Gone Without The Probe, Living With Jungle Justice

Editorial

12 May 04

We may never know if he is a victim of lies, if he is a scapegoat, or  if he carries guilt. Charles Gyude Bryant said he appointed a committee to investigate him, and if that committee found him guilty, he would face justice. That committee remains in the closet while Elias Saleeby is out, gone with so many unanswered questions.

Under pressure to sack the man and replace him with a rebel appointee, Bryant claimed he could not. Why? Because ECOWAS decreed the position of Bank Governor was not for discussion, was not subject to alteration, he said. In simple words, the position was beyond the powers of the interim regime to change. Now that Seleeby has resigned without explanation, with Bryant readily accepting his resignation, there is not much to go on. It remains a secret.

The man at the centre of demanding “justice” is an unlikely man to talk about justice because the allegations against him far surpass anything linked to Seleeby. He is a man who recently declared that Charles Taylor, against whom he waged a war that wiped out towns and villages, killed and maimed tens of thousands, should not be held responsible. While Seleeby is accused of stealing, the Speaker of the rebel –led interim parliament, George Dweh, the amazing rising knight of justice against Seleeby, is accused of executing Johnny Nah, a technician at the state electricity company. The alleged incident occurred in 1990 when Charles Taylor’s rebels were at the gates of Monrovia, leaving a cornered Samuel Doe, President, to rely on his ethnic kinsmen for common defence. It is said that Dweh was one of those defending the Krahn tribe, and that one night, he led a squad to Johnny Nah’s house, and pulled him out. Along with the tall and so amicable Nah was his wife, who had just returned from the US with a graduate degree. She was pregnant. The death squad led the couple to the execution and their bodies have never been discovered. Sources say records at the National Security Agency, then a notorious secret police camp, showed that Dweh at one time reported Nah to the authorities for insulting the government. In those dark days, that was a crime punishable by death. Dweh denies the Nah story, saying he is prepared to appear in court. But with his sudden metamorphosis as the most powerful man in the country, Dweh may never face justice. He is set to dispense justice, and the implications are dire.

That Dweh is in charge is not a question but a fact. He has ordered his “security forces” to investigate Seleeby. But investigations by what standards? Mod justice, as was the case in the 1980s? What security forces are under his command when he has been disarmed as a trade-off for the post he holds?  His rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy? Why has the interim chair not issued counter orders against Dweh’s one-man justice?  Silence on such moves is dangerous, because the country is just trying to recover from this kind of mod rule that led to the horrors. Allowing an individual, particularly one as threatening as George Dweh, to issue orders barring anyone from travelling, and ordering “security forces” to investigate him or her, is sending the message that mob rule prevails and that men of darkness are again in charge. This was the case in the 1980s, and the fact the same actors of the dark 1980s are back at the helms issuing the orders is frightening. It is impossible to convince many Liberians that George Dweh carries the face of justice. He carries the face of fear, and if he is allowed to operate unchallenged, this would be the beginning of another round of horror that made men like possible.

The sane thing to have done was to investigate Mr. Seleeby. Mr. Bryant promised the investigation and failed to fulfil his promise. This lack of the will to do what one says, which is the case with Mr. Bryant, has left the moral high ground for men like Dweh. But if the Dwehs are Liberia’s new knights of justice, then cry the beloved the country. It is the coming of the damned.