Your Excellency:

Pasquale Totta, 60, is an Italian who lives on Kimi Town beach on the RIA highway. He has been attacked five times by armed robbers, causing him fortune in terms of property and personal security. The fifth attack was on Sunday, February 17, 2008. Police found no culprits. On February 20, though, police nabbed one Mickey Zayzay and Jacob Hinneh for armed robbery unrelated to the attacks on the Italian. On February 13, 2008 and five days later, armed robbers attacked residents in Jacob’s Town and another community in Paynesville making away with several valuable items including merchandise and farm produce. In January of this year, armed robbers attacked the home of journalist Sylvester Brown and took away every portable item including cell phones, money and other valuables. Just on that same day, armed robbers hit the home of a resident of point four. In the middle of last month, armed robbers also attacked the home of Tony Kieh, just behind the New Kru Town Police station and took away what they could lay hands on. And in what seems a dramatic daring mood, in New Kru Town, armed robbers hacked down the back door of a Parker Building apartment belonging to one Adama Kamara. The robbers were so brazen that they chose to attack the apartment around 5:00 a.m. when most early birds in the neighborhood were already awake and about! The Parker Building area which is few blocks from the New Kru Town Police Depot, is now a no go area past 8:00 p.m.

Madam President, the preceding citations of violent crimes in communities around the nation’s capital represent grim statistics of a bigger picture of a society basking in and drowning in its own vomitus while impotently awaiting external assistance that seems unlikely to come as fast as expected. Granted the citations are not detailed and do not include other crimes such as rape and hijacking; but again, they were not intended to be so. They are intended to be pointers and not formal complaints to the legal authorities. They are intended to serve as springboard for an awakening call to your administration to buckle down and seize its security responsibility by the neck and begin finding solutions. This call to action to combat violent crimes in post-war Liberia is advised by our bias toward the eradication of violent crimes as a way of creating an enabling environment for the return of serenity and the spurring of growth and development to Liberia five years after the civil war formally ended in Liberia.

We think there is too much lip-service and more talk about fighting crimes by this administration and little action and we wonder how long it will take before the average Liberian regains his personal security. How long before a resident of Point Four on Bushrod Island runs a private generation at night and a resident of Rock Town in Maryland County harvest his farm produce and sell it to the local market without a contest with armed robbers? How long will it be said that, “the turtle is willing to box, but its hands are short?” as former President Charles Taylor would say. This meaning that there are fine security plans and plenty of political will, but that there is no fund to execute them.

Your administration tried to fight crime, after all, launching intermittently, seasonal operations such as “Operation Spider Web” and “Operation Sweeping Wave” with “incredible successes” but after which there is a return to square one in crime prevalence. We think that is putting too little into a serious task and we take no kindly of arguments that your administration or loyalists often advance for tolerating recurrent crimes in the communities and highways of this nation. We want to be blunt here that the excuses are not genuine and only indicate that you have failed and have no active plan to protect the Liberian people as you said you would on January 16, 2006. Your administration seems too complacent on combating crimes not only to the detriment of residents, but also to the disadvantage of your administration’s much-heralded efforts to encourage Liberians to return home, to attract indigenous and foreign investors, and to strengthen the reconciliation effort.

Let’s look at some of the arguments and excuses that often stand in the way of genuine action to reduce violent crime in the Liberian society as forerunner to the return of peace and reconciliation. Are there official innuendoes that crimes are inevitable trade-offs of war? Are there retorts by security institutions or forces that Monrovia is better off in terms of violent crimes than most African capitals both those smarting from the scourge of civil wars and those that have not known war? Well, those innuendoes and retorts need to sober up, look at the trail of violence in recent weeks, and make a case of any improvement in security and social dynamism in terms of citizens’ and residents’ satisfaction since January 16, 2006. Are there also arguments that there are no logistics and that the fight and reduction of crimes would be a long shot, gradual, and functional aspect of governance?

Well, there are also arguments that the criminal population in Monrovia and other parts of the country is relatively small, unsophisticated, uncoordinated, opportunistic, and given surge by social desperation rather than organized and strategic in target finding and can therefore be subdued by a willing government and a purposeful security force. More than that, such arguments are drowned in the wave of counter arguments that by taking the oath of office on January 16, 2006 to uphold and defend the Constitution of Liberia this administration has undertaken to protect the people. If there is the further argument that the government is performing well under the given economic and security situation, then it is a regret that the ruling party did not carefully weigh the magnitude of its responsibility before jumping the gun of national challenge. It probably did not train its programs and activities and have certain professionals on mind before offering to throwing in the challenge.

 Your Excellency, the question therefore cannot be whether the government so dedicated, so consecrated, and enthroned can protect the people, but whether it has the political and managerial know-how to put into place a strong protective shield around the people. Otherwise how do you expect ordinary Liberians, Liberian entrepreneurs living abroad, educators, technocrats, and other professionals and skilled laborers to return home and give the public and private sectors the needed boosts? How do they do that when in addition to massive unemployment officially put at 85%, local incentives such as health, education, safe-drinking water, and electricity, the critical price they have to pay for returning home is the utter abandonment of the security concerns of their person? How will they do that when the returnee cannot run a generator because someone justified and tolerated by the government for having disarmed voluntarily will take it at gun or whatever point?

This administration has no choice or excuse but to take responsibility and rise to the occasion instead of blaming or relying solely on UNMIL. This is because good governance that has human rights, peace, and security protection for a sovereign people as a foundation, cannot exist in insecurity. A society in wish crime is tolerated as a necessary menace to compensate for a failed DDRR or other normalization programs cannot support good governance: violence is an anti-thesis to good governance. This is why the civil liberty of the citizens must not only be guaranteed by the government in view of the law, but it must also be seen in the right of the citizen to go to bed and sleep sound at night and dream dreams of patriotism rather than holding his ear to the ground with cutlass by his side in order to ward off criminals, nighttime prowlers, and stalkers. This should not be something he must do indefinitely night after night lest he is murdered in cold blood or violently dispossessed of his meager property. You must find homegrown solution even if it means extra-budgetary taxing of the nation’s resources. When this happened, security programs, police joint crack and coded programs, and policing will translate into a stronger community policing program instead of seasonal vigilante groups most of which are known to comprise un-vetted felons. The crack and rapid response codes such as 911 and 233 or some security emergency cell number of the sort must not only be improved but must reverberate throughout the country to announce the presence of law and order.

Madam President, this and the supporting arguments do not mean that your administration is not practicing good governance but point out that whatever achievements there are, are not only grossly insufficient but that they are being undermined by the argument that crime is a necessary evil for the cessation of open hostility. The simple reason is it cannot be said that any party to the formal hostility in Liberia is being actively benefited by the toleration of crimes as a necessary condition to shy from starting the war again. Notice this, Your Excellency: One can’t expect economic growth, and so do you, by increasing investment unless one reduces capital flight. And one can’t reduce capital flight unless one protects investors and citizens against violent property theft and install safety guards against personal insecurity. There is no way you are going to control the prices of goods and services and building materials when theft is an acceptable tradition at the major ports and points of entry and when business people are expected to lose 20% - 50% of their profits to formal and opportunistic theft mongers. And there is also no way you can promote trade and commerce and attract investors with the blot of safety concerns on your sea and airports and other points of entry and exit. This is a challenge that cannot be handled simply by passing the buck and rubbing your hands in special glee. It is a challenge that must be faced and won. Do you know why? Well, the Liberian presidency was a burden well advertised and described in such details that opposition attacks and citizens’ impatience were outlined in graphic details.

Twenty-two-select Liberians politicians representing some 36 political parties say they would not mind the cumbersomeness of the job. You beat your chest and said you have the education and experience to take up the challenge and 59.4% of the total electorates believed you. You did not acquire the presidency through coup d’etat nor was it bequeathed by a passing monarch such that the people’s safety can be said to be a burden and responsibility that was not expected to be treated with immediacy. It was made clear that the communities were still twitching from the impact of their 14-year violent past, that the citizens were impatient, cynical, poor, and jumpy following years of direct exposure to violence and death. The security situation was so delicate and dangerous that whole communities, ethnic groups, districts, counties, or regions were amendable to single warlords who would trigger a fight just by saying so. But the electorates were told that when democracy took over from “warlordocracy” their socio-economic, political, and security problems would be tackled from day one and resolved in one fiscal year, not when some outside force played any part. This is why the Liberian electorates overwhelmingly rejected popularity and gradualism, on-the-job learning, supposed point of unity rally, and popular appeal and chose experience, strategic reward, and immediacy. The 825,716 or 61.0% of registered voters that turned out during the November 8, 2005 Runoff Election seized the decisive moment to turn the course of the phenomenal presidential election around when you stood to19.8% to28.3% against the then seemingly unstoppable political machine of CDC presidential contender, George Weah. By this, they chose national security over partisan, ethnic, community, or parochial and god-fatherly protection.

Madam President, we see the UN- and US-sponsored SSR program alright, but we are talking about a fallback position, a genuine attempt to restore security to the Liberian people while the international community does the grandeur things. You have no excuse for the upward spiraling wave of violent crimes that has gripped Monrovia and the rest of the country for the best part of your days in power. Do something about it; because, pointing finger may release the sting of the burden briefly, but it will not take it away for a minute before it is returned to you in full weight. Now we will compare the benefit of the immediacy of putting everything else aside and working for the restoration of security to Liberia as a priority of government and not any external factors. While insecurity will prod and perpetuate the divisiveness of the Liberian society and highlight the selfishness and cynicism of the Liberian people, the provision of security to the optimum of 80% would unleash the creativity, tolerance, and patriotic spirit of the Liberian people.

Again while continuous insecurity will provide perpetual thrust to emigration, hurtful brain drain, and trigger urban migration rather than a return to the soil for agro boost, the provision of optimum security of 80% would boost the return of exiled Liberians and create the thrust for the re-population of rural Liberia and decongestion of urban Liberia. When security is provided, crimes will drop, loss in profit margins due to theft and bribery will drop and with it the cap of consumer prices. That is domino effect we are talking about. When that happened, the citizens will reestablish confidence in their government and the opposition will no longer find the provision of alternative voices an arm-chair pastime. Criticism, just or unjust, of the government will no longer earns instant ticket to popularity and membership to the realm of the people’s advocates or human rights defender or advocate when the people’s confidence in the security forces, and yea the government,  is reestablished. The provision of security will remove the international alert said to be placed on NPA, reduce the insurance premiums shipping lines have to pay to dock at Liberian seaports, and increase the delivery of goods to Liberian markets at affordable prices. And then the enabling environment would have been created to begin the long process of socio-economic and political adjustment. Now is the time….

Think about this, Your Excellency. Many thanks.