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Hardboiled
-An
unyielding Legislative rebel base, a slipping
Executive;
a (News) paper
that becomes a proxy; a crumbling country
Friday,
February 02, 2007
By
Mulbah K. Morlu Jr.
The
game has just ended. And like every dupe game, victims
and victors abound and tears and joys avail. The
debate nevertheless continues in street corners, and
various corridors erect defenses and advance offenses
characteristic of any fray that leaves public opinion
divided along controversial lines.
And
the actors have just been given a rude awakening while
they dished out hundreds of thousands that could not
get the job done, except that it has unveiled the
previously unnoticed masked-face behind the
conspiracy. It’s a double tragedy with lavished
dollars packed in bands marked “Bank of China”, as
the annoyance of the distant mogul deeply deepened.
Politics,
it is said is a dangerous and dirty game. But the
truth is that the protagonists of this assumed
philosophy cannot point to any dirt that makes
ideological politics a dirty game. Rather, it is the
individual political actors and the pseudo
nationalists that shroud the game in dirt by their
subtle craftiness; or, they themselves are,
as-a-matter-of-factly, carriers and evangelists of
socio-political dregs.
Indeed,
craftsmen who were themselves products of western
political dregs laid the foundations of Africa’s
oldest independent Republic. Granted that our
heritage, as the Americo-Liberians would like us
believe, is traceable to the late arrival of free
slaves, are a product of the unwanted debris of
western political deconstruction; a scum and refuse of
the highest order!
While
we must cherish the reality of the incessant existence
of an Americo-Liberian bloc in the midst, it is most
appalling how our twisted history accredits all of our
founding historical strives to a ‘superior race’,
depicting the indigenous as savages and mere
aggressors void of any intelligence in the early wars
of our survival campaigns.
Indeed, many wars were fought along these
ideological perspectives, and after more than a
century and a half of one-party harsh dictatorship in
the hands of Americo-Liberianism, and their
interruption of a 10-year indigenous (elite-misguided)
bad governance, we still have our wars.
In
the Liberian exhibition is an entrenched class
struggle where late-arrivers once confined to chains
refuse to acknowledge the rights and privileges of
their native landlords; on the contrary, they
attempted to reduce the latter to a class of mere
scavengers of the trash collecting types.
Though
this settlers-dominance conversation appears
antiquated, its mentality and genealogical tracings
sadly remain; and has recently evolved into an
ideology, and now exists behind the mask of elitism
drawing strengths from various segments of the
Liberian populace including a few lost indigenous
shepherds of the half cultural breed.
And
once the late-arriving occupants had no way of
maintaining their sociopolitical germane in the last
20 years, they introduced a destructive variable in a
no-peace-if-we-can’t-govern attitude. Now that they
have ceased the military aggression by their
ascendance to the echelon of our geo-political setting
under the facade of elite competence, seeks to
tyrannize our existing democracy through an envisaged
control of the three Branches of Government.
This
is the political meaning of the current saga
unraveling at the House of Representatives. Hence, the
serious political analyst must not view the
congressional operatives at Virginia as being mere
rebels. To the contrary, they are proxy fighters
taking orders from a distinct throne!
Whatever
the case, however, the war so fiercely fought by all
sides is over. All we now have left are fragments and
scraps of disappointments scattered here and there in
the camp of the crushed and disconcerted dissidents.
Statements like “Let Snowe come to Virginia and we
will remove him emanating form Hon. Chambers, is
characteristic of failed leaders whom often talk tough
on the eve of their demise.
“American
soldiers will commit suicide at the gates of
Baghdad…” was Saddam’s tactics of jackassing the
world when, in fact, his stronghold lied in absolute
ruins. Samuel Doe, being crippled by the Ellen Sirleaf
et al rebellion roared from his besieged Mansion and
remarked, “We’ll fight ‘till the last Soldier
dies… But, the ill-famed Prince Johnson wasted no
time in having the democratically elected president
sliced beyond recognition. “We’ll fight from
street to street, house to house…was Taylor’s own
employed rhetoric of pretending to be in control when
in truth, everything was fast crumbling around him.
As
we conduct an objective appraisal of the ongoing
travesty, carefully anatomizing the current
congressional geo-setting, we quickly sense chronic
turmoil for the legislative insurgents. We employ this
coined-phrase due to the fact that when one
constitutes unconstitutionality as a means of
aggressively effecting a regime change, the term
“insurgent” is by far a liberal usage. And
unfortunately, the action of avowed hostility as
perpetrated by seemingly brainwashed lawmakers cannot
be less than political nihilism.
But
as earlier stated, the war is now over and all sides
are expected to observe the final arbiter’s whistle.
In every fracas there is always that point when a
power greater than the participating actors intervenes
for a resolution. In our given locale, the Supreme
Court, which happens to be our highest judicial body,
has ruled. In the ruling, all proceedings and acts
carried out by the desecrated assemblage of dissident
Congressman in Virginia was declared unconstitutional.
Amongst
the proceedings and acts condemned by the nation’s
high court are the alleged Executive’s motivated
illegal removal of the Speaker, Ed Snowe, the joint
resolution signed by both fractured Houses
pseudo-legitimizing the Virginia rebel base though a
prohibition was in swing, et cetera.
In
their response to the high court’s ruling, the
dissidents initially appeared poised to resist the
decision until recently; “…We accept the Supreme
Court’s decision to reinstate Speaker Snowe…but
we’ll not leave Virginia (the Rebel base)”,
interpretation mine. The latter represents the
position of the renegades, announced by the
ringleader, Hon. Kettehkuemuehn Murray (he is wanted
by the FBI for attempted rape).
What
a scene! To announce the acceptance of a part of the
nation’s high court’s ruling, while rejecting the
other aspect only establishes the extent to which
certain characters have resolved to plunge this
country into another round of upheaval. And I am not
going to delve into analyzing the high court’s
ruling here, it’s so self-explicit that my little
daughter of age 12 has the ability to decipher its
every bit and pieces, and could even teach it as a
lesson to a Justice Minister and the tongue-twisting
clergyman-Information Minister, Lawrence Bropleh. Yet,
the president has joined ranks with the dissidents in
resisting the rule of law whilst her Justice Minister
justifies.
This
is such an irreconcilable socio-moral paradox
yesterday as Justice Minister Johnson Morris played
the human rights lead role in full color and turned
out as a heroic defender of our constitution. Sadly,
she has just been unraveled as Cllr. Frances Johnson
Morris, one of Liberia’s notorious spoilers of
everything called laws. A while ago, she presided over
a controversial and arguable electoral process and got
paid back, taking the justice ministry in full
quid-pro-quo-style reward; and of course today, we
cannot expect her to abandon the tactics.
If
the Sirleaf era unwaveringly threads upon this path,
we are all doomed, except that an SOS call must be
made to the International Community to save Liberia.
It is maximally disappointing how a government that
has onboard the know-it-all advocates of human rights
could not even permit a peaceful sit-in-action at the
Unity Conference Center, only because the
constitutional and peaceful exercise was viewed by
them as counterproductive to their scheme to undermine
the laws of Liberia.
Mulbah
K. Morlu, Jr., and the organizers of the planned
peaceful sit-in-action, had published a press
statement about the pending action. It should have
been held on the 23rd, but was rescheduled
when the Supreme Court issued a temporary writ of
prohibition. Consequently, the rescheduled date was
the succeeding Thursday, 25th January 2007.
On the eve of that fateful morning, market women, yana
boys, and members of the alliance holding the peaceful
action threw in their ‘widow’s mite to enable us
to hire old buses for transportation.
Based
on the publicity given the sit-in-action, and before
the first group of largely students could arrive at
the conference center, the riot squad of the Liberia
National Police was already deployed with specific
orders not to allow anyone to come close to the
building premises with posters and placards. In their
discipline and respect for the rule of law, the market
women, high school and university students, who formed
a bulk of our first batch of sitters call me via
mobile phone to tell me the extent of the police
intolerance. I was then at the SOS Clinic area in
Sinkor, admonishing another student group waiting to
be picked up by buses whose drivers’ pricing was too
exorbitant, hence creating a difficulty in our plans.
Two
hours later, we headed for the Unity Conference Center
and arrived to see that the school children and
marketers had being pushed almost one mile from the
conference center and a heavy Police barricade was
erected with accompanying UNMIL tanks, riot police at
mounted check points all intended to prevent a
peaceful sit-in.
Four students were hurt when they attempted
holding posters that carried the rendering “We call
on our Representatives to respect the Laws that they
make.” When the actor insist that the police allow
peaceful citizens to carry out their constitutional
duties, one Officer Willie, a Deputy boss in the
Intelligence section of the Liberia National Police
communicated with the Justice Minister to allow for
our sit-in-action during a mobile phone conversation,
she refused. With nothing else to do, we decided to
get the school children and marketers off the scene
just in time when the police reinforcements arrived
with orders to confront a peaceful people acting
legally.
Tragically
enough, two government-controlled Newspapers (The
Daily Observer and The New Democrat) collaboratively
manufactured their versions from the figment of their
imagination labeling us as “thugs and gangs.” They
even tried to link us to one of the parties to the
Legislative embarrassment. What we wanted was to be
given the opportunity to convince our elected policy
makers to put the country and its laws, first. We
challenge the New Democrat and The Daily Observer to
show prove of the former fighters they claimed to have
seen in our group. And this should not be difficult
for both the New Democrat and the Daily Observer,
knowing that Sando Moore, the Observer’s ‘Candid
Camera Photographer’ was there taking pictures.
Besides,
the two Newspapers frantically fought to create a link
between our advocacies and pro-Taylor elements,
unjustifiably linking us with Edwin Snowe every time
we attempt to advocate for the rule of law. This
strategy by these media detractors cannot undo our
commitment to defending the law no matter who is
affected. We
will subsequently establish here that no one is our
target of advocacy, except those that choose to oppose
the rule of law and the tenets of justice. And if a
Speaker’s rights are violated, we will advocate just
as we will when a president’s rights are violated.
Liberians,
in their quest to seek the truth in existing
sociopolitical matters must come to know that the
Daily Observer is a partisan paper recreated to
protect the regime of Madam Sirleaf and her
government. All must recall that during the
2005-runoff elections, The Daily Observer, in its
Monday election-eve editorial endorsed the Ellen
presidency and carried a full promotional ad. Since
then, contrary to the ethics that govern the
journalistic profession, The Observer has been totally
sold out to protecting the interests of this
government even at the peril of the constitution of
Liberia. For example, who would have known that The
Daily Observer would oppose the recent Supreme Court
ruling in its editorial, only because its Lord and
Patron also stood in disagreement! Frankly, these are
a part of the moral deconstructions of the current
regime where various functionaries offend the law and
the people, with a Newspaper paid to paint a colorful
portrait-caricature meant to tell a lie.
Is
this not the tragedy of the Sirleaf regime?
It’s a regime that lacks any moral
foundation, a conundrum that leaves many baffled and
befuddled. What is the moral premise of a government
whose hierarchical governors were actively parading
the corridors of rebellion, anarchism, bloodletting
and exterminating innocent people for power?
Balefully, the painful worst is the denial campaign
launched by the warmongers, ignoring the facts on hand
indicting them for horrors and horrendous crimes. And
for the likes of President Sirleaf to come to power
riding on the wings of advocacy against political
ills, and return to committing similar excesses and
ills is to be extremely hardboiled!
No
doubt, the ascendance to power of the forerunners of a
diabolic military campaign led by a woman with ‘iron
in her heart’ proved to be a regime floating upon
the tidal waves of lawlessness. No matter who
disagrees, for a President who took oath to defend the
constitution of the Republic of Liberia to now
flagrantly disregard the ruling of the high court in
such callous style, is most obdurate and insensibly
ridiculous!
I
can’t see how any pureblooded Liberian who wants to
see this nation moves forward will come in defense of
Madam’s venal actions. Who else should be the most
superior interpreter of our jurisprudence if not the
Supreme Court? Let’s take for granted “the ruling
did not mention anything about venue” as is being
blindly argued, but it did not matter to President
Sirleaf that the entire Supreme Court refused to
attend the “Virginia rebel base” session? What did
she make of the boycott of the eleven members of the
Senate? And the ruling that declared all proceedings
done on the “rebel base” as unconstitutional.
Where then is the government’s argument of
constitutionality in the Ellen address delivered on
the “Rebel base” from an altar and veranda totally
desecrated by a month-long constitutional
disobedience?
These
are the issues that must be viewed from the lenses of
political objectivity regarding the threats posed to
our common destiny. True to the core, the fabrics of
any civilized democracy can only be held together
through the uncompromising perpetuation and
implementation of crafted laws. Without laws, we will
have wars, whether we want it or not.
Laws are the flambeaus that enable any society
to keep threading a positive path, one of many reasons
why we have been calling for a Special Court for
Liberia to give justice to the people and deter
violence. Unfortunately, President Sirleaf and others
see it differently, and
are doing what any violator will do, because a
justice mechanism could indict them for war crimes and
crimes against humanity!
Moreover,
they are not just erecting a bulwark of opposition
against constructive criticism; they are even using
immoral means thinking it will help them undermine the
strength of the critical outlook being zoomed at this
government. For instance, in their quest to discredit
the moral rectitude of this actor (Mulbah K. Morlu,
Jr.), certain government officials (we know them by
their style of literature) hurried to the drawing
board and obviously gathered from the devil’s closet
lies and falsifications that cannot stand up to the
least logical scrutiny. Hear them: “Morlu is a
wanted man in Ghana; he robbed his fellow Liberians of
money in Ghana; he’s seeking for visa/attention;
he’s a trouble maker; he’s from the CDC, etc.”
Disappointingly,
none of these political flagellates have enough guts
to come up using their own identities to throw the
lies. Instead, they go from Internet chat rooms to
cheap inns hiding under pseudonyms, trading gossips
without good motives. It will privilege them to know
that the man, Mulbah K. Morlu, Jr., did in Ghana what
many will not do: whilst most of the gurus now in
power were giving child soldiers guns to destabilize
the country in 2002, I collaborated with my oversea
friends to supply an initial 464 Holy Bibles to
Refugees in order to provide them an opportunity to
liberate themselves from the harsh reality of
religious ignorance. A succeeding teaching conference
was held, and 700 persons were fed daily. At the
conference, I made sure I drew attention to a
paralyzed boy whose wheel chair was badly damaged. A
month later he received his new wheel chair. More than
800 persons attended our conference, and 464 Bibles
were insufficient, so we made arrangements for the
importation of more than 250 additional bibles.
Later
on, my wife, who is an American citizen and a survival
of the 9/11 World Trade Center tower bombings, was
moved with compassion for the victims and decided to
organize an institution that would help bring relief
to children affected by the disaster. We had gone to
South Africa where she wanted to initiate her program.
I felt it would be a betrayal if I did not encourage
her to prioritize Liberian Refugees. She reluctantly
consented, as she later told me that the U.S States
Department had warned her of the alleged mischief and
fraudulence of some Liberians on the Buduburam camp.
When
my wife returned to the United States I refused to
travel with her, based on her assertion that I could
not return in a few years owing to the requirement of
a particular Visa program. Since my heart burned with
the passion of helping to correct the ills in our
current checkered politics, I preferred Liberia to an
America that needs me little.
When
my wire returned to the States, I helped her fashion
the Queen Sheba War-Child Disaster relief Fund’s
document, and had it legally registered in Columbus,
Ohio, USA. In the interim, she set up a skeletal
administrative team headed by a Reverend Minister. She
sent out strict orders that any financial obligations
would be fulfilled by her and no suffering refugees
child/parent would be required to pay a dime because,
they were struggling people who needed help. I chose
to remain out of the leadership of the skeletal team
owing to the fact that my relationship with my wife
may have conflicted interests (she lives in Queens,
New York and her address is available for those who
would like to meet with her there to ascertain the
facts).
Unfortunately,
as more than US$14,350.00 was directly expended on
this program, internal bickering ensued in Ghana
amongst staff members. The first lapse was, instead of
the 13-man skeletal team as instructed by the
president of the organization, the head of the Ghana
team employed a 93-man workforce who were now
demanding salaries. Since the organization had a
website with my wife’s contacts available, this
unwarranted practice was easily revealed when the
excess workers themselves started sending messages. My
wife was deeply angered by this insincerity and,
amongst other things, feared that she was being misled
by the leaders in Ghana, thereby deciding to shoulder
the obligation to nevertheless pay everyone off,
canceling the entire program; as US$5,000.00 was wired
directly to the team to purposely payoff everyone
hired legally or otherwise.
Personally,
my current home in Teshie Nungua Estates, 1st
Junction, Accra-Ghana (years back) in fluxed with
hungry brothers and sisters seeking whatever that
could feed them for a day. No one ever traveled the
long distance from the refugee Camp to my residence
without getting a cup of rice for his/her home. It did
not mean that I was wealthy; I simply understood the
invaluable practice of sharing as taught by the Bible.
In 2003, I personally pledged US$1,000.00 to a Church
on the refugee camp and had it paid in full a week
later. These revelations are not necessary, except
that when moral dwarfs attempts to ridicule the moral
credentials of a trying person, the truths must be
discussed.
And
it is important to note, in all my days in Ghana, I
have no police records, no court records nor public
records of crime. I have entered disputes with no one,
and have a single family with one wife. This is an
open challenge to the paid accusers to come out
proving me wrong. If not, let them and their patrons
get lost in the proverbial trashcan. Or did they think
that a smear campaign would be enough to crack the
hard-core in me? Can a Mulbah K. Morlu drop arms to
ill-trained intellectual commandoes who lack the least
elementary understanding of the rules of engagement,
committing moral war crimes by going personal whilst
trenched under the shadows of their patrons?
If
I am wanted as the liars suggest, by whom, oh thou
critics without piecrust! This is an open challenge to
all of those sociopolitical vampires and werewolves
operating from the veiled sector of pseudo-identities.
Come up now, unveiled your worth, acquainting us with
your role in the emancipation fight. If anyone is
wanted, let me tell you who: President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
is the wanted one: charge sheet reads; “Conspiracy
to commit murder in the death of Jackson Doe; Treason
and mass murder in the Quiwonkpa invasion of 1985;
Treason, conscription of child soldiers, crimes
against humanity and war crimes through hate messages
via BBC in 1990; the recruitment of a wanted criminal
(Charles Taylor, wanted since 1983) to invade the
sovereign land of Liberia leading, to the deaths of
more than 250,000 innocent people; alleged theft of
property in the amount of US$20 million dollars during
the OAU jamboree of 1979; and, her various violations
and disregard for the Supreme Court’s ruling
recently, makes her the most wanted woman president in
the world.” These are the issues worth debating, and
the invitation is open.
Lest I forget, no one individual so purposely rebels against a
nation’s constitution and its highest judicial
authority, unless that person is actually an
iron-hearted thoughtless hardboiled!
Activist
Mulbah K. Morlu, Jr., who recently asked for the
impeachment of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, can be
reached at godsprince2001@yahoo.com.
Cell: 002316626209 He resides in Sinkor,
Monrovia-Liberia and Teshie Nungua Estates,
Accra-Ghana
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