-First Reply to George Mulbah Assertion that the NPP-led Taylor Regime Governed Democratically
By Worlea Saywah Dunah
In a post congratulating President Sirleaf for the launch of her foundation, I opined that Liberia has had only two constitutional and democratic presidents in President Weah and President Sirleaf.
This assertion angered the former NPFL operative and current NPP official, George Mulbah, who among other things accused me of harboring eternal hatred for his organization, the NPFL/NPP; and that I am showing ingratitude to an institution that made numerous sacrifices for Nimba.
I never knew I was to live long enough to hear of ingratitude to the NPFL/NPP, a directionless, misguided blood thirsty armed group that callously distorted my future, pillaged the youth of Liberia, made Liberia to be a byword for evil in the world.
At best, NPFL/NPP gave birth to abuse of children by drugging and using them to carry arms and commit atrocities which pitiful remnants are today called ‘zogos’; a group that even when given state power by a war weary population instituted sheer lawlessness, banditry and violence on Liberian people as its mode of governance. It went further in showcasing its patent over government manufactured chaos and became a regional menace, exporting same violence and destabilizing peaceful neighboring countries within the Mano river basin.
I find it totally horrible, the execrable notion harbored by the likes of Mulbah that one would expect me to associate and be grateful to such a terrible organization. How on earth should any rational thinker and critical minded person will expect me, Worlea Saywah Dunah or my colleagues of the same philosophical and moral obligation to humanity be grateful to the NPFL/NPP? As a rebel group, NPFL was never a liberation force. True to its character and mission, it destroyed the Mount Coffee Hydro Plant and other such infrastructure as though they were party to the conflict. As a government, the transmogrified NPFL instituted a terror regime characterized by proliferation of killing groups such as ATU,SOD, Demon Forces etc. Its outstanding achievements? The Extra judicial killings of even its own ministers and opposition amongst many others egregious human rights abuses. With his desire and insatiability for the commission of crimes, he raised his profile for committing crimes against humanity and regional destabilization for which its supremo who rightly described himself as the ‘MOST MISCHIVIOUS PRESIDENT’ in Liberia history sits shackled as a common prisoner in Europe.
This too is Liberia yaa!!! And yes, George whilst you were happily participating in this nightmarish organization regimes I firstly was teaching kids to be good citizens and later left student politics to help form the Avant-garde New DEAL Movement which frontally engaged that rogue regime within the scope of law.
And yes because this too is Liberia, I believe the words of Mariamu Jalieba, “that God beating them so” rightly applied to George Mulbah as well. So desperate to find a spot of light by enumerating legislation passed. Sorry, George, the test of democratic governance is rule of law, good governance and accountability. Passing laws that you don’t respect, while you loot the resources and donor monies and killed your own citizens as animals in the jungle are not attributes of democratic government.
Remember Samuel Dokie, his wife, his sister-in-law and his driver arrested at Gbarnga security check point? They were commandeered, brought to Monrovia and tortured at Taylor’s residence. Torturing one’s citizens to death and burning them in the rubber farm is far alien to a democratic government credential. Since you were a sitting Assistant Minister in that government and now a lawyer can you tell this generation what happened to the killers of the Dokie family and what your so-called ‘democratic government of NPP ‘did by way of justice; and also tell our children which court convicted the Dokie family, Ministers Yormie and Vaye and all those shot dead on the orders of your ‘democratic President Taylor’ and what were their charges and which laws they violated?
Tenets of Democratic Elections
The election of 1997 which is Mulbah’s only pole in his assertion that Charles Taylor was a democratic president requires attention urgently. Elections in Liberia and the world over is described as democratic when it if free, fair and conducted under conditions where citizens are not intimidated and threatened in any way.
Historically, 1997 was like 1985 as just like in the latter where the late Col Harrison Pennue said if Doe doesn’t win he will overthrow any government to reinstall Doe, the former – the 1997 election was equally threatened by Charles Taylor. He threatened that there will be only one result and followed up his threat with his thugs denying other candidates from accessing his controlled areas. His military machines was intact, in fact hidden arms including a 40 barrel missile launcher was discovered hidden near the Ivory Coast-Liberia border.
One cardinal principle of democratic elections is freedom from fear. The NPFL largely had their militia organized contrary to the peace accord and threatened that any outcome that was unfavorable to the NPP would lead to another round of bloodshed. After seven years of terror the war wearied population were fearful and also knew that Charles Taylor always execute his threats and knew the existence of his militia who were everywhere issuing these threats in every community, town, village and hamlets.
Truly Charles Taylor campaign song manifested to the world the true reason for the victory as the war weary people sang in irony: ‘YOU KILL MY MA, YOU KILL MY PA, I’LL VOTE FOR YOU’! If someone is voting for you not because of your platform but because you killed their mothers (Ma) and fathers(Pa) then they did so driven by fear, knowing that you callously killed their parents and would not hesitate to kill them if you were not voted.
The fact that even the remnants of President Doe forces in the communities around that Barclay Training Center Military Barracks which is predominantly soldiers who fought against NPFL overwhelmingly voted for Charles Taylor at the polling centers in the barracks is the iron proof that Liberians were just tired of wars, bloodshed and wanted to go on with their lives. So they took the gamble not based on free will but again did so in the hope of bringing their sorrow to an end by naively believing that the solution to the our national plight was an NPP victory, the contrast that history harshly rebuked.
Another cornerstone of democratic elections is a level playing field for all aspirants, this too was absent in 1997. Charles Taylor militia disrupted the movements and rallies of others and denied access to most part of Liberia which was under his control; and the local government authorities who were all appointed by the illegal Gbarnga NPRAG government denied the use of public meeting places to other candidates across their controlled areas. This writer on the campaign in Nimba was severely threatened, parents threatened that he could not post the UPP senatorial candidates, Cllr. Cooper Kruah and Johnson Gwaikolo placards in Nimba for safety of his family in 1997.
Fundamentally too, democratic elections must be as per the dictate of the constitution of the country, this too the elections of 1997 did not meet. The 1997 elections were conducted under system called Proportional Representation which is contrary to Liberia’s constitution which dictates that our legislature is elected in a direct member district process. Contrary to the constitution, the percentage of votes won by a presidential candidate determined the number of seats in the legislature; thus NPP with 85% and counting took iron control of the legislature.
The legislature did not reflect the voters preferences as the NPP picked candidates from areas that it did not win and left out candidates in areas where it won by over 90%. For example the NPP won over 95% in Nimba giving it a clean sweep to own all the eleven seats in Nimba but interestingly dropped three representatives seats in Nimba from its rooster which seats were taken by parties that did not even win 1% in the county.
There were also wide distortions of representations at the House of Representatives as the Elections Commission changed the rules from PR Closed List System as per the candidates registration to the PR Open List System after the results to allow the NPP to cherry pick seats when at the time of registration of candidates, political parties were instructed to submit as per constituency using the same 1985 matrix as in a PR Closed List System. Candidates who were registered in other constituencies were selected by their party to represent constituencies. A cruel example was that the current electoral district #8 in the Mano area of Saclepea-Mah District in Nimba was represented by Ernest Yenglee of UPP who was registered for the current electoral district #3 and is a native of Gbehlay-Geh District all because instead of taking all of the Nimba seats, the NPP was cherry picking for political reasons and so the others who took seats after the NPP found themselves restricted after the NPP enjoyed the pick of 85%.
Governance, Not Elections Determines a Democratic President
Governance, the day to day running of the state by exclusive adherence to the constitution, statutes and other laws of the land, is the single criterion for a government and a President to be described as a democratic president. Elections is a one day opinion poll which even if conducted by the highest standard cannot substitute democratic governance. And history is replete with leaders who ascended to state power in democratic elections and became lawless dictator; and in this category falls Adolf Hitler, the worst dictator and man who committed the Jewish holocaust, slaughtering six million Jews in Europe and plunged the world into a war which holds the records of the largest destruction of human lives.
Like Hitler, Charles Taylor led NPP government knew no boundary in lawlessness, committing atrocities in Liberia and in foreign parts. The institutionalization of a de facto military regime after the elections by abuse of executive powers to create terror groups like SOD, ATU,DEMON FORCES etc which were used exclusively to terrorize Liberians was a sad departure; at the same time Charles Taylor engaged in extra judicial killings of citizens including its own officials namely cabinet ministers Yormie and Vaye. The NPP-led government also exported the same terror into neighboring countries resulting bloody consequences for which crimes its leader sits in a British dock.
As regards the argument of the passage of good laws by the NPP-led government I find disingenuous. The government was not operating by the laws of the land; while it passed a beautiful Central Bank aAct as you stated, it was killing innocent people like the Dokie family; when it created the national oil company by law, at the same time created the notorious Gbatala base where children were converted into killing machines outside of the Armed Forces of Liberia. The disservice to Liberia lies in your noxious argument that the creation of the Central Bank and oil company are proof of a democratic governance over and against the irrefutable fact that the NPP-led regime systematically and actively terrorized the population and totally militarized the state lawlessly using its irregular forces and abandoned all tenets of a democratic society which is well documented.
Again I freely insist that scouring through the history of Liberia and scientific evaluation by the requirements of the Constitution of Liberia of 1986 and statutes which lay down in simple terms the tenets of democratic governance in Liberia, Charles Taylor, the most brutal and self-declared most mischievous President in our history does not qualified as a democratic president. A democratic government governs by all of the laws of the land; and it is well established that the NPP-led government was pathetically lawless, brutal and instituted a terror rule; and thus I submit, re-affirming, that Liberia’s only two democratic Presidents are George Manneh Weah and his predecessor Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Worlea-Saywah Dunah served from 2005 to 2018 in the House of Representatives rising to Chair the powerful Judiciary Committee and becoming Head of Delegation to the ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly; served as Rapporteur on Elections and Political Party Financing for the ACP Group. Currently he is a practicing lawyer at the Century Law Offices in Monrovia and can be contacted at saywahd@yahoo.com