Part I: 10 Reasons Why Madam Sirleaf Is Witch-hunting Grand Gedeans

By Gibson W. Jerue

PART I:

By late 1978, a well-educated German-Gola female member of the ruling oligarchy was well situated at the Ministry of Finance. As Deputy Minister, she was a better pick. By early 1979, the late President William R. Tolbert did not hesitate to land her the job. She represented a true pawn, with one of her parents a Gola woman. She was to execut the orders of the man who was to order the shooting down of hundreds, perhaps thousands of country boys in the streets of Monrovia [Liberia] on the fateful day of April 14, 1979. It only took her a stroke of the pen to finance the police operation against its own citizenry.

Now minister proper presiding over the naked wealth of the country, with all the taxes and revenues milking the ruling class that Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was to serve with her soul, body and spirit, she had done anything to milk herself first. But not so fast, when on April 12, 1980, the inevitable happened—Tolbert and his ruling hegemony was overthrown by seventeen, half-baked, poorly educated, political buffoons, and soldiers at the lower level of the military leadership had seized power. At the head of these 17 enlisted men of the Armed Forces of Liberia was a Krahn political novice, a Master Sergeant, Samuel Kanyon Doe, whose only attempt at leadership was to command a small unit somewhere in Bomi for a few weeks.

And that early morning, about 5:30, a rather poorly spoken, words chewing Sergeant of the AFL, Doe, announced: “This is Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe. I am your new head of state…William Tolbert has been overthrown and replaced by the People’s Redemption Council. I hereby order that all borders—land, sea and air—be closed until otherwise ordered.” Ellen may not have heard it, like other top government officials. Why would people like Madam Sirleaf and others listen to the Liberia Broadcasting System when she got “better things to do with her time”.

But by the time reality set in, they realized only one man’s name was on top—Samuel Doe, a “bloody Krahn man” has taken power away from them, snatching their daily bread. The fear of death crept in. And with awful shock, thirteen top officials were lined up on the south beach behind the poorly built Military Barrack [the Barclay Training Center]. The shots of M1 and M16 sent the begging souls of 13 top government officials to their early grave, buried in mass on the Gurley Street side of the Palm Grove Cemetery. One particular life was saved—Ellen.

Although Doe, now presiding hero of the people, who was dancing to the tone of “Country woman born soldier” drumming and singing, saved Ellen for one reason…her mother gave him a cup of water in Artington. So Ellen was save, but Doe did not killed in her mind the grudge that built up over night that a Krahn man has spoiled everything for her. That thought drove everything in her to pay back, to deal this little Krahn boy a blow that he will never forget, and not only to deal with him alone but anything of his lineage. Today, that first hatred has germinated so well that Ellen will do anything to annihilate the Krahn people any and every way she believes is within her reach.