"Not Guilty" Verdict Reveals What's Wrong With Sirleaf Administration 

Saturday, May 24, 2008

   By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh 

     Charles Julu and Andrew Dorbor finally proved their innocence in a court of law in Monrovia recently, a little over a year after the duo, together with George Koukou were arrested and charged with treason and jailed after an informant told the government the individuals were conspiring to overthrow the Sirleaf administration.

     The informant is Jucontee T. Woewiyu, a sleazy guy once known in political circles for his ties to both Presidents Sirleaf and Taylor; the former when she was planning a run for the Executive Mansion, a disturbing alliance Woewiyu would later chronicle in an August 30, 2005 memo about Ms. Sirleaf’s support of the war and her all out efforts to raze, and burn down Monrovia and kill its innocent citizens just to be president; and the latter whom Woewiyu served faithfully as Defense Minister and Senator in his National Patriotic Party until Mr. Taylor came crashing down in shame, and disgraced for crimes he committed against humanity.

     All of this should have served as a warning to the ruling Unity Party and the Sirleaf administration when Woewiyu came forward with his uncorroborated story of an attempted coup to overthrow her government, which the administration pushed forward for a trial, anyway, a story Woewiyu later recanted after the damage was already done to Koukou, Julu and Dorbor, all of whom denied the charges against them during a bizarre court trial laced with charges of alleged bribery, attempted bribery and interference by the government to get an indictment.

     George Koukou               J. T. Woewiyu Dorbor (left) and Julu celebrates verdict                                   

With the country still reeling from over a decade of senseless bloodletting, which started after the killing of a sitting president in 1980, only to later take on an ethnic tone that spilled over into a senseless civil war that took the life of another president, any talk of yet another violent act that advocates the overthrowing of a government in Liberia with the possibility of the ordeal spilling over into another civil war is hard to swallow, and made a whole lot of people nervous.

     Such a violent history of civil unrest cannot be taken lightly, especially the kind of history that destroyed Liberia and was once again in the making if the trio had being put on trial and found guilty on trumped-up charges, executed or incarcerated for life by a judicial system most Liberians don’t even trust only to realize years later that they were innocent in the first place, and that their ill-treatment was a result of ethnic profiling.

     This is not about defending Julu, whom together with Koukou and Dorbor are not angels, and would have difficulty getting nominated for medals for good behavior because of the character flaws in their respective lives. This is about defending the judicial process, defending the Constitution and halting presidential arrogance and abuse of power.

     However, with such a history of reckless adventurism, there is no way one could say Charles Julu is incapable of planning a coup d’ tat to overthrow the government of President Sirleaf or any President of Liberia, since he once attempted similar act against another government in the early 1990s, and is believed to have committed acts of indiscriminate killings of innocent Liberians during the civil war.

     Had the government proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and corroborated it with convincing evidence that tied the men to the crime, it would be in the interests of the country to put the individuals to death by whatever means; or put them behind bars for life if they were found guilty, since their reckless and selfish attempt was intended to undermine the Liberian nation and cause untold suffering and deaths to its people.

      However, before he ever could be put on trial, former Speaker of the disgraced Gyude Bryant interim government, George Koukou, was somehow given a presidential pardon in January 2007, “in the spirit of national reconciliation” the president said, a courtesy that was never offered to co-conspirators Julu and Dorbor since all of the individuals were also part of the alleged conspiracy that was supposedly hatched both in Monrovia and in neighboring Ivory Coast.

     Aware of the explosive nature of the tsunami-like mess that faced her government, President Sirleaf, who did not want to appear weak when she was presented with this case came close to inflaming the fragile peace in the country by repeating the mistakes of Doe and Taylor, known to target would-be or imaginary political enemies for revenge rather than discussing substantive issues with those so-called political enemies to reach a peaceful resolution to whatever crisis that divides them. As a result, Doe and Taylor’s relationship with most Liberians and the citizens of Nimba and Grand Gedeh counties was far from being warm, often resembling political pandering and exploitation rather than actual affection.

      Like her dishonorable predecessors who were known to manufacture imaginary “coup plotters” to keep their political foes away just to remain in power indefinitely, the sudden arrest of these individuals, their exoneration and the unexplained pardon given to George Koukou in the wake of the historic trial, proves Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is not far from making history of her own to be like Doe and Taylor.

     That’s because the arrest, detention, presidential pardon and the subsequent court trial of Koukou, Julu and Dorbor don’t make any sense why the men were targeted in the first place by an administration that speaks so highly of bringing civility and the rule of law into the political process, yet stooped so low it seems the administration wants to turn the clock back to the oppressive years of intimidation, harassment, fear and failure.

      It also shows a paranoid president so out of touch with reality, forgets the virulent politics on the ground only to engage in ethnic profiling when she arrested and jailed the sons from the most explosive regions of Liberia, to prove a case that did not exist.

      Even though Julu and Dorbor were exonerated in the court of law by their peers for their alleged crimes against the state, their acquittal did not sit well with the president whose outburst, “Go and sin no more” taunts the judicial process and the individuals, and is indicative of Liberian presidents whose excessive power and mockery of the process often ridicules the courts and undermines the judges when the verdict don’t go their way.

    At a time when Liberians should be celebrating anything that resembles success, Justice Minister Philip A.Z. Banks added to the controversy after losing the trial by referring to Judge Peter W. Gbenewelleh “as not competent,” forgetting to understand that the one who’s competent in this matter is not Mr. Banks but the defense lawyer who outmaneuvered the highly educated Banks; and the Judge who did his best to uphold the Constitution of the land in this highly publicized political trial.   

     Where is the Liberian National Bar Association when we needed them?