Remembering January 6, 1999 and how hell was let loose on Sierra Leone

....AND HOW THE "INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS" WERE FORCED OUT INTO THE OPEN...

Just a reminder of life under AFRC junta rule. Criticise the junta then and you are tagged an enemy to be a target of the armed killers; do that again even now under the Koroma-led AFRC Mk2 and you become not only anti-government and "unpatriotic", but a full-fledged and paid-up member of the SLPP shadow cabinet!!!!

Update - It was while covering the African Union summit hosted by Sierra Leone in 1980 that one international news magazine TIME wrote that corruption was so ingrained in Siaka Stevens that he found it difficult to differentiate the national treasury from his own pocket. Of course copies of that magazine were all bought off and never hit the streets of Freetown. The 1978 One Party Constitution brought in by Siaka Stevens to ensure that no other party exists legally in Sierra Leone was to provide the Stevens and Momoh administrations an atmosphere where party functionaries played god, made a mockery of law and order and the tenets of basic human rights and created so oppressive an atmosphere that it took an armed insurrection for them to realise that the people had had enough. And just as the mother country is beginning to enjoy the fruits of pluralism, in step the ogres of the past threatening to take the country backwards.

MORE

July 18, 2010 - 2nd United Nations Mandela Day is observed as the grand old man of world politics, Nelson Mandela is 92 today - Congratulations Madiba - Congratulations!!!

The Sierra Herald joins well-wishers in congratulating a man who was put through the crucibles of hate and torture, legal shenanigans and all what the apartheid regime could conjure up to break his will. He and his colleagues of the African National Congress withstood it, with a good number succumbing to the physical pain and torture unleashed on all those, black, white and coloured who wanted freedom for everyone in South Africa. In the end, the freedom fighters of all descriptions won and Nelson Mandela became the first African President of a truly independent South Africa. What makes Madiba outstanding, what makes him tall among leaders, past and present on the world stage is that this icon, this example to what governance is all about, refused to make himself a President for Life. One term of the Presidency and he was willing and ready to move on leaving the stage for the young to follow his example and live in harmony with all within the borders of South Africa. On your 92nd birthday Madiba, on the 2nd anniversary of Mandela Day, we say Congratulations and long may you continue to enjoy God's favour!!!!!!!

Some sections of the press (Sierra Express Media included) within and without the borders of the mother country, have in the recent past carried a story of the frustration of a member of the Bar Association at the dispensation of justice by the Ernest Bai Koroma set-up. Legal practitioner Blyden Jenkins-Johnston's letter to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Serry Kamal who in all proportions now behaves like a judge of the Nazi regime, should be seen as a wake-up signal to the government that all is not well and given what led to the mother country's ugly past, behoves the President and his team to immediately put in place structures that would see justice being seen to be done rather than to see justice trampled underfoot by a government which ignores the basics of the rule of law as enshrined in the Constitution as well as in the Manifesto of the ruling APC party. The Office of the Attorney General still continues to be combined with that of the Minister of Justice despite Ernest Bai Koroma's promises thus allowing political considerations that make the nolle prosequi the favourite card of Serry Kamal. Did we hear apologists cry "But we do have such in the United Kingdom too"? Here's something for you.

July 15, 2010 - Death sentence passed on eight alleged coup plotters in the Gambia.

Eight people have been sentenced to death by a court in the Gambia after they were found guilty of charges relating to treason. According to a BBC report, the men were accused of procuring arms, ammunitions, equipment and mercenaries from Guinea (Bissau) to stage a coup. "After going through the evidence of the prosecution and the defence, I find all the persons guilty and accordingly sentence them to death on all three counts,"  Those sentenced to death include former army chief Langtombong Tamba, former intelligence chief Lamin Bo Badjie and former deputy chief of police Modou Gaye. So what happens now to plans by the ruling APC to arrest and try some SLPP functionaries after those incidents following the Mayor's clock fiasco when government outlets were coming out with reports such as

"SLPP operatives said to be planning to stir up chaos, using Kailahun as launching pad"

"Defiant SLPP thugs planning more attacks on Mayor arrested at SLPP Headquarters",

"SLPP mavericks should not mistake President Koroma's tolerance for timidity"

"SLPP Provoked chaos in Freetown...eyewitness says in report to Cocorioko"

and so on with the Standard Times Philip Neville even claiming he had a recording of a meeting held where the SLPP solicited funds for overthrowing the APC...and by a party that stepped aside after the Electoral Commission ruled it had lost control of government!!!! Whatever happened to the APC plan to try key SLPP functionaries for treason with targeted NPRC members hooked in for good measure?

July 15, 2010 - Rwandan opposition party Vice President found dead. Has this become the calling card of Kagame's Rwanda?

The Vice President of an opposition party in Rwanda, the Democratic Green Party has been murdered. Reports say Andre Kagwa Rwisereka was found dead with his head almost completely severed from his body close to the Makula River in Butare. One report says that "...the President, Vice Treasurer, Communications Secretary and Secretary-general of the Democratic Green Party travelled to Butare yesterday in response to reports that Rwisereka had disappeared and that his car had been found abandoned. Today the party issued a release announcing that Rwisereka had been assassinated and that his brother, Antoine Haguma, had confirmed seeing his body, with his head almost completely severed. The Rwanda Greens also reported that Rwisereka’s national ID, driver’s license, house keys and car keys were found inside the car, now parked at police headquarters in Huye-Butare town and that his passport had been found in his house in TABA-Butare. He was 61 years old and is survived by four children.

The Guardian

A couple of news outlets have been reporting on the misuse of government property by government officials with the Cotton Tree News, CTN, reporting that "The Chairman of the National Assets and Government Property Commission Alhaji Unisa Alim Sesay had said that the misuse of government property in the country is very much alarming...that the act was more common among middle level and senior civil servants in the country." The Standard Times did not mince words in naming and hopefully shaming those involved - " The data collected showed that the government of Sierra Leone including staff of the Ministry of Defense, State House, Office of the Vice President and the House of Parliament of Sierra Leone owed a huge amount of Le1, 136,862,059.35 (One Billion, One Hundred and Thirty Six Million, Eighty Hundred and Sixty Two Thousand and Fifty Nine Leones) to the Sierra Leone Housing Corporation.  The Sierra Herald can authoritatively state abuse of privileges by government and party officials is not new. After the APC was kicked out in 1992, the gadfly of the APC, the National Provisional Revolutionary Council, the NPRC (not to be confused with the APC-backed AFRC) set up three Commissions of Inquiry to look into how the APC administrations had been handling things. This is a part of the findings in relation to the Sierra Leone Housing Corporation, SALHOC.

MORE

CLICK THIS AREA TO SEE HOW OUR ECONOMY WAS MISMANAGED
 AS THE LEONE PLUNGED
 

The woman described by many news outlets as the youngest and most glamorous of Russia's 10 spies (self-confessed) has been stripped of UK citizenship. According to the BBC, Ms Anna Chapman is expected to be "formally excluded" within the next few hours meaning she cannot travel to the UK. She was among 10 Russians arrested in the US who admitted to being agents for a foreign country. Last week her lawyer said she would like to come to the UK as she has a UK passport through a previous marriage. Russia agreed to exchange four US spies for the 10 Russian agents and the swap was carried out in Vienna on 9 July. Ms Chapman, who is also known as Anya Kushchenko, is the daughter of a Russian diplomat. One news source stated - "A red-headed former Barclays Bank employee who holds British citizenship, Chapman became suspicious when an FBI officer, posing as a Russian consular officer named "Roman", summoned her to a meeting on 26 June in New York, gave her a fake passport and asked her to pass it on to another purported spy. Until the Home Office's decision, she had dual Russian-UK nationality.

The hand of evil has struck again. The target - ordinary and innocent civilians whose only crime was to have gathered at centres yesterday evening where they could watch the concluding match to the month-long competition to find the world's best country when it came to the beautiful game. And this beauty was turned ugly for spectators in Kampala who had converged at the Ethiopia Village and the Kyaddondo rugby grounds to ease their minds and enjoy the beautiful game. At the time of writing this report, the BBC's Joshua Mmali on Network Africa this morning told presenter Audrey Brown that 64 people had been confirmed dead as security forces launched investigations into the attacks. Uganda's President Museveni has visited both sites and vowed that the "cowards would be hunted down wherever they may be". Reports say at least one US citizens were killed. President Obama has described the attacks as "deplorable and cowardly". It is believed that Somalia militants with links to Al-Queda could have been behind it. They are reported to have threatened Uganda for sending troops to Mogadishu to maintain some semblance of law and order for the Transitional Federal Government, the TFG.

New York Times report

Daily Nation of Kenya

Daily Telegraph of Australia

UK supermodel Ms Naomi Campbell has expressed her readiness to testify at the on-going trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor at the Special Court of Sierra Leone sitting in the Hague. According to the BBC Ms Campbell's public relations company, Outside Organisation, announced late on Friday that she would attend. A spokeswoman said: "She is a witness who has been asked to help clarify events in 1997. Miss Campbell has made it clear that she is willing to help the due process of law. For avoidance of doubt, she is not being accused of any wrongdoing and is not on trial." Prosecutors want to know whether Ms Campbell received diamonds from Mr Taylor at a reception hosted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa in 1997. She is scheduled to appear on July 29 and this announcement comes in the wake of recent legal moves that she could be in contempt of the court if she continues to ignore requests by the court to appear as a material witness in the ongoing trial. Prosecutors had complained that they had tried unsuccessfully to contact Ms Campbell several times since June 2009, when they first heard of the gift. They cited public statements in which she said she "does not want to be involved".

State House creates a new and powerful position of Chief of Staff.
What are the challenges for the first man to occupy such a post?

State House in Freetown now has a new office - that of the Chief of Staff and the first person to hold what has been seen as a vital arm of the Ernest Bai Koroma set-up is Dr Kaifala Marah believed to have been seconded from the Commonwealth Office in London. It is not yet public knowledge just what his duties would be and how this would fit in with that of other offices at State House where there is a Secretary to the President as well as other top management and civil service employees. Whatever the case, the Sierra Herald hopes that the man would be given a free hand to give State House some degree of respectability, accountability and financial probity given the awful mess going on behind the scenes as hustlers manoeuvre themselves into "blessed" and "unblessed" positions. How he fits in with the President's hand-picked human rights abusing and criminally-inclined security detail headed by the notorious Idrissa Kamara aka Leatherboot remains to be seen. He would no doubt also have to move mountains in regulating the flow of visitors/hustlers to the seat of political power. Is his role going to be in the template of the United States White House Chief of Staff?

MORE

July 7, 2010 - Five years ago today, 52 killed and many wounded and traumatised as evil hit the transport system of London. Death and destruction delivered by home-grown terrorists

Five years ago today, on July 7, 2005 the forces of evil struck unsuspecting and innocent commuters using London's transport system - a system that facilitates the movements of millions who make the capital tick, who make the capital London the vibrant and all-embracing and all-welcoming metropolis that is the pride of residents as well as visitors. And when the smoke cleared, the debris removed, bodies patched and those beyond repair buried, it was discovered that horror upon horrors, the four perpetrators of this act were not from an invading army, but from beasts born within the borders of the United Kingdom whose parents had worked hard to make a new home in a country they were proud to call their home. They were not to know that their offspring would bring such shame and disgrace, such lack of appreciation. such lack of respect for humanity. The Sierra Herald is with all those affected, relations of the dead, the survivors, the traumatised and pray that the Good Lord will comfort the living and  grant the dead sweet repose. Amen

Flagrant abuse of the constitution on the rise again as President Ernest Bai Koroma ignores provisions needed in a country trying to recover from the ravages of the decade-long war. The first armed resistance to a post-April 27, 1991 government in Sierra Leone need not have happened had the governments led by Siaka Stevens and Joseph Saidu Momoh adhered to the provisions of the constitutions in force then, the 1978 One Party horror and the watered-down 1991 document. It is to be noted that the preamble to these vital documents clearly states that

"...sovereignty belongs to the people of Sierra Leone from whom Government through this Constitution derives all its powers, authority and legitimacy;...the State shall promote national integration and unity and discourage discrimination on the grounds of place of origin, circumstance of birth, sex, religion, status, ethnic or linguistic association or ties..."

This is a wake-up call to the international community and guarantors of peace and stability. Sierra Leoneans have had enough of the terrible past and just want to enjoy what little they can within the borders of their own God-given piece of Planet Earth. They also want to be given their piece of the national cake as defined in the constitution. They do not want to be reminded of what they had been put through by uncaring and reckless governments and would want all those who worked and died for the peace to bring this evil monster to heel.

THIS PAGE CONTINUES HERE