|
George
Saigbe Is Guilty In The Eyes
of His Victims, The Liberian
People
1
1940 - 11112008f- Two- Soccer Legends
Saturday,
March 10, 2007
(Retrieved
From Our Archives)
 |
| Tewroh-Wehtoe
Sungbeh |
George
Saigbe Boley came on the
Liberian political scene not
as an intellectual heavyweight
or an inspirational leader who
wields influence, but as one
who exploited the troubles of
a dysfunctional nation and
forced himself into the
consciousness of a dying
people when it was convenient
for his bloated ego.
It
was a pathetic adventure, a
cruel and cowardly crusade, an
infringement on the liberties
of a group of people whose
lives were at the mercy of
Boley, who did not use
whatever God-given charm or
talent he has, or the
education he acquired to win
their hearts and souls but
used intimidation, harassment,
grenades, bullets and the
barrel of a gun to kill,
subdue, and reduced the lives
of his fellow citizens to that
an animal.
George
Boley’s misnamed Liberian
Peace Council, (LPC) was not a
humanitarian organization like
the International Red Cross or
other legitimate humanitarian
groups; it was an armed group
whose purpose was to kill,
intimidate, hijack the
population, steal the nation's
resources and wreak havoc on
an innocent population in the
name of liberation.
George S. Boley
Kelbesso Negewo
Boley’s
Liberian Peace Council did not
seek peace and dialogue as a
way to end the internecine
armed conflict, but was a
reckless armed and criminal
group that actually involved
itself in the Liberian civil
war by killing, raping,
maiming and making life
miserable for those same
Liberians he and others
claimed they wanted to
liberate.
George
Saigbe Boley used the
power vested in him by his
criminal friends of his armed
rebel organization to
negotiate power-sharing duties
with warlords Charles Taylor,
Alhaji Kromah and Oscar Quiah
known then as the “Council
of State” or collective
presidency, and held an entire
nation and its citizens
hostage until a singular
interim leadership was
appointed to run a ravished
Liberian nation.
Just take a trip to
Liberia or visit Liberians
scattered around the world and
in refugee camps, then ask the
victims and former fighters
about the role of George
Boley’s so-called Liberian
Peace Council during the civil
war, and the individuals will
narrate horror stories of life
under the various armed rebel
factions including Boley's LPC
as "hell on earth."
Life
under the armed rebel factions
including George Boley's
Liberian Peace Council never
resembled life in paradise or
a visit to a Six Flags
amusement park. It was a
painful life of mayhem –
rape, hunger and starvation,
maiming, drug abuse, human
rights abuse, destruction of
properties, stealing and of
course deaths.
So
for George Boley to
shamelessly say “I might add
with pride, for the record
that my role and that of the
Liberia Peace Council (LPC) in
the Liberian conflict,
contributed in no small
measure to the peace and
establishment of the infant
democracy being presently
nurtured in Liberia and the
West Africa sub-region by the
international community,”
when he was arrested recently
for violating U.S. immigration
laws is a joke. Because it is
like Charles Taylor taking
credit for the peace Liberians
are now enjoying in their
country, when it is the
complete opposite.
The Liberian civil war
George Boley and his Liberian
Peace Council together with
others waged was a tragedy
that did not benefit the
Liberian people, but benefited
only the armed rebels that
fought it.
The civil conflict
reduced the Liberian people to
poverty; it dehumanized them,
and took them across
continents – in slums next
door, and in neighboring
countries as Boley and his
gun-toting pals with homes and
wives abroad, and Green
Cards/U.S. citizenship
privileges in the United
States rushed to their
respective families across the
ocean for refuge, after they
realized it was now time to
return the country to its
rightful owners.
Unlike the other
shameless and power-hungry
former rebel leaders, Sekou
Damate Conneh and Alhaji
Kromah, who entered last
year’s presidential
sweepstakes thinking the
Liberian people would elect
them president, George Boley
did not, but eventually
returned to the United States
– to his family where he
would later fight a legal
battle, according to news
report, over immigration
matters and perhaps his
involvement in the Liberian
civil crisis.
Now that authorities in
the United States kind of
exonerated him of the charges,
George Boley is now toting his
story to sympathetic and
friendly Internet media
outlets that can afford to
write verbatim a
non-analytical article with no
ounce of depth in it to clear
his name as if he
is an innocent man. Of course,
he's not innocent at all.
To say George Boley and
his Liberian Peace Council (LPC)
did not kill, rape and injure
Liberians during the civil
war, is like saying Sekou
Damate Conneh and LURD, Alhaji
Kromah and ULIMO-K, Roosevelt
Johnson and ULIMO-J, MODEL,
Charles Taylor and NPFL,
Prince Johnson and INPFL, were
all falsely accused, and did
not kill or rape Liberian
women during the crisis, and
did not steal the nation's
resources.
I don’t want to
believe George Boley was
released from prison in the
United States because his
hands are not stained with the
blood of Liberians.
Boley was released, I
want to believe, because
whoever was in charge of the
investigation (if there was
ever one), did not take a
careful look at the evidence
to corroborate eyewitness’
accounts of his war past, did
not interview those countless
witnesses and victims whose
human rights were violated by
the rebel factions, did not
appropriate the necessary
financial resources needed for
possible interviews and visits
to existing refugee camps, and
Liberia, and did not even
interview refugees who were
affected and are now living in
the United States and
elsewhere.
Years ago, I
wrote a column on this same
page about the plight of some
Ethiopian nationals who were
victims of human rights abuse
during the regime of the
former dictator, Mengistu
Haile Mariam.
Unlike some Liberians
who just want to move on and
wine and dine with their
former tormentors as if
nothing happened, the
Ethiopians did not just move
on with their lives. They
fought back. And with
the help of U.S authorities,
the individuals had the
courage to go to court and
prosecute Kelbessa Negewo, a
former government official
whom they claimed violated
their human rights when he
worked for the former
dictator.
Mr. Negewo, who was a
naturalized U.S. citizen at
the time of his arrest lived
and worked in Atlanta,
Georgia, for 15 years. He was
put on trial under the
Intelligence Reform Act of
2004, and was later found
guilty of human rights abuse
and deported to Ethiopia.
The former Ethiopian
government official, as
expected, claimed he was
innocent of the charges.
George Boley, who also claimed
to be innocent of the charges
also said these words.
“I never ordered the
execution or summary execution
of anyone in Liberia directly
or otherwise, nor did I order
the arrest or beating of
anyone or looting of anything
in Liberia or any place in the
world for that matter.”
George Saigbe Boley can
say all he wants to say to the
Americans and the friendly
media about his perceived
innocence. Like the other
former warlords, George Saigbe
Boleh is also guilty in the
eyes of the Liberian people.
Editor's Note:
George
Saigbe Boley was arrested
recently in 2010, according to
Jeffrey Goldberg, and is being
charged administratively, with
lying in order to gain entry
into the U.S., and with
committing extrajudicial
killings while in another
country. Other branches of
Homeland Security, according
to Goldberg are looking at
charging him with actual war
crimes, which is a good thing,
because he belongs in the
Hague with his fellow warlord,
Charles Taylor.
(Retrieved From Our Archives)
Republished February 4,
2010
|
