Failure to Implement TRC Report Risky Political Strategy

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

    I have no compassion for warlords, period. For killing innocent Liberians senselessly to advance their own selfish political agendas, and for destroying a country the way they did during that senseless 14-year civil war made me want to see each and every one of them arrested, put on trial and executed, if found guilty in a court of law.

     And for holding the country – our country and fellow citizens hostage for years after they damaged it leaving those Liberians homeless, and for not feeling any sense of remorse for what they did only to later run for political office as if they did nothing wrong, are enough reasons not to take anyone of them seriously but to put them away completely.

                                               TRC Final Report

     That may sound uncompassionate, cruel and inhumane especially when those words come out the mouth of a life-long democracy and human rights advocate like myself, who value the lives of every human being on earth and wants to see the individuals live it to their fullest potential any which way they want to live it.

     The 14-year civil war was unnecessary. The reasons behind it unclear, unnecessary and insane, and the individuals who picked up arms and enlisted “babies” to fight it to advance their own selfish political agendas lacked the vision, the credibility and capability to govern a country such as Liberia that lacks everything imaginable to sustain its population.

     Like any group of people, Liberians want peace and prosperity. Liberians also deserves a patriotic and compassionate leader with a good heart and awesome listening and savvy political and people skills to move that country forward – a selfless leader who is ready to advance a practical agenda that improves services, infrastructure, and also improves the lives of its impoverished population.

     I did not support the civil war, and I am not one of those Liberians who’s willing to forgive the criminals and psychotic killers who used “liberation” as a pretext to plunder and commit cold-blooded atrocities against innocent Liberians during a terror campaign that destroyed lives and an entire country, just to appease the criminals.

     This article is not about blaming only Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for helping to destroy Liberia, and for helping to kill innocent Liberians, but is intended to echo the clarion calls Liberians continue to make – that those individuals who were cited by the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC), in its final report for their heinous participation in the civil war should pay some kind of price for what they did.

     I never supported the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), but have written critically and extensively on this page about the commission’s shortcomings, always questioning the public bickering and incivility, the commission’s reason for being and obvious lacked of enforcement power to prosecute, and was never fond of individual member’s coziness with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who as a central figure in the civil war should have joined the criminal, Charles Taylor in the Hague today for prosecution.

     Instead, President Sirleaf was given a royal treatment during her carefully choreographed appearance that resembled a press conference rather than a “person of interest” answering to serious charges of crimes committed against humanity after she allegedly encouraged, lobbied and helped raised funds to carry out the civil war when she was an ordinary citizen.

    To make up for its turbulent weeks and months of gathering, and to throw off the hordes of critics who viewed the commission as “incompetent,” “toothless,” and a “waste of time and resources,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) finally, and via its unedited and edited versions of its long-awaited verdict threw out the names of those individuals whom it believes – from eyewitness’ accounts, interviews and corroborated evidence gathered), violated the human rights of Liberian citizens to further their own selfish political aspirations.

     Not surprising to many, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, whose visible pro-war lobbying and financing efforts helped launched the civil war that destroyed the country she hypocritically now govern tops the TRC’s list as one of those who is prohibited from running for office for 30 years.

     Because she’s in the twilight of her life and also in the twilight of her first presidential term in office, one would think this president (for the sake of peace, reconciliation and national unity), would seek genuine peace and reconciliation by honoring and implementing the TRC report even if it means barring her from seeking a second term, just to move the country forward.

     As it now stands, President Sirleaf, who is too big and proud to admit any wrongdoing, and who spoke so forcefully during the presidential campaign and also during her nauguration about adhering to and respecting the “rule of law” in Liberia, pushed the envelope further by turning her back against such fundamental democratic principle as respecting those rule of laws that governs a democratic nation such as Liberia, declaring a run for a second term amid a mountain of controversy regarding her war past, a decision which undermines her tailored image, her credibility, and exposed the hypocrisy that defines her corrupt administration as being on the wrong side of history.

     The intransigence and lack of leadership on the part of President Sirleaf, who has been unreceptive to the TRC report emboldened the former warlords, many of whom once ran for political office, and are also poised to run once again for either the Liberian presidency or other elected national positions. Some members of the Liberian Legislature who are former warlords, and are also friends and political allies of the president and other legislators also opted to play from the ‘political’ scrapbook of President Sirleaf by not honoring the TRC report.

     President Sirleaf has just set a bad precedent that could have national implications at a time when the Liberian people are fuming over the unfair and corrupt legal system that needs complete overhaul; often controlled by a sitting president and government officials often favoring the rich and politically powerful over the oppressed, poor and politically unconnected Liberians for over a century. 

     Maneuverings of this kind is not what one expects from a statesman, because a statesman or woman will not risks throwing a country into turmoil to achieve his/her own selfish interest, because what defines a leader is not the insensitive pursuit of personal political goals at the expense of the citizenry, but putting aside those personal political goals to advance a nation’s interests, certainly can separate the good from the bad ones.

    Even though I never supported the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the commission had a national mandate since 2005, to investigate “gross human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law as well as abuses that occurred, including massacres, sexual violations, murder, extra-judicial killings and economic crimes, such as exploitation of natural or public resources to perpetuate armed conflicts, during the period January 1979 to October 14, 2003.”    

     With such a tasks, however, those of us who were never fond of the commission listened to and accepted some of its findings since time, energy and national resources were appropriated and spent to carry out its deliberations, with the hopes of implementing the report that produced years of testimonies and a national debate that got the attention of the Liberian people and the international community.

     Now that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), has rendered both its unedited and edited versions of its long-awaited verdict, which chronicled the cold and calculated atrocities of the civil war incriminating the warlords, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and their co-conspirators for their documented roles, Liberians must fight vigorously to prevent them from running for elected political office, and must also strive to have them arrested (wherever they are) to face justice in Liberia or in the International Court of Justice in the Hague.