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Get rid of the Ministry of Information
Thursday,
May 17, 2007
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
Right
after he and his colleagues forced their way into the
Executive Mansion in 1980, after a bloody coup d’
tat that suddenly changed the political landscape of
Liberia, the late President Samuel Kanyon Doe got the
attention of the Liberian people when he quickly
spelled out his many reasons for seizing state power.
Injustice, inequality and nepotism in the
administration he dethroned seemed to be the chorus of
the season, and he went on to offer many other reasons
for his fatal adventure by using his newfound power to
eliminate the much-hated spy network known to all as
public relations officer (PRO), a vestige of the
dictatorial era used conveniently by his predecessors
to strangle political rivals and to hold on to power
indefinitely.
The Public Relations Officer system was cruel
and bogus, insensitive and anti-Liberian, while its
benefactors were not only selfish; they were also
anti-intellectual and anti-democracy.
The system held Liberians back and intimidated
countless others, who either were engaged in politics
at the time or wanted to engage in politics, but
couldn’t because they did not know who was watching
them because Liberia was a police state.
Those leaders pitted friends against friends,
brothers against brothers and neighbors against
neighbors, by sneaking out and telling the president
or local authorities what someone allegedly said or
did not say about the president all in the name of
protecting the president and working to keep him in
power for life.
While Mr. Doe was able to eliminate the public
relations officer’s system, he did not demolish its
twin, the Ministry of Information, an institution that
is no better than the dreaded public relations
network, which survived by advancing the agenda of the
president and remained, even today as we Liberians
continued to talk incessantly about healing the wounds
left us by the civil war.
The Ministry of Information established by an
Act of Legislature in 1965, by some kind of
“executive law of 1972,” is a propaganda machine
and one of the oldest bureaucracies in the country.
It is not only an extension of the state’s
security apparatus, its Public Affairs Division,
according to the cleric-turned Minister of Information
Laurence Bropleh, serves as the “nerve center of
government information and dissemination registered
and accredited 600 foreign journalists; about 40
percent of these journalists representing various
media organizations in the United States of America,
Europe.”
As I perused through the January 1, 2006 –
December 31, 2006 Annual Report and Executive Summary
of the Ministry of Information written by Mr. Bropleh,
I learned that the New Liberia newspaper established
in 1978, which is also another arm of the ministry’s
propaganda wing “published 29 regular and three
special editions during the period under review.”
Interestingly, the New Liberia newspaper came
about during the administration of the late President
William R. Tolbert Jr., who was then feeling the heat
of rising political resistance, desperately needed
another mouthpiece as if he did not have such an
avenue to tell his story.
However, the editorial policy of the New
Liberia, according to Bropleh “remains the same to
promote, interpret, analyze and explain government
policies, programmes and activities for public
understanding and acceptance, and to publish the
views, comments and suggestions of the public for
government’s attention and action, and countering
misinformation, distortions and negative propaganda
about the government and its functionaries.”
Do
we really need a Ministry of Information to
disseminate propaganda also for an Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf government that prides itself as transparent
and accountable to the Liberian people?
If yes, then what's the role of the state-run Radio
Station, Liberian Broadcasting System? If the role of
the Ministry of Information is to accredit foreign
journalists as Mr. Bropleh mentioned, then what is the
role of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL)? What's the
role for the Office of the Press Secretary of the
President? And how does
the Ministry of Information help the Liberian people
go from point A to point B in their daily
activities?
If
Liberia is a democratic republic, then why keep a
ministry whose mission is to undermine the aspirations
of the people, just like totalitarian governments such
as North Korea and the People's Republic of China?
As we all know by now, the Ministry of Information and
its other organs shamelessly and unprofessionally
promoted the undemocratic governments of Tubman,
Tolbert, Doe and Taylor, in the wake of human rights
abuse perpetrated against the Liberian people when the
gentlemen were president.
However, the Liberian people did not expect this new
government of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, which speaks
enthusiastically about 'putting Liberia on the map' to
remind them of the past, while using the same old
methods, tactics and propaganda from the Ministry of
Information to silence its political critics.
In
this era of optimism and confidence-building, the
Johnson-Sirleaf administration failed the Liberian
people when she retained the symbols of oppression, a
police state and the nuance of propaganda writing from
the slave days of 1944, when President Tubman ran the
nation like his farm, or 1972, 1980 or 1997, when the
nation's successive dictatorial leaders were only
concerned with remaining in power than showing true
leadership to improve the lives of the Liberian
people.
The recent controversy about censorship that showed up
when President Sirleaf's Justice and Information
Ministers (with the endorsement of the president),
jumped all over the Independent Newspaper and shut it
down for publishing a photo of presidential friend
Willis Knuckles' threesome sex act, or when political
activist Mulbah Morlu was detained for attempting to
exercise his right to free speech months ago, are
signs of trouble.
What
make this whole thing so dangerous are the obvious
contradictions and the less than stellar job
performance of the man behind the decisions. How could
a man of God, Laurence Bropleh, with no experience in
media or public relations work as Minister of
Information? And how can this man of God enforced
unjust and draconian laws that oppresses the children
of God?
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf failed a crucial test as a
pro-peace and pro-democracy president (she ran as a
peace, prosperity and democracy candidate),
when she allowed the Information Ministry to remain
open after she won the presidency.
The Ministry of Information shouldn't remain open
because it is anti-democratic and represents and
defends the selfish interests of Liberian presidents,
and not the Liberian people.
Ellen, get rid of the Ministry of Information. The
monster must go!
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