KUDENUMO PEACE INITIATIVE FOUNDATION, INC. (KNPIF)
MARYLAND AVENUE, HARPER CITY, MARYLAND COUNTY, R. L.
CELL: +231.6920.151/666.6957
EMAIL: osygefo@hotmail.com
Daniel Williams
ACTING SUPERINTENDENT
Maryland County, R. L.
Harper City, Maryland County
Dear Hon. Williams:
Trusting you are enjoying God’s grace and doing well with your varied responsibilities, we greet you!
The occasion of this letter is to once more officially register our deepest concerns and distaste of refugee violence against our Indigenes in the Ferguson and Rocktown Belts.
Record holds that the first batch of Ivorian refugees arrived in great quantity in Harper City in March, 2011 for safe haven. Since their arrival, violence has been meted against our Indigenes in the various regions where the refugees have been placed.
The Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other local and international nongovernmental organizations took over the refugee situation. They placed the refugees on the former Bishop Ferguson High School Campus. To create room for the refugees, they evicted young kids from nearby villages who were attending classes in the Ferguson building. To add more insult to the injury, the refugees damaged sugar cane farms and crops of the kid’s parents beyond human imagination. The people of the area became no longer at ease. To find redress and relieve, they ran to the Superintendent’s office with their complaints. After numbers of complaints filed, Superintendent J. Gble-Bo Brown visited with the indigenes in the Ferguson Belt to help resolve the emerging crisis. The Indigenes presented their plight. The Superintendent agreed with the people’s case and submitted an apology. He then promised that the violence would seize effective immediately. But to the dismay and utmost surprise of the Indigenes, the destructive attitude of the refugees escalated instead provoking tremendous level of severe human suffering and catastrophe in the area.
Everywhere the Indigenes turned for help was up to no avail. They called on us. And we heard their cry and also felt their pain. As an organization spearheading peace within the Glebo Peninsula in which the Indigenes of the Ferguson Belt fall, we authored a letter to the Superintendent’s office seeking an immediate remedy to the situation. Otherwise, we felt that if nothing was done, the Indigenes in the area would be internally displaced. And this would trouble the Liberian government. The response to our request and complaint was slow. So we physically visited the office and inter faced with you. You then promised a “speedy” response. Unfortunately again, the response was not satisfactory. We then made a demand for an independent investigation/inquiry. Thank God you granted the demand for an independent investigation/inquiry. But we were surprised the investigating team was not independent. We registered our regret and disappointment for the lack of an independent investigation/inquiry. But all the same, you authorized the investigation anyhow. After several weeks, a report by the Investigating team you set up submitted a report. But up to the time we opine, the Report on the Ferguson refugee violence has not yet received any attention in specific terms of implementation from your office. And this beats our minds and the minds of every normal person.
Hon. Acting Superintendent, recently, another situation with reference to refugee violence has emerged in the Rocktown/Little Wlebo area. And it is our opinion that this emerging situation is due to your office’s ongoing campaign of silence on the pending refugee crisis that developed in the Ferguson Belt. The unsolved problem of refugee violence in the Ferguson Belt has now been transferred into the Rocktown Belt – a new location for the refugees. What makes the matter quite troubling to us is that, as was done in the Ferguson case, you relocated the refugee without the consent of the people in the Rocktown Belt. Consequently, the same level of violence (economic and physical) previously committed in the Ferguson Belt is visible in the Rocktown Belt.
Hon. Acting Supt., we are disappointed in your office’s campaign of silence along with other international partners who are responsible for the Ivorian refugees against our citizens. Hence, we are also deeply concerned. Our taxpaying, law-abiding and peaceful citizens living in both regions must be treated with respect and dignity.
The people of Rocktown have submitted numerous complaints to your office accounting the many violence actions being committed by refugees against them. As a sign of frustration, on August 12, 2011, the people of Rocktown peaceably marched in a peaceful protest demonstration on the Refugee Camp to make their case heard. A Position Statement was delivered to the Camp Master. In the Statement the peace-loving people of Rocktown registered their distaste for refugee violence against them. It registered that the rights of the people of Rocktown and Little Wlebo are being trampled and infringed upon. For disrespect to their natural endowments, sacred institutions and shrines is unacceptable. Therefore, it should discontinue effective immediately!
Hon. Acting Superintendent, we wish to report to you that LRRRC is not functioning properly in Maryland County. Its refusal to provide possibilities for the natives to survive is a prime example. All things being considered, the natives are closed to being internally displaced in their own homeland due to the irresponsible attitude of LRRRC staff in Maryland.
Therefore, we, members and officers of The KudeNumo Peace Initiative Foundation, Inc., are seeking immediate action from your office to resolve the problem before a reaches crisis proportion.
It is our solemn belief, if nothing is done immediately to relieve our people, the violent situation within the Rocktown Belt will take the shape of irreversible crisis. Hence, we propose you convene an emergency meeting with the victims (Rocktown, Little Wlebo & people of the Ferguson Belt) along with LRRRC, UNHCR and all other stakeholders to find a lasting solution beneficial to the natives and refugees.
We look forward to your reply and to the fundamental resolution of this problem. We will wait ten days from the date of this letter before seeking further help beyond your office.
Please contact us by mail and/or cell phone as seen above. Be well and Peace! I am,
Sincerely,
Thomas G. Bedell/COPresident
CC: LRRRC
UNHCRUNMIL Civil Affairs
Ministry of Internal Affairs
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