The Perspective Editors, Others to be Assassinated?

January 3, 2001

The Perspective has been informed that its editors and others within and out of the country have been blacklisted by the Taylor government and its security apparatus for assassination for what the National Patriotic Party (NPP) government termed "security threat to the NPP government".

Based on an e-mail to The Perspective, Liberian organizations and individuals, "Colonel Benjamin Yeaten of Taylor's Special Security Services (SSS) and Sierra Leone's RUF rebel tyrant General Sam Bockarie (now in Monrovia, Liberia) are to head and supervise the assassination mission in collaboration with some Liberian diplomatic missions and foreign institutions abroad that are on Taylor's blood diamond payroll through foreign banks".

The document added further that President Taylor "made specific reference to, and emphasized the names of Liberian politicians and activists who are writing negative things about him and his government to the international community as well as individuals who he considers as potential threat to the security of the NPP led government that continues to encounter political-military resistance to the collectivity of Liberians worldwide... The operation team/squad of the assassination project has already made the preliminary list of those opposition Liberian politicians and activists and others to be assassinated. The list comprises of forty-six persons:

1. Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh 2. Dr. Amos C. Sawyer 3. Commany B. Wesseh 4. [Alhaji] G. V. Kromah 5. Tarty Teh 6. Tom Kamara 7. J. Nhinson Williams 8. Johannes Zlahne 9. Soko V. Sackor 10. Joe Wylie 11. Chayee Doe 12. George Dweh

13. Roosevelt Johnson 14. Lahai Ireland 15. Alaric Tokpa 16. Cllr. Lavala Supuwood 17. Kabineh Janeh 18. Samuel Kofi Woods 19. Samuel Kasselie 20. Lamini Waritay 21. Abraham Keita 22. Thomas Q. Harris 23. Dr. Vamba Kanneh 24. Charles G. Julu

25. Charles Brumskine 26. Chris Farley 27. Momoh V. S. Sirleaf 28. Harry Yuan 29. Bodioh Siapoe 30. Ignatius Clay 31. Mohamed Jomandy 32. Ahadji Amara Sarnoh 33. Dr. George Kieh 34. Paul Gbein 35. Abraham Mitchell 36. D. Karn Carlor

37. Moses Jarbo 38. Morris M. Dukuly 39. Brownie Samukai 40. Dr. Patrick Seyon 41. Dr. George S. Boley 42. Abraham Williams 43. Ahadji Sedeke Turay 44. Garsua Yarmento 45. Thomas Jaye 46. Ezekiah Pajibo

A "Special group of plain clothes persons have been trained and dispersed throughout the sub-region of West Africa, Europe and America to accomplish the mission known as "death for power". The assassins are said to be mixture of both Liberians and foreign nationals: including Libyans, Burkinabes, Ukrainians and RUF collaborators from Sierra Leone," the report indicated.

The recent attack on Sawyer and Wesseh by former NPFL rebels has been alleged by some opposition politicians to be the initial launching of the "death for power" mission.

While The Perspective newsmagazine has employed the research and intelligence units to investigate and determine the veracity of this information it has received. The prevailing terrors in Liberia and the sub-region demand that nothing must should be taken for granted in Taylor's Liberia.

The growing domestic and international pressures being brought to bear on the Taylor regime cannot go unnoticed. The US travel ban imposed on officials of the Government of Liberia, and the scathing report of the UN Panel of Experts, detailing Taylor's criminal enterprise supported by conflict diamonds from Sierra Leone, which threatens the stability of the West African region, could spell the final dome of this regime.

Moreover, the persistence of Liberian activists in the Diaspora in exposing the monstrosity of the Taylor regime, has made it quite unbearable for the regime. While it has used its levers of repression and intimidation to silence democratic activists at home, it has not been able to contain those in the Diaspora. "The work of The Perspective newsmagazine and others, has been the most potent medium informing Liberians abroad and the international community about the misdeeds of the Taylor regime," a Liberian politician noted.

But not to be overlooked or ignored, is a small, vocal and passionate core group of Taylor's defenders (some paid supporters), who have not hidden their words or intentions to attack those they perceive as foes of the Taylor regime. Just last year, a man named Samuel P Jackson, one of Taylor's loyal friends and diehard defenders launched a group called the Liberian Support Network (LSN), whose purpose was to "file civil suits in American courts against Liberians and other in the United States who directly or indirectly support the rebel invasion". It is yet to be seen whether LSN will pursue its objectives, since Mr. Jackson and some others, affected by the U.S. travel ban, are currently in the U.S.

Whether this list of 46 men is real or a hoax, it does mirror a similar list of (100) men, which appeared in public a few years ago. Many of those names, which appeared on the latter list now, languish in prison today, some killed, while others have disappeared. Time will tell whether this new list, will go the same way as the old. In the meantime, we need to step up our campaign against corruption and undemocratic practices in our country.