Can Liberia's Elected Dictator Stay in Power Until 2024?

By Bodioh Siapoe
Windsor Mill, MD
February 9, 2003
 

It depends on a number of factors.

The Taylor administration could stay in power well over 2024 if crimes it commits remain unpunished by Liberians. For instance, last November, the NPP-led government printed ballots to prepare for the October 14 elections this year. Those ballots were deposited in a basement of a building in Butuo, Nimba County, but have since been relocated elsewhere in the country.

If Liberians were to hold any elections this year, with international monitors, the NPP would easily win fraudulently. They would need not be present when ballots are counted because their bogus ballots would replace legitimate votes. No, they won't have present when ballots are counted because those bogus ballots printed last November would give Taylor a second chance as president. And what is frightening is that no one from the political opposition seems concerned about this sad development.

Liberia's mobocrats will never ever hold free, fair and transparent elections because it has lost touch with the masses. One clearly understands why Monrovia is staging wars against the poor Liberian people and using LURD as an excuse. This is government's strategy to win the support of the people who voted for Taylor, who wantonly killed their parents for naked political power and economic greed.

Can Liberia's elected dictatorship perpetuate itself until 2024? Yes, it could stay in power once our relatives - sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles - continue to fight naively to protect a government that enslaves them daily. This enslavement will persist until Liberians tell their relatives to put down those weapons of mass destruction so that Taylor and his family would take them up for their own defense. Until Liberians advise their relatives to either turn those weapons against the dictator or refuse to fight for those jail-breakers, Liberians will reside in exile as refugees.

They Will Grow Old and Wealthy Come 2024
Monrovia's gangsters will grow old and wealthy as Liberia's rulers once atrocities go unresisted. The recent involuntary exile of Journalist Hassan Bility and the reluctant departure from Liberia of Human Rights Activist Tiawon Gongloe are only two classic examples of how determined the Taylor regime is to drive Liberians out of the country. In the two cases mentioned, Liberians have done nothing to resist the consistent human rights abuses of Liberians by Taylor and his killers.

Even more appalling is that few -- if any -- of our presidential aspirants care to speak about those topical political issues. They hardly debate release of Liberians wasting away under harsh, subhuman conditions as political prisoners, including fearless journalists and others perceived as government enemies. When will these presidential hopefuls speak out against human rights abuses in Liberia, or is it unfashionable to do so?

Can Liberians deliver themselves, or will a stranger come to their rescue?
Power concedes nothing without a demand. Either Liberians will destroy the Taylor dictatorship, or that dictatorship will destroy Liberians. How long are Liberians going to cry foul each time someone is maltreated or murdered in coldblood? How many times would Liberians run either to America's White House or its State Department when Taylor commits yet another crime with impunity? How long would Liberians accept the fact that there is no real relationship between America and their country, and that there is no reason for Americans to spill their blood for Liberians? Until Liberians come to understand this reality, the longer will Taylor play with their minds to rule dictatorially.

Can Taylor continue to butcher all Liberians and drive them into exile? Not necessarily so. Not all Liberians are cowards. The LURD has been providing some checks and balances since 1999, with little or no results -- depending on who judges their rebellion against a sitting tyrant.

Is Liberia Ready for a "Mandingo" President?
According to its political manifesto, the LURD is duty-bound to rid West Africa's worst dictator of the subregion. But Liberians are said to be opposed to having a Liberian of the Mandingo ethnic group as their president - a sentiment Taylor manipulates against the LURD. In one of COPLA's interviews with General Joe Wylie, senior military advisor to the military organization, LURD chairman, Mr. Sekou Conneh, was said to have expressed disinterest in the Liberian presidency. "When Taylor leaves, or is forced out of office, Liberians will come together and sit around a conference table to decide who everyone will feel comfortable with to lead them," Wylie said.

How and why is Sekou Konneh chairman of the LURD? Why should anyone believe that he is not interested in the Liberian presidency? Why is he fighting? In many discussions with LURD top guns, it has been revealed that Konneh is a man with enormous contacts in the subregion, who has helped the movement tremendously in providing much-needed resources to prosecute the rebellion against the Liberian president.

"With such support that Konneh lends to the struggle, it would be ill-advised to bite the hand that feeds you," quipped an official of the Taylor administration, visiting with his family in New Jersey.

How long can Liberians live with quotidian tyranny? Could it be up to 2024? Maybe forever, maybe not.

The LURD, Another Rebel Group or Surgical Removal: Which Way Liberia?
About a week ago in Philadelphia, PA, former Liberian Chief Justice Chea Cheapoo promised to form yet another rebel entity because, according to him, "the way out of the Taylor political quagmire is for Liberians to press for power and take control of their country." Some differed with the former Chief Justice and said it would be better to support the LURD than create another rebel group to forcibly wrestle power from Liberia's worst nightmare.

Then there is another school of thought that believes in a "surgical removal." The surgery, allegedly, would be a significant reduction of further pogrom. This option is said to be appealing to Liberians across the world. The plan is said to have been put place but that its implementation is held up for lack of money. The price tag is put at $100,000 for Liberia's salvation from the bloody hands of thieves, bandits and highwaymen and women. A hundred thousand dollars to free the entire West Africa from doom and gloom would be well-spent!

Until Liberians do something dramatic to reclaim their country from dictatorship and banditry, the criminals will continue to destroy the dreams of everyone and treat Liberia as their pepperbush.

May those who truly love and crave for real democracy in Liberia and the rest of the subregion, therefore, come forward!