PHOTO: L-R, Senators Johnson and Sherman
By William Selmah, wselmah@gmail.com
A prominent Liberian human rights advocate is calling on Grand Cape Mount County Senator Varney Sherman to resign as Chair of the Judiciary Committee.
This comes after Nimba County Senator Prince Y. Johnson resigned his post as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Defense, Intelligence and Veteran Affairs, amid mounting pressure from U.S. Government and civil society organizations over his wartime past.
Sen. Johnson, who is a former Liberian warlord, resigned on Monday after mounting public outcry against his election to the post by fellow senators on grounds that as one labelled a notorious perpetrator during the country’s civil war, it undermined justice and efforts to address the country’s war time atrocities.
The United States Government through its embassy in Monrovia specifically spoke against the leadership of the senate for awarding someone with a questionable person to such sensitive post saying it undermined efforts to make people to account for their actions.
Grand Cape Mount County Senator Varney Sherman’s election as head of the Judiciary and Human Rights Committee was similarly questioned by Washington.
That was followed by widespread condemnations of the from civil society institutions with calls for the leadership of the Senate to reconsider the election of the two to the sensitive positions.
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Civil Society Advocacy Platform of Liberia Adama Dempster has welcomed Senator Johnson’s resignation saying it is in adherence to a recommendation of the UN Concluding Observation on Liberia that those listed as having committed war crimes in Liberia be barred from holding public offices.
Rights Advocate Adama Dempster
“So on the basis of this, we earlier took on the advocacy to call on the leadership of the senate to reject the election of Senators Johnson Sherman as head of its Committees on Defense, Intelligence and Veteran Affairs and Judiciary and Human Rights Respectively. We want to use this occasion to call on others indicted for their role in civil war and are in government to draw on the action of the senator to respect human rights by stepping down”, Dempster noted.
He believes that by so doing Liberia would be sending a positive message throughout the length and breadth of the country and the rest of the world about its preparedness to hold people to account for their war time atrocities.
He the used the occasion to call on Senator Sherman to similarly resign his post in the senate to clear his name, saying “that could give him the face to represent the people of Liberia”.