FLASHBACK: Sen. Johnson and Pres. Weah in jubilant mood after the 2017 elections
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
Monrovia- Nimba County Senator and former Liberian warlord, Prince Johnson has challenged the sanctions imposed on him by the United States Department of Treasury.
The United States Embassy in Monrovia on Thursday, December 9, 2020 announced that the
“Prince Yormie Johnson is a former warlord and current member of the Liberian Senate. He is the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Security, Defense, Intelligence, and Veteran Affairs. In 1990, he was responsible for the murder of former Liberian President Samuel Doe, and Johnson is named in Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Report as having committed atrocities during the country’s first civil war,” the US statement said.
Former Field Marshall Prince Y. Johnson
But in an interview with www.newspublictrust.com at the weekend, he said the action of the U.S. government were inconsistent with due process and lacks the elements of truth and clarity.
Sen. Johnson has defended his past actions and said that his support to the governments of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and current President George Manneh Weah is in the interest of the Liberian people, vowing to “die for Weah”.
Under the sanctions imposed on Johnson, his assets are to be frozen, in addition to being barred from entering the U.S. The action of the American Government, which coincided with the commemoration of International Human Rights Day (Thursday December 9, 2021), are consistent with the Global Magnitsky Act, which authorizes it to sanction those it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the U.S, the Treasury Department said.
Besides human rights abuses, it also accused the senator of corruption and of trading votes for money.
But Sen. Johnson has debunked all of the Americans’ allegations, saying that the report of the US Treasury Department created more questions than answers. At no time, he said, has he ever sold votes or being engaged in acts of corruption to enrich himself.
He said every cent he has ever possessed came from his salary and benefits as lawmaker over the years.
The former leader of the defunct Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) said that he also raised sufficient funds from a book he wrote in Nigeria while in exile on the Rise and Fall of Samuel Doe which, he says, sold close to half a million copies. At no time, he continued, he has ever been in charge of an institution where he controls money.
Sen. Johnson, the former INPFL Field Marshall who is one of Liberia’s war actors recommended for prosecution by the TRC for war crimes and crimes against humanity, said that whenever he backs a presidential candidate in runoff elections, he does so normally through memorandum of understanding and that the only benefits he accrues are for development in his county and job creation for kinsmen.
“Since I supported former president Sirleaf who carried development in my county and now president Weah who is also constructing roads in the county and residents having a stable electricity in their homes.”
The Treasury Department report, he added, fails to state how much money has he eaten and whose money it has been. Johnson also questioned where and how he sold votes when Liberians themselves go to the polls themselves?
He is demanding sufficient evidence backed by video clips to substantiate the sanction against him.
Sen. Johnson has also denied ever receiving money from government ministries and agencies as alleged, and wants any of those institutions to prove otherwise.
He also wants the U.S. government to be clearer and to specifically point out monies he has reportedly stolen.
This is the second time in less than eight months the U.S. is raising the red flag against Senator Johnson over acts of impropriety, after it questioned in May of this year, the Senate’s seriousness after electing him Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, again highlighting “his gross human rights violations” record.