Impunity has always been a way of life; sort of a culture or tradition in Liberia, even before the Liberian civil madness could take center stage in 1989.
Punitive actions reside for the weak, poor and, in some cases, the minority; your list is welcomed! The biggest and bigoted form of shunning punitive trend for justice could come at the close of the first half of the Liberian civil madness when the sub regional body ECOWAS recommended impunity measures-with the catchphrase, “let bye gone be bye gone”.
Like many today, the sub region then felt the way to achieve genuine peace and tranquility in Liberia was by rewarding murderers, benefactors and perpetrators of heinous crimes with sacred and high profiled government portfolios. Flabbergastingly, ten years on, some Liberians of all spheres are selfishly opting for the same formula of making hero of tinted and questionable characters.
You are a witness, in the living flesh, to the fact that warlords were denied portfolios in Accra, Ghana, during the peace talk in 2003 that brought finality to the Liberian shambles, at least to date. Recalled: the key players of the civil war were asked to step aside from the chairmanship of the interim arrangement.
It was at the very Accra peace talk that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was birthed, aimed at investigating and documenting happenings in Liberia from 1979 to 2003, and recommending actions in the form of prosecution, reparation and reconciliation among others, from their findings.
The macrocosm of the nation represented at the peace talk welcomed the TRC modus operandi. They came back home and vetted, commissioned and inducted the TRC Commissioners. The Lawmakers also legislated the TRC Act, giving the Commission muscles to flex-to include subpoena power.
In spite of these developments, scores, in their infinite and unbounded quest for divided society, are preaching for impunity, exemption, and immunity for conspicuous agents of violence and economic crimes.
Amidst warnings and recommendations from well-meaning international bodies as the United Nations and the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS for Liberians to make people account for what they do, having realized blanket forgiveness heals no wounds, the deceit of showering perpetrators continues unabated.
Besides, there are warnings, some, I believe, are actual signs from God Almighty against the menace of impunity culture. Let’s consider the recent violence in Lofa county.
I am of the convection that the senseless happening in the northern province of Liberia, Lofa county somewhat juxtaposes the recommendations coming from the recently folded Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)-a need for adherence.
Since its final report recommending, among others, the prosecution of some key players of the Liberian war and the barring of others from occupying public offices for thirty years, Liberians at home and elsewhere have split down the middle as to where they stand on the report. However, the vivid display of cruelty and barbarism in Lofa are enough to lend mammoth support to the full implementation of the recommendations.
One side of the divide recommends the TRC report be thrown out of the window, arguing it has a strong omen to spark renewed conflict and plunge the country into full fledge war. They say the TRC report is anti reconciliatory. They also believe, in the case of those barred from partaking in the running of public offices are wrongly disinfranched. People who were duly elected in 2005 have invariably been relief of their wrong doings, according some of them. “How can you willingly elect a person like the case of president Sirleef, and, at the same time recommend the prosecution of the person”?
For others, the TRC report is the best recipe for genuine reconciliation and peace in the country. They believe correcting wrongs of the past helps to build a better and prosperous future for generations, yet unborn. Besides, the side feels reconciliation and justice are synonymous, while impunity breeds continued violence and corruption.
There is a middle ground, though; the people who take segments of both sides and thrive somewhere on the thin line between the two schools of thought. For instance, you hear someone argues on selective implementation of the report.
In accordance with the doctrine of full disclosure, I greet, strongly, the full implementation of the TRC report. No disrespect! Thank God, the Lofa March 2010 ethnic and/or religious madness has shackled and dispirited some of the feeble arguments of some Liberians, suggesting prosecution and barring of some pivotal actors of the bloodletting in the country could undermine gains and progress made so far.
There is this feeling the implementation of the TRC report has hit rock bottom and something of the past with people beginning to lose hope, giving the gross undermining of the TRC recommendations of late.
A classic point arrived when the mother of the land (also indicted) declared a second shot at the presidency and the outright denial of the designated Commissioners of the Independent National Human Rights Commission by the Liberian Senate after long delay in their appointment.
As if meant to spoil the party of the backers of impunity, the heart of Lofa County, Voinjama broke loose and erupted into shared madness, replica of the 1990s. In reality, the Voinjama shameful killings (officially four people) and broad day looting has twice perforated the other side’s argument that the TRC report would spark renewed war. Whilst TRC report remains on ace, violence continues.
We hear people calling for prosecution for the perpetrators of the Lofa county mayhem, which the United Nations Peace Keeping Mission in Liberia UNMIL and National Police put the death toll at four. While it is widely estimated the Liberian civil war recorded more 250,000 deaths.
Ironically, perpetrators of the latter (the civil war period) are being shielded by a sizable of the citizenry, at the same time calling for the prosecution of the former (Voinjama violence), which records four deaths. I am sick of us, Liberians. It is like saying one is greater than two.
Don’t get me wrong. Like the TRC report, I am calling for the unconditional prosecution of the master minders and direct doers of the Voinjama barbarity. We should be ashamed of ourselves that we can still kill a 13-year-old boy by perforating his head with a four-inch nail in broad day light in Voinjama, the capital of Lofa. We should be ashamed that after all the efforts by the international community, we still have problems with tolerating one another in a particular county.
Look, shift the blame on those preaching messages of impunity. Blame those undermining the TRC report, raising vague and feeble lines. If the chiefs and first-rate actors cannot be reprimanded for their wrongs, rather are rewarded with sacred public positions, who will be, the fewer and weaker perpetrators?
As a citizen of Lofa, where I was born, I am deeply hurt that people of the same county find it hard to coexist, but Mama Liberia is even hurt twice than I do.
The future of this country will deflate even further if the culture of impunity continues to be a way of life. Let the Lofa violence serves as a determiner; Let the Lofa violence be a test case and a rallying point for the full implementation of the TRC recommendations. Let’s shun impunity for retribution, remembering justice or prosecution is a component of reconciliation, or conversely.