Weeks After Bloody Violence Erupted There
PHOTO: STAND’S Chairman, Mulbah Morlu , speaking in Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County
PHOTO: By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
Mulbah Morlu, the former Chairman of the former ruling party, CDC, who resigned from the party after the President Joseph Boakai’s Unity Party took office last January, now head a new civil society organization, the Solidarity Trust for A New Day (STAND).
The Coalition for Democratic Change of ex-President George Manneh Weah narrowly lost the November 14, 2023 presidential runoff election, which ended their hope of getting a second six-year term of office.
Mr. Morlu has told Journalists that his group has ended a one-day fact-finding visit to Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County, where a recent protest at the Bea Mountain mining company turned bloody, leaving at least two persons dead, after the Liberia National Police moved in.
During the visit, he said STAND deployed about two dozen human rights investigators and held engagements with women, youths and elders of Kinjor.
Following the engagement, STAND’s National Chairman, Mulbah Morlu, who recently resigned as the National Chairman of the CDC, apologized to the residents of Kinjor for the failure of the CDC-led government to pressurize the Bea Mountain Mining Company in implementing its side of the mineral development agreement.
The burnt structure of the police deport in Kinkor, Grand Cape Mount County
“Currently, I am no more Chairman of the CDC,” he said; adding: “I must apologized for the Weah-led government not taking notice of alleged bad labor practices and other forms of human rights violations allegedly committed by the company and the Liberia National Police in the past.
According to him, he is not in Kinjor on behalf of the CDC or the current government but rather representing a CSO known and styled as ‘STAND’.
“First of all, I want expressed our deepest condolences for the deaths inflicted you by officers of the Liberia National Police.”
Mr. Morlu said the visit is a part of the organization’s quest to seek the interests of the ordinary people and workers who have experienced bad labor practice at the hands of the Bea Mountain Mining Company.
The fact-finding visit of STAND followed a wild-cat demonstration by residents in which three persons were killed and 11 others injured as a result of by the Liberia National Police to curb the protest.
The incident led to destruction of the Police Deport and barrack in Kinjor , the local radio station and several private properties.
Following the incident, President Joseph Boakai then ordered officers of the Liberia National Police and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia withdrawn from all concession areas.
Commenting further, “as a part of the fact-finding mission,” he went on, “over two dozens of human rights investigators have ascertaining the fact surrounding the demonstration, the number of persons injured and killed.”
According to him, SYAND is in the Kinjor to see whether or nor the company has begun implementing some of the demands of the residents which sparked the demonstration.
Morlu explained that STAND also intends to visit others concession communities, including the scene in which ten persons were in Rivercess County.