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Assets
Freeze Act deserves urgent legislative attention
Saturday,
August 25, 2007
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
Since
his main reasons for helping to fatally overthrow a
government in 1980, was to right the wrong of the
past, I expected the new head of state, Samuel Kanyon
Doe to do the right thing across the board by first
investigating and later freezing the ill-gotten assets
of former presidents and government officials found guilty in the court of
law of stealing from the Liberian people.
He did not freeze the assets of all the
Americo-Liberians he ordered executed, nor did he
freeze or seize the assets of others who came before
the executed ones, who were in the forefront of the
criminal, corrupt and oppressive system that denied
basic rights to native Liberians.
I expected Mr. Doe to tell the nation as he
has done on many occasions when he spoke about
nothing, that he was serious about changing the
political landscape and the culture of corruption in
Liberia, which would then mean introducing and
practicing democracy, introducing fairness, improving
the standard of living of the Liberian people and
treating the Liberian people with respect and dignity.
Pres. Sirleaf
Winston Tubman
Samuel Kanyon Doe did not bring fairness to
leadership during his decade in power, and did not
treat the Liberian people with dignity and respect,
all of which he and his men shoved through the windows
of the Executive Mansion immediately after we got to
know them as our new leaders.
Mr. Doe did not freeze the assets of
Liberia’s longest-serving leader William V. S.
Tubman, whom many thought should have gotten the wrath
of the non-enlisted men even in death because it was
widely reported that the late president Tubman owned
many homes in Monrovia and in his hometown of Harper,
and allegedly stole from the Liberian people and
stashed the bulk of his wealth in foreign bank
accounts.
President Tubman was the only Liberian
leader to ever own a yacht, a zoo (with countless
exotic animals on his farm at the time), and an
airline. An airline? Do you all remember the Liberian
National Airways (LNA)? That airline was supposed to
be the property of the Liberian government but was
actually the private money making machine of a
president who was fearful of flying in airplanes.
Up to this day, the Liberian people don’t
know how much of their money Mr. Tubman put away in foreign banks during his 27-year reign as the
undisputed leader of Liberia.
That is because successive Liberian
presidents since Tubman did not pursue Tubman’s
wealth as part of the national recovery effort because
those former Liberian leaders, who perhaps considered
the Liberian treasury as their personal ATM, dared
throw any stones at their own or they too would be cited
for economic crimes.
The rise and fall of Charles Taylor, who is
now sitting in a European prison for crimes against
humanity, and the runaway corruption in the Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf administration brought to light the
issue of corruption in government and what to do about
it in this time of peace, reconciliation and national
development.
As the international court trial against
Taylor looms, there is talk in some quarters about an
attempt to go after the funds he allegedly stole from
the Liberian government and people.
But why go after only Charles Taylor’s
stolen wealth and not the stolen wealth of the other
warlords, former presidents and interim presidents
before and after him who are rumored to have stolen
and depleted the coffers of the national treasury when they controlled the entire
country?
I am not an apologist of Charles Taylor
nor am I his spokesman. In fact I want Taylor to be
put on trial; and if found guilty should rot in prison
and the keys to his cell be thrown into the Atlantic
Ocean.
My concern here is about fairness, because
with fairness there is confidence in any policy put in
place intended to change the hearts and habits of
people who are expected to abide by those policies in a
civilized society, because fairness in this case can spell either
forgiveness or reconciliation if the participants
genuinely craves lasting peace.
However, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, acting
presidential reportedly sent to the national
Legislature what is dubbed the “Asset Freeze Bill”
she or her office did not inspire but is based on a
United Nations Security Council resolution intended
for the state to seize the assets of those believed to
have stolen from the Liberian nation and people.
While it is true that the United Nations
involvement in today’s Liberia is not about digging
into the country’s shameful political past, the
blatant mockery of democracy in Liberia over the
years, and the obvious lack of visionary leadership
brought on us by our nation’s corrupt former
dictatorial presidents, our own investigation of the Liberian
crisis is a test of independence, which should also be
a
genuine attempt to dig deep into the root cause of the
problem in order to find lasting peace and reconciliation, and
is not intended for us to dance around the issues by leaving key players out
of the entire ordeal, while focusing on a lone
individual we believed to be the cause of Liberia’s
age-old crisis that has been around for almost two
centuries.
Charles Taylor, who is a main player in
this crisis is a product of the crisis and the wicked
system he set out to defend and bring back, while
Samuel Kanyon Doe who is a victim, and whose rise to
political leadership came about when he avenged the
century-old mistreatment of his people, took the
crisis to another level when he refused to end his
ten-year despotic regime.
Samuel Kanyon Doe is dead, while Charles McArthur
Taylor is in jail. The former rebel leaders are still
around and untouched running for any office that
resembles the presidency. Lost in the drama is the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission still trying to
find a sense of direction.
Even though the former presidents before
Taylor are not with us now, it will be fair to have an
investigation done into their finances the same way
Charles Taylor’s bank accounts are or will be
investigated. And if possible, all the former
president’s properties, local and overseas bank accounts should be frozen,
seized and turned over to the Liberian people.
All of this about freezing the assets of
government officials did not make any sense to former
presidential candidate Winston Tubman, who reportedly
spoke publicly from his position as a lawyer against
the yet to be approved bill and concluded that it was
“sweeping.”
How sweeping can this bill, which is
intended to investigate, freeze and possibly recover money and
natural resources from the wrongful ‘owner’ to be
returned to the rightful owners, the Liberian people
be when it is a drastic attempt to not only recover
assets, but to send a resounding message to future presidents and
government officials that the old ways of running
government and stealing from the national treasury
will no longer be accepted, and that any funds stolen
will be pursued and the criminals behind the acts will
be caught and prosecuted?
The bill is far from anything sweeping
because it did not go from 1944 to 2007, from the
administration of William V.S. Tubman to Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf, to investigate and recover money, lands and
natural resources stolen by former presidents and
officials of government. The national Legislature
needs to quickly jump on this bill to make the
Liberian people proud, because by passing this bill,
the lawmakers would separate themselves from their
corrupt, spineless and often sycophantic predecessors
whose mind boggling policies got us in the mess we are
in today.
Even though President Sirleaf is not passionate
and emotionally attached to the legislation, and is
only reacting and responding to the demands of the
world body, as a former presidential candidate and one
who wants to be taken seriously in national politics,
it would have been politically prudent for Mr. Tubman
to echo the sentiments of the Sirleaf administration
or the United Nations by going a step further
regarding the freezing of stolen assets by former
presidents and officials of government.
If Winston Tubman has any future plans for
another presidential run in 2012, hiding behind
legalese on this very sensitive national issue will
not help his chances but will seriously question his
commitment to ending corruption in government by any
means.
Known to miscalculate politically, Winston
Tubman thought he was scoring political points during
the 2005 national elections when he jumped from the
notoriously unpopular True Whig Party (TWP), to
Doe’s National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL).
The result was a failed national presidential campaign.
Another bad start for Winston, isn't it?
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