Archive for October, 2014

Speech delivered at the Friends of Nimba Community College annual scholarship fundraiser

By Isaac Saye-Lakpoh Zawolo

Officials of the Liberian Government present, leaders of Nimba Community College here tonight, National President Dokie of UNICO, Chairman Saye of the National Board of Directors of UNICO, the Executive Director and officials and members of Fronico, fellow Nimbains, friends, supporters and sympathizers.

Before I begin, let me state that it is my commitment to honor any invitation to speak. I strongly believe that so much thought is put in the selection of a Speaker so it behooves me to accept the honor to speak whenever I am invited. Honoring this invitation for me was no exception- it was effortless. However, since my acceptance, I had to wrestle with the vicissitudes of times in the wake of several unfortunate circumstances for my family.

My brother-in-law was shot and killed in Houston, Texas about three weeks ago; my nephew, a Student of AM Dogliotti College of Medicine at the University of Liberia, succored to the Ebola Virus Disease a little less than three weeks ago; my cousin lost her husband and three of her daughters in the span of three weeks. These terrible events left me confronted with the choice to stay home and grief with my love ones. But, thanks to the woman I called My “Mandingo Princess,” my wife, Hawa Siryon Zawolo; I was encouraged to not only make the trip but to be accompanied by her brother, my brother-in-law, Mr. Varmah A. Siryon. Let me also say that I am accompanied here tonight by my friend and confidante, Honorable Arthur Weah Doe, the General Secretary of the National Board of Directors of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas, ULAA.

Let me first pay tribute to the many Nimbians, citizens and friends of Liberia who have lost their lives to the Ebola Virus Disease. Our people are enduring really difficult times. When we look at the present situation in Liberia today and reminisce about the 14 years of civil war and the accompanying brutality, it may appear that our people may be defined by tragedy, pain and misery. We however reject such thought as far removed from the truth is this thought- our people are a resilient people: hardworking and much better than these calamities.

Our people, we are most certain, will bounce back. We refuse to be defined by these maladies- they are anomalies, an aberration of our tenacity and will to transcend the shallow valleys of pain. We are a blessed people, endowed by our Creator with enormous wealth, unenviable resilience and superhuman determination. Let’s pause, and think - for a nation with a population of less than 5 million we boast of two noble peace prize laureates, a former world best soccer player, several super stars in the National Football League, an NBA Player, and proudly so, a son of Nimba. No cursed people can boast of such accomplishments. We are a blessed people and these sad events of our national existence are just a test of our strength. Our resilience and unflinching commitment to hard work will see us through. And now, to the task- the task of expounding on the “The Role of Community College in Developing Countries.” Let’s go.

Folks, to say that one of the most important factors and necessary precondition for economic development is a “well-trained, highly skilled and well-educated labor force is safe and unequivocal. The role of higher institutions of learning in this regards is unquestionable. Advances in technology which has seen the obliteration of physical boundaries owing to the bridging of people through the World Wide Web has made competition for business intense. Communities must show that they have the infrastructure, the policy and legislation for healthy transaction of trade but more than anything else, the labor force.

In Liberia, in the past, the Booker Washington Institute, the Vocational Training Centers, the LOIC, the RTTIs, the Commercial schools, and a few others provided training for the labor force needed for the Liberian economy. The role of those institutions was however one dimensional- they trained and send out the graduates. The contribution made by the product of those institutions however stood up as the most vital in the construction and serviceability of our country. Today, the trend in technology has given rise to nascent needs, new jobs, new professions and new careers. These careers require differing level of educational experience. Some of the new challenges demand quick revisitation of curriculum and structure of the higher institution of learning. The higher institutions must adapt to demands of society and communities.

The full four-year universities have their part and indeed a very important part to play in meeting the demands of the fast pace rapidly changing economy of any nation. Regrettably though, age-old traditions, bureaucracy and operational style of these kinds of institutions lack the level of flexibility needed to stay at pace with the labor needs of communities. In this failing emanates the need for community colleges. Community Colleges are generally equipped with the flexibility that is unmatched in comparison to the traditional four-year universities.

The nomenclature “community college’ is not accidental or mere coincidental. As the nomenclature depicts, community colleges are designed to meet the needs of the community in which they exists. These needs include the development of a well-skilled labor force of the 21st century. Meeting this need demands understanding of market forces and job trends. Accordingly, the community college of today must see itself differently and put in place a robust and highly responsive agenda.

The community college must conduct human resources inventory of their community. This inventory can then be utilized to develop programs to match the present and emergent needs of their community. Let’s take the specific case of the college we are here to support, the Nimba Community College, the NCC. The presence of Arcelormittal, the Ganta Hospital, Jackson F. Doe Referral Hospital, numerous logging companies, many farming businesses and schools necessitates the need for training of the skilled labor force for these industries. Along this line, adopting the typical approach in Liberia of offering the same programs irrespective of the locality or the needs of the locale is repugnant to the purpose of community college. Such limited and blurred vision undermines the value of the community college. The NCC must see itself as a thrust and not an alien of the community; hence, the college must align its vision with the needs of Nimba and the adjacent counties. But the community college must not stop here.

As indicated earlier, the operation of BWI and the VTCs was one dimensional. They trained and never engaged their products. Such approach cannot be tolerated in contemporary communities were the advances in technology makes retraining not only useful but imperative. To keep at pace with industrial and technological development, the community must remain a center for lifelong learning and on the job training. The flexibility of community colleges lends itself to such. The community must be the source of training and retraining. This can foster a cordial relationship between industry, the community, local government and the community college.

Another trend that the contemporary community college must dissuade is the perspective that the community college is just “the first two years” of university education. Global trends have shown that the greatest need of today’s industries is a skilled worker who is adaptable to change and not necessarily a college graduate with a degree in “English.” No, I am not discouraging or dismissing the role of four-year universities or the value of a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. I am just taking a pragmatic look at the economy of developing countries.

Let’s take a futuristic look at post-Ebola Liberia. What will be the role of the community colleges? Think about the number of nurses, radiologists, laboratory technicians, teachers and other skilled workers lost. Can we wait for four years to have the replacement trained? Certainly not. Again, the community college’s flexibility and structure affirms its significance.

So then, how significant is the role of community college in developing countries? Well, the role of community colleges in developing countries is not much more different from that of it in developed countries. The subtle difference is however in the significance of community colleges in developing countries. Given the need for middle level technicians and entry level skilled labor force in developing countries the role and significance is colossal, expansive and indispensable.

Concluding, it rests upon community colleges to blend economic development and sustainability goals in its design and implementation structure. The college must provide the support, labor force and technical competence needed to spur economic growth. The community depends on the college for knowledge and the community college must remain a reliable source of knowledge and skills that are matched with jobs, upwards mobility on the job and future projections.

Let me end by thanking all of you first for the invitation, but more importantly for your vision and dedication to this worthwhile initiative. As I close, I beg to make a small donation on behalf of the “Friends of Isaac “Oldpa” Zawolo. Tonight, the Friends of Isaac “Oldpa” Zawolo, an organization based in Margibi County Liberia and dedicated to advancing my political ambition, will donate one scholarship to a Nursing Student at NCC for the next ten (10) years. We will make the payment for the first year tonight and will make subsequent payment for future years no later than the 31st of January annually.

I thank you.

Isaac S. Zawolo, Jr is a mathematics Teacher with Arlington Public Schools in Arlington Virginia. He is also an Adjunct at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia. He has taught mathematics for nearly thirty years. His teaching experience has spanned across two continents and three countries.

October 28, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Evaluating the international response to Ebola in Liberia

By Cecil Frankweah Frank

Eventhough news of the first Ebola case surfaced in Meliandou, Gueckdou Perfecture in Guinea in late December 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the lead U.N. agency on international health matters, first published formal notification of Ebola’s outbreak on March 23, 2014.

This was just about the same time that Ebola crossed the international borderlines of Guinea and Sierra Leone to emerge in Liberia – Lofa and Nimba Counties. As it turned out, the outbreak was largely undetected by the governments of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, as well as by the WHO and other international partners. Since March 2014, the disease rapidly engulfed the three Mano River Union countries, killing over 4,900 people, with Liberia alone accounting for about 2,200 deaths, and bringing Liberia along with the other two West African countries to the brink of catastrophe.

The three countries at the center of what WHO calls the “worst Ebola outbreak in history” – Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia – are weak and recovering from great internal turmoil and therefore were unable to contain the outbreak. The international community was always going to play a pivotal role in containing the spread of the Ebola virus given the little or no resources of the three most affected countries. While the governments of the West African countries that are at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak obviously failed to handle the virus’ spread, the slow response of the international community is also blamed for contributing to the deepening of the crisis. This article seeks to explore possible factors that may explain why the international community responded slowly to the Ebola humanitarian emergency in West Africa.

ANALYSIS

In her “Letter to the World” published on the Liberian online news FrontPageAfrica and by BBC, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf alluded to the slow international response as a factor in Ebola bringing Liberia to a standstill. Since Ebola was declared by the World Health Organization a global health hazard, UN agencies and aid organizations were reported to have requested over $980 million dollars to combat the disease. However, as of October 24, donors have only contributed a little over $400 million. Recently, UN Ebola Chief Anthony Banbury estimated the cost of tackling Ebola due to the slow response by the international community at $1bn dollars.

In line with this estimation, the United Nations created an Ebola Trust Fund to raise such amount, but the Trust has so far received only $100,000. Three possible factors were identified to explain the initial slow response by the international community. These factors were: donor fatigue, indifference factor, and the factor of underestimation and/or surprise.

DONOR FATIGUE

Africa has been the hardest hit with donor fatigue than any other region of the world since the official end of the Cold War. There are lots of reasons for this, but chief among these reasons is the global perception that Africa, unlike other regions, has failed to take ownership for its development. In order to address the problem of donor fatigue and to ensure vital donor support for Africa’s development, several quasi-international bodies were created, notably the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) and the U.S.-sponsored New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). All these bodies were supposed to keep Africa on the international donor agenda.

Donor fatigue had already begun to manifest itself in Liberia long before the outbreak of Ebola. An example of this has been the increasing international demand to downsize or completely withdraw UN peacekeepers from the country. Donors had slowed down funding for several other projects in Liberia. The general perception has been that 11 years after the end of the civil crisis, Liberia had not taken ownership of its future development. The country under the current defense minister was making little effort to take ownership of its own security and defense. A reason why donors responded slowly to Ebola in Liberia was due to the global perception, confirmed by my discussions with several U.S. policymakers that the Liberian government was not taking ownership of the campaign to contain the virus, but instead heavily at community was characterized by such thinking as ‘if there isn’t any money, we will do nothing.’ As we now see, this type of attitude proved disastrous for Liberia.

UTTER INDIFERENCE TO AFRICA?

Recently, Kofi Annan, former UN secretary general, stated in a BBC interview that there was a sharp contrast in how the world was responding to the Ebola crisis in Africa with other global crisis such as the 2004 great tsunami in Southeast Asia, or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He was quoted as saying that “if the crisis had hit some other region, it probably would have been handled very differently.” Whether intentional or not, Mr. Annan’s statement focused attention on the level of global indifference to Africa, and double standards on how the world handles emergency humanitarian crisis.

However, face with the possibility of this virus spreading beyond Africa, the global community was prompted to respond in a much swifter way. The credit for this goes to Thomas Eric Duncan, who became the first person diagnosed with the disease in the United States. Mr. Duncan received different treatment from those rendered to others infected with the disease, including Americans Ninan Pham, Amber Vinson, and NBC news freelancer Ashoka Mukpo who were treated in one of four specialized medical facilities set aside for the treatment of Ebola in the United States. As noted by CNN columnist John D. Sutter in an op-ed published online by CNN on October 17th, prior to Mr. Duncan’s arrival in the U.S., many Americans cared less about the thousands the disease was killing in West Africa. Ebola was primarily seen as a West African problem. Mr. Duncan’s illness did for Liberia and the other affected West African countries what they couldn’t do all by themselves – to awaken American and western public interest in the seriousness and importance of tackling Ebola as a global threat, and not just an African problem.

THE WORLD ‘NOT PREPARED’

Anthony Banbury, the head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response based in Accra Ghana, recently stated in an interview with U.S. news network NBC that circumstances surrounding the Ebola outbreak were unprecedented mainly because the international community could not anticipate the spread of the disease. NBC quoted him as saying that “the world was not prepared for an outbreak of Ebola like this nature. The reasons he gave for the lack of anticipation on the disease’s spread was that the world had never before seen “… [Ebola] spreading in wide geographical areas, spreading in urban settings, densely populated urban settings.” He went on to say that “the previous outbreaks had been small and localized.”

CONCLUSION

While the governments of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone were unable to effectively deal with the outbreak of Ebola, the failure of the international community to initially respond swiftly inevitably deepened the Ebola outbreak and caused the situation to go out of control. Three outstanding factors explain the slow response by the international community: donor fatigue, an attitude of indifference to Africa, and abject under-estimation of the disease’s capability to threaten international security.

Two important lessons may be drawn from this Ebola crisis – one for African governments, and the other for the international community. First, this crisis offers African governments like the one in Liberia the opportunity to resolve to take more ownership for the direction of their countries’ development instead of relying heavily on external assistance to clean up their mess. This requires creative thinking and efficient use of national resources. Second, the international community needs to do more to help Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone empower themselves by providing them with intellectual and financial resources to build strong governance institutions. Since 1976 when Ebola was first identified to the current outbreak in West Africa, this virus has shown that the African continent as a whole remains a vulnerable place as its leaders are still evidently unable to creatively think through solutions to national disasters and serious public health issues.

Cecil Frank is a Liberian specialist on public administration and international relations. He is currently a Law and Public Policy PhD candidate at Walden University, and a founding member of the Coalition of Concerned Liberians (CCL). For comments on this article, please email the editor or contact him at [email protected].

October 24, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

“God can’t sleep”: He is impatient with Liberia

By Elder Siahyonkron Nyanseor

God is impatient with Liberia is similar to “God’s impatient in Liberia,” a book written in 1968 by Pastor Joseph Conrad Wold, an American Lutheran Evangelist serving in Liberia at the time. As soon as the book was published, the Liberian authorities banned it because it correctly diagnosed the problems we are faced with today in Liberia. Since we Liberians did not pay attention to the man of God, God himself have decided to speak to the Liberian people through this story. Now, you too have to listen to what He has to say about what is happening to us!

You remember the phrase, “God can’t sleep” is a warning to the Liberian people to stop their bad, bad ways and turn to Him. Instead from 1821 (193 years) until this day, Liberians have been living in SINS. God has been patience with Liberians. He has forgiven them over and over until He lost counts. Therefore, as He said, “I have decided to show yaw who yaw being playing with, and for yaw to know who born yaw.” (Liberian English)

“My Liberian people,” GOD continues, “Why yaw head hard so? Why yaw can’t yaw change yaw bad, bad ways? I warned your plenty, plenty times but your keep doing the same thing, over and over. Why, can’t yaw hear? Yaw keep acting like the Hebrews, my chosen people! I heard their cry and plead, so I took them from bondage in Egypt; but on the way out of Egypt, Pharaoh and

his armies chased them to the Red Sea, and when they had no way to escape, they fussed with Moses for taking them out of Egypt to die. Moses begged me on their behalf; I parted the Red Sea to give them safe passage, and I drowned the Egyptian armies along with some of their leaders that were pursuing them; yet and still, when they got free, instead of giving me all the praises, they started complaining about everything under the sun they could think about.

“And when Moses came to me up on mountain for instructions and to intercede on their behalf, they said to Aaron ‘Make us gods to go before us, for we do not know what has become of Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt.’”

God continues, “You Liberians remind me of them Hebrews”!

“First, I took yaw away from slavery in America, took your to a place in Africa; the people yaw met there gave yaw land; yaw subjected them to the same treatment that was meted to yaw while yaw were in exile; yaw call them all sorts of names; names like BUSH NIGGERS, NATIVES, COUNTRY PEOPLE,

named yawselves – AMERICO-LIBERIANS to distinguish yawself from the native Africans who yaw did not consider citizens in the land they loaned to yaw; yaw pulled the same tricks the Europeans and their cousins Americans pulled on the people they met there; the place they claimed they discovered as the New World and named the natives – Indians.

“Another thing Liberians did that made me angry with yaw – I mean yaw - Liberians, not the African natives yaw met there because yaw did not consider them citizens in the land they loaned yaw. How low down can a people be? Yaw did too many ungodly things to these poor generous people; still, I forgave yaw like I did the Hebrews. It seems the more I forgave yaw, the more yaw come up with the worse things under this earth that are not pleasing to me. So I decided to teach yaw some lessons to show y’all that I am God all by myself; I don’t need any of yaw help; yaw either obey my laws or yaw will pay the consequences.

“I brought yaw over safely to the Grain Coast that yaw named Liberia. It was I who arranged with the elders and chiefs to allow yaw to settle down in Dukor; the place yaw claimed yaw bought from the native people. To add insult to injury, yaw connived with yaw agent, drew up some document called deed, marked on it X for the signature of the Natives, used it as evidence that yaw bought the land with the gifts yaw gave to the Natives for the African hospitality they showed yaw. This is how the whole palava got started! Yaw assumed the Natives were too stupid to find out yaw deception.

“How dare yaw think the people I created in my ‘own image’ are fool and stupid people? Yaw were not the first strangers they came in contact with. Prior to yaw arrival, they interacted with the Portuguese, the Dutch and other European people. Yaw took their kindness for weakness! Still, these 193 years, yaw haven’t gotten my MESSAGE.

“Here are some of the things y’all did and are still doing to the Native people in my name for which I am not pleased with yaw and yaw descendants:

1. Illegally recruited the indigenous people to work without compensation

2. Practiced ‘Taxation Without Representation’ – Head Tax and Hut Tax collection with impunity

3. Engaged in forced labor practice to have the Natives construct roads, tote yaw officials in hammocks, their loads, and engaged in the practice of having sex with their virgin daughters on your trips in the interior

4. Recruited native labors for Fernando Po, Firestone Plantations and y’all private farms

5. Engaged in immoral practices – same sex, having sex with underage children; raped Native girls in yaw care, and impregnate them and lie on native boys to bear the responsibilities

6. Mistreated the native wards as slaves that live in y’all household

7. Slept with one another’s spouses

8. Had children by Native/Country women and referred to them as “outside children”

9. Condemned polygamy (polygyny) and at the same time practicing it

10. Condemned witchcraft, while practicing it to get government jobs or promotions

11. Practiced ritualistic killings to obtain human body parts to make juju

12. Condemned and outlawed the Native people’s societies (Poro & Sande) but y’all have – United Brothers of Friendship (UBF), Mason, Odd Fellows, International Order of Good Templar (IOGT), Eastern Stars, etc.

13. Ate (embezzled) government money as if it were yaw personal money

14. Engaged in krokrogee (illegal) laws and practices

15. Accused yaw political opponent of crimes he/she knew nothing about in order not to compete against yaw

16. Dispensed justice in favor of yawself, yaw family members, relatives and friends

17. Took the laws into yaw own hands

18. Rigged and stole elections

19. Gave government scholarships to yaw children, family members, relatives and friends who did not meet the requirements over native applicants who met the requirements (even passed the test)

20. Engaged in NEPOTISM – gave government positions to family members and relatives

21. Paid yawself, yaw children, relatives, friends and associates higher salaries than the jobs were worth

22. Changed the laws and the constitution to suit yawself and yaw political party

23. Mortgaged the country’s natural resources to benefit yawself, yaw family, relatives, foreign friends with no regard for the country’s citizens or future generations

“These are about a fraction of what y’all have done and continue to do to the Liberian people and the entire country.

You know why I am invincible? Just imagine – NO! y’all are not capable of imagining how it would be to handle the concerns of over 3 billion people each and every day – morning, noon, evening and night. So, I decided to listen and devise ways to respond to each and every one of yaw; then sometime in September 1945, I received this letter from the Black People in America complaining to me about their plight. In the same period (September 5 – 6, 1945), the Cold War that divided the world into EAST and WEST – the Soviet Union on one side, the United States, England, Canada and their entire sphere of interest on the other side. This conflict turned the world inside out - into the

good guys vs. the bad guys. The Black People that wrote me and people everywhere got caught up in the MESS.

The Black People’s letter read:

Dear Almighty God, King of Kings, The Most Omnipotent:

We have been trying to call your attention to a problem that is of grave importance.

On several occasions, we have tried reaching you through prayers but there has been no response. We even called you on the phone many times but the line was busy.

When the line was clear and we got connected, we were put on hold for decades. We called at a later date and one of your angels informed us that all along you have been busy with your chosen people who were interceding on behalf of the White Race. In spite of what we were told, we continue to complain to you.

Still, for centuries with the assistance of your chosen people, the White Race has incessantly exploited us unmercifully. Yet, we have not heard a word from you.

Almighty God, we are the millions of exploited and oppressed people of the world who live in the ghettoes and slums. We are the dehumanized, segregated and abused people of the world you created.

We were in Africa going about our business when the White people snatched us away from the land of our nativity. We were brought in the western hemisphere only to be made slaves to toil and build a society in which we were not treated as equals.

Over in our homeland, Africa, they colonized our relatives in your name and the good old book - the Bible. The book You supposed to have written. With this book, we were made to believe that our values and cultures were inferior compared to the White Race. They made fun of our speech, our languages and dance. They made fun of our entire cultural hegemony, which they viewed as “improper.” Every fabric of our cultural hegemony was condemned and efforts were made to destroy our entire existence.

Almighty God, it seems that the more we believe in the good old book, the more abused, oppressed exploited and dehumanized we become. We have abided by all of Ten Commandments; built churches on every storefront, on every acre of land we own. We sing praises in Your Name day and night. We never spoke a word without saying Amen. We attend church seven days a week, morning, noon and evening. We gave to the church almost all of our earnings - yet conditions are not improving for us.

Almighty God, having subjected us to this dehumanizing condition, the White people are still getting away with murder. Why? Why, Almighty God, King of Kings, the Most Omniscient? Are we not part of your creation? Right out of the good old book, you said, “I create man in my own image.” Are we not of your image?

Whatever the case may be, we are begging you to do something about our condition soon. Your only begotten Son came and died to save humanity but these people are still refusing to obey your Commandments. Lord, we are growing weary!

For centuries, we have forgiven them 70 X 7 times. We have turned the other cheek too many times. We have not done to them as they have done unto us; because we are waiting on you! We are trying very hard to avoid going back to Moses’ Laws - an “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” So do something about these people to leave us alone. We cannot take it any longer. We are determined to run our own shows, behave as our culture dictates, speak our own languages, take on our own names, be proud of our heritage, and most importantly, choose our own leaders from among our people.

Therefore, Almighty God, warn these people to leave us alone. We are NOT going to compromise our position this time! We trust in you and know that you will take care of it.

With our love and appreciation, we remain your devoted children.

The Black Race

Is Ebola a sign of the Wrath of God? Ezekiel warned us! He said, “The end is upon us, and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. (Ezekiel 7:3) it seems that we are really in trouble.

Let’s see - what is the biblical understanding of the Wrath of God? The dictionary defined Wrath as “the emotional response to perceived wrong and injustice,” often translated as “anger,” “indignation,” “vexation,” or “irritation.” Both humans and God express Wrath. But there is vast difference between the Wrath of God and the Wrath of man. God’s Wrath is holy and always justified; whereas, man’s Wrath is never holy and can never be justified.

In the Old Testament, the Wrath of God is a divine response to human sin and disobedience. Idolatry was most often the occasion for divine Wrath. Psalm 78:56-66 describes Israel’s idolatry. The Wrath of God is consistently directed towards those who do not follow His will (Deuteronomy 1:26-46; Joshua 7:1; Psalm 2:1-6). The Old Testament prophets often wrote of a day in the future, the “day of Wrath” (Zephaniah 1:14-15). God’s Wrath against sin and

disobedience is perfectly justified because His plan for mankind is holy and perfect, just as God Himself is holy and perfect. God provided a way to gain divine favor—repentance—which turns God’s Wrath away from the sinner. To reject that perfect plan is to reject God’s love, mercy, grace and favor and incur His righteous Wrath.”

Now GOD is saying to the Liberian people, “because of yaw greedy and BAD, BAD WAYS, yaw fought among yawselves like bunch of animals; brothers against brothers; sisters against sisters; friends against friends, and yaw left yaw country in ruin. Despite all the wrongs y’all did, I gave yaw another opportunity to RIGHT yaw WRONGS – still yaw did not change; yaw took me for granted. Now, I am looking to see if yaw will come to yaw senses! I am still in the business of forgiving, but the choice is yaws!”

Let Us Pray!

Our Father, the King of the universe, the God of mercy and our great high priest, we are careful to acknowledge that you are the ultimate solution to the Ebola crisis and ultimate source of our deliverance as a nation, the one who is full of mercy and compassion, who listens to the cries of his children in times of trouble. We are calling upon you, not because we are good or righteous, for who can stand if you judge? Forgive our past sins and do not hold the sins of our fathers against us. We confess that we have been rebellious and disobedient and have opened ourselves to the spirits of darkness, deception and division. Please remove this evil plague that has come into our dwelling. Give your angels charge to remove Ebola from its hiding place/s. We ask you as a people and a nation, wherever we are, not to turn your back on us. We recognize that we have sinned.

Visit us O Lord with your new mercies and let your wind of change propel us to fear you! Turn us again to you O Lord for our hearts are in your hand. For unless you come and save us, we will all perish! Give us a testimony; for the dead cannot praise you. We honor you Lord! We will stand before the congregation and testify of your goodness and mercies as in the days of old when we called upon you and you heard and answered us. We proclaim that your word will be our compass and the foundation upon which we stand. We vow that we will forever submit to your commandments. We are your children, save us O Lord lest we perish. Father, you have been with Liberia from its foundation, be with us again for it is you who choose to have mercy. Show Liberia mercy again and set us on the path of righteousness, we pray. Amen!

Matt.6:9; Psa. 78:34-38; Psa. 130:1-3; Heb.: 10-13, Psa. 91:1; Jer. 33:3, 2 chron. 7:14, Dan. 9:1-19; Ezekiel 36 and 37 and Ps. 145.

(This Prayer was adopted from “Liberia Cries Out To God for Mercy: A Daily Prayer Movement to End Ebola.” It was sent as a prayer request by Sis. Isabel Karnga to the Senior Pastor of the International Christian Fellowship (ICF) Ministries, Rev. Dr. William BGK Harris; for Liberians to pray in the month of October at: 12:00 noon in Liberia and in the U.S.

Siahyonkron Nyanseor is the Chair of the ULAA Council of Eminent Persons (UCEP), Inc. He is a poet, Griot, journalist, and a cultural and political activist. In 2012, he Co-authored Djogbachiachuwa: The Liberian Literature Anthology; his book of poems: TIPOSAH: Message from the Palava Hut is now on the market. Nyanseor can be reached at: [email protected].

October 24, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Liberia must adopt a new aggressive strategy to eradicate Ebola

By Rufus N. Darkortey

The current strategy to contain and eradicate Ebola from Liberia does not seem to be effective as the virus continues to spread exponentially in the country and beyond its borders. According to an analysis of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total cases of Ebola in Liberia at the moment are 4,249, which accounts for about 47% of the total 8,993 cases within the world.

Liberia accounts for about 2,458 deaths of the total 4,992 deaths within the world, which constitutes about 55% of total deaths. The virus has spread too deep within the communities and the country has lost the ability to identify infected individuals and trace contacts. The primary strategy that is historically used to eradicate Ebola is to quickly identify infected individuals, isolate them for treatment, and effectively trace their contacts for effective monitoring. Liberia did not initially implement such strategy, leading to the virus spiraling out of control and thus spreading exponentially. The only approach that can turn the curve to eradicate the disease is a systematic house-to-house search community-based strategy. The objective of this strategy is to quickly identify, isolate, contain, treat, report, and monitor all incidence of Ebola at the community level to ensure the eradication of the disease from the country within about four (4) months or less.

Because the national crisis facing the country must urgently be resolved, I would like to state here that this article only seeks to use available Ebola data to assess whether the current approaches being used by Liberia are effective or not. The article does not seek to criticize nor seek to discount the level of hard work that is being performed by everyone to defeat this disease. This point is necessary because ideas and inputs are often quickly politicized by different groups within the country and/or trashed by policymakers of the country suggesting that their performance and credibility are being questioned. We are all in this fight together, so this is the time for every Liberians and stakeholders to unite around a common effective strategy that defeats this virus rather than sticking with one that is not working for personal aggrandizement.

Evidencing the Ineffectiveness of the Current Strategy

In spite of the enormous domestic and international aid Liberia continues to receive, Ebola still seems to be increasing at an increasing rate within the country. The death rate of the virus has astronomically increased by 1,705% for the past 80 days from about 129 deaths by July 31, 2014 to about 2,458 deaths by October 19, 2014. According to the CDC, the number of deaths within the country rose from 129 in July to 2,339 by October 12, 2014, for a total of 2,458 deaths since the virus emerged in the country on March 22, 2014. Although some spikes of successes are inconsistently observed within the country, this data suggests that the current Ebola eradication strategy is ineffective. Prior to the imposition of the state of emergency, there were about 129 deaths in the country over a 131 days span; from March 22, 2014 to July 31, 2014. This resulted to an average of about 1 death per day. Since the imposition of the state of emergency and other related measures aimed at eradicating the disease, the number of deaths and death rate increased astronomically by 1,705% over the 80 days period from July 31, 2014 to October 19, 2014. The country has incurred about 2,329 deaths over that period for an average of about 30 deaths per day.

The enormous amount of Ebola-related aid the country has received during this state of emergency period does not match the gains it has made in terms of eradicating the disease during the period. Prior to the imposition of the state of emergency, the country spent approximately less than US$1 million dollars to eradicate the disease and managed to incurred about 129 deaths. One key explanation for the low expenditure on the Ebola eradication efforts during this period is that the country still doubted the existence and intensity of the disease. Like many around the world, some policymakers were never inclined to believing the emergence of the virus in West Africa. Ordinary citizens too were in denial as well. As a result, the standard strategy for Ebola eradication was not implemented, thus prompting the country to spend no more than US$1 million dollars on the disease eradication process.

During the current state of emergency period, which has only lasted for about 80 days (July 31, 2014 to October 19, 2014), the country has received approximately US$300 million worth of cash donations and about US$100 million worth of in-kind (medical supplies) donations. However, the country has incurred about 2,329 deaths during this period alone. This puts the net gain of the country’s Ebola death reduction strategy at a very negligible and immaterial amount, evidently suggesting that the current Ebola eradication strategy is ineffective and must be changed to a systematic house-to-house search strategy.

The Current Ebola Eradication Strategy and Key Components

It is not clear what strategy Liberia is currently using to eradicate the virus. However, with the exponential and sporadic manner in which the disease continues to spread across the country, it can confidently be suggested that the country’s current strategy clearly deviates from the historical norms, standards, and strategies for Ebola eradication that have been successfully used by many countries affected by the disease. A very simple strategy that has always effectively stopped the outbreak of the disease is the approach of quickly identifying Ebola patients, isolating them, tracing and monitoring their contacts, and treating them for recovery. Nigeria and Senegal are prime examples of countries that have effectively stopped the outbreak of the disease by utilizing the standard strategy of Ebola eradication. Ebola entered Nigeria from Liberia in mid July 2014 and by September 5, 2014 the country had contained the virus within just 46 days, thus tallying only 8 deaths during that period.

A large number of new Ebola cases and deaths are still being reported on a daily basis in Liberia. The country incurred a total of 1,227 new cases over a 24 days span from September 19, 2014 to October 12, 2014 for an average of 52 cases per day. Also, the country averaged about 37 deaths per day for a total of 880 deaths during that period. The data also suggest that the country observed very large sporadic spikes in the number of new cases and deaths during that period. About 258 new cases were reported by September 21, 2014. That number fell to 178 by September 23 and later jumped to 376 by September 30. During the same period, the number of deaths also peaked, fell, and peaked again. This indicates that the current strategy being utilized is ineffective. At this point, the total number of cases and deaths should be increasing at a decreasing rate, suggesting that the numbers of new cases and death should be significantly decreasing at this moment.

Contrary to a Front Page Africa report on October 20 suggesting that Ebola is declining in the country with fewer cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) also reported on October 15 that the Ebola situation is getting worst within the country. This excerpt from the WHO report states that “Data acquisition continues to be a challenge in Liberia. Evidence obtained from responders and laboratory staff in the country suggests that the situation in Liberia is getting worse, and that transmission remains intense in the capital, Monrovia. As has been the case over the past four weeks, very few confirmed cases were reported from Monrovia between 6 and 11 October reflecting ongoing delays in matching laboratory results with clinical surveillance data.” The growth rate for new cases has fluctuated over that 24 days period. Similar trend is observed with the growth rate of the number of deaths during that time period.

And also show a downward trending of the average new cases and deaths per day during that 24 days period. This seems to suggest that the incidence of the virus is indeed declining. However, the WHO report seems to suggest the opposite. The WHO also recently predicted on October 14, 2014 that there could be about 10,000 new cases per week by December 2014 if much is not done to stop the virus. During that same time period, the Liberian president also wrote the entire world on October 19, 2014 indicating that the virus has brought her country to a standstill killing more than 2,000 persons and crippling its economy, thus needing help to defeat the virus.

Based on the CDC and other pertinent reports of the WHO and the Liberian president, the current Ebola eradication strategy in the country does not seem to be working. According to sources and other observations, the Ebola effort in the country is completely disorganized, lacks coordination, direction, and leadership. The fight is a voluntary one in most cases where community members, individuals, and other organizations are taking upon themselves to provide service and directions in areas that the policymakers have not provided leadership.

The country is yet to subsidize the distribution of hand sanitizers, disposable gloves, food, and medical supplies to affected areas, impoverished individuals, and pertinent medical facilities. Other reports suggest that some communities have organized themselves using house-to-house approach to identify infected persons, trace contacts, and provide food to infected people. According to a Front Page Africa report on October 21, 2014, the UNDP is supporting community identification and contact tracing efforts in certain communities. While such efforts are commendable, they are not sufficient to end this disease. This virus cannot be defeated with the act of voluntarism on the part of people or organizations that are willing and able to act or not. The battle can only be won if the country lead in every way, developing and implementing winnable strategies in a broader manner. The Ebola virus is widespread within the country. Therefore, the country must implement the same strategy within every infected area of the country. Otherwise, the disease will continue to spread with the current hit-or-miss or disorganized approach that is being taken.

A Systematic House-to-House Search Strategy

Liberia must adopt a house-to-house search strategy as a new approach to aggressively end this disease within the next four months or less. This strategy will quickly identify, isolate, contain, treat, report, and monitor all incidence of Ebola at the community level to ensure the eradication of the disease from the country within a timely manner. As indicated, the country has lost the ability to identify infected individuals as well as tracing contacts, which are the essential elements of traditional approaches to curb any Ebola outbreak. Since the country cannot identify who currently has Ebola or not, it must immediately implement a house-to-house search across the entire country for areas that are affected by the disease.

I wrote a full proposal on September 16, 2014 on how the house-to-house search strategy could be implemented. The proposal was submitted to the Liberian government and other partners, including the US government.

The current approach of waiting to see who shows up at a hospital or the street corner before we know that they have Ebola is not efficient and effective, and will only lead to the exponential spreading of the disease. This wait and see approach is responsible for the uncontrollable spreading of the disease within this country because before an infected individual reaches a hospital, it is more than likely that that person has infected others along the way that could be difficult to trace. Liberia can defeat Ebola like Nigeria, Senegal, and other countries within a shorter period of time, but the country must be willing to act now and swiftly too.

Ebola is spreading in Liberia as if the virus hates the country with a vengeance. No, this virus does not hate Liberians, nor are Liberians attractive to contracting the disease. Over 50% of the current Ebola cases within the world are found in Liberia. Also, over another 60% of the all Ebola-related deaths are found in Liberia. It is very difficult to understand why the incidence of this virus is so profound within the country than others. Ebola is a very deadly disease, but it can very, very, very, very easily be contained with simple identification and isolation of infected individuals. The cost of defeating the disease at the early stages is very small. However, Liberia has turned a very inexpensive problem into a complex crisis now requiring millions of dollars to solve.

A Call to Action

Fellow Liberians, humanitarian friends, and stakeholders, Liberia and Liberians everywhere are under attack by this virus. Our fellow impoverished Liberians are dying and suffering from this disease. Our already underdeveloped country is losing every gain made. Liberians outside the country are facing difficult times being stigmatized and subjected to justifiable, and at times unnecessary scrutiny. Our friends in other countries are facing clear risks of the virus spreading from Liberia into their countries. We can no longer let this virus linger around as if there is no viable alternative to stopping it right now. As our friends are supplying the logistical, medical, and financial support to help us stop this disease, we must also do our part to say no to this virus by matching the resources to a workable strategy. We are all in this fight together, so we must fight it for each other.

For those of you who are still in denial or harboring any theory about the existence of this virus, I am calling on you to see and feel how this virus is devastating the lives of your fellow men, country, and others and do all you can to help defeat this virus.

To my fellow Liberians, you must patriotically unite around a common cause to defeat this common enemy. You must call on your leaders and nonviolently pressure them to begin a house-to-house search approach to quickly identify and treat infected individuals as a mean to end this virus. You must commit your resources to this fight.

To our leaders, with your constitutional and democratic mandate to lead, we cannot and do not want to seek any other leadership outside of you. Therefore, we are asking you to lead and lead now. Leadership is the key to the spread of this disease, and leadership must be the key to end it. You must devise a clear strategy; and clearly provide the direction and ensure complianc. You must not allow the voluntarism of some incredibly kind-hearted individuals and organizations to be seen as the best approach to ending this disease. We cannot win this battle based on voluntarism. Victory must be crafted and deployed with the utmost precision. Voluntarism is extremely applauded at this time, but could undermine the fight due to the limited resources and capacities of the volunteers. You must immediately implement a nationwide systematic house-to-house search strategy as the only best available approach to ending this virus. You must commit and exhaust all necessary resources on defeating this virus before it defeats us.

To friendly countries and our friends around the world, we applaud your humanitarian support for us during this difficult time. We are incredibly indebted to you. As you continue to support Liberia during this critical time, we are also calling on you to pressure our government to immediately begin a nationwide house-to-house search for infected individuals. As we also understand that your fear of contracting the virus from Liberians is justified, we are also encouraging you to not let your fear to let you subject Liberians residing within your country to unnecessary scrutiny and stigmatization.

Liberians are very decent and caring people that would do anything to make the lives of others better even at their own detriment. It is already a tough time for us and we are calling on our friends to stand with us at all levels during this fight. I am also calling on Liberians and others that are traveling from West Africa to take all necessary precautions to not spread the virus into other countries, thus earning the respect of our host countries that we will do all that we can to not let them get infected by the disease on their soil.

Rufus N. Darkortey is economist/president, Liberia Economic Development Initiative (LEDI) www.ledinow.org | [email protected] | 216-577-3177 | 216-202-LEDI (5334).

October 24, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

How US Puppet Ellen Sirleaf of Liberia Is Helping Ebola Epidemic Destroy Africa

By Peregrino Brimah

In the current Ebola epidemic, Liberia happens to be the hardest hit West African nation. The leader of the nation is a Harvard-educated long-time member of the western corporate establishment, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who became president in 2005 after a Nigerian-led ECOWAS mission put an end to a spate of civil wars.
The Sirleaf reign as president, as her stint in America’s big corp. has been tainted with allegations of corruption and nepotism and now with the Ebola epidemic. Her handling of the epidemic in Liberia cannot be disconnected from her obligations as a western puppet and her training in corruption. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Liberia is worst hit and that a colonial army has urgently set foot in Sirleaf’s Liberia.
As soon as she assumed office, Sirleaf quickly signed 100 year, binding deals with western governments depositing the nation’s abundant resources in the hands of the colonialist, despite them not playing a significant role in the stabilization of Liberia which was achieved by an African indigenous Nigerian-led effort.
Last week the Liberian Senate debated and overwhelmingly turned down a proposition by Sirleaf to restrict movement, “limit the right to assembly for any reason”, and peculiarly, to appropriate property. Women Voices called it: “Tyrannical Times or Ebola Preventive Measures.” Some have discussed the spread of Ebola in villages and farming communities more so than the big cities and suggested that like the Boko Haram crises in Nigeria’s northern farming communities and carbon credits across Africa, that the Ebola crises which threatens to diminish the population of locals by a least 55% is a weapon to possess for big corp., viable farming land owned and “misused” by these villagers for generations.
Quarantines of cities by the Sirleaf government have sparked serious riots, and now she additionally hurries to grab their land as the Americans settle in. Her approach to combating the Ebola crises has been deliberately ineffective. While having been largely unsuccessful in administrating, the Sirleaf government is postponing Senate elections which lawmakers decided must hold no later than December.
It is not surprising that Liberia is most seriously plagued with Ebola considering the level of corruption and nepotism that the Harvard-trained stooge president is involved and accused of. She has been battled for puttingthree of her sons in top government positions. One of the sons, Charles Sirleaf was appointed governor of the Central bank of Liberia, CBL.
Robert Sirleaf served as Board Chairman for the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL) till 2014. Sirleaf’s son has been accused of holding dual citizenship which he denied. However theNew Republic Liberia paper obtained evidence of his voting in US elections which is impossible for non US citizens.
A fourth son, Dr. Adama Sirleaf has just come to join the three. Dr. Adama Sirleaf had to “defend” himself this August against accusations that he was rushing over to the country to make his personal fortune and capitalize on millions of dollars pouring in from foreign sources for the war against Ebola (Liberian Observer, 08/29/2014).
Her history of corruption goes beyond her current years as president. Invited into the William Tolbert Richard administration as minister of finance, in 1979 Sirleaf wasaccused of stealing $3 million dollars. She was coming apparentlywell trained in colonial corruption from the World Bank, US “loan-shark” banks as well as other African banks.
Liberian Justice Minister Christiana Tah resigned early this month citing a litany of reasons including her inability to investigate the Liberian National Security Agency which is headed by President Sirleaf’s son who is accused of corruption and fraud.
As the US troops land in Liberia; Sirleaf’s radical and dangerous behaviors in sabotage of her nation cannot be ignored. She is known for her giving financial support to the bloodyNPFL leader Charles Taylor, famous for his use of child soldiers. She actuallydefended his use of child soldiers at a US congressional hearing in 1990.
Quite similar to US President Barack Obama who was decorated with a Nobel for peace before he even drafted his global policies – which have now proven to be filled with war and crises – Ellen Sirleaf was decorated with a Nobel for peace in 2011.
To the ridicule of the Nobel prize committee, the next year, her fellow laureate who shared the Nobel prize with her, Leymah Gbowee could not take it anymore andquit her position as head of the government’s Peace and Reconciliation Commission, telling the BBC: “I’ve been through a process of really thinking and reflecting and saying to myself ‘you’re as bad as being an accomplice for things that are happening in the country if you don’t speak up… and when tomorrow history is judging us all let it be known that we spoke up and we didn’t just sit down.” Gbowee accused Sirleaf of nepotism – of course – and worsening the fate of the people, submerging them further in poverty – which has inarguably played a quintessential role in the epidemic spread of Ebola.
With the realization that the United States owns a patent on Ebola [# US 20120251502 A1] and as suspicions rise, even among top level global scientists, that the sudden new fast spreading, most virulent strain of Ebola which coincides in its emergence on the global scene, with the US patent, could be some form of ethnic and racial cleansing, it becomes necessary to cross-examine the African heads of state in Ebola plagued nations. If Ebola is a biological weapon, then Sirleaf is the perfect muzzle. Freeing Liberia from her dangerous leadership should be a priority at the next African Union meeting.

Email: [email protected] Twitter: @EveryNigerian

October 20, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Many Liberian Doctors—Including President’s Son—Are Staying Away As President of Ebola-Ravaged Country Pleads for Foreign Helpers, Her Physician Son Sends Aid from U.S.

By Patrick McGroarty at [email protected]

Source: Wall Street Journal

MONROVIA, Liberia—President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Sunday said “the whole world has a stake” in preventing an unfolding catastrophe in Liberia, calling on nations to provide more medical experts and supplies to confront the exploding Ebola epidemic. But illustrating the difficulties of heeding that call, her own son, a physician, has stayed in the U.S., saying he can do more for his country there than at home.

“It is the duty of all of us as global citizens to send a message that we will not leave millions of West Africans to fend for themselves,” Mrs. Sirleaf said. In line with that message, the president in late August fired state officials who refused to come home from abroad to help Liberia battle Ebola.

At that time, however, her son, Dr. James Adama Sirleaf, was returning to his family in Georgia, after deciding to pull his medical training group out of his homeland because of mounting risks to doctors there.

“The symbolism of me going there and potentially getting Ebola when I have a nine- and a seven-year-old at home isn’t worth it just to appease people.”

—Dr. James Adama Sirleaf

He is hardly alone. Officials and physicians here say far more Liberian doctors are in the U.S. and other countries than in the country of their birth, and that their absence is complicating efforts to curb what has become a global health crisis.

Even before Ebola, there were only about 170 Liberian doctors in the country, and colleagues say many of them weren’t actively practicing. At least four of them have since died of the virus. That shortage has prompted repeated pleas from the Liberian government for more foreign doctors to join the fight.

Foreign governments, including the U.S., have begun to respond, in part to prevent a tide of new Ebola infections from entering their own countries. The U.S. has sent 400 of the up to 4,000 military personnel it will deploy to build 17 Ebola treatment units, the first of which is scheduled to open this month. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has 40 staff members on the ground. Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit at the forefront of the response, has more than 100 foreign staff members working in Liberia.

Dr. Sirleaf runs the emergency room at a hospital in Albany, Ga. He heads an effort to ship protective gear to medical workers in Liberia, but hasn’t returned himself since a 10-day trip in August as the virus was spreading out of control.

“The symbolism of me going there and potentially getting Ebola when I have a nine- and a seven-year-old at home isn’t worth it just to appease people,” said Dr. Sirleaf. “I’ve made a commitment not to live in Liberia for many reasons, and I think my contribution means more.”

Dr. Sirleaf’s decision speaks to the challenge of not only containing this epidemic but also of preventing the next one. Although Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have sent scores of doctors abroad over the years, they depend on foreign doctors and public health experts to halt Ebola’s spread.

When this epidemic subsides, most of that foreign know-how will leave the region. Liberian doctors here say they need to take charge of improving their country’s health-care system.

“We Liberians need to be at the front lines to help ourselves,” said J. Soka Moses, the only doctor at an Ebola treatment unit inside a disused cholera clinic on the edge of Monrovia’s John F. Kennedy Medical Center. “If we aren’t, our country will be wiped away.”

Dr. Moses studied under physicians that Dr. Sirleaf sent to Liberia a few years ago, and he believes the president’s son should be doing more now. “He should have stayed longer,” he said.

In its latest tally, the World Health Organization said Friday that Ebola has killed almost 2,500 people in Liberia—more than half the global death toll so far. The WHO has warned that Ebola could be infecting 10,000 people a week by December if it spreads into larger West African nations, such as Ivory Coast.

Some Liberian doctors are making plans to assist in the region. Abdullah Kiatamba, a leader in the 30,000-strong Liberian community in Minnesota, said dozens of doctors and nurses want to set up a rotation to spend time in the country of their birth, though their plans aren’t set yet. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionstarted a three-day training course in Alabama for health professionals who plan to work in the region with a nonprofit or international organization.

Liberia’s frayed health-care system is making it tougher to slow Ebola’s advance. At Dr. Moses’ Ebola treatment unit at JFK hospital this week, workers pushed a cardboard box of protective gear across a wet floor near a ward of infected patients. “Open this up and throw away all the gowns on the outside! They’re ruined!” he shouted.

Until the 1970s, Liberia was a middle-income country with 3,000 medical doctors. Aspiring physicians from across West Africa trained at JFK, the country’s top hospital. But a coup in 1980 set off two decades of civil war that tore Liberia and its health infrastructure apart.

Dr. Sirleaf, now 51 years old, had started his studies a few years earlier at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He then earned a medical degree at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, got married, had four children and worked for many years in the emergency room at Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut.

In 2005, he returned to Liberia for the first time in two decades to join his mother on the campaign that led to her election later that year. He was shocked at the state of the country’s public health care.

“We needed clinicians,” he said. “We needed everything.”

In 2007, Dr. Sirleaf founded Heartt Foundation—an acronym for Health Education and Relief Through Training—to recruit medical specialists and residents to spend a month practicing in Liberia and teach at its only medical school. Heartt sent 70 doctors in 2009 alone to Liberia to train students, including Dr. Moses.

But Heartt’s last team of four doctors left Liberia in March, just as cases of Ebola were surging. JFK hospital, where Heartt physicians worked, appeared ill-prepared for the coming epidemic, Dr. Sirleaf said. The risk to doctors and trainees, who hadn’t confronted Ebola before, seemed unacceptably high, he said.

“We thought people should leave, finish up what they were doing and come home,” Dr. Sirleaf said.

A few months later, the head of JFK’s emergency room and the chief of its internal medicine department were among the first Liberian medical workers to die from Ebola. Liberians dubbed JFK hospital “Just For Killing” for the carnage Ebola was wreaking within.

Dr. Sirleaf retooled Heartt to help in other ways. He came to Liberia in August to set up a protocol for identifying suspected Ebola cases and treating patients without touching them. In collaboration with AmeriCares, a Connecticut-based emergency relief group, Heartt shipped crates of protective gloves, goggles and gowns to doctors in Liberia. The largest shipment so far, a plane carrying more than 60,000 pounds of gear, arrived last month.

But Heartt’s flow of doctors has stopped.

“I’ve lost friends to Ebola,” he said. “I can’t see the wisdom in sending unspecialized American volunteers to face that risk.”

Mrs. Sirleaf’s spokesman, Jerolimnek Piah, praised the Heartt and AmeriCares effort. He said Pres. Sirleaf was traveling and unavailable for comment on whether she wanted her son to return to Liberia to join other doctors battling Ebola.

“We want them to come and help,” said Billy C. Johnson, JFK Medical Center’s chief medical officer. “But how can you ask someone to jump into a fire? You can’t guarantee their safety.”

Write to Patrick McGroarty at [email protected]

Source: Wall Street Journal

October 20, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Ebola, the African Union and bioeconomic warfare: health questions and the challenges for Africa

By Horace G. Campbell

As the Ebola outbreak rages, and there are projections of more than 1.4 million persons infected in the next few months, the African Union and ECOWAS has taken a back seat as the international media uses this virus to stigmatize Africa and Africans. Pious statements have been made by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the World Bank warns that Ebola could have “catastrophic” economic costs on the region of Western Africa. This same World Bank has not yet accepted any reasonability for its role in promoting neo-liberal politics that degraded the health care facilities of Africa.

This degradation will be called in this statement, economic warfare. Bioeconomic warfare is the combination of economic warfare and biological warfare. In the midst of this tragedy, Britain, France and the United States use the deaths of thousands to remilitarize West Africa. Characteristically, this militaristic intervention with the division of the three societies between USA (Liberia) France (Guinea) and the United Kingdom (Sierra Leone) ensures that the media attention is placed on the military deployments of the western states and not on measures for public education.
The kind of international response that will be needed for countering bioeconomic warfare requires a different kind of public education and mobilization than what the African Union and ECOWAS has so far called for. Liberia, Sierra Leona and Guinea are the societies that are at the epicenter of the outbreak of (Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) that some writers have said has spun out of control.1 These three territories are members of the Economic Community for West Africa (ECOWAS). ECOWAS is one of the five regional organizations that make up the African Union (AU). Six months after it was clear that this epidemic was widespread, in August 2014, there was a meeting of ECOWAS held in Ghana to address the outbreak.

In this meeting, it was stressed that the best approach to curbing the spread of and bringing the disease under control remains effective quarantine, isolation and public education. There is no indication that either the AU or ECOWAS is working at their maximum effort to bring this disease under control. In the same month of August, the Director General of the World Health Organization stated that, the outbreak is “the largest and most severe and most complex that we’ve ever seen in the nearly 40-year history of this disease.”

One of the priorities of public education is for citizens to have a fuller understanding of the source or sources of Ebola and the kind of responses that can bring this pandemic under control. Citizens need to understand everywhere that Ebola is not particularly contagious. There should be the clarification that there is no cure for Ebola. All of the therapies and vaccines being used so far are experimental. The simple requirements of control are robust public health infrastructures, clean water facilities with sanitation and a clean environment. In short, Ebola can only be contained with robust health facilities.
The very same institutions and organizations that have been at the forefront of bioeconomic warfare in Africa cannot lead the mobilization against Ebola. This mobilization requires nonmilitary, civilian medical leadership. Ebola presents one more challenge for a new kind of leadership in Africa that can value the lives of the producers.

Ebola: Where did it come from?

From the varying press reports this current strain of Ebola broke out in Guinea at the end of 2013 and was brought to international attention by the time it had spread across West Africa by March 2013. The symptoms of Ebola haemorrhagic fever begin 4 to 16 days after infection. Persons develop fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, and loss of appetite. As the disease progresses, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sore throat and chest pain can occur. The blood clot and the patient may bleed from injection sites as well as into the gastrointestinal tract, skin and internal organs. The mortality rate is usually very high. This virus is not spread through the air via coughs or sneezes like the common cold. It is spread through frequent contact with bodily fluids and can be spread only by someone who is showing symptoms.

It should be stated from the outset that Ebola is not one of those illnesses which is known to the majority of healers and doctors in Africa. Scientific journals of all continents attest to the profound ignorance about this virus. Fifteen years ago the internationally respected International Journal of Infectious Diseases stated that “Filoviridae is the only known virus family about which we have such profound ignorance.” 2 What accounts for this profound ignorance on the part of the top researchers in the West?

Inside Africa, the most experienced, the traditional healers have no experience in dealing with this illness. The reports in the mainstream media place the first outbreak of Ebola in Africa in 1976. This virus was named for a river in Zaire, Africa, where Ebola was allegedly first detected.” Then, according to information released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta,” Ebola is a member of a family of RNA viruses known as filoviruses. When magnified several thousand times by electron microscope, these viruses have the appearance of long filaments of threads. Although the CDC places the first outbreak of Ebola in Zaire in 1976, the leading scientific journals such the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine placed the first outbreak in Marburg Germany.

One of the most profound requirements of public education is to diminish the racialization of Ebola to clarify that the first recognized outbreak took place not in Africa, but in Marburg Germany, hence the name given to Ebola as Marburg Virus. In 1967 an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany. Thirty-one people became ill, initially laboratory workers followed by several medical personnel and family members who had cared for them. Seven deaths were reported.

The Evolution of Ebola
According to the CDC, the first Outbreak of Ebola was in 1976 in Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo). In their website, the CDC stated the first Outbreak of Ebola, “occurred in Yambuku and surrounding area. Disease was spread by close personal contact and by use of contaminated needles and syringes in hospitals/clinics. This outbreak was the first recognition of the disease.3 Why is it necessary for the CDC to place the evolution of disease in Africa? 4 The website of the CDC differs from the Journal of Infectious Diseases that stated, “Biomedical science first encountered the virus family Filoviridae when Marburg virus appeared in 1967.”

The reporting on the number of deaths in the Zaire outbreak differs according to differing sources. One fact is indisputable. This was the largest number of deaths at that time in 1976. There were 550 cases and 340 deaths. In the third outbreak in 1979, in Sudan, there were 34 cases and 22 fatalities.
Reston-Ebola
The fourth outbreak of Ebola was in Reston Virginia in the United States. The strain of Ebola Reston is so called because of an outbreak which occurred in Reston, Virginia in late 1989. Very few following the present outbreak of Ebola know that there was an outbreak of Ebola in the Washington Suburb of Reston, Virginia in 1989 less than 20 miles from the United States Capitol. There were two other small incidents of the Reston outbreak after 1989.
The Kitwit Outbreak

Six years after the first Reston Outbreak there was a major outbreak of Ebola at Kitwit in Zaire. There were over 200 fatalities. Up to then, the Kitwit Ebola outbreak had been the deadliest. The outbreaks are usually controlled when appropriate medical supplies and equipment were made available and quarantine procedures were used.
Since those days there have been periodic outbreaks in Uganda, Angola, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and other parts of Africa, but nothing compared to the scale and depth of the present pandemic in West Africa.

In the most popular book on this virus published over twenty years ago by Richard Preston, The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus 5 readers are exposed to the twenty years of research by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRID) on a family of viruses that are lethal. This book came out before the Kitwit Outbreak but we know from press reports that the USAMRID, the CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other international research organizations used the Kitwit outbreak to study this virus. The book concentrated on the three ways which the scientific community attempts to deal with a virus, vaccines, drugs and bio containment. This book by Preston came out in a moment when the tabloid press was making great claims about the airborne possibilities of Ebola and was whipping up anti-African hysteria.

It was in the same period when Robert Kaplan had written his celebrated article, “The Coming Anarchy. “ It was this sensationalism that set the tone about the so called failed and fragile states in Africa. Robert Kaplan wrote extensively on how scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease were rapidly destroying the social fabric of our African societies. 6 Kaplan’s work was part of the psychological warfare against Africa and Africans at the moment when the peoples of world were celebrating the victory over apartheid.
USAMRID -The US Military and Biological warfare research- one arm of bioeconomic warfare
The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland is supposed to be the frontline research institution for the USA in its bioshield preparations, which is the preparedness of the US government to fight against biological threats. President Richard Nixon had ended the offensive biological warfare program of the USA with his “Statement on Chemical and Biological Defense Policies and Programs” on November 25, 1969 in a speech from Fort Detrick. The statement was supposed to put an end, unconditionally, to all U.S. offensive biological weapons programs. The United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction was signed in 1972. Even after the signing of this International Convention a number of countries including the USA continued research on designer viruses.

Although the United Nations Convention on Biological Warfare and the stockpiling of Toxin agents was passed in 1972, the explosion of scientific research on genetically modified organisms gave a boost to the research being carried out by both military and civilian agencies that were chasing profits from developing dual use pathogens. Biological agents that were being experimented with as bioweapons accelerated and the one bioweapon from this school of dual use pathogens that has come to light has been the experimentation on anthrax.

Characteristically, the use of anthrax on civilians by the military was in the case of the racist Rhodesian military who unleashed anthrax spores in feed cakes for animals killing over 80 Africans in what was then Rhodesia. Years later Dir. Timothy Stamps, the Minister of Health in Zimbabwe, drew a connection between the anthrax outbreak in Rhodesia, the Ebola outbreaks and the experimentation that had been carried out under South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program.
This South African apartheid (CBW) program has now received international notoriety through Project Coast where the apartheid regime was experimenting with biological agents that could be specifically targeted at Africans. The government of the United States has gone to great lengths to distance itself from the experimentation of Project Coast even though at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC of South Africa), Dr. Wouter Basson testified how he was warmly embraced by US intelligence elements. The full implication of the work of Wouter Basson and Daan Goosen is still to come to light. 7

The attractiveness of the weaponization of biological agents increased in the era of genetically modified organisms. Because Africa was the space of the most diverse genetic materials, scientists and bio anthropologists from the West traversed the rural countryside in Africa looking for plants with unique characteristics. In the era of massive research in the Life Sciences, many Universities became involved in dual use research.
Dual use research

Dual use research (DURC) is life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misused to pose a significant threat with broad consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, or national security. In short dual use research was research that could be used to assist in advancing human health and security or at the same time used for biological warfare.
We have learnt from research carried out by UNESCO that “military interest, in harnessing genetic engineering and DNA recombinant technology for updating and devising effective lethal bioweapons is spurred on by the easy availability of funding, even in times of economic regression, for contractual research leading to the development of bioweapons.” 8

This is the research environment to grasp the present outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

On the day before President Barack Obama spoke to the world on the Ebola Pandemic, the White House on Wednesday September 24, 2014 issued new guidelines intended to strengthen the oversight of federally funded biology research that could inadvertently produce bioweapons. According to the report in the New York Times carried on Thursday September 25, “The new policy shifts the burden of finding and disclosing the dangerous aspects of research from the funding agency — usually the National Institutes of Health — to the scientists who receive the grants and the universities or other institutions where they work.”

On the same day, the National Public Radio (NPR) was more specific that the ruling related to dual use pathogens and research being carried in government funded laboratories. This report came three years after the controversies about bird flu research that was being carried out for bioterror purposes. In 2011, there had been a fierce debate in the media about the use of biological research for terror, in short bioterrorism. Then as NPR reported, “Scientists and security specialists are in the midst of a fierce debate over recent experiments on a strain of bird flu virus that made it more contagious weapons.

In September of 2011 at a scientific conference in Malta, one scientist made a stunning announcement at a flu conference “he’d done a lab experiment that resulted in bird flu virus becoming highly contagious between ferrets — the animal model used to study human flu infection. It seemed that just five mutations did the trick.” This report on NPR in November 2011 did not reappear but in the same broadcast one noted bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Biosecurity at a national University stated that, “It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it.”

So far no expert or whistle-blower has come forward to speak openly about experimentation with viral haemorrhagic fevers which are now lumped under the name of Ebola. Today as a vital component of prevention and public education there is the need for scientists and researchers to speak out about the laboratories in the West or elsewhere that have been experimenting with dual use pathogens. It is also necessary for the international community to know whether any of these research teams or University personnel associated with dual use pathogens has been active in the countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria before the present outbreak of Ebola. At the minimum, ECOWAS and the African Union should pressure the UN Ebola Fund to focus not only on fund raising but to also make Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to fully develop the measures to properly organize against outbreaks of the current type.

From the reports coming in on the numbers of people who have been left to die without attention or decent burial, the figures on the number of deaths in West Africa from the World Health Organization (WHO) have been a clear undercount to minimize the extent of the devastation being created by Ebola. In contrast to the numbers being broadcast by WHO, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported on Tuesday September 23 that “Ebola cases could increase to between 550,000 and 1.4 million in four months, based on several factors including how many people are infected by Ebola carriers.

The report questioned whether the official number of deaths recorded by WHO, 2,800 out of at least 5,800 Ebola cases, has been underreported. CDC has said it is likely that 2.5 times as many cases, or nearly 20,000, have occurred so far.” 9 On the same Tuesday that the CDC issued its dire warning of the prospect of 1.4 million persons dying, the New England Journal of Medicine also weighed in and stated that in an article entitles, “Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa —The First 9 Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections,” “if the disease isn’t adequately contained, it could become endemic among the populations in countries hardest hit by the outbreak — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. …. “Without drastic improvements in control measures,” researchers say, “the numbers and cases and deaths from [Ebola] are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in coming months.”10
According to the WHO, “Extensive, immediate actions - such as those already started - can bring the epidemic to… a rapid decline in cases.”

Beyond the Militarization of the response to Ebola

The extensive and immediate action referred to by the World Health Organization refers to the deployment of military forces by the United States, Britain and France to the countries most affected. The United States has deployed over 4,000 military personnel to West Africa to assist in the fight against Ebola. The fight against Ebola cannot be a military effort. It must be an effort that is based on seeking to bring back the health and safety of the peoples whose communities have been destroyed with hundreds of families losing loved ones.

The United States plans to quickly increase its presence in Liberia, where military personnel are deploying to help the people halt the advance of the worst Ebola epidemic on record but we also need to know what the private security contractors have been doing in Liberia over the past ten years. President Obama has stated that the military is required to set up the medical and transportation infrastructure needed to deploy health workers. Why could this infrastructure work not be carried out by civilian agencies?
From India, Dir. Sreeram Chaulia noted correctly in an article entitled Foreign Pulse: Viral Politics, that “As the Ebola epidemic ravages West Africa, a familiar act with troublesome connotations is playing out.

The international response to the conjoined public health crises in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is following imperial patterns of tutelage and patronage, wherein each of these three countries has been exclusively taken over by its respective former master from America and Europe through targeted humanitarian aid…….An erstwhile colony established by American citizens freed from slavery, Liberia is back to being literally a ward of the US, which faces no competition from any other Western donor there. Washington is deploying up to 4,000 military personnel to set up hospitals, medical laboratories and treatment centres on a war footing. This mission, codenamed “Operation United Assistance”, is being overseen by the controversial US Africa Command (AFRICOM).”11

In a context where the international news media is dominated by the western news agencies, ECOWAS has also called for military mobilization to respond to EBOLA. In the opinion of this author, ECOWAS and the African Union has dropped the ball because the militarization of the international response will make it difficult for countries such as China, Cuba, India, South Korea and other societies to properly harmonize the medical response to this Ebola outbreak. The African Union and ECOWAS need a new kind of medical diplomacy which is rooted in the valuation of black bodies. Chaulia noted that “if the US, UK and France were driven by humanitarian motives, why did they not contribute to the multilateral UN Ebola response fund that would have distributed the funds more equitably among the three worst-hit West African countries? Thus far, only India and Australia have made sizeable donations of $10 million each to the UN Ebola fund that is woefully undersubscribed.”
Project 112
In North America, the Fox news Organization and its affiliates have been at the forefront of the racialization of the present outbreak of Ebola. When the Liberian national was hospitalized and later succumbed to Ebola, the conservative media whipped up an unprecedented hysteria about the possibilities of an Ebola outbreak in the United States. (This patient, Thomas Eric Duncan has since passed away). Within this hysteria, there are questions in the media whether this virus could go airborne. Some readers will remember that the possibility of the airborne transmission of Ebola was the theme of the Film Outbreak that was produced by Hollywood. What has not been in the public domain was the fact that it was the US government that from 1962 to 1973 carried out a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project called Project 112.

This was specifically conducted so that those who were being experimented with did not know that they were guinea pigs. In 2000 when US Television Network CBS made known the existence of this biological warfare program, it was also revealed that apart from testing on individuals in the USA there were tests carried out in countries where “The US Department of Defense (DoD) conducted testing of agents in other countries that were considered too unethical to perform within the continental United States.”
Project Bioshield

We are yet to know which African societies were considered ripe for the testing of toxins by the US Department of Defense. After the anthrax scare in the USA in 2001 and the war against the people of Iraq in 2003, the US Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act in 2004 calling for U.S. $5 billion for purchasing vaccines that would be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack. There has been a ten year program to put money into the same forces that were experimenting with dual use pathogens. In the words of the Congress Project Bio shield was a ten-year program to acquire medical countermeasures to biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear agents for civilian use. The US government has been working on countermeasures against biological warfare. Is it by accident that the top three threats that the Bioshield program is meant to defend the citizens of the US from are Anthrax, Ebola and Bird Flu?
Africa and bioterrorism
Africans have faced bioterrorism from the time of colonialism and apartheid and this is well documented in the book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Harriet Washington went into great details about the bioterrorism against black people. The Tuskegee experiment is now the most well-known case of using black bodies as guinea pigs for medical experimentation. The book on Hela Cells (Henrietta Lacks) is another devastating account of the use of black bodies. 12

Harriet Washington placed chemical and biological warfare under the larger category of “bioterrorism,” which “employs chemical or biological agents such as microbes and poisons in the service of terrorism…weapons often consist of disease-causing organisms, usually microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, or derivatives from humans, animals or plants” 13 Another important aspect of biological warfare that Harriet Washington brings forth is the fact that it can be both direct and indirect when used against populations. In other words, chemical agents can be used to kill people directly by physically harming them with something such as nerve gas, or biological warfare can be used to pollute the environment in which someone lives in order to cut off their source of food (plants, livestock), water, or both.

Cuba is one society outside of Africa that has been forced to develop the medical and biosafety capabilities after the outbreak of Dengue fever in 1977. We now know from the new book, Back Channel to Cuba, that Henry Kissinger had organized a plan to ‘smash’ Cuba.14 This was because Kissinger was angry about the Cuban intervention in Angola in 1975-1976 to beat back the racist South African Incursion into Angola. Henry Kissinger who had overseen the authorship of the National Security Memorandum 39 of 1969 which predicted that whites were destined to stay and rule in Southern Africa was upset that a small island committed to an alternative mode of economic organization could ruin his plans for Africa. It was reported in the recent New York Times article that in the discussions between Henry Kissinger (then Secretary of State) and President Gerald Ford, Mr. Kissinger used “language about doing harm to Cuba that is pretty quintessentially aggressive.” 15

The Cubans have exposed that the experiences of Dengue fever which broke out in Cuba in 1977 was linked to biological warfare by the US government. This has been corroborated by press reports from the United States based media organizations. At that time the United States government blocked efforts by the Cuban government to purchase fumigators and chemicals to control the dengue spread.

As a small island, Cuba has been able to develop quarantine measures but more importantly develop the scientific capacity to research the root of outbreaks such as Dengue.
The African Union and ECOWAS must take the lead to respond to this lethal virus
In August the President of the USA called the First US Africa Summit in Washington. Although the Ebola pandemic was already killing more persons than the four episodes discussed in the website of the CDC, the White House was not focused on the devastation that was being wrought on West Africa. In Africa, Ebola has exposed the porousness of the so called borders. The African Union has so far failed to take the lead in mobilizing to fight this pandemic. Does the African Union have in place any kind of bioshield preparation? At the time of the outbreak of the HIV AIDS pandemic it was significant that western pharmaceuticals placed their profits before human lives. It took the massive organizing of a grassroots movement such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) of South Africa to pressure the pharmaceuticals to allow for the production of generic drugs to treat AIDS patients in Africa. This TAC campaign influenced the cooperation between India, Brazil and South Africa which later merged into BRICS.

The African Union and the African Union must be pushed to act more decisively
A similar grassroots mobilization is now needed in West Africa to break the slow and lackadaisical response of ECOWAS and the AU. ECOWAS has been able in the past to intervene in Liberia and Sierra Leone to bring peace. Collectively, ECOWAS and the AU possess the technical and medical capabilities to be more vigorous in response to Ebola. There is the mistaken perception abroad that Africa does not have the medical personnel to fight this epidemic.

However, the ability to mobilize the resources in Africa for a more robust response depends on political will. Nigeria alone has over 40,000 doctors with thousands having experience in infectious diseases. In the economic warfare against Africa the medical profession of Africa was assaulted and there was a massive brain drain of African medical personnel to Europe and North America. African governments have been very clear about their objections to the wholesale migration of their physicians to rich countries. Despite these objections there are more than 10,000 international medical graduates from Africa in the USA and Western Europe. The US received more than 7,000 doctors from three countries: Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Progressive Africans will have to mobilize for a change of course so that the AU and the United Nations can demilitarize the response to Ebola.
Already it has been demonstrated in Liberia that the pandemic can be contained. Nigeria and Senegal have been able to contain the virus. The western media has drawn attention the fact that Firestone Company in Liberia was able to contain and control the virus on its rubber plantation. 16This author is no fan of Firestone. At the recent Empowered Africa Dialogue in Washington during August, workers at Firestone spoke of the low wage and exploitative working conditions on the rubber plantation. Thus this company cannot be held up as an example, but the important point is that Ebola can be controlled and there was no need for the pandemic to spin out of control.

The Firestone story also demonstrates that the military is not needed to organize the medical and transport infrastructure to contain the escalation of the deaths.

This author has been critical of saviours from outside but this Ebola pandemic provides an opportunity for the true humanitarian doctors to separate themselves from the militarized response to the Ebola outbreak. The African Union must take the lead so that those medical responders can find a non-military infrastructure to work with. There is the need for full scale mobilization in all of the countries where health workers, traditional doctors, scientists, civilian agencies and the military will be crucial in the fight against bio-economic warfare. Global health experts have declared the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach.

Although the media has racialized the Ebola pandemic, there is urgent need for the international community to come together for this coordinated global approach. The Ebola virus presented a real challenge to Africa and the deployment of scientists, community health workers, volunteers and health brigades to combat this virus is one of the most important tasks of reconstruction in Africa.

Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. He is the author of Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa in the Forging of African Unity, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2013.

1 Evan Horowitz, “How the Ebola Virus Spun Out of Control,” Boston Globe, October 8, 2014. http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/10/08/how-this-ebola-outbreak-spun-out-control/b3Fea51l1oRs4c0gjN36EM/story.html 2 C. J. Peters, J. W. LeDuc, “An Introduction to Ebola: The Virus and the Disease,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 179, Supplement 1. Ebola: The Virus and the Disease (Feb., 1999), pp. ix-xvi 3 Outbreaks Chronology: Ebola Virus Disease, CDC, Known Cases and Outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease, in Chronological Order: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/history/chronology.html 4 See Centers for Disease Control, “Known Cases and Outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease, in Chronological Order:” http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/history/chronology.html 5 Richard Preston, The HotZone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus,” Anchor books, 1995. 6 Robert Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,” The Atlantic, February, 1994 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/02/the-coming-anarchy/304670/ 7 Helen E. Pruitt, Stephen F. Burgess: South Africa’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2005 8 Edgar J. DaSilva,” Biological warfare, bioterrorism, biodefence and the biological and toxin weapons convention,” Electronic Journal of Biotechnology,Volume 2, No 3, December 1999. See also Wright, S. (1985). “The military and the new biology. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41:10-16. 9 “Estimating the Future Number of Cases in the Ebola Epidemic—Liberia and Sierra Leone, 2014–2015,” http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/qa-mmwr-estimating-future-cases.html 10 Bruce et al, B. p.-M. “Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa —The First 9 Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections.” The New England Journal of Medicine. 2014. 11 Sreeram Chaulia, “Viral Politics, Foreign Pulse, October 8, 2014.”http://www.asianage.com/columnists/foreign-pulse-viral-politics-226 12 Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Broadway Books, New York 2011

October 17, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Establishing legislative independence for effective governance in Liberia

By Cecil Franweah Frank

Since Liberia declared independence in July 1847, making it the first independent democracy in Africa, Liberia has gone through three stages of its national statehood. The first stage – 1847 to 1944, was characterized by nation-building. During this period, Liberia’s national leaders sought to create a national identity. They did this through the creation of the national flag, anthem, national myths like that of Matilda Newport shooting dead the natives that were attacking the colony, and a national language – English.

The second stage – 1944 to 1989, was characterized by the state-making of Liberia and exposed the country as a classical predatory state. During this period, Liberian leaders used the machineries of the state to eliminate or neutralize their internal rivals. Such internal rivalries were manifested in many forms, particularly the violent overthrow of Africa’s first Constitution of 1847, multiple military coup attempts, and the ensuing 14-year brutal civil war. The state-making stage was also marked by abject economic failure, poor infrastructure, poor health and education planning.

During the civil war, Liberia attained the status of a ‘failed state,’ the third level of four degrees of state failure characterized by Professor Robert Irwin Rotberg. Moreover, as a predatory state, Liberia preyed upon its citizens by ‘grabbing’ from them rather than providing means and programs to ‘help’ them. The third stage of Liberia’s statehood development – 1990 to 2006 – was characterized by peace building initiatives. During this period, domestic and international actors engaged in activities that were aimed at creating and supporting institutions to solidify peace in order to prevent continuation of Liberia’s vicious civil war and ameliorate the prospect of a relapse into conflict.

Liberia’s constitutions, both the one of 1847 and that of 1986, declared the principle of checks-and-balances between the three main branches of government – Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary. However, in practice, such principle was not vigorously enforced, thereby resulting in poor levels of governance. This article examines the importance of legislative independence in attaining effective governance as Liberia undergoes post-conflict reconstruction.

LIBERIA’S STATE-BUILDING CHALLENGES

A major challenge facing post-civil war Liberia is state-building. This concept is used to refer to the building of state capacities to enforce power in society. Such capacities are infrastructure and strong institutions. Within this context, state-building was the key task for the elected government headed by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that took office on 01 January, 2006. Judging by current events in Liberia, it is safe to conclude that this task has not yet been taken up by the Johnson-Sirleaf administration.

Eight years into the Johnson-Sirleaf administration, it is difficult to say that the government has performed with respect to building the basic capacities of the state to enforce standards and regulations, mobilize resources both for social development and to respond to natural disasters, and to invest into productive sectors of Liberia. The Ebola crisis clearly illustrates this point. Liberia continues to experience difficulties in state-building as seen by its inadequate developmental strategies, lack of coordination between the branches of government on the one hand, and agencies of government on the other hand, as well as manpower weaknesses. Finally, key governance elements necessary for effective building of infrastructure and institutions – accountability and transparency – are still largely not functioning well.

THE LEGISLATURE AND THE EBOLA CRISIS

Liberian legislators (senators and representatives) are elected directly by their constituents with popular vote. The Liberian president is also elected directly by the popular vote. Whereas, legislators are accountable to their individual constituents, the president is answerable to the general population. This contrasts with the United States where the president is elected through the electoral college system, while American legislators derive their power directly from the people through the popular vote. In theory Liberian legislators are supposed to be a vital bridge between the institutions that govern and the people. However, this is not the case in practice. They are frequently engaged in petty partisan struggle, and are unable to perform this role.

Historically, the legislature has been engaged in Liberia, at least up until 1944. The legislature played important roles in the loan and Fernando Po disputes that led to the removals of Presidents Edward J. Roye and Charles King respectively. During the state-making years, the legislature retained its lawmaking function while losing the oversight function. This situation continued up until the outbreak of civil war in 1989. As such, Liberia ceased to become a functional democracy and descended into dictatorship.

Since 2006, however, the legislature has had a checkered history of legislative independence. For example, its members sought to aggressively control and scrutinize presidential appointments. But in doing so, they quickly became accused of lack of objectivity and fairness, and of pursuing their own agenda based on hatred and malice towards Liberians residing in the Diaspora. At the same time, during confirmation hearings it became apparent that legislators failed to transparently and effectively scrutinize the backgrounds of political appointees regardless of whether theses appointees were members of the Diaspora or living locally.

The legislature has been mainly on the sidelines when it came to public-policy issues like the fight against corruption and abuse of power by individual government officials. An example of this is the failure by the legislature to hold to account government officials that arbitraryly ordered the arrest of journalists (remember Johnny Lewis and the Rodney Sieh sagas). Besides, the legislature took no concrete actions to investigate scandals and allegations of improprieties by government officials (remember the Knuckles saga). Another recent case in point of legislative ineffectiveness is the Ebola crisis.

Since the outbreak of Ebola, the legislature has failed to demand investigation into the mishandling of the crisis by the executive branch, nor has it held to account any government official for their role in the spread of the virus. Health ministry officials have not been investigated, nor the National Security Council under the leadership of President Sirleaf. Also, the police chief and the defense minister have not been questioned by the legislature over the manner in which quarantines were enforced, which in some cases resulted in deaths of civilians. The legislature largely ratified the president’s state of emergency that was declared in late July without any serious debate over its rationale.

CONCLUSION

The lack of an independent functional legislature will make it virtually impossible for the Liberian state to effectively enforce power. The current Ebola crisis is an illustration of this. The recent decision by the legislature to refuse to grant President Sirleaf’s request to extend the state of emergency is a silver lining in its checkered post-civil war history. Does it mean a return by the legislature to reasserting its autonomy from the executive branch? It may be too early to say, but while the decision to deny the extension of the state of emergency is laudable, it may not be sufficient in and of itself to ensure that the legislature contributes to effective governance in Liberia. In order to be effective, the legislature must fully and consistently exercise its core functions of representation, effective lawmaking, and efficient oversight. Until then, without a functional and independent legislature, the Liberian state will not be able to accrue the benefits of state building such as strong governance institutions, professional and specialized workforce. The struggle continues for Liberia in post-conflict state-building.

October 15, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Sirleaf’s obvious insensitivity toward Thomas Eric Duncan reminds me of what she said about Patrick Oliver Sawyer

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

Thomas Eric Duncan is dead.

He died not in the loving arms of his teenage son and the love of his life, Louise Troh; he died in the Ebola wing of the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.

Yes Dallas; Governor Rick Perry’s backyard, and home state of senator Ted Cruz. You know them? That’s another article.

Duncan joined his fiancé and the son he hadn’t seen for over a decade, and ended up in that part of Texas.

Prior to his departure for the US in this Ebola era, he reportedly assisted a pregnant neighbor in Monrovia who had been sick with the Ebola virus, and later passed away.

Thomas Eric Duncan’s troubles with the Ebola virus and the (racial) politics of Ebola that eventually took his own life faraway from his country started from that fatal encounter with his young neighbor.

Why did he even touched or provide assistance to the young lady in these Ebola times knowing she had the virus, and knowing he was about to leave for the country that could change his life for the best?

This question and other questions, I want to believe continued to pour out of our unguarded mouths in the wake of Duncan’s illness and eventual death.

However, at one point in our lives, we have been told to always provide assistance to those in need. And when something bad happens, as was the case with brother Duncan, we just have to live with the painful reality of our decision, or die with it knowing that we helped others.

In life, pre-Ebola Duncan was an unknown Liberian who was minding his own business trying to navigate the tough living conditions in Liberia.

In death, Duncan became famous for the wrong reasons for “knowingly” lying on his application to come to the US with Ebola, to infect others.

Truth is, I don’t believe Duncan’s knowingly lied on his application to come to the US, after he knew he had Ebola.

He showed no sign of the virus during the application process, but started showing signs of the virus after he arrived in Dallas, Texas on September 20. He later walked into the emergency room of the hospital on his own on the night of September 25, and told those people that he just arrived from Liberia, consider the “epicenter” of the virus.

A very sick Duncan did the right thing by turning himself in voluntarily to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, with a 103-degree temperature reading. The obviously incompetent, untrained, confused and perhaps racist medical staffers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas turned Mr. Duncan away.

Do you blame the sick patient from Liberia who turned himself in knowing he had Ebola, or do you blame the hospital that turned him away; when the hospital could have rushed to treat the man immediately to save his life and contain the spread of the virus?

And why did it take days to treat Mr. Duncan, when the experimental Zmapp drug was immediately rushed to Liberia to treat Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol, both of whom were transferred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta? Both former patients made it through and are now happily reunited with their families and friends.

Did Mr. Duncan’s race; nationality and politics had anything to do with the delay and the confusion that surrounded his treatment?

As Mr. Duncan laid sick in his hospital bed, our own Liberian government and Madame Sirleaf unleashed her usual unpatriotic and Un-Liberian venom at the sick man, threatening him with prosecution for knowingly telling lies on his application that he did not come in contact with anyone with Ebola.

“The fact that he knew (he was exposed to the virus) and he left the country is unpardonable, quite frankly,” She said.

“The U.S. doing so much to help us fight Ebola, and again one of our compatriots didn’t take due care, and so, he’s gone there and … put some Americans in a state of fear, and put them at some risk, and so I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth,” Sirleaf said again.

Remember Patrick Oliver Sawyer?

This is the same Madame Sirleaf who went on a vicious Un-Liberian tirade when she publicly berated Mr. Sawyer, who was also sick in Nigeria at the time with the Ebola virus. Sawyer later passed away in Nigeria.

The Liberian president, bowing to international pressure for showing incompetence in her fight to contain Ebola, told the public that Mr. Sawyer showed “indiscipline and disrespect” when he knowingly traveled with the Ebola virus on a plane to Nigeria.

When did it become “hip” and presidential for a sitting president to publicly berate an ailing fellow citizen, who is fighting for his or her dear life in another country?

Playing to the drums of her foreign friends, which perhaps ought to be done privately or not done at all, is one thing. Showing compassion to comfort the tormented and bereaved families, and reaching out to the country during this Ebola era when Liberians are suffering and dying at home and abroad, would have won Madame Sirleaf some points as a caring and compassionate leader.

Madame now wants to have the dictatorial power to restrict the movement of Liberians. This is a no, and a breach of the rights of all Liberians.

As a slap in her face, Liberians all over the world and in Liberia, should take to the streets of major cities and town to protest the Sirleaf administration, and ask her to resign.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf got to go!

Madame Sirleaf is known to enable corruption and nepotism, and has never prosecuted any member of her family or inner circle.

Why threatened to prosecute an ailing Liberian, or say bad things about the individuals in their deathbeds, in the first place?

There is a need for accountability.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf cannot continue on the current paths of insensitivity and recklessness, as if Liberians are supposed to sit down supinely, be quiet, and take the abuse and enjoy it.

Those days are no more!

It is time for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to resign.

October 11, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Liberia's sinking 'devine' leadership

By Siahyonkron Nyanseor

How do you prevent a ship from sinking, when the captain and the crews who were forewarned of impending DANGER refused to listen to the warning signs? Instead, they go about business as usual - engaging in practices that benefit their individual interests, and leave the people they are supposed to represent and protect, vulnerable?

This is the fate of the sinking Liberia’s divine leaders’ ship. And now that failed divine leadership is at the verge of drowning, and are running helter-skelter seeking welfare from the international community. The question then is what happened to the billions of dollars in investments and aids the country received in the nine years President Sirleaf and her Unity Party (UP) have been in office?

For example, a draft audit in May 2013 “…found that almost all of the $8-billion worth of resource contracts signed by Liberia since 2009 violated its laws, casting doubt on anti-graft and good governance efforts under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.” (International Monetary Fund, July 5, 2013 article titled: “Billions In Donor Money Very Little To Show: IMF Calls For Transparency In Liberia.”

The same article went on to say, “Liberia has attracted billions of dollars in resource investment since the end of a civil war in 2003, but remains one of the world’s least developed countries, with at least 64 percent of the population living in poverty.”

Drinking water that is essential for life; road network and electricity that facilitate development and commerce were never a priority for this government. Instead, the money has been used to pay high salaries to government officials and on wasteful spending. In order to make these things happen, the President and her ruling party along with the Legislature violate the laws; amended a version of the Constitution to suit their selfish purpose at the expense of the entire population.

Well, the Ebola virus has already sunk the ship, now the ‘Divine’ leaders are running scare going around in search of life support system to buy sufficient time to recover and cook-up another scheme to get back in the captain’s seat to steer the ship like they did in the Association for constitutional Democracy in Liberia (ACDL) - the sponsor of the Liberian civil (EVIL) war that brought to power, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) to destroy what little we had.

Dr. Joseph A. Verdier correctly diagnosed what is wrong with us as a people. He says, and I agree: “The problem is, for some time now it has been nearly impossible to find a compatriot with the fortitude to lead the nation on a path of creating an economically vibrant and politically stable society. In other words, our search for an effective and caring leader has been coming up short for several decades now. It has become almost impossible for Liberians to identify and elect a leader who is engaging enough to take the nation on a realistic path of national re-awakening and revival. That path has been awfully elusive. For the most part, it has been characterized by false starts and as well driven by a sort of caged cult mentality which almost predictably leads to dashed hopes and betrayed aspirations.”

To which I say we are responsible for the government and leaders we elect or select. In the past, be it in Banjul or Accra, we select our leaders either based on friendship/association or on the basis of ‘what is in it for me;’ and NOT what the person we select is capable of doing for the country. As the result, we lobbied, bribe money is exchanged and the one with the biggest purse is chosen; not necessarily the most qualified. It happened in Banjul and Accra!

After several years of failed leadership, we go back to the drawing board to repeat the same, without learning from the mistakes. When we are faced with new candidates; we do not factor in our decisions the new candidates’ work experience and history - like it is done in the business world; check with the candidates’ former employers and references before selecting the person or persons. In many cases, we based our selection on the person’s name, popularity, family and associates, the school they attended or graduated from. To me the school that one graduated from does not make who the person is, instead, it is what the individual made of themselves after they have graduated that makes a world of difference.

The Dunn Proposal

I respect but disagree with Dr. Dunn’s proposal that calls for massive international support to avert this public health crisis. In his Op-ed piece that appeared in the September 10, 2014 edition of The Perspective magazine, under the caption, “Ebola, A threat to International security and peace”. Dr. Dunn argued that this public health crisis has become an existential threat to Liberia and the West African sub-region and, therefore, should be treated not as a “public health emergency”, but rather as a “Chapter 7 Mandate to deliver as One.”

He argued further that the concept of “deliver as One” would enable the establishment of a framework for coordinating the response from “national, regional, and global levels” to address this crisis. While Dr. Dunn’s proposal provides a technical solution or technocratic approach to the crisis, it ignores a deeper underlying problem of a crisis of governance that confronts Liberia. A fundamental question not addressed by Dunn’s proposal is: What happens for example, when the international community or our so-called international partners are no longer around and the country has to fend for itself? How then do we address the question of bad governance, concentrated poverty, and ever-widening inequality? While Liberia needs international support to address many of its developmental needs, Liberians cannot continue to seek welfare assistance from the international community each time our leaders MESS UP.

President Sirleaf and her Unity Party government failed the Liberian people; she must face the consequences. She has failed to deliver the promises she made to the Liberian people for which they elected her. Even Doe and Taylor did better than her. With all the money that has been invested in the country – ‘growth without services’ is an understatement. In this day and age, we cannot continue to depend on ‘welfare’ from the international community for our life support system.

Many of us are very disappointed in President Sirleaf and her Unity Party leadership. What makes it so bad is, her misrule is being done with the assistance of the Progressives as technocrats and the educated indigenous elites as cheerleaders, and the resuscitated old guards of the defunct Grand Old True Whig Party partisans who came back in the name of Unity Party members; with vengeance to reclaim what they lost on April 12, 1980. They have since recovered more than their losses.

Moreover, these so-called Divine Leaders have recruited a new bunch of ‘spoon-fed’ loyalists with no credible work experience; they have replaced the relevance of the Progressives, and have relegated them to serve as mere service providers. Moreover, the TWP partisans are now posing as UP partisans, have taking charge of running the key ministries and serving on major commissions, and receiving the higher salaries in the country’s history – both in the government and with NGOs. And all we are concerned about are National Symbols and Dual Citizenship; while President Sirleaf is mortgaging our land and resources right under our noses.

Leadership

His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, once said: “…Leaders are people, who raise the standard by which they judge themselves-and by which they are judged. The goal chosen, the objective selected, the requirements imposed are not merely for their followers alone. They develop with consummate energy and devotion their own skill and knowledge in order to reach the standards they themselves have set. This whole-hearted acceptance of the demands imposed by ever-higher standards is the basis of all human progress. A love of high quality, we must remember, is essential in a leader.

“…A good leader is devoted to his work and will willingly forego even the demands of sleep to see its accomplishment. This does not mean that he is impetuous. On the other hand, he maintains a balance between emotional drive and sound thinking.”

In the Daily Observer article titled: “Ellen’s Gov’t Lacks Coordination,” Dr. Amos Sawyer, Governance Commission Chairman expressed concerns that the three branches of government are not communicating in the governance of the state. The article was dated April 24, 2014. In the article, he said, “…I am saying this from where we sit at the level of the Governance Commission. How to bring these various institutions together and how to transcend tough struggles are issues we are here to address.

“We need to see how we can get beyond these challenges and find common ground with mutuality of interest for a win-win situation. We need to find a solution where there is enough credit to go around the agencies involved for a common perspective. Above all, we must put our country above self interest…”

What an indictment coming from the Chairman of the Governance Commission of Liberia! The concern raised by the Chairman of the Governance Commission regarding the Government made me to take a look at The Peter Principle.

The Peter Principle

What is The Peter Principle? The Peter Principle concept was introduced by the Canadian sociologist Dr. Laurence Johnston Peter in his humoristic book of the same title. In his book, he described the pitfalls of the bureaucracy in organizations witnessed during his extensive research into business organization and its management.

The Peter Principle has attained such renown that The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent… In a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence,” or, as Dr. Peter’s Principal explained more simply, “The cream rises until it sours.”

The same is applied in school. For example, if a student does not meet the course requirements, he either drop the course to receive an “I” for INCOMPLETE or is given an “F” grade for FAILURE. This is the same in the Business World and Government. In the Business World, when an employee cannot perform the responsibilities for which he was hired, he is warned or suspended for a period of time; if he is reinstated and still cannot perform the job, he either resign or get terminated. As it looks, President Sirleaf has but two choices; she either RESIGN voluntarily or the Liberian people will ask her to RESIGN on the grounds that she failed miserably in the performance of her duties, and let the Constitution do the rest. All the talk about receiving WELFARE from the International Community is a temporary solution – not the solution.

On the other hand, let me remind our readers that in 1962, the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1803 (XVII) gave the indigenous inhabitants (the people that were there first, who the ‘Love of Liberty did not bring) certain rights that must be respected and adhered to. The Assembly declared, inter alia:

The right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources must be exercised in the interest of their national development and of the well-being of the people of the State concerned.

The exploration, development and disposition of such resources, as well as the import of the foreign capital required for these purposes, should be in conformity with the rules and conditions which are consider to being necessary or desirable with regard to the authorization, restriction or prohibition of such activities.

The International Labor Organization Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention No. 169/1989, now ratified by several countries, contains important provisions for control over natural resources by Indigenous peoples in their collective capacity as peoples. In particular, article 15 provides for the rights of “peoples” to their natural resources. Paragraph 1 reads as follows:

1. The rights of the peoples concerned with the natural resources pertaining to their lands shall be specifically safeguarded. These rights include the right of these peoples to participate in the use, management and conservation of these resources.

This is not happening in Liberia with our resources. Those who violate these Conventions will be held responsible, if NOT now, tomorrow!

Conclusion

Finally, the practice known as corruption is as old as man, according to some people. Others have argued that corruption started with the first family in the Garden of Eden, and that it exists in all human societies - from Genesis to Exodus. Yet, in almost all societies, there are laws against corrupt practices of any kind. If corruption goes unchecked, it will flourish and collapse continents. Unlike a tip that is given as an expression of appreciation for services rendered; bribe, a form of corruption is given to prevent justice or for other dishonest purposes.

Dismayingly, however, apologists of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Unity Party government lacks intellectual honesty and is incapable of owning up to the mounting problems her administration has created either by its acts of omission or commission; have not only shamelessly but deceptively and has been engaged in a public relations war of words to deceive and make mockery of its real interests. Mouthing such phrase as “the Oldma is trying;” its vocal proponents are calling for cessation of criticisms against her dis-unity government in order that - we the ‘Troublemakers’ (*Portists – that is) would share in the spoils of the people’s wealth. However, this deception has only followed more deceptions, exposing its vulnerability and practice of corrupting the truth.

The fact of the matter is, since there is a total lack of honesty in the Sirleaf administration, certainly it will be difficult for the government’s policies to escape the attention of any concerned and caring person. In retrospect, it astonishes me; yet, I am not too surprised by the behaviors of some ‘former progressive elements’ and the President’s kitchen cabinet. My intent here is to remind them of a historical fact that even they cannot resist or escape from - the wrath of the people, and that “No condition is permanent.” Tolbert, Doe, Taylor as well as a host of African leaders are victims of this historical fact. Moreover, I am in agreement with what Charles Taylor said, “The ant on the treetop will always find water to survive.” But if the ant is not careful, the water could kill it because the water is contaminated due to neglect.

My people, here is where we find ourselves! If there is nothing else, NEGLECT of the Liberian people by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sufficient GROUND for her NOT to be allowed to continue leading a country whose people she cares NOTHING about - their HEALTH and WELFARE.

*Portists: Anyone regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, who has the guts to speak TRUTH to power regardless of the consequences. He/she WORKS to RIGHT the wrongs in society. That’s what a Liberian PORTIST is! This is a tradition we are prepared to continue. Portists are continuing the advocacy that was left VOID by the death of Mr. Constitution, the late Oldman Albert Porte.

October 11, 2014 | 0 comments | View Post

Archive for October, 2014

Speech delivered at the Friends of Nimba Community College annual scholarship fundraiser

Evaluating the international response to Ebola in Liberia

“God can’t sleep”: He is impatient with Liberia

Liberia must adopt a new aggressive strategy to eradicate Ebola

How US Puppet Ellen Sirleaf of Liberia Is Helping Ebola Epidemic Destroy Africa

Many Liberian Doctors—Including President’s Son—Are Staying Away As President of Ebola-Ravaged Country Pleads for Foreign Helpers, Her Physician Son Sends Aid from U.S.

Ebola, the African Union and bioeconomic warfare: health questions and the challenges for Africa

Establishing legislative independence for effective governance in Liberia

Sirleaf’s obvious insensitivity toward Thomas Eric Duncan reminds me of what she said about Patrick Oliver Sawyer

Liberia's sinking 'devine' leadership

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