The TRC Comedy Hour Now Showing At a Pavilion Near You in Monrovia Of Two Soccer Legends

Monday, August 18, 2008    

            By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

Sungbeh

        I don’t know if I have any more tears left to cry, or any reasons to cry, to get angry or laugh at the mockery and ubiquitous circus-like TRC events on display in Monrovia that parades one monster after another on the “judgment” stand in what has become the most sensational, publicity-driven stunt and one-sided non-judicial spectacle to ever occur in the history of the Liberian nation. 

      It is such a scene when the egotistical Alhaji Kromah weeps publicly, or when his former political archrival, the ailing Oscar Quiah begs for forgiveness, or when the cantankerous Chea Cheapoo also begs for forgiveness for allegedly masterminding the execution of his foster father, Joseph Chesson; or when the always vocal and uncompromising H. Boimah Fahnbulleh Jr., who hardly minces a word and did not cry or beg for forgiveness during the hearings, brings up the nation’s inhumane past perpetrated against indigenous Liberians by the Americo-Liberian ruling class.

     Fahnbulleh also spoke out strongly about his father’s political plight as his estranged mother, Mary Brownell apologizes to him in such a public forum "for not trusting his judgment and integrity and the principles he stands for" (as if we care), exposing their family feud and 10-year dirty laundry in public only to think perhaps the individuals were actually displaying their brand of shameless emotions at the nation's expense during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's hearings, as if the individuals were actual contestants auditioning for a spot on a future reality radio or television show in Monrovia.

      I am not going to join those grown men and weep publicly, nor will I ask them to stop asking for forgiveness from the Liberian people - the same ‘non-people’ they once beat, killed and ran out of the country and their homes for no reasons, whatsoever.      

      It was all about “liberation” they told us then but at the end of their so-called ‘liberation’ campaign over 200,000 innocent Liberians lost their precious lives, countless children orphaned, women raped, pregnant women raped and butchered to death, the elderly starved, bastardized and brutalized and turned into mere beggars, the nation raped and its natural resources stolen by those wicked and aimless men whose presence at the hearings make me want to throw up.

Chea Cheapoo                  Pres. Johnson-Sirleaf and Quiah   H. Boimah Fahnbulleh Jr.

                                                            Alhaji Kromah

     I am tough and strong and have done my share of private crying because my people – the Liberian people, who were once caught in the middle of nowhere – on both sides of those treacherous rebel lines during that senseless civil war and held hostage against their will, which took away their humanity and reduced them to resembling a four-legged animal, are now found and struggling to survive in a supposedly free Liberia.

     However, all I am left to wonder this day, in 2008, is whether the tears and calls to forgive we are hearing about from these former rebel commanders are genuine and not acts of reinvention, or are they just remorseful now because some, (like Liberians always say), are “feeling sorry for themselves” at this late stage of their lives as their time on this Earth slowly ticks away, and don’t want to die with the blood of millions dripping from their hands, stained to their vaults and their souls not resting in peace?

      Those same wicked men are now crying and begging for forgiveness as if their victims ever had the chance or the choice to asked to be spare to live and see their children and other family members grow and live in peace, at a time when some of the individuals are walking around the nation untouched, not facing criminal prosecution and are either working for government or the private sector.

     I have written about it before in previous columns that I don’t believe in these TRC hearings, and I don’t have an ounce of confidence in the commission because it lacks morale courage and judgment and the credibility to exercise neutrality. It is a political commission whose members are appointed by the executive branch with presidential oversight responsibilities to find not a moral solution to the crisis, but a political redemptive solution, which is like putting a tourniquet on a bleeding wound to stop the flow of blood, and not actually intended to find a lasting solution to at least solve the problem.

     Had the president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf not been a key player in the civil war that killed millions and disrupted the lives of countless Liberians, it would have been perfect for a neutral president Johnson-Sirleaf to play an engaging role, but not so.

     Even as these hearings take center stage in the nation’s capital, president Sirleaf has been dancing conspicuously around the idea of whether to appear or not to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) before her own handpicked Chairman Jerome Verdier, to testify forcefully and convincingly about her role or no role in a civil war that has since defined Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; and her endless quest for the presidency.

     Another thing: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is mandated to only deal with injustice perpetrated against the Liberian people during the civil war from 1979 through 2003, which is a mockery of the entire reconciliation process.

     However, like others have painfully said, Liberia’s then-Apartheid-like problems did not start in 1979, but from the 1800s, when indigenous Liberians like my grandparents (male members) from both sides of my family, and the parents and grandparents of other indigenous Liberians, who did not have money to pay taxes were chased and uprooted from their villages and made to drink their own urine or the urine of the arresting soldier or tax collector, were made to lie down on their backs and forced to look at the bright sun, whipped, jailed and forced to pay taxes when they were never on the nation’s payroll and were never represented in their own country’s social, political and economic system.

     That’s not all: The slave system rigidly enforced by the Americo-Liberians and their descendants wasn’t only discriminatory, it prevented indigenous Liberians from chasing their dreams, from becoming somebody, from voting, from fully participating in the social, political and economic system, and made indigenous Liberians subservient to those that occupied their land.

     There is no substitute for peace in Liberia at this time. Conversely, there is no substitute for closure, either. In order to have peace and closure, political leaders must act quickly, decisively and with precision, and cannot continue to act as if they are doing the Liberian people a favor.

     With such a painful past, Liberians need genuine peace and closure to seriously put the past behind them to move the country forward.

     The comedy show playing in Monrovia before the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) is too much window-dressing, too deceptive, too shallow, and too funny to heal the nation’s painful wounds.