By Joe Noutoua Wandah/Media Advocate/Contributing Writer
The Armed forces of Liberia (AFL) has given a two-week ultimatum (which is almost over) to illegal squatters in and around the 72rd military barracks in Japan freeway near Monrovia.
Occupants of the army’s property are to vacate, after nearly four decades of squatting following the removal of the Samuel K. Doe regime by the NPFL rebel war.
Privileged information, available to this writer reveal that these parcels of land were acquired by the them military junta for so purpose of decentralizing the men and women in armed within the Armed forces of Liberia which was at the time at the Barclay training center, Camp Namah, Todoe to name just a few with about fewer members of the Force.
Upon acquiring these parcels of land, housing units were built to accommodate those enlisted men and women alongside their respective families. At that time only military activities including armour cars, military trucks, exercise activities were visible to passers-by and civilian’s apart from family members of those military men and women were not insight nearer the military facilities!
The Author, Joe Noutoua Wandah
Fast forward, when Liberia’s killing spreed started in the later part of the 1980s with those then members of the Armed forces of Liberia deeply involved with tho carnage against the civilian population! And with forces of the invading ratage rebel groups fast approaching those largest cities within Liberia soldiers of the then Armed forces of Liberia retreated from major counties military camps within the country-side especially those of the Krahn tribal group to the Barclay training center which were the major safe haven for retreating soldier’s and their surviving spouses!
The 72nd military barrack then turn to refuge center for displayed civilians from either side of those fighting groups; be it the then Armed forces of Liberia or the invading rampaging rebels groups heading for Monrovia the capital city which was the target!
Displaced people, and those who were property’s owners living adjacent the 72nd military barrack took advantage of the absence of the military men and women who retreated to safety’s at the Barclay training center and others who fled the country to erect illegal structures alongside these housing units for the force!
After a semblance of peace shows it head, due to the cessation of hostilities with the interim arrangement then in Banjul the Gambia which brought the professor Dr. Amos Claudia Sawyer as head of this interim body which was poised to bring Liberians to multi-party democracy. Almost all of these illegal occupants of the 72nd military barrack took advantage of the silence from the property’s owners which is the AFL due to her role as a fiction within the Liberian civil crisis which led to the dissolution of the Armed forces of Liberia at the time pending restructuring of the force!
Those Illegal occupants of the AFL land who took advantage of the absence of the personnel of the Armed forces of Liberia prepared for themselves fake documents to legitimized their claim to the ownership of these illegal occupied properties of the AFL!
After total democracy, returns to Liberia with the ushering in of an elected Government yet without the proper reconstruction of the Armed forces of Liberia illegal occupants without regards to the rules of laws took advantage of these prevailing circumstances to build more illegal structures on these land and getting fake documentation from unauthorized sources!
It’s also alleged that the former regime paid illegal occupants as a means of relocating them to relinquish the properties of the AFL but they refused to leave from those properties in question that the restructure AFL has find it more expedient to reclaim their land in order to provide proper living facilities for those enlisted men and women including their spouses to have a good environment with their just properties for the betterment of their men and women!
With the exodus of illegal occupants from the AFL property Liberians look forward to a ultra-modern facilities for these enlisted men and women including better high rise buildings, community park with all recreational facilities to accommodate the general public.
The public must be perporly educated to respect public facilities and be made to understand that properties should at all times be off limit with legal remedies for any violator!
Again, I want to in this public manner command the leadership of the Armed forces of Liberia for their maturity in handling these evictions of illegal occupants on their properties with any protestations as has been the case in the everyday lives of Liberians!