Peaceful & Nonviolent Protest Agaqinst LRRRC for Reparation

Position Statement

Presented to Hon. J. Gble-Bo Brown

Superintendent, Maryland County, R. L.

By The Leaders, Women, Men, Youth & Farmers of The Whole Graway Ferguson Community, Cape Palmas

Harper City Hall, June 11, 2012

Hon. Superintendent, March, 2011, Refugees emerging from the Ivory Coast that were placed on The Bishop Ferguson High School Campus by The Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) headed by Cllr. Wheatonia Y. Dixon Barnes, destroyed eleven (11) sugar cane farms within the Ferguson Belt with impunity. These farms belonged to eleven tax-paying and law-abiding citizens residing in the Ferguson Belt. Several complaints were filed to your office. Additions to that, complaints were also filed in the offices of LRRRC both in Monrovia and Harper respectively. One year and three months ago today, both LRRRC and your office fail to produce positive response. As you know, the destruction of the farms was astronomical. As such, it has been an economic burden on us. The damage in terms of dollars and cents is equal to Sixty-six thousand ($66,000.00) United States dollars. After intensive Positive Action mounted on your office, which came from us and our friends, children and other social justice advocates, your office was forced to establish a “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate the matter. Even though we are not satisfied with the composition and Report submitted by the Commission which was headed by The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, its formation and activities justifies our legitimate claims.

Hon. Superintendent, having inherited the area from our Foreparents who lived there more than 100 years ago, we have done all that is required under our Organic Laws to maintain and protect the area. When the Refugees were brought into the area, we, as custodian of the area, were not informed. Yet and still, as a decent people, we gave our fullest support. But our generosity and hospitality was and continues to be abused by both LRRRC and the comity of refugee management.  

Hon. Superintendent, the failure of LRRRC and the local government of Maryland, yea Liberia, to recognize the Report of its own “Commission of Inquiry” which confirms the destruction beyond human imagination, is a clear and deliberate violation of our Rights as law-abiding and tax-paying citizens of the Republic of Liberia.

Therefore, based on the supramentioned undisputable facts, you and LRRRC have denied us the ability to obtain our full human conditions. As such, we hereby register our distaste and disdain and thereby DEMAND reparation otherwise we will resolve into NONSTOP and continuous peaceful and nonviolent street demonstrations in order to capture the undivided attention of the Liberian government. This will include and not limited to “Sit-ins,” passive resistance and PROLONG marches along the streets of Harper and maybe transfer our activities to Monrovia to meet with Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia to submit our legitimate claims.

We have called on all international and local government and nongovernmental organizations to help us out of our misery, but none came to our rescue. Even The UNICEF which is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential, continues to sit on the proverbial fence watching our children being kicked out of their class rooms only to make room for refugees. Consistent with The UNICEF Mission Statement, it is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children - victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation and those with disabilities. But when the Refugees launched an unprovoked attack on our children and their parents, UNICEF has been sitting by and watching. Are our children considered children of a lesser god?

Hon. Superintendent, we want to summon all of you who have a practical nature, all who possess idealism, dynamism and immense sense of patriotism, all who believe in goodness, truth and beauty, to unite to support our reparation demands so that we and the Refugees can built a new society where each of us will have a peaceful and tolerant future. In this new society we will work for ourselves and enjoy what the Creator has bequeathed to us, those things that until now we have been deprived of by the LRRRC and Refugee management who hold economic-financial power in their hands. We have arrived at a decisive moment in time when it is no longer possible to go on sustaining unnecessary economic pains as a result of Refugee violence.

We are calling on all of you to bring about a change that is in the interest of the refugees and citizens of this country. We are calling on you to turn this economic bankrupt situation around, to disinvert it and head it in the right direction. We want to live life; we want to produce for ourselves and our fellow men and our children; we want to live in peace with everyone. Nor can we let anyone go on exploiting us and destroying our children’s future. We intend to put a stop to all of this because we want to live in a time of peace now — that peace we have always desired but which has been denied us.

Hon. Superintendent, we are greatly disturbed by this broad daylight violence against us. And so we are now prepared to take matters to the Liberian government. And if need be, we shall take this matter to The United Nations for redress.

Our children have been denied schooling and we, as their parents, have been denied economic progress. Therefore, we unequivocally, with all we can command from the roof our tongues, demand reparation!

We look forward to your immediate response to this human catastrophe.

Attached is a copy of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry set up by your office and headed by The Catholic justice and Peace Commission. The Report is captioned,

                                                                       “The Committee Report

Eleven Sugar Farms reportedly destroyed at Bishop Ferguson Community in Harper by Ivorian Refugees

Harper City, Maryland County

Republic of Liberia 

Prepared and Submitted on behalf of the Committee:

Thomas B. Mawolo

Chairman

The Catholic Peace and justice Commission

Cape Palmas Diocese”

Signed - Victims:

1.       Monday Howe

2.      Alexander Harris

3.      Perry Harris

4.      Thykindon Harris

5.      Quiah Harris

6.      William Harris

7.      Nyemande Elizabeth Harris

8.      Martha Harris

9.      Victor Harris

10.   

11.   

Approved:                                                                                           

                        Victor Wade Harris/CLAN CHIEF/WHOLE GRAWAY

Attested:                                                                                                                     

                T. Gbuo-Mle Bedell/Founder/Operations/CCAC/Social Justice Advocate

cc:       Ministry of Internal affairs

              LRRRC

              Commissioner, Harper District 

             Legislative Caucus

Harper Stinks

Harper City is one of the oldest cities in Liberia. It is situated deep in the heartland and keyhole of the Southeastern Region of the country. It is the capital of Maryland (Liberia).

It used to be one of the best when I was growing up. But now if you were to ask me much about the City, my answer is, “It stinks!”

The offensive smell of feces and electric generator fumes hang like a thick dark cloud over Harper City.

Each time I walk around the City, the offensive smell is found everywhere. There are black scandal bags almost everywhere in which full or half loads of feces had been tossed close to the street-side and into makeshift garbage pits; garbage heaps, or the open areas in sections of the community.

In Harper, running water is scarce and sometimes non-existent in the inner-city community.

Public toilet and bathroom facilities to offer some dignity to the men, women and children are nonexistent. Men and women alike pee along the streets.

Flies, people and animals commingle in a maze of nastiness. When the wind blows, the residue of filth is felt all over your body including in your mouth. Corpses are embalmed along the riverside and roadside.

Flies quickly move from the mounds of filth to the mouths of adults and young babies.

Communities in the outskirt of the City are heavily infested with deadly disease-carrying rats. Big heavy rats run across the streets as I take my evening and morning walks throughout the City.

The filthy conditions common to most parts of the City create breeding grounds for the rodents.

We all know rats and mice spread over 35 types of diseases. And these diseases can be spread to humans in many ways.

Strayed dogs infested with rabies, pigs and other animals ply the streets of Harper without hindrance.

In Harper City that is a risk that we live with every day.

 RECOMMENDATION (S):

1.   Recruit student volunteers to help sweep streets on a daily basis for an Honorarium of $50 (US) monthly.

2.    Each Street by sponsored by an individual or group or organizations. For example, one person or group can take responsibility to pay the annual salary of each student volunteer.

3.    The project will be managed by The KudeNumo Peace Initiative Foundation, Inc. INC. (KNPIF) the author of Peace in the Peninsula

4.  Encourage international and national nongovernmental organizations to assist in environmental issues in the City for the common good of all including, asbestos removal, erosion, &c.

BENEFIT:

1.       Students will learn how to volunteer

2.       Students , while volunteering will receive an Honorarium

3.       Students, while learning how to volunteer and receiving Honorarium, will help clean their own community for their own good and everybody else’s

4.       Harper City will be a clean city and environmentally stable

I am Thomas G. Bedell speaking and working on the ground in Liberia

Who is a True Marylander?

In Maryland many and oft a time the issue of who is a true Marylander grips the entire community to its ankle so much so it takes physical TREND.

I can recall, two young fellas clashed on the question. The debate began as an intellectual one. Later on it became physical. In no time, the Police came in and arrested both young men and took them to the Police Headquarters for investigation. The Police found out the two young men represented two extreme positions and views in the community. One of them is Glebo and the other Kru.

The Glebo folk observes that the Krus in Grand Kru County do not allow other tribes from outside Grand Kru to take jobs and seek opportunities to better themselves in the County. But, according to him, when the Krus come to Maryland, they are allowed to take any job they wish and live wherever they wish. He also goes on to observe that the Krus in time of Elections leave Maryland and register in their various counties outside Maryland. As a result, they do not register in Maryland to elect officials of Maryland. Yet they return back to Maryland after elections to live and work in Maryland. From that point of consideration, the Glebo guy concludes, such a person is not a true Marylander. Because he doesn’t take part in electing the leaders of the county, yet expects to be treated like everyone else who remains and votes in the county to elect their leaders.

The Kru guy disagrees.

He says it doesn’t matter whether or not one registers and votes in another county. As long as her lives in Maryland or born in Maryland, he or she is a true Marylander. The Kru man is also of the opinion that Grand Kru and RiverGee were once part of Maryland. That means those who are from both counties but were born in Maryland at the time both counties were part of Maryland, are still citizens of Maryland.

The Police could not solve this problem. And so I was called in. However, the Police took on the physical aspect of abuse against by both young fellas.

One of them was guilty for the physical assault.

When I went in, I asked the Police to do its job as far as the Law is concerned. I told the Police that I would do my best to delve into the question via an intellectual forum.

On June 2, 2012, I did. I called a Panel Discussion on the topic, “Who is a True Maryland.” Many calls came from Monrovia. Because the question captures the attention of several individuals who were born in Maryland and now part of RiverGEE and Grand Kru. Others include those who fathers come from different counties but mothers from Maryland. Others are those who lived in Maryland for a protracted period of time, built homes, born their children in the county but are segregated against.

The scheduled Discussion on June 2 did not materialize simply because The Lone Star of Liberia Ball Club had a ballgame with Senegal in Senegal. This came via Satellite. Most people wanted to watch the game. And so most of the invites did not show up. It was suggested that the forum be rescheduled on this Saturday, June 9.

There are two Panelists.

Mr. Bolton Dennis, former student leader of The William V. S. Tubman University in Harper, Maryland County. Currently, Mr. Dennis works for The Danish Refugee Council. He can be reached via Cell phone at +231. 886.747.426.

The other Panelist is Mr. Globa Williams, former aspirant for the office of Representative of the Harper District in the Liberian House of Representative. He’s now an employee in the Finance Department of The William V. S. Tubman University. He can be reached at, +231.886.720.937.

Serving as Moderator is Hon. Daniel Williams, Administrative Assistant to Superintendent J. Gblebo Brown, Maryland County.

We look forward to making headway into the issue making Maryland one of the best counties in Liberia.

I am Thomas G. Bedell speaking and working on the ground in Liberia