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

By Gibson W. Jerue

PART IV:

President Sirleaf is a player. She mastered how to identify a weak prey. She is the godmother of divide and rule tactics. She can drive a four-inch nail in splitting timber and you will not know it. She may swallow a hen alive and you will not see the feathers on her mouth. That is the gamer I am talking about.

Unfortunately, she was not smart enough to see disgrace coming at the instance of her son, Fomba Sirleaf. The year 2007 was a terrible year for Andrew Dorbor, a prominent Krahn man then residing in la Cote d’Ivoire. He had eased himself out of Liberia with all the heat of gun battle and was living a peaceful life in Abidjan. Andrew was enjoying the cool breeze of the foret d’Abidjan, little did he know he was going to be the first victim of official harassment, the true meaning of witch-hunt.

Andrew Dorbor will never forget that day when agents of the Liberian National Security Agency (NSA) instigated Ivorian security to arrest and detain him. Dorbor was satisfied eating his dry rice and palm oil until President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf instructed her son, Fomba, to disrupt the peace of this old man, who waiting on God’s time to visit his forefathers. Not only that he was humiliated and tortured in Ivorian jailed, he was denied visit by family members before he was transferred to Monrovia.

Before being transferred to Monrovia for “further investigation”, the NSA authority asked the Ivorian security to issue him document under different name. Guess what they chose—Mohammed. This was done so nobody will ask for Andrew and find him in any Liberian jail. It was also intended to disguise their victim for reasons best known to them. Dorbor was flown to Liberia as Mohammed and was warned never to answer to his own name, that if anyone asked for him he should only answer to Mohammed and not Andrew Dorbor. This is pathetic to see a government presided over by someone who championed human rights to allow such witch-hunt action.

Now in the NSA jail, his wife was denied access, not even to mention other family members. He slept his first 48 hours in jail without charges. But charges were never to come until six months elapsed. Dorbor was languishing in jail, no access to him and he was intermittently tortured to confess to something he had no knowledge. What were they accusing him of—plot to over the Sirleaf administration. The government of Liberia claimed he planned that with other people. Those people were never revealed. And three months went by no charges still, in  gross violations of the his fundamental human and constitution rights to being charged within 48 hours of his arrest and detention. For Andrew Dorbor, the laws are not for him. He was a bloody Krahn man who deserved death if possible. Dorbor would tell the court later that NSA agents lit cigarette and burned his penis, something the NSA denied.

In the sixth month of detention without trial or charges, I got the hint that he was in jail. I went to the NSA to see the Director, Fomba Sirleaf. Fomba kept me on the bench in front of his office for four hours without seeing me. In the end, he spoke through is assistant that there was no Andrew Dorbor in jail at the NSA. The plan they hatched was coming to fruition. I insisted that Dorbor was there. One of the NSA agents told me, “you will leave now or you will arrested for playing with national security interest.” As a journalist, I was reminded of the maxim that no story is worth dying for. So I must leave now, I thought. I left. When I burst the story the next day, the NSA admitted that he was there but was under protective custody. Under the Liberian law, nobody should be detained in protective custody. It was a violation of Dorbor’s constitutional rights.

In the end, the NSA and government prosecution asked Dorbor to serve as state witness against another Krahn man, Charles Julu. They promised to set him up with huge amount of money. Dorbor agreed but that was just to get into the custody of the court. When he got to court, he told the judge, I cannot lie on another man because of money government promised to give me. He explained the deal the government wanted to strike with him. As a result, the prosecution made him defendant again declaring him a radical witness.

Now how is Ellen connected to this? In our political and security practice in Liberia, no one official or head of a security agency takes such a grave decision as detaining someone without charges for months without the president knowing about it. Beside, Fomba was the President’s son. It serves Ellen right once it was one Krahn man who was being persecuted. That is witch-hunt. It suits the definition of witch-hunt that says, “A rigorous campaign to round up or expose DISSENTERS on the pretext of safeguarding the welfare of the public.” The government claimed Dorbor was plotting to stage a coup, which was a blatant lie. I will finish this portion when I discuss the fifth part tomorrow.