecutions and secret executions continued. Soon, deadly conflicts sprang up within the PRC itself, as personality differences led to political purges. Several senior PRC members were executed on President Doe's orders. Eventually, Doe found himself in conflict with Commanding General Thomas Quiwonkpa, a popular soldier and a senior member of the PRC. After several bloody encounters between the Doe and Quiwonkpa factions, Quiwonkpa was forced to flee the country.
Fall of the Doe Regime
In 1985 two major events transpired. The first was a purported democratic election. When the people voted against Doe's military regime, the government illegally intervened in the process and reversed the outcome, declaring Doe the winner. The second event was Quiwonkpa's reappearence in Monrovia on November 12, 1985. Upon his return to Liberia, he attempted to lead a coup against Doe and install the candidate who was popularly believed to have won the election. Quiwonkpa's coup attempt failed. Incensed, President Doe carried out a rash of retaliatory killings. Estimates as to the number executed during this period range from 500 to as many as 3,000. The victims were largely drawn from the police, military, and security personnel of Nimba county, which was the home region of Quiwonkpa. The many who were killed were buried in mass graves in Nimba.
The Western media soon created a shorthand for understanding the gathering conflict, blaming the violence as arising from an ethnicity-based conflict between the Krahn (Doe's people) and his Mandingo supporters versus the Dhan and Mano peoples of Nimba County. This was only partially true, however. Doe was in fact lashing out at all opponents, real and imagined, regardless of their ethnic background. As a result, his presidency devolved into a reign of terror.
Doe was inaugurated President of Liberia in January 1986. He soon found it difficult to rule, however. The violence that followed the elections, coupled, in a curious way, with the events that immediately followed his own coup of 1980, engendered covert protest that eventually became open acts of rebellion. By the start of 1989, Liberia became increasingly unsafe.
A fallout in Africa at the end of the cold war was the emergence of the warlord insurgencies threatening to destabilize national governments. On Christmas Eve of 1989, the insurgent leader, Charles Taylor, announced to the Liberian and international media that he was heading an insurgency under the banner of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). His goal was to bring down the Doe regime and end the reign of terror. He set himself the goal of completing the unfinished work of Thomas Quiwonkpa.
Taylor's rebels advanced from the border between Liberia and neighboring Ivory Coast. As they penetrated Nimba County, Doe responded by initiating a scorched earth policy, sending his soldiers to raze whole villages and kill everything that moved. This tactic quickly galvanized the people, first in Nimba County, then in the nation as a whole. As the insurgency gathered momentum, the brutality on both sides was unparalleled in the history of Liberia. The violence was not limited to a clash between armies; tens of thousands of civilians died, and countless others were maimed or otherwise injured by the war.
The extreme violence early in the civil war was a consequence of problems at three levels. First was the inter-ethnic hostility that existed between Doe's Krahn and Mandingo supporters and the remnants of Quiwonkpa's Dahn and Mano followers, who now rallied behind Charles Taylor. Second, the Liberian population was, and is, comprised of a great many other ethnicities, distinguished by language and culture, so no true sense of shared national identity could be called upon to mitigate the violence. Finally, Liberia suffered from international neglect after the Cold War ended and Africa ceased to be viewed as strategically important to the United States, its traditional ally. The result for the Liberian people was that more than 200,000 of Liberia's 2.6 million people were killed, another 800,000 became internally displaced persons, and more than 700,000 fled abroad to live as refugees.
As the rebel groups approached Monrovia in early 1990 and engaged Doe's Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), the slaughter increased. Some 2,000 Dhan and Mano, mostly women and children, sought refuge at the International Red Cross station in the main Lutheran Church compound in Monrovia. Although the Red Cross insignia were clearly visible, AFL death squads invaded the refuge on the night of July 29, 1990, and massacred the more than 600 people who sheltered there. In the days that followed, the death squads roamed the streets of Monrovia and its environs, attacking any civilians suspected of being sympathetic to the rebels or lukewarm toward Doe's regime.
By mid-1990 Doe's control of the country was limited to the area around the presidential palace. Prince Johnson, leader of the breakaway Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPF), risked a meeting with Doe at the Barclay Training Center (a military barracks) in Monrovia on August 18, 1990. Doe suggested that Johnson join him in a "native solidarity" alliance against Taylor, who was accused of representing "settler" interests (meaning the interests of descendents of the African Americans who came to the region in the nineteenth century). Johnson declined the offer of alliance and returned to his base on the outskirts of Monrovia.
A few days after this meeting, Doe led a foray into territory held by Johnson's forces in order to visit the leaders of the Economic Community Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a peacekeeping force that the economic community of West African states (ECOWAS) has created in an effort to help resolve African conflicts. During this foray, however, Doe's entourage was attacked, most were killed, and Doe himself was captured. Badly injured and bleeding from serious leg wounds, he was taken to Prince Johnson's compound. There he was tortured and then left to bleed to death, the whole gruesome episode captured by Johnson's video camera. On September 10, 1990, he died and his naked body was placed on public display.
Taylor's Rise to Power
With Doe's death, the struggle for power intensified. The rival factions headed by Taylor and Johnson now faced a third challenger: a civilian Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU). This entity was the creation of an ECOWAS-sponsored summit meeting held in the Gambia, where the leaders of Liberia's neighbors in West Africa sought ways to end the conflict. Professor Amos Sawyer, a Liberian national, was chosen the head of the IGNU by a representative body of Liberian political and civil leaders.
Two years later, the conflict still raged on. Taylor attempted to seize Monrovia, in October 1992. His self-styled "Operation Octopus" was a bloody military showdown in which he pitted an army of children (their ages ranged from 8 to 15) against the professional soldiers of ECOMOG. Thousands were slain, including five American nuns serving homeless Liberian children. Taylor's coup attempt failed.
By 1996 a coalition government composed of former rebel leaders and civilians had been put in place, but endemic distrust led to a second showdown in Monrovia. Three members of the ruling Council of State, Charles Taylor of the NPFL, Alhaji Kromah of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia, and Wilton Sankawolo, the civilian chair of the Council, attempted to arrest another government minister, Roosevelt Johnson, for allegations of murder. Seven weeks of fighting ensued and, once again, thousands of Liberians—mostly civilians—were killed. This phase of the civil war ended when regional and international peace facilitators decided to hold new elections, in which warlords were permitted to participate. Taylor, according to some observers, won the vote, but other election observers have suggested that many who voted for him did so only out of fear. Taylor promised peace, but he was unable to establish legitimacy for his presidency at either the domestic or international level.
In fact, just as Liberia appeared to be settling down, neighboring Sierra Leone erupted into war, with the May 25, 1997, overthrow of that country's elected government. Taylor had undergone guerilla insurgency training in Libya in the late 1980s alongside Foday Sankoh and other West African dissidents. An informal pact was made between Taylor and Sankoh that they would remain in solidarity as they embarked upon violently changing the political order in the subregion. Sankoh fought with Taylor's NPFL, and when in 1991 Sankoh's RUF appeared on the Sierra Leone scene, a close relationship characterized their leaders. Thus, when the 1997 coup brought Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) into power, however briefly, Taylor was prepared to recognize Sankoh's claim to legitimacy and assist his Sierra Leonian ally.
The destabilizing effects of Taylor's support of the RUF were not only felt in Sierra Leone, but throughout much of West Africa. This led the United Nations to order an investigation. The resulting UN Security Council Panel of Experts Report implicated the President of Liberia in the exploitation of Sierra Leone's diamond mines through his ties with the RUF, and of using a portion of the proceeds to keep the RUF supplied with arms. The charges were clearly documented, but Taylor stoutly denied them. Despite his denials, in May 2001 the UN Security Council imposed punitive sanctions on Liberia.
The End of Taylor's Regime
In 2002 the war in Sierra Leone was largely contained, due to massive international intervention, and democratic elections were held. Sankoh's RUF, now transformed into the Revolutionary United Party (RUP), was roundly defeated. For his part in supporting the RUF, Taylor's government in Liberia was now internationally viewed as a pariah regime. Taylor's troubles, however, had begun three years earlier, when a group of Liberians formed a rebel group called Liberians United For Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). LURD's stated objective was Taylor's removal from power because of his atrocious human rights record and the impunity that generally characterized his leadership.
LURD stepped up its attacks in early 2003, and a new rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), made its appearance in March. MODEL quickly gained ascendancy in the southern part of the country, whereas LURD's power was concentrated in the north. In March, LURD's forces opened several fronts, advancing to within a few miles of Monrovia. Tens of thousands of civilians were displaced during the fighting. On June 4 of the same year, Taylor was indicted by the UN sponsored Special Court in Sierra Leone for his complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from his activities in that country. U.S. President George W. Bush publicly called on Taylor to resign and leave the country, thus increasing the pressure on Taylor's regime.
On July 17, a LURD offensive into the capital resulted in hundreds more killed and displaced persons. International intervention finally produced a respite, as international facilitators set up peace talks in Ghana. Taylor bowed to the pressures on August 11, when he handed power over to his vice president and accepted exile in Nigeria. The peace talks concluded on August 18, and on August 21 a new leader, Gyude Bryant, was chosen to chair an interim government. To maintain the peace, the UN Security Council sent 15,000 peacekeeping troops and set up a rescue operation to help deal with the aftermath of two decades of bloody civil wars.
SEE ALSO Peacekeeping; Sierra Leone
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adebajo, Adekeye (2002). Building Peace In West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Adebajo, Adekeye (2002). Liberia's Civil War, Nigeria, ECOMOG, and Regional Security in West Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Dunn, D. Elwood (1999). "The Civil War in Liberia." In Civil Wars In Africa: Roots and Resolution, ed. A. Taisier and R. Matthews. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
International Crisis Group (2003). "Tackling Liberia: The Eye of the Regional Storm." Africa Report (April 30) 62: p. 49.
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (1986). Liberia, A Promise Betrayed: A Report on Human Rights. New York: The Lawyers Committee.
Reno, William (2001). Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Daniel Elwood Dunn
Accused of War Crimes, and Living With Perks
A standard cell in the detention unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague, the Netherlands.
Source: The New York Times Europe
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
Published: June 3, 2010THE HAGUE — Since the days after World War II when people accused as Nazi criminals awaited their fates in the grimness of Nuremberg Prison, reformers have dramatically reshaped the standards under which suspects accused of the vilest war crimes are being held.
 |
| The communal area of the detention unit of the International Criminal Court. |
Three warlords whose cases are before the International Criminal Court are also receiving free legal aid at a monthly cost of about €35,000, or $43,000. They are classified as indigent, one of them despite assets that include €500,000 in investments, €150,000 in savings, €300,000 in paintings and jewelry, three automobiles and four properties.
But an additional benefit — travel subsidies of tens of thousands of euros for family visits from distant African countries — is stirring an emotional debate among the court’s donor nations about whether the entitlements at the cluster of international courts meeting here have reached their limits.
Each court was intended, in part, to provide a model of humane, civilized detention that contrasts starkly with the horrific nature of the crimes the inmates are accused of. But how much is too much?
A group including France, Italy and smaller states is arguing that the nations financing the courts should not be covering benefits that they do not provide in their own prisons — and do not want to. What precedent might be set, they ask, if they contribute to these provisions here?
“We’re not treating them as equals to the rest of detainees in national prisons,” said Francisco José Aguilar Urbina, the Costa Rican ambassador to the Netherlands. “A guy who steals a chicken to feed his family will not be paid by the states for family visits.”
The visits make up a small part of the budget of the International Criminal Court, which authorized the travel subsidies and spends about €102 million yearly for court costs, staff and investigators along with housing and prosecuting four men. But the dispute is scratching at bigger concerns about costly legal processes that have dragged on, yielded no convictions and put a lot of focus on the benefits at the detention facilities, which some critics mock as the Hague Hilton.
“Behind this issue is a tug of war,” said William Schabas, director of the Irish Center for Human Rights in Galway, Ireland — one between the court’s judges, who have generally supported broad prisoner rights, and many of the countries that are paying the bills. “They are wondering what they are getting for their money. This is a court that has existed for seven years and hasn’t finished one trial.”
Diplomats from more than 100 nations are gathered in Kampala, Uganda, to take stock of the court, though the dispute over family travel is moving toward a resolution this autumn. The court was created almost eight years ago as a permanent tribunal to prosecute genocide and war crimes. Its 12-cell detention center houses five prisoners: four from Congo and Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, who has two cells, one where he lives and one where he keeps his documents.
They share the gym with 36 defendants, including the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who are before a sister court dealing exclusively with Balkan war crimes and who are housed separately. That court does not provide travel benefits, but many of the prisoners’ home nations do, albeit far more modestly than the International Criminal Court.
Defending the International Criminal Court’s policy, Marc Dubuisson, its director of court services, said: “I’m not here to judge whether a person is worse than another. We have an obligation to show the world what is good management. Why would you want to sentence the children not to see their own parent?”
Thanks to conjugal visits, several detainees became new fathers, including a Serbian general and Mr. Taylor, 62, whose baby girl was born in February.
Liberia urged to choose between logging and future climate revenue
Desperate need for income makes pressure on timber resources hard to resist for rising population
Source:Guardian.co.uk
Laurence Caramel
Liberia's rainforests are being primed as a lucrative and legal industry. Electronic tags allow consumers to trace the end-product right back to the stump. Photograph: Glenna Gordon/AFP/Getty Images
Trucks loaded with undressed timber are on the move again around Buchanan in River Cess county, south-east Liberia. The dust recalls the not-so-distant time when the timber trade was synonymous with war. For 14 years, from 1989 to 2003, destruction of the forest paid for one of Africa's worst conflicts, subsequently filling the coffers of President Charles Taylor, now on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity.
At the end of April the first ship loaded with azobe and niangon, two highly prized species of timber, left the port of Buchanan, the United Nations having lifted the embargo it imposed in 2003-6 to deprive the armed militia of their main source of revenue.
Logging in Liberia is gradually gathering speed, but the country is still on its knees. The pitiful state of much of its infrastructure is probably the forest's best friend, making parts of it inaccessible. Work is starting from scratch as all the pre-2006 concessions having been scrapped. Only a few companies have been allowed to launch forestry operations and new, stricter regulations apply. Trees felled for export must all bear a barcode to track their progress as far as the port of departure.
In a country still patrolled by 10,000 UN peacekeepers, timber is as closely watched as the diamond and iron ore mines. Last year the government registered only $2m in forestry income, according to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative established in 2007. In Taylor's time the trade was worth tens of millions of dollars.
How long can this respite last? "Look at what happened in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The forest vanished in 20 years. There is no reason why that shouldn't happen in Liberia," said Jessica Donovan of Conservation International (CI).
Liberia has almost half of the last forest in west Africa, which once reached from Guinea to Togo and is home to most of the surviving wildlife too. But pressure on the forest is growing. Driven by rising population, villagers are extending their clearings to grow more crops and collect firewood. "If the government fails to take the right decisions it will soon be too late," said Donovan. CI is calling for a two-year ban on new logging concessions.
Until recently conservationists had few arguments to persuade developing countries to protect their timber resources. Now efforts to limit climate change and tropical forests' part in CO2 capture have changed the picture. "We can say: 'Protecting nature will not cost you any money. It may even earn some'," Donovan added.
This is based on the hope that industrialised countries will soon compensate countries for not cutting down their forests, either by allocating part of development aid to combating deforestation or by setting up a market for forestry carbon credits, open to western firms.
No one can foresee the outcome of the climate negotiations but the prospect of this reward, titled Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), has raised such hopes that none of the rainforest nations can afford to miss out.
In Liberia, CI is lobbying the government directly, with access to expert advice and funds. "Redd is our priority. It represents the future for building a development model less predatory on natural resources," said Donovan.
To neutralise the main forces driving deforestation, CI recommends slowing down forestry and boosting the creation of natural parks, which would become forest-carbon concessions. Farming should move on from slash-and-burn to more intensive techniques. Each tonne of sequestered carbon is worth an average of $5, so such policies could earn the exchequer an estimated $40m a year, about a tenth of current income.
Some weeks ago the CI report was submitted to Christopher Neyor, the Liberian president's energy adviser. He is still undecided: "Until now our economy has always been linked to exploitation of the forest. I'm not saying it's the right strategy, but when your concern is surviving from one day to the next, you do not see climate change as a priority."
Time is short and Liberia cannot afford to wait. Conservationists need to show on the ground that Redd is not just idle talk. Otherwise the chainsaws will have the last word.
Source:Guardian.co.uk
Laurence Caramel
Trucks loaded with undressed timber are on the move again around Buchanan in River Cess county, south-east Liberia. The dust recalls the not-so-distant time when the timber trade was synonymous with war. For 14 years, from 1989 to 2003, destruction of the forest paid for one of Africa's worst conflicts, subsequently filling the coffers of President Charles Taylor, now on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity.
At the end of April the first ship loaded with azobe and niangon, two highly prized species of timber, left the port of Buchanan, the United Nations having lifted the embargo it imposed in 2003-6 to deprive the armed militia of their main source of revenue.
Logging in Liberia is gradually gathering speed, but the country is still on its knees. The pitiful state of much of its infrastructure is probably the forest's best friend, making parts of it inaccessible. Work is starting from scratch as all the pre-2006 concessions having been scrapped. Only a few companies have been allowed to launch forestry operations and new, stricter regulations apply. Trees felled for export must all bear a barcode to track their progress as far as the port of departure.
In a country still patrolled by 10,000 UN peacekeepers, timber is as closely watched as the diamond and iron ore mines. Last year the government registered only $2m in forestry income, according to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative established in 2007. In Taylor's time the trade was worth tens of millions of dollars.
How long can this respite last? "Look at what happened in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The forest vanished in 20 years. There is no reason why that shouldn't happen in Liberia," said Jessica Donovan of Conservation International (CI).
Liberia has almost half of the last forest in west Africa, which once reached from Guinea to Togo and is home to most of the surviving wildlife too. But pressure on the forest is growing. Driven by rising population, villagers are extending their clearings to grow more crops and collect firewood. "If the government fails to take the right decisions it will soon be too late," said Donovan. CI is calling for a two-year ban on new logging concessions.
Until recently conservationists had few arguments to persuade developing countries to protect their timber resources. Now efforts to limit climate change and tropical forests' part in CO2 capture have changed the picture. "We can say: 'Protecting nature will not cost you any money. It may even earn some'," Donovan added.
This is based on the hope that industrialised countries will soon compensate countries for not cutting down their forests, either by allocating part of development aid to combating deforestation or by setting up a market for forestry carbon credits, open to western firms.
No one can foresee the outcome of the climate negotiations but the prospect of this reward, titled Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), has raised such hopes that none of the rainforest nations can afford to miss out.
In Liberia, CI is lobbying the government directly, with access to expert advice and funds. "Redd is our priority. It represents the future for building a development model less predatory on natural resources," said Donovan.
To neutralise the main forces driving deforestation, CI recommends slowing down forestry and boosting the creation of natural parks, which would become forest-carbon concessions. Farming should move on from slash-and-burn to more intensive techniques. Each tonne of sequestered carbon is worth an average of $5, so such policies could earn the exchequer an estimated $40m a year, about a tenth of current income.
Some weeks ago the CI report was submitted to Christopher Neyor, the Liberian president's energy adviser. He is still undecided: "Until now our economy has always been linked to exploitation of the forest. I'm not saying it's the right strategy, but when your concern is surviving from one day to the next, you do not see climate change as a priority."
Time is short and Liberia cannot afford to wait. Conservationists need to show on the ground that Redd is not just idle talk. Otherwise the chainsaws will have the last word.
CDC Justifies Flogging of Brutalized Policeman as U.S. Condemns Assault
NOT ABOVE THE LAW: "I would like to use this opportunity to emphasize that no private citizen or official is above the law and entitled to act with impunity against law enforcement officials who are trying to promote public safety and respect for the rule of law”.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in a statement issued in Monrovia Monday. At right, CDC's Acarous Gray addresses the controversy at a news conference Monday.
Monrovia - In the aftermath of the flogging police patrolman Lexington Beh unmercifully on Saturday night at the Zone Eight Depot CheckPoint along the Monrovia-Robertsfield Highway, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) of football legend George Weah has justifiably provided reasons for the allegedly beating carried out by ‘thugs’ reportedly hired by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tokpah Mulbah (Bong County).
Patrolman Beh receiving care at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia.
The home of the Deputy Speaker was besieged for over 12 hours Sunday by members of the Liberia National Police (LNP) as they attempted to arrest him for his alleged brutalizing of Patrolman Beh who remained unconscious up to the press time Sunday evening.
At a press briefing held at the party’s headquarters Monday, the CDC’s Acting Secretary-General, Acarous Gray, defended the actions of Deputy Speaker Mulbah on the grounds that officer Beh used his uniform as a shield and insulted the lawmaker by throwing him (Mulbah) on the ground.
‘CDCian’ Gray told journalists that the Deputy Speaker, not prepared to abandon the official of government to the brutality and disadvantage of the office he described as a drunken police and two occupants of the impounded truck who he did not name, reportedly rushed to Deputy Speaker Mulbah’s defense, restraining and subduing the aggression of the man in uniform against the Deputy House Speaker.
Gray said with the reliable details emanating from the testaments of those he referred to as independent eyewitness, the CDC is ‘disheartened’ at the subjective face-saving and damage-control method employed by the Liberia National police (LNP), which he said has resulted to the arbitrary use of excessive force, illegal entry and orchestrated act of wreckage against the premises of Deputy Speaker Mulbah and family members.
However, the United States Embassy accredited here has called on the government to conduct an investigation into the flogging of Beh.
US Ambassador Linda-Thomas Greenfield has described the incident as a sad turn of events.
“I would like to use this opportunity to emphasize that no private citizen or official is above the law and entitled to act with impunity against law enforcement officials who are trying to promote public safety and respect for the rule of law”, Ambassador Greenfield said in a press release issued Monday.
The U.S. envoy said she was appalled to learn that Beh, an officer of the Liberia National Police, was beaten and hospitalized after a July 10 incident reportedly involving employees and supporters of Deputy House Speaker Togba Mulbah. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Patrolman Beh and members of his family. The U.S. Embassy wishes him a speedy recovery."
The Congressman's Prophesy on Liberia
By Tom Kamara
July 2010
Source: allafrica.com
His remarks, as incisive and relevant as they are, have sent loyalists of Mr. Charles Taylor in steaming anger. There are real reasons. Just when they are attempting to re-stamp their political relevance in readiness for 2011, a significant voice from afar is passing a verdict on everything they represent as evil and dangerous.
US Congressman Patrick Kennedy, here as a member of a US Congressional delegation, warned Liberians that should, in any event, Mr. Taylor return home as a political figure ("God willing I'll be back'), there will be a renewal of the destruction spree that he initiated on 24 December 1989, ending in 2003 with his reluctant exist after opposition rebels quarantined the capital and dislodged from many other parts of the country.
He said: "People might like the guy (Taylor) but that doesn't mean he is a good person in terms of what he represents in this politics. If he ever is able to make it back to this country as a political figure, he will destroy the credibility of Liberia in the international community, where they will look at his return here."
"President Sirleaf has secured Liberia's future in terms of the international reputation of Liberia. The fact is that the international community has done a lot to support Liberia's economic development and I think it will damage Liberia's integrity and its ability to develop the credibility internationally if Charles Taylor will get any credibility by returning to Liberia."
The he gave a hint that perhaps not many people caught. Anyone like Taylor will take the country down with him or her. And there are many Taylors in the race for 2011, those, like Mr. George Weah, who see him as having produced "a great party" and "great people":
"If we see that someone like him will still have the kind of support, It will undermine the support that people will have for Liberia if that kind of support was given to the likes of Taylor who led this country to a civil war situation."
He further sounded a note against the kind of politics, he added, that Mr. Taylor represents.
"I think people's expectation is that everything will improve and this is a process that takes time. I think Liberia has exceeded many expectations.
"I think people need to understand that progress comes over times. Liberia has made strides that everyone could imagine but people need to understand that these things come through collective effort.
"And the reason I say that I am worried that some kind of demigod will come along and say democracy doesn't work. And I think Liberians certainly know what that means. That means the lack of protection and safety and it will return to a very unstable world."
Following the American's remarks, one of Mr. Taylor's ardent loyalists, Mr. Cyril Allen, took the airwaves in rebuttal, warning Congressman Kennedy to mind his own business and stay off Liberian affairs.
But for what it is worth, examining the politico-economic terrain that prevailed under Mr. Taylor, even for supporters, dismissing the fact that destruction was the order, with political clampdowns common, can be expected but not denied with evidence.
The country was littered with internally displaced camps, operating on an US80m budget with international pariah status decreed, and absolutely no economic blue print for recovery. It was free for all with dangerous prescriptions for the future.
On a visit here during this period, Mr. Ruud Lubers, then the UNHCR High Commissioner, was appalled, as he openly questioning the sane nature of Taylor's leadership while members of the regime denounced him. "Liberia is not for sale", they declared.
Whatever the immense personal benefits of this period for a select few, the void, in terms of creating political and economic structures and space to woo much-needed international financial backing, therefore putting the economy into gear to benefit "above all else the people", (Mr. Taylor's celebrated slogan), is one of the after-effects of Taylor's rule that the Congressman is talking about.
Refugee International, in a 2004 report, "Peacekeeping in West Africa: A Regional Report", observed:
"The conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire have their roots in regional political and economic instability. The effects of those conflicts have spilled over their individual borders to regional neighbours as people have sought refuge also in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. It stands to reason, therefore, that the cessation of conflict and the re-building of these countries must be based on country-specific remedies, but also on the regional factors that affect long-term stability in West Africa.
"The fates of these countries are linked to each other because their individual conflicts are the result of regional tensions and factors. Their porous borders have allowed wars to spill over into neighbouring countries for more than a decade, as Liberian fighters, for example, entered Sierra Leone in support of rebels there. Those same borders allow arms smuggling and theft of resources to support regional conflict. And as conflicts rage, they drive civilian populations--mostly women, children and the elderly--from their homes and frequently across borders to neighbouring states, which are in turn impacted economically as they provide for the needs of refugees and also protect themselves from possible armed soldiers crossing borders with legitimate refugees. There are Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia, Guinea and other states..."
With the absence of large and significant numbers of the actors from the political scene in the affected countries, Liberia remains the only country in which these actors remain politically relevant. Moreover, with their significant financial position as a result of the war economy they ran and owned, these actors, in an underdeveloped and poverty-dominated political setting, still command following, although less so now than when Taylor in command and control.
Despite this following, the only glue capable of holding his political outfit together is the persona of Charles Taylor, primarily because the political machine to which they remain loyal, and from which they accumulated their fortunes, was his creating from the onset and his creation only. All those who sight belonging to it had to pay homage to him and accept his unquestioned supremacy in all spheres.
Certain truths are hard to accept. It had to take an American with nothing to lose to blow the horn of truth that no Liberian politician would have attempted.
When Mr. George Weah described Taylor's political outfit, the National Patriotic Party, as being "great" for producing "great people", he his tong was different from Congressman Kennedy's. But the American has prophesized: the fangs of danger are not yet defeated, for they appear in many forms. Taylor's return, he tells us, will be accompanied by doom and despair that is if he returns at all.
July 2010
Source: allafrica.com
His remarks, as incisive and relevant as they are, have sent loyalists of Mr. Charles Taylor in steaming anger. There are real reasons. Just when they are attempting to re-stamp their political relevance in readiness for 2011, a significant voice from afar is passing a verdict on everything they represent as evil and dangerous.
US Congressman Patrick Kennedy, here as a member of a US Congressional delegation, warned Liberians that should, in any event, Mr. Taylor return home as a political figure ("God willing I'll be back'), there will be a renewal of the destruction spree that he initiated on 24 December 1989, ending in 2003 with his reluctant exist after opposition rebels quarantined the capital and dislodged from many other parts of the country.
He said: "People might like the guy (Taylor) but that doesn't mean he is a good person in terms of what he represents in this politics. If he ever is able to make it back to this country as a political figure, he will destroy the credibility of Liberia in the international community, where they will look at his return here."
"President Sirleaf has secured Liberia's future in terms of the international reputation of Liberia. The fact is that the international community has done a lot to support Liberia's economic development and I think it will damage Liberia's integrity and its ability to develop the credibility internationally if Charles Taylor will get any credibility by returning to Liberia."
The he gave a hint that perhaps not many people caught. Anyone like Taylor will take the country down with him or her. And there are many Taylors in the race for 2011, those, like Mr. George Weah, who see him as having produced "a great party" and "great people":
"If we see that someone like him will still have the kind of support, It will undermine the support that people will have for Liberia if that kind of support was given to the likes of Taylor who led this country to a civil war situation."
He further sounded a note against the kind of politics, he added, that Mr. Taylor represents.
"I think people's expectation is that everything will improve and this is a process that takes time. I think Liberia has exceeded many expectations.
"I think people need to understand that progress comes over times. Liberia has made strides that everyone could imagine but people need to understand that these things come through collective effort.
"And the reason I say that I am worried that some kind of demigod will come along and say democracy doesn't work. And I think Liberians certainly know what that means. That means the lack of protection and safety and it will return to a very unstable world."
Following the American's remarks, one of Mr. Taylor's ardent loyalists, Mr. Cyril Allen, took the airwaves in rebuttal, warning Congressman Kennedy to mind his own business and stay off Liberian affairs.
But for what it is worth, examining the politico-economic terrain that prevailed under Mr. Taylor, even for supporters, dismissing the fact that destruction was the order, with political clampdowns common, can be expected but not denied with evidence.
The country was littered with internally displaced camps, operating on an US80m budget with international pariah status decreed, and absolutely no economic blue print for recovery. It was free for all with dangerous prescriptions for the future.
On a visit here during this period, Mr. Ruud Lubers, then the UNHCR High Commissioner, was appalled, as he openly questioning the sane nature of Taylor's leadership while members of the regime denounced him. "Liberia is not for sale", they declared.
Whatever the immense personal benefits of this period for a select few, the void, in terms of creating political and economic structures and space to woo much-needed international financial backing, therefore putting the economy into gear to benefit "above all else the people", (Mr. Taylor's celebrated slogan), is one of the after-effects of Taylor's rule that the Congressman is talking about.
Refugee International, in a 2004 report, "Peacekeeping in West Africa: A Regional Report", observed:
"The conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire have their roots in regional political and economic instability. The effects of those conflicts have spilled over their individual borders to regional neighbours as people have sought refuge also in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. It stands to reason, therefore, that the cessation of conflict and the re-building of these countries must be based on country-specific remedies, but also on the regional factors that affect long-term stability in West Africa.
"The fates of these countries are linked to each other because their individual conflicts are the result of regional tensions and factors. Their porous borders have allowed wars to spill over into neighbouring countries for more than a decade, as Liberian fighters, for example, entered Sierra Leone in support of rebels there. Those same borders allow arms smuggling and theft of resources to support regional conflict. And as conflicts rage, they drive civilian populations--mostly women, children and the elderly--from their homes and frequently across borders to neighbouring states, which are in turn impacted economically as they provide for the needs of refugees and also protect themselves from possible armed soldiers crossing borders with legitimate refugees. There are Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia, Guinea and other states..."
With the absence of large and significant numbers of the actors from the political scene in the affected countries, Liberia remains the only country in which these actors remain politically relevant. Moreover, with their significant financial position as a result of the war economy they ran and owned, these actors, in an underdeveloped and poverty-dominated political setting, still command following, although less so now than when Taylor in command and control.
Despite this following, the only glue capable of holding his political outfit together is the persona of Charles Taylor, primarily because the political machine to which they remain loyal, and from which they accumulated their fortunes, was his creating from the onset and his creation only. All those who sight belonging to it had to pay homage to him and accept his unquestioned supremacy in all spheres.
Certain truths are hard to accept. It had to take an American with nothing to lose to blow the horn of truth that no Liberian politician would have attempted.
When Mr. George Weah described Taylor's political outfit, the National Patriotic Party, as being "great" for producing "great people", he his tong was different from Congressman Kennedy's. But the American has prophesized: the fangs of danger are not yet defeated, for they appear in many forms. Taylor's return, he tells us, will be accompanied by doom and despair that is if he returns at all.
FBI says: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS - No Safe Haven in the U.S.
Source: FBI
07/13/10
As the commander of a paramilitary security force in the West African nation of Liberia, he led a reign of terror from 1999 to 2003. Along with his associates, he tortured a series of victims in the most horrific ways: burning them with cigarettes, scalding water, candle wax, and an iron…severely beating them with firearms…cutting and stabbing them…and shocking them with an electric device.
Roy Belfast, Jr., aka Chuckie Taylor, was brought to justice for his human rights crimes…in a federal court in Miami, where he was sentenced to 97 years in prison.
How did he end up in an American courtroom? Because U.S. law says that if human rights violators are U.S. nationals, commit offenses against U.S. citizens, or are present in this country, they can be charged here. In Taylor’s case, he was born in America, and he was arrested in 2006 while trying to enter the country illegally.
The FBI takes the lead in investigating human rights violations falling under U.S. law enforcement jurisdiction, but we work closely with our partner agencies, in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Justice’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.
Since 1988, Congress has enacted laws that have expanded our authority over human rights violations—genocide, torture, war crimes, and the recruitment or use of child soldiers.
Our primary mission today? To identify violators in the U.S. and bring them to justice for crimes committed within or outside this nation. We investigate individuals for both specific humans right violations—like in Chuckie Taylor’s case—and more traditional crimes—like the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in Iraq and the murder of both the girl and her family, which led to the conviction of an American soldier.
Human Rights Offenses Program. Recently, with additional funding from Congress, we expanded our efforts in the area of human rights enforcement. As part of our new program, we use four key strategies:
Continue to investigate priority human rights cases with our domestic and international law enforcement partners;
Training our own personnel and those of our foreign counterparts to ensure that human rights investigations are conducted with the “rule of law” principles;
Collecting domestic and international intelligence on human rights violators and violations through our field offices, our legal attaché offices overseas, our network of sources inside and outside the country, and our relationships with domestic and international law enforcement partners; and
In response to requests from international and foreign investigative bodies, providing training and other assistance to their personnel.
Domestic prosecution of serious human rights violations committed abroad is a critical way to ensure that our country doesn’t serve as a safe haven to those who commit these crimes. But even when domestic prosecutions aren’t possible, there are other avenues to pursue—such as extraditing a criminal subject to stand trial in another country, offering U.S. assistance to an international tribunal, or deporting a suspect.
A footnote to the Chuckie Taylor case: the apple apparently didn’t fall far from the tree—his father is former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, currently standing trial for human rights crimes in an international court at The Hague.
Resources:
- FBI testimony on human rights enforcement
- DOJ Human Rights/Special Prosecutions Section
Monday, July 12, 2010
LEAD Organizing For Liberia
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LIBERIAN NATIONAL LEGISLATURE
Dear Senators and Representatives
Republic of Liberia
Today in Liberia, LEAD Liberia applauds the National Elections Commission efforts to educate the Liberian’s people on the electoral process despite the hurdles placed on its way by the Liberian National Legislature. The Liberian National Legislature sees no reasons to pass the Threshold Bill thereby playing politics with our future and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia). But we the people have one message for our elected officials, which is “Do the right thing” and stop playing politics with our future and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia) by passing the Threshold Bill.
We believe failure to do so will result in Liberia not having a smooth transfer of power from one democratic form of government to another. We believe failure to do so will result in the Liberian’s State being at risk. We believe failure to do so will result in Liberia’s future (The youth) being at risk. We believe failure to do so will result in the communities and our seniors being at risk. We believe the time for playing politics is over and now is the time to do the right thing. Today in Liberia, we demand respect, accountability and transparency from our elected officials. Our elected officials must listen to the people and champion the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia). Our leaders should abandon the politics of partisan division, personal greed and fine creative solutions to promote the common good of Liberia.
To our elected officials, if you will stand with the people and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia)—we will not only support you but we will make sure that you get re-elected to your positions. We will champion your campaigns in the communities. We will champion your campaigns by using the media to promote your re-election. However, if you stand against the people and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia). We will campaign against your re-election with the theme “THE DO NOTHING PARLIAMENT” Liberia will be a great nation and a better place to live not because of its perfection, but the belief that working in the interest of the masses and investing in our children—the youth and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia); the belief that Liberians who love this country can change it. People who had the audacity to believe that Liberia could be a better place and the courage to make it works for all, so help us God.
Sincerely,
LEAD Organizing For Liberia
Abraham Hoff, Chief Community Organizer
077384990 leadliberia@yahoo.com
Dear Senators and Representatives
Republic of Liberia
Today in Liberia, LEAD Liberia applauds the National Elections Commission efforts to educate the Liberian’s people on the electoral process despite the hurdles placed on its way by the Liberian National Legislature. The Liberian National Legislature sees no reasons to pass the Threshold Bill thereby playing politics with our future and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia). But we the people have one message for our elected officials, which is “Do the right thing” and stop playing politics with our future and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia) by passing the Threshold Bill.
We believe failure to do so will result in Liberia not having a smooth transfer of power from one democratic form of government to another. We believe failure to do so will result in the Liberian’s State being at risk. We believe failure to do so will result in Liberia’s future (The youth) being at risk. We believe failure to do so will result in the communities and our seniors being at risk. We believe the time for playing politics is over and now is the time to do the right thing. Today in Liberia, we demand respect, accountability and transparency from our elected officials. Our elected officials must listen to the people and champion the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia). Our leaders should abandon the politics of partisan division, personal greed and fine creative solutions to promote the common good of Liberia.
To our elected officials, if you will stand with the people and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia)—we will not only support you but we will make sure that you get re-elected to your positions. We will champion your campaigns in the communities. We will champion your campaigns by using the media to promote your re-election. However, if you stand against the people and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia). We will campaign against your re-election with the theme “THE DO NOTHING PARLIAMENT” Liberia will be a great nation and a better place to live not because of its perfection, but the belief that working in the interest of the masses and investing in our children—the youth and the national interest of our beloved country (Liberia); the belief that Liberians who love this country can change it. People who had the audacity to believe that Liberia could be a better place and the courage to make it works for all, so help us God.
Sincerely,
LEAD Organizing For Liberia
Abraham Hoff, Chief Community Organizer
077384990 leadliberia@yahoo.com
Darfur warrant for Sudan's Bashir: ICC adds genocide........ how about genocide commited in Liberia???
Over 250,000 Liberians plus 5 Americans, some Nigerians, Ghanaians, as well as civilians from other countries, were killed in Liberia over 15 years ago.
While innocent women and children were been killed in Liberia, President Bush of the USA insisted that the Liberian President Charles Taylor must leave the country before US personnel arrived. President George W. Bush used only words to arrest the situation in Liberia.
President Taylor stepped down from the presidency and left the country as President Bush demanded.
Charles Taylor appeared before a UN court in Sierra Leone and was charged with crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone not Liberia.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and others were accused by the Liberian people as well as opposition party Leaders in Liberia for supporting the killings of over 250,000 people in Liberia. The Liberian President admitted before the TRC of Liberia that whiles it is true that she supported Charles Taylor NPFL rebels that were killing innocent people; she was fooled by Charles Taylor. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the Current President of Liberia. She has no interest in bringing herself to book for the role she played in Liberia. The International community is playing death ears on the Liberia situation.
The current US President could mirror exactly what George W. Bush did to arrest the situation in Liberia by only saying few words like "Liberia needs a form of world crime court". Only mere words are required to help the defenseless Liberian population. While Liberians cry up to the international community specially the US, Evil doers and agents of death continue to hold key positions in the Liberian government. These agents of death continue to hold the entire country hostage while the world watches reluctantly.
The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir - this time for charges of genocide while Charles Taylor, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and others have not been charged for crimes they committed in Liberia.
Bernard Gbayee Goah
See below
____________________________________________________________________________________
Darfur warrant for Sudan's Bashir: ICC adds genocide
Source: BBC Africa
Monday, 12 July 2010
Omar al-Bashir denies arming pro-government militias in Darfur
The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir - this time for charges of genocide.
He already faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which he denies.
The ICC first indicted him in March 2009, but he has not been arrested.
A member of Mr Bashir's political party labelled the new warrant "ridiculous", but rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region hailed it as "a victory".
President Bashir is accused over the conflict in Darfur, where some 300,000 people are said to have died in seven years of fighting.
'No concern'
The ICC had initially declined to add genocide to the indictment but this has been overturned on appeal, with the judges finding "there are reasonable grounds to believe him responsible for three counts of genocide".
Pro-government Arab militias are accused of ethnic cleansing against civilians from the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa communities after rebels took up arms in Darfur in 2003.
Mr Bashir has denied that his government armed the militias, known as the Janjaweed.
Some 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes.
Sudan's leader has been unable to visit several countries for fear of being arrested since the first warrant was issued.
Many African and Arab countries have lobbied for the UN Security Council to postpone the prosecution, but this request has been rejected by countries such as the US and the UK.
Mr Bashir is accused of "genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm and genocide by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction", said a statement from the ICC.
"This second arrest warrant does not replace or revoke in any respect the first warrant of arrest," The Hague-based court said.
A senior member of the ruling National Congress Party, Rabie Abdelatie, called the move "ridiculous" and said the ICC was targeting not just Mr Bashir but the Sudanese people.
Sudanese Information Minister Kamal Obeid said in a statement: "The adding of the genocide accusation confirms that the ICC is a political court. The ICC decision is of no concern to us."
But Ahmad Hussein, a spokesman for Darfuri rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement, told AFP news agency the development was "a victory for the people of Darfur and the entire humanity".
Despite the charges against him, Mr Bashir was overwhelmingly re-elected as president in landmark elections in April.
The opposition, however, accused him and his supporters of rigging the poll and some major groups boycotted the elections.
Mr Bashir has always said the problems in Darfur were being exaggerated for political reasons.
According to the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Unamid, 221 people were killed in Darfur in June.
This is a sharp fall since May, when some 600 people were killed - the deadliest month since January 2008, when the UN took joint control of the peace force.
Fighting intensified in May after the Justice and Equality Movement pulled out of peace talks.
While innocent women and children were been killed in Liberia, President Bush of the USA insisted that the Liberian President Charles Taylor must leave the country before US personnel arrived. President George W. Bush used only words to arrest the situation in Liberia.
President Taylor stepped down from the presidency and left the country as President Bush demanded.
Charles Taylor appeared before a UN court in Sierra Leone and was charged with crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone not Liberia.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and others were accused by the Liberian people as well as opposition party Leaders in Liberia for supporting the killings of over 250,000 people in Liberia. The Liberian President admitted before the TRC of Liberia that whiles it is true that she supported Charles Taylor NPFL rebels that were killing innocent people; she was fooled by Charles Taylor. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the Current President of Liberia. She has no interest in bringing herself to book for the role she played in Liberia. The International community is playing death ears on the Liberia situation.
The current US President could mirror exactly what George W. Bush did to arrest the situation in Liberia by only saying few words like "Liberia needs a form of world crime court". Only mere words are required to help the defenseless Liberian population. While Liberians cry up to the international community specially the US, Evil doers and agents of death continue to hold key positions in the Liberian government. These agents of death continue to hold the entire country hostage while the world watches reluctantly.
The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir - this time for charges of genocide while Charles Taylor, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and others have not been charged for crimes they committed in Liberia.
Bernard Gbayee Goah
See below
____________________________________________________________________________________
Darfur warrant for Sudan's Bashir: ICC adds genocide
Source: BBC Africa
Monday, 12 July 2010
Omar al-Bashir denies arming pro-government militias in Darfur
The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir - this time for charges of genocide.
He already faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which he denies.
The ICC first indicted him in March 2009, but he has not been arrested.
A member of Mr Bashir's political party labelled the new warrant "ridiculous", but rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region hailed it as "a victory".
President Bashir is accused over the conflict in Darfur, where some 300,000 people are said to have died in seven years of fighting.
'No concern'
The ICC had initially declined to add genocide to the indictment but this has been overturned on appeal, with the judges finding "there are reasonable grounds to believe him responsible for three counts of genocide".
Pro-government Arab militias are accused of ethnic cleansing against civilians from the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa communities after rebels took up arms in Darfur in 2003.
Mr Bashir has denied that his government armed the militias, known as the Janjaweed.
Some 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes.
Sudan's leader has been unable to visit several countries for fear of being arrested since the first warrant was issued.
Many African and Arab countries have lobbied for the UN Security Council to postpone the prosecution, but this request has been rejected by countries such as the US and the UK.
Mr Bashir is accused of "genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm and genocide by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction", said a statement from the ICC.
"This second arrest warrant does not replace or revoke in any respect the first warrant of arrest," The Hague-based court said.
A senior member of the ruling National Congress Party, Rabie Abdelatie, called the move "ridiculous" and said the ICC was targeting not just Mr Bashir but the Sudanese people.
Sudanese Information Minister Kamal Obeid said in a statement: "The adding of the genocide accusation confirms that the ICC is a political court. The ICC decision is of no concern to us."
But Ahmad Hussein, a spokesman for Darfuri rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement, told AFP news agency the development was "a victory for the people of Darfur and the entire humanity".
Despite the charges against him, Mr Bashir was overwhelmingly re-elected as president in landmark elections in April.
The opposition, however, accused him and his supporters of rigging the poll and some major groups boycotted the elections.
Mr Bashir has always said the problems in Darfur were being exaggerated for political reasons.
According to the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Unamid, 221 people were killed in Darfur in June.
This is a sharp fall since May, when some 600 people were killed - the deadliest month since January 2008, when the UN took joint control of the peace force.
Fighting intensified in May after the Justice and Equality Movement pulled out of peace talks.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
News Headline
