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George
Saigbe Boley is guilty in the eyes of his victims and
the Liberian people
Saturday, March 10, 2007
By 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 he has
or the education he acquired to win the hearts and
souls of the Liberian people, but used intimidation,
harassment, grenades, bullets and the barrel of a gun
to kill, subdue and reduce the lives of his fellow
citizens to that of a four-legged beast.
George Boley’s misnamed Liberian Peace
Council, (LPC) was not a humanitarian organization
like the International Red Cross; it was an armed
group whose purpose was, like other armed groups of
the time to wreak havoc on an innocent population in
the name of liberation.
George S. Boley
Kelbesso Negewo
Boley’s Liberian Peace Council was not a
peace group that sought peace and dialogue as a way to
end the internecine armed conflict, but was a reckless
armed and criminal group that actually entangled and
engaged itself in the Liberian civil war by killing,
raping, maiming and making life miserable for those
same Liberians it claims it wanted to liberate.
Boley used the power vested in him as a leader of his armed
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 a visit to
Liberians scattered around the world and in refugee
camps and asks the victims and former fighters about
the role of George Boley’s so-called Liberian Peace
Council during the civil war, and those individuals
will narrate horror stories of life under the various
armed rebel factions.
Life under the armed rebel factions including
the 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 claim “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” is
indeed laughable.
Because it is like Charles Taylor taking credit
for the peace Liberians are now enjoying in their
country, when it is the opposite.
The Liberian civil war or wars George Boley and
his Liberian Peace Council together with others waged
was a tragedy that did not benefit its millions of
people, but benefited only the armed rebels that
fought it.
The civil conflict reduced the Liberian people
to poverty; it dehumanizes them and spreads them
across continents – in slums next door, in their own
backyards and in neighboring countries as Boley and
his gun-toting pals with homes abroad and Green Card
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 any sympathetic and friendly
Internet media outlet that can afford to write
verbatim, a non-analytical article with no ounce of
depth in it, of course, to perhaps clear his name as if
everything that spewed out of his mouth is gospel.
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, are all being falsely
accused and did not kill or rape Liberian women during
the crisis.
I don’t 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 ascertain the evidence needed
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 that requires
visits to existing refugee camps and visits to
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 in The Liberian Dialogue about the
ordeal 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,
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 official of the
government 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 and
other human rights violators often claimed conspiracy
and innocence of the charges against them when they
are apprehended, jailed and deported. George Boley
also claimed to be innocent and 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.
However, like the other former warlords, George
Saigbe Boleh is also guilty in the eyes of the
Liberian people.
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