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The
case or no case against Police Inspector General
Beatrice Munah Sieh
Saturday,
September 22, 2007
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
I poured my heart out for Beatrice Munah
Sieh when she was appointed by Pres. Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf in 2006, to be the new chief of police or
Inspector General of the struggling post-civil war
Liberian National Police Force, because I thought her
appointment was historical and a victory for women,
especially indigenous Liberian women, who have come a
long way to fit in and finally be recognized for their
talents instead of their bodies.
President Sirleaf and new Foreign Minister
Olubanke King Akerele and other women who are now
occupying high-profile positions in the Liberian
government today are just an example of the drastic
change we all lived to see, or we never thought we
would ever see in our lifetime; and a tough act to
accept since some of us, for many reasons cannot
accept change.
My admiration for Beatrice Munah Sieh and
her trailblazing role as the first female police chief
in the history of the republic is worth all the kudos,
because of its significance and what it means to other
women for all its worth. No matter the outcome of her
recent troubles, hopefully, Ms. Sieh will recover and
continue to inspire other Liberian women to rise above
their circumstances and be the best they can be in all
their endeavors.
Police Inspector General Munah Sieh
Let it be crystal clear that my support for
Ms. Sieh will in no way stop me from scrutinizing her
if I believe she’s in the wrong; or will it stop me
from criticizing her performance for whatever alleged
crimes she committed in the past, and in Gbarnga that
calls for her firing.
Since she became Police Inspector General,
Beatrice Munah Sieh, who lacks public relations skills is known to speak from her lips instead of her
heart when addressing the press or the community about
important issues. Her obvious lack of public relations
savvy and her penchant for talking first before
thinking got her in trouble before in 2006, when she
naively linked the customary veils Moslem women wear
to terrorism.
Inspector General Sieh is once again cited
for allegedly making incriminating and conclusive
remarks in Gbarnga, regarding scrap iron collector,
Mohamed Sheriff, before Mr. Sheriff ever had the
chance to defend himself concerning the empty shells
authorities found at his residence thought to have
been ammunitions.
With such a history of recklessness in her
public utterances, Ms. Sieh should have left the
public relations aspect of law enforcement to
designated public relations professionals in her
department to do the talking.
Instead, we are left with a police chief,
who, time after is making public relations blunders
only to later return to retract her statements after
the damage is done, which is not helping her image and
the image of the Liberian Police Force she heads.
If Beatrice Munah Sieh violated her
department’s policies by making reckless remarks and
jumping to conclusion regarding the incident
concerning the veils and the incident in Gbarnga, when she
falsely incriminated an innocent Liberian, scrap iron
collector, Mohamed Sheriff after the government
thought to have found stockpile of arms at his
residence later believed to be empty shells, the right
thing to do is exactly what President Sirleaf
instructed: That is to send Ms. Sieh to get
sensitivity training, and also for her to be
re-trained in other areas relevant to her job.
Because it seems the police chief is not
the only person in Liberia who needs to be trained in
the basics of communication, especially the part of
communication that deals with the public. A lot of
people in government and the private sector – from
Administrative Assistants, to secretaries, phone
operators, cab and bus drivers, yanna boys, store
vendors, and many others don’t know how to address
people and don’t have the courtesy in dealing with
the public.
However, if Beatrice Munah Sieh violated the laws of the Republic of Liberia by
not showing professionalism during the July 9,
incident when she was disruptive and fired her weapon
in the air at the National Port Authority, she should
have been placed on administrative leave with pay,
investigated, and if found guilty should have been
relieved of her duties immediately as recommended by
the presidential commission, and not be placed on a
three-month probationary period only to later be
dispatched elsewhere to undergo strategic management
and sensitive training, after it was recommended that
she be fired.
Like others before me have said,
“The president is entitle to whomever she chooses to
work in her government.” That’s because the
president probably trust the individual and have
confidence in his or her professional abilities to
lead that agency or ministry. If the individual under
performs and failed to meet expectations, it is up to
the president to decide the fate of that official of
government.
We can
write all we can; we can appeal to public opinion and
ethnic sentiments all we can, however, if the
president is not willing or ready to do as we asked,
it is not the end of the world because we still can
keep on trying until we get our way.
The
only thing I asked of my colleagues is to exercise a
sense of calmness and fairness in this matter and
other matters, and not rush to emotional judgment and
far out conclusions by playing the ethnic card to make
their point as expressed recently in a LIMANY web site
editorial that suggests “the stigma of collective
guilt was once again on displaced on Mandingoes all
over the country, simply because Mr. Sheriff, the
scrap collector is assumed to be from the Mandingo
ethnic group.”
In this age of worldwide terrorism, the
talk of rebel activities and possible instability in
Liberia, a fragile ceasefire, fragile peace and a
fragile democracy after a civil war that destroyed an
entire country, its people and infrastructure, there
is going to be nervousness on the part of the
government and some overzealous officials to rush to
unprofessional conclusions to interrogate and arrest
anybody in sight who’s believed to have violated the
laws of the Republic of Liberia regarding the storing
of empty ammo shells or anything that resembles empty
shells, the illegal possession of arms, ammunitions
and weapons of mass destruction.
I don’t believe Mr. Sheriff was targeted solely
because he’s a Mandingo. The unfortunate incident
that occurred to Mr. Sheriff in Gbarnga could have
happened to anybody whose backyard was littered with
empty shells of ammunitions, or anything that
resembles empty shells or irons.
Whether what the officials found were empty
shells “made up of assorted pieces of iron” as
presidential spokesman Cyrus Badio acknowledges, or
anything that resembles the real thing, the government
is right to stop and interrogate an Americo-Liberian,
a Mandingo, Kru, Kpelle, Mano, Gbandi, an American or
a Nigerian, anybody, to ascertain the reasons behind
such stockpile of the real or fake material.
Now tell me, which country in the world, in
this era of terrorism will not investigate and arrest
its citizen or foreign residents about empty shells
found in his or her backyard, especially after a
protracted civil war that killed so many people and
destroy a country?
So why turn this thing, a potential
national security mess into an “Us vs. Them” thing
to stir hatred and inflame the passion of the people
so as to engage in another round of unnecessary
bloodbath?
If anything, I would think LIMANY or any
other group would advise their people to be conscious
of the fragile security problem in the country, and
also tell their people to be careful not to violate
the national security laws of the country regarding
the storing of empty shells, ammunitions or any
assorted pieces of iron that could be mistaken for
live ammunitions that could possibly cause alarm in
the country.
My call for fairness is for it to be just that
across the board. Even when our own people are not
doing the right thing we should be courageous enough
to cite them for their wrongdoings, and if possible,
take them to task if we have to. My profound
disagreement in this matter does not mean I am
anti-Mandingo, which is a far cry from reality because
I have gone to bat for causes involving Mandingoes and
other minorities in the past.
While it is true that certain minority
groups in the country often feel mistreated, believing
the wheel of justice is against their collective
interests, we must continue to look at the root cause
of the problem, look at those differences from all
perspectives and not only from the lenses of
ethnicity, then find practical solutions to solving
the problem.
When Mandingo people continues to cry
(ethnic) foul all the time, at some point people will
begin to look at their grievances not with seriousness
but with laughter and mockery, and will continue to
ask “why are these people complaining all the time
thinking they are the only ones who are being
mistreated, when other Liberians are also being
mistreated?”
If we as opinion leaders and advocates of
justice are passionate enough to call for the firing
of a police chief because of remarks she allegedly
made against an ethnic group now and in the past, or
because she violated her department’s code of
conduct, are we not courageous or fair-minded enough
to criticize our own who fought a war and helped
killed over 200,000 Liberians?
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