President Sirleaf's Guided TRC Appearance Did Not Help Her Imageake       1             1940 - 11112008f- Two- Soccer Legends

Thursday, February 26. 2009

Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

“I have absolutely not supported any warring faction and none of them can say I supported them. I did not get involved in Mr. Taylor’s military operation. The one time I crossed into his territory was the one I made mentioned of when I crossed into Gborplay across from the Ivory Coast.”

 – President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, (TRC Hearings, February 12, 2009).

“Your position in that organization, especially the Taylor version, was not as petit and as limited as you continue to describe it to have been. “Level Monrovia we will rebuild it” could have only come from the real Head of State and Commander-in-Chief whose Army was the NPFL as you saw yourself. You issued the order, and it was executed. It included the notorious Octopus, which finally wrecked Monrovia.”

–        Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, (An Open Letter to Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, August 30, 2005).

     Two interesting points from two interesting personalities, except that the individuals, once key allies during their uncompromising fight to oust President Samuel K. Doe during that so-called war of “liberation” that finally ousted the “idiot” as Ms. Sirleaf admittedly referred to Mr. Doe at the time, gave different versions of what really happened behind closed doors when they hung out in faraway places to plan the rebellion that killed innocent civilians and later destroyed Liberia.

      It was a nasty war that got the attention of the world and the Liberian people – a bloody war that destroyed properties, uprooted and destroyed innocent lives unmercifully, and made fledgling and impossible careers possible and fulfilling for the killers and “sympathizers,” while countless Liberians who were innocent to the core were made homeless, died brokenhearted, or were shot to death by those whose names are now household names etched into our memories.

     The Liberian nation, as we know it today will never be the same anymore, and those dead and surviving Liberians whose sweat, tears and blood streamed through the cities during those dark hours are painful reminder of what happened when the nation fell apart for over a decade because of the evil plans of highly ambitious evil people, who did everything in their power and might to achieve their selfish objectives at the painful expense of their victims.

    Pres. Sirleaf speaking at the TRC                 Jucontee T. Woewiyu      

     That is why I am against the politically correct and politically convenient concept of letting bygones be bygones because it is unfair and irresponsible, it rewards lawlessness, and because the killers, the cowards and the parasites who carried out such treasonous acts did not give their victims a chance to live and be a part of the so-called “let bygones be bygones” era the toothless Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is advocating today, but were murdered which ever way the killers wanted to end their victim’s lives.

     After the end of the bloodbath Liberians refuses to forget, the will of the victims to let justice take its rightful course was unjustifiably ignored and denied in the name of peace as defiant rebel leaders, would-be presidential candidates, wannabe activists and every attention-seeker available under the hot Liberian sun, who did not play any part in the civil conflict was summoned before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to have their fifteen minutes of fame.

      However, the one person who has been conspicuously absent and silent all these years, and the Liberians people always wanted to hear from; whom most people believe knows more about what really happened during the days that led to the war, and has visited every country in the world hundreds or thousands of miles away yet couldn’t find the road leading to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in her own backyard until February 12, was President Sirleaf, who finally and reluctantly appeared before that friendly audience just to silence her unforgiving critics.

     President Sirleaf’s guided appearance before the TRC was staged, choreographed, and too accommodating, and will not silence her many critics who did not see it as a genuine attempt at peace, but reinforced the sad reality of a person who did what she did not because her heart’s in the right place, but because of the added political pressure she had to bear from the Liberian people and political activists, whose non-stop public campaign to have President. Sirleaf appear and testify before that body finally got her attention, and obviously got the attention of her foreign friends for her to do something.

     As the current political leader of the country, Ms. Sirleaf hid behind the cover of the powerful Liberian presidency and was treated preferentially like a movie star than a witness, avoided tough interrogation tactics, was too colloquial, and did not shed any light on her alleged involvement in the planning, financing and execution of the 14-year civil war, but contradicted her former ally, Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, whose 2005 “An Open Letter to Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,” exposed the president’s role in an incriminating and not so friendly way, bringing us to the realization that something dirty and cruel did happened; and that the then-dissident political activist is not coming clean with the Liberian people.

     “I did not get involved in Mr. Taylor’s military operations. The one time I crossed into his territory was the one I made mentioned of when I crossed into Gborplay across from the Ivory Coast,” President Sirleaf reportedly said, a complete opposite of what Mr. Woewiyu chronicled in his now famous open letter.

      With Jesus Alieu Swaray also on the stand that day corroborating some of what we’ve heard in other arenas and read in Mr. Woewiyu’s open letter about Ms. Sirleaf’s alleged role in the civil war, President Sirleaf, who had no other room to wiggle out of this public humiliation resulted to condescending tactics and termed as “absolute rubbish and absurdity” that Swaray ever saw her in Gbarnga, in military uniform during a visit to NPFL territories.

     Other than her incessant and convenient denial, how can President Sirleaf further explain to the Liberian people this excerpt from Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu’s open letter – from a man who speaks with such authority with what seems to be first hand and personal knowledge about what really happened behind the scene in the planning of the civil war, and has not minced a word since his open letter was made public in 2005?

      “Your break from the NPFL was not so much on account of what happened to your colleagues as you claim. You know, I know, and some of your people know that it was about your determination to take power directly from the war front,” Woewiyu writes.

      As one of the most prominent members of the group that planned and carried out the civil war, Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu has depth, knows a lot, and revealed to us in precise chronological narratives the “double crossing and back scratching” that occurred when the politically ambitious Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, according to him and unknown to Woewiyu changed the venue of the meeting to Banjul, The Gambia, thinking “the Banjul meeting would have given the government to you as the sole heir of Liberian Action Party. When it did not appear likely, you decided to skip the meeting,” he noted.

     Woewiyu writes again: “Let me not forget the $50,000.00 contribution that you passed through Mr. Allen Brown Sr. who was then running an insurance business in the Ivory Coast. You had earmarked the money to specifically buy rice for the fighting men and it was done. Another $150.000.00 was contributed by some of your friends and delivered to Dew Mayson, Ethelbert Cooper and Emmanuel Shaw to be forwarded to the NPFL. If you recall, those bad boys ate the money and we were only able to recover $75,000 of it six months later.”
     “Needless to mention your other undocumented financial and personal contributions made before and during the wars. The trip to Paris by you and me to meet with Charles Taylor must have cost you a pretty penny. Several trips you made to the Liberian boarder to meet with Taylor and the fighting men should add up to a substantial sum.”

     With President Sirleaf admitting only a sympathetic role in Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)“ like thousands of Liberians” did, according to her, only focuses attention on the believability factor, and whether she is coming clean with the Liberian people after all that Woewiyu has said publicly since the end of the civil war; and since Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became president, a far cry from the minor involvement she claimed all along during her cameo appearance before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

       Believe it or not Woewiyu wrote his open letter at a time when he did not have guns pointing directly at his head with someone threatening to blow it off if he did not say what he said and wrote what he wrote; exactly the kind of detailed information the Liberian people and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission needs from President Sirleaf and others to wrap this thing up.

     Only an insider could have known the kind of detailed information Woewiyu knew, which tells us more about the planning, financing, and execution of that heinous war, and the wheeling and dealing that took place behind closed doors. An outsider could not have had access to such sensitive information.

    However, the nation and its people cannot move on and forward when President Sirleaf, who supposed to set an example during these hearings by being sensitive, remorseful, direct and truthful, is only concerned about protecting her image than seeking genuine bygones, peace and reconciliation. By the way, who is advising this president?