Unhappy Liberia has its own version of one man, one vote. There, only one man's vote matters. The man is Samuel K. Doe, the former sergeant who at age 28 ensconced himself as president in 1980 after his soldiers bayoneted a civilian predecessor. Mr. Doe is now a five-star general whose most conspicuous victory is over the calendar. He has added two years to his age so that, officially, he will be 35, as required by the Constitution, when the people of his West Africa country choose him as president in November's election.
To assure that result, all serious opposition parties have been ruled ineligible, their leaders jailed, their newspapers silenced. His most formidable challenger is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, candidate of the Liberal Action Party. Harvard-educated and a former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf has been Citibank's representative in Nairobi. In a speech she gave recently on a visit to Philadelphia, she faulted Liberia's lavish public spending. For this, she was arrested on her return to Monrovia, accused of endangering stability. Last week, incredibly, she was put on trial for sedition.
All this cries out for more than a routine response from Washington. Americans have special historic ties to Liberia's two million people. Liberia was established in 1822 with American help as a haven for freed black slaves. Its use of English, its Constitution and even its flag reflect this history. But the promise of liberty has never been realized. Liberians have endured poverty and corrupt misgovernment, and General Doe's erratic despotism now outdoes his predecessors'.
Nonetheless, since his coup, U.S. foreign aid to Liberia has quadrupled, to $83 million this year, the highest per capita figure in Africa. To induce him to hold the elections he promised, $250,000 of this aid was earmarked to help pay the costs. General Doe denounced Washington for interfering and vowed to return the money. Wholly in character, he hasn't.
The general seemingly assumes that the Reagan Administration will put up with anything so long as he makes anti-Communist noises and causes no trouble about a vital Voice of America transmitter. But jailing a Citibank representative for preaching fiscal conservatism shows neither scruple nor sense. If Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf and other challengers are barred from Liberia's elections, a healthy cut in Liberian aid - especially $13 million in military aid - is one vote that America can cast.
Source: New York Times
Monday, August 26, 1985
Friday, August 23, 1985
LIBERIAN CITIBANK AIDE ON TRIAL
A international banking executive for Citibank, who is a leader of an opposition party in Liberia, went on trial yesterday on sedition charges in Monrovia, the Liberia capital, according to United Nations and State Department officials. The trial by military tribunal of the executive, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, as well as that of two journalists, comes two months before scheduled elections, which are to mark a return to civilian rule in Liberia.
Gen. Samuel K. Doe, Liberia's leader, has charged that a speech given by Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf in Philadelphia last month was "detrimental to the peace and stability of the country."
Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf, a 46-year-old Harvard-educated economist, was Minister of Finance in Liberia at the time of the 1980 military coup. She later worked at the World Bank before becoming Citibank's African representative. She was placed under house arrest on July 31 after arriving in Liberia and was taken to a military stockade on Aug. 9.
United States Embassy officials in Monrovia have '"expressed concern" to the Liberian Government over the case, according to Robert Bruce, a spokesman for the State Department. "We're urging prompt due process," he said. In addition, Edward Derwinski, a State Department counselor, went to Monrovia last month to review election procedures and to voice concern about the impending trials, said Mr. Bruce.
Despite the proliferation of political parties that sprang up when elections were called, only one party besides General Doe's ruling National Democratic Party of Liberia has successfully registered for the election. The other parties - including Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf's Liberal Action Party, which she helped found -have been blocked by the courts or special election panels, or the parties' leaders have been jailed or banned from political activity. In her speech in Philadelphia to the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf criticized Liberia's program of constructing large public buildings to the detriment of the rest of the economy. "While agricultural and rural development programs are on the verge of closure for lack of funding, a wide range of buildings - Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Health and scores of buildings - are being constructed," she said, adding that this activity "represents a nonproductive investment."
In New York City yesterday, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf's sister, Jennie Bernard, said she was deeply worried about her sister's fate. "My family members have tried to get permission to see her but that hasn't been granted," Mrs. Bernard said.
Source: New York Times
Gen. Samuel K. Doe, Liberia's leader, has charged that a speech given by Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf in Philadelphia last month was "detrimental to the peace and stability of the country."
Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf, a 46-year-old Harvard-educated economist, was Minister of Finance in Liberia at the time of the 1980 military coup. She later worked at the World Bank before becoming Citibank's African representative. She was placed under house arrest on July 31 after arriving in Liberia and was taken to a military stockade on Aug. 9.
United States Embassy officials in Monrovia have '"expressed concern" to the Liberian Government over the case, according to Robert Bruce, a spokesman for the State Department. "We're urging prompt due process," he said. In addition, Edward Derwinski, a State Department counselor, went to Monrovia last month to review election procedures and to voice concern about the impending trials, said Mr. Bruce.
Despite the proliferation of political parties that sprang up when elections were called, only one party besides General Doe's ruling National Democratic Party of Liberia has successfully registered for the election. The other parties - including Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf's Liberal Action Party, which she helped found -have been blocked by the courts or special election panels, or the parties' leaders have been jailed or banned from political activity. In her speech in Philadelphia to the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf criticized Liberia's program of constructing large public buildings to the detriment of the rest of the economy. "While agricultural and rural development programs are on the verge of closure for lack of funding, a wide range of buildings - Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Health and scores of buildings - are being constructed," she said, adding that this activity "represents a nonproductive investment."
In New York City yesterday, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf's sister, Jennie Bernard, said she was deeply worried about her sister's fate. "My family members have tried to get permission to see her but that hasn't been granted," Mrs. Bernard said.
Source: New York Times
Friday, August 9, 1985
Victoria Mxenge and the 'act of cowardice'
Three weeks ago, Victoria Mxenge commented on the murders of four Cradock leaders at their funeral. “A dastardly act of cowardices” she said.
Two weeks later she became the next victim in a series of mysterious killings of outspoken opponents of apartheid. This Durban civil rights lawyer will be buried in King William’s Town on Sunday next to her husband Griffiths Mxenge. He was found butchered with 45 stab wounds and his throat slit in the Umlazi cycle stadium on November 19, 1981. His murderers have never been found.
Victoria vowed to bring his killers to justice. But last Thursday night her mission was thwarted when four attackers gunned her down and bludgeoned her to death outside her Umlazi home. While her death makes her a martyr of her political struggle, during her life she was looked up to as a formidable example of courage and energy.
A nurse by profession, she later studied law and joined her husband’s practice as an attorney in 1981. After his murder, she took over the reigns and became one of the most popular civil right lawyers in Natal. She plunged into the fight against injustice and apartheid in the courts, instructing some of the country’s top advocates in treason trials.
Mxenge represented families of victims of the Matolo raid and Lesotho raid—cases from which most attorneys would have shied away. She was elevated from political obscurity to the forefront in Natal when she became the widow of Griffiths Mxenge. From being virtually unknown in political organisations, she sat on the executive of the Natal Organisation of Women, the United Democratic Front and the Release Mandela Committee after her husband was killed.
However, her real influence was among the youth who loved her as their adopted mother. Two years ago, she successfully defended students against the confiscation of their results by the Department of Education. Her death was felt so strongly by the students that the day after her death they took to the streets in their thousands in protest.
They also immediately called for a week—long boycott of classes in mourning. They expressed the fear of UDF leaders that a sinister campaign of assassinations that had claimed the lives of political activists in the Eastern Cape was now spreading to Natal.
A UDF spokesman speculated that the recent explosion at the home of Amichand Rajbansi, Cabinet Minister and leader of the National People’s Party, was not intended to harm him, but was a tactic to justify “revenge attacks”. “Some people have looked closely at the whole event and believe some device used was of such a nature that it could not harm Rajbansi seriously,” he said.
The motive could be similar to attacks in the Eastern Cape where assaults on pro-government targets were followed by retributive attacks on opposition activists. Police still have not come up with any leads on Victoria Mxenge’s murder.
The Port Natal divisional commissioner has been assigned to the case—in contrast to her husband’s murder where numerous allegations were made during the inquest about inadequacies in the police investigation.
Another unusual response came from Natal’s Judge President, Mr Justice Milne, who opened the UDF treason trial this week by deploring Mxenge’s killing. She was killed four days before she was due to appear on behalf of the treason trialists in the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court.
“It grieves me to have to record that one of the most recent of the tragic ‘and deplorable acts of violence that are afflicting this country is Mrs Mxenge’s death,” Justice Milne said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Two weeks later she became the next victim in a series of mysterious killings of outspoken opponents of apartheid. This Durban civil rights lawyer will be buried in King William’s Town on Sunday next to her husband Griffiths Mxenge. He was found butchered with 45 stab wounds and his throat slit in the Umlazi cycle stadium on November 19, 1981. His murderers have never been found.
Victoria vowed to bring his killers to justice. But last Thursday night her mission was thwarted when four attackers gunned her down and bludgeoned her to death outside her Umlazi home. While her death makes her a martyr of her political struggle, during her life she was looked up to as a formidable example of courage and energy.
A nurse by profession, she later studied law and joined her husband’s practice as an attorney in 1981. After his murder, she took over the reigns and became one of the most popular civil right lawyers in Natal. She plunged into the fight against injustice and apartheid in the courts, instructing some of the country’s top advocates in treason trials.
Mxenge represented families of victims of the Matolo raid and Lesotho raid—cases from which most attorneys would have shied away. She was elevated from political obscurity to the forefront in Natal when she became the widow of Griffiths Mxenge. From being virtually unknown in political organisations, she sat on the executive of the Natal Organisation of Women, the United Democratic Front and the Release Mandela Committee after her husband was killed.
However, her real influence was among the youth who loved her as their adopted mother. Two years ago, she successfully defended students against the confiscation of their results by the Department of Education. Her death was felt so strongly by the students that the day after her death they took to the streets in their thousands in protest.
They also immediately called for a week—long boycott of classes in mourning. They expressed the fear of UDF leaders that a sinister campaign of assassinations that had claimed the lives of political activists in the Eastern Cape was now spreading to Natal.
A UDF spokesman speculated that the recent explosion at the home of Amichand Rajbansi, Cabinet Minister and leader of the National People’s Party, was not intended to harm him, but was a tactic to justify “revenge attacks”. “Some people have looked closely at the whole event and believe some device used was of such a nature that it could not harm Rajbansi seriously,” he said.
The motive could be similar to attacks in the Eastern Cape where assaults on pro-government targets were followed by retributive attacks on opposition activists. Police still have not come up with any leads on Victoria Mxenge’s murder.
The Port Natal divisional commissioner has been assigned to the case—in contrast to her husband’s murder where numerous allegations were made during the inquest about inadequacies in the police investigation.
Another unusual response came from Natal’s Judge President, Mr Justice Milne, who opened the UDF treason trial this week by deploring Mxenge’s killing. She was killed four days before she was due to appear on behalf of the treason trialists in the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court.
“It grieves me to have to record that one of the most recent of the tragic ‘and deplorable acts of violence that are afflicting this country is Mrs Mxenge’s death,” Justice Milne said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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