AFRICAN PANORAMA
WATCHING THROUGH THE BIRDS' EYES
Ladies and Gentlemen of the press
Fellow Liberians
I call you here this morning to give you a graphic picture of the 29 hours I spent at the National Security Agency (NSA) behind bars under excruciating conditions as a suspect for a news article in the December 9, 2009 edition of the Plain Truth Newspaper. As you may know the Plain Truth is a family corporation, published and circulated by the Family Media Relations and Marketing Services Corporation. The paper is a 100% Liberian corporation, owned by the Cephus family. In elementary corporation law, especially in this jurisdiction, corporate officers are usually summoned through a Writ of Summons for acts allegedly committed by their corporation. No corporate officer can be arrested, handcuffed and then drag to jail on mere allegations of the breach of its corporate responsibility. The case of the Plain Truth, especially me, was an exception. In fact, I was already treated as a convicted prisoner-----someone who is already on death row awaiting execution before I arrived at the National Security Agency (NSA).
Ladies and Gentlemen, as you may know our paper has been critical of the actions of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Government. At one point, It seemed we were very close but after a careful review of our sacred responsibility and our pledge to remain focused as forerunners of the truth, we felt there was a greater good in speaking and writing the truth than associating with the President of Liberia on two basic fundamental grounds. First, we felt our action to go against the New Democrat was a serious political misstep and that dampened our image na d ruined our professional credibility not just amongst our professional colleagues but in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of Liberians. Second, we felt that there is more to life than a winning “bread and butter” from the political establishment through praising-singing, and therefore, we decided to keep focused with our pledge to speak the truth. This is but a brief background of our role prior to the publication of an article in the December 9, 2009 edition of the Plain Truth.
Distinguished colleagues, prior to publishing that article, the Deputy Minister of Information for Administration, Cletus Sieh was contacted on his mobile phone more than three times, and on each occasion, he assured us that authorities at the Ministry of Defense would contact us. The mobile conversation between us and Mr. Sieh was frequent throughout December 8, 2009 up to and including 9:00 P.M. that evening when the paper went to press. Because we did not get an official account of the government despite several attempts, we ended the article with “investigation continues.” Why the question maybe what was so urgent about the article that we could not wait for all sides to clarify, the answer is, those who are in public service speaking and acting for the government of Liberia must learn to be receptive, responsible proactive on every issue of national concern and must be eve ready to speak when contacted by any reporter regarding a news story. What else could we do, other than what we did to reach the Deputy Minister of Information?
My Meeting With the Minister of Justice
Ladies and Gentlemen, based on an impromptu invitation from the Honorable Minister of Justice, I sought and secured the cooperation of the President of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) to accompany me to the ministry late on Friday evening December 11, 2009 at about 6:00P.P.M. It took a little while for the meeting to begin because the Honorable Solicitor-General of Liberia, His Honor Professor Justice Michael Wilkins Wright was not at the building at the time. We waited until he arrived. During the meeting, the Honorable Minister of Justice, was frank in telling me that the government of Liberia did not take kindly to the news article in the paper. In presenting the government’s side of the story, she categorically denied the allegations contained in the news article and indicated that the government of Liberia will not harbor dissidents to overthrow any government. The press statement presented to me contained two crucial issues which I think are very crucial to this press briefing and which I think I must share with you.
(1) In one of the paragraphs, the government disputed our claims that we ever contacted a senior government official prior to the publication. But when Cletus Sieh, the Deputy Minister of Information was contacted by mobile phone (on speaker) by Justice Wright, he confirmed and affirmed that indeed we did contact him more than three times. (2) The Justice Minister assured me in the presence of the President of the Press Union of Liberia that I was not under arrest, I’ll not be arrested on that day and thereafter but I was under obligation ethically to carry the side of the government in my subsequent edition in the same column of the paper. (3) In another paragraph of the press statement, she outlined my term of reference and stated as verbatim: “to report to National Security Agency(NSA), to assist us to assess the implications of the information(article) he has published for diplomatic relations with the government of Guinea as well as public sentiment in Liberia and Guinea.”
(4) The Justice Minister also told me to go to the NSA at my own time of choosing. Based on this, I chose Monday December 14, 2009 at 11:00A.M. as my appearance date.
My Visit to the NSA
On December 14, 2009, at exactly 11:00 A.M. I was accompanied to the NSA by the President of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), Mr. Peter Quaqua, Messrs Lyndon Ponnie of the Independent and Public Agenda Newspapers as wells as Mr. Jonathan Paylayleh of the Associate Press. Prior to going to the NSA, I had written the Justice Minister Christiana P. Tah, informing her that I was not a student or an expert in international diplomacy and government or an authority in public sentiments management and control, and therefore would decline any suggestion to discuss such delicate issues at any conference be it at the NSA or the Ministry of Justice. Further, I maintained that based on two recent highly recognized international courts’ opinions on press freedom---The Irish Supreme Court and the Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting in The Hague , I was under no obligation whatsoever, to disclose the “sources” of my publication as to do so would defeat [press freedom in Liberia a matter of law. I attached two copies of the courts’ rulings to my letter to the Justice Minister.
Strangely, at the NSA, I was told by the Deputy Director for operations, Anthony Souh, that the Justice Ministry was separate and distinct. “Here we do our own thing and we’ll do what we feel is good not what the Justice Ministry wants you to come here and do”, he said in the presence of my professional colleagues. True to his words, he presented a press statement with an entirely different version from what the Minister of Justice had given me and the PUL President.
The Press Statement contains: “say all that you know that lies within your certain knowledge and say from where, who in particular you got this story from---give us the name of the person… prove beyond all reasonable doubts that what you wrote is true”. I refused to accept his suggestion on three grounds. First, I had no notice of his strange tactics of inquest and even were I to be informed of what his intent was, I would have still rejected his incriminatory style of inquiry.
Second, the phrase “all that lies within your certain knowledge” is a narrative form of trial procedure which is not only archaic and absurd but is being gradually abandoned in the court system of Liberia. As a young and progressive lawyer, I could not submit myself to a trial process before someone who has no formal training, whether by accident or other means, in trial court presentations and procedures, as there would be no “objections” on the floor to curtail his excesses and game of reproach, and to do so would have been suicidal.
Third, I am a lawyer trained in the Adversarial system of court procedures where the burden of proof rests on he who alleges a fact and not the Inquisitorial System where the accused must prove his innocence as the NSA wanted me to do. This is what happened when I arrived at the NSA.
My Detention At NSA
In an apparent frustration over attempts to have me submit to their strange and emotional trial procedures bordered on recrimination, name calling and harassment, I was ordered stripped off my clothes---shirt, shoes, socks, belt removed and then dumped into a cell that seems quite a “concentration Camp” and runs by Fumba Sirleaf, son of the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf somewhere in the basement of the NSA building. Inside the cell is wet; the walls are slimy due to the little presence of air and light. It is three-room cell each is 3 feet by 4 feet wide with unkempt little mattresses stained with sweats(inside is pretty hot) and smell horrible. The floor is dirty and the bathroom is just two meters away from where was dumped. You can imagine the horrific stench!
Inside Fumba Sirleaf’s “Concentration Camp”
Inside the cell, I met two security personnel who claimed that they too were under detention. But what was strange about their detention was that they had on the neck ties, suits and fully dressed with their shoes, wrist watches and bracelet s on, yet they claimed they were under detention. As soon as I entered the cell one of them tried to ask me to confide in him the source of my publication but I refused. Thereafter, I was told I would not use the mattress and pillows that I had bought and brought along with me. I was denied the use of slippers and stood on the moist floor with all of the dirty water with my bare feet from 12 P.M. on December 14 2009 to 7:50 P.M. I was denied food and at some point when my wife brought my food, the security insisted that she turn the food over to them to be inspected upstairs without her presence by Fumba Sirleaf before it could be brought to me. I am an ulcer patient I should have eaten at exact 5:00 P.M. but the security refused to let my wife bring my food and after almost three hours of a standoff, they finally agreed and my wife brought the food at about 7:00 P.M. Again, she had to plead with them for me to be allowed to wear slippers inside the wet cell. When I asked them for my wife to bring in my bed sheet and my mattress, they refused. I slept in a very horrendous condition-----nothing to cover my body, nothing to lay down on. I was treated like a hostile enemy combatant caught in active battle at the warfront.
The Use Of Spray(chemical) Inside The Cell
At about 11:00P.M. or thereabout, on December 14, 2009, a group of NSA agents came in the cell and started calling me. “Cephus, Cephus”, I refused to answer. One of them came over me and said here he is and I said what’s going on? When they left after an hour, the two NSA agents who had been in detention with me were taken out of the cell and they left to an unknown destination. At about 20 minutes after their departure, a man with his nose and mouth covered came back and began to spray the cell with chemical where I was held from outside by passing his hand through the Iron gate. The scents of the spray were extremely and horribly offensive. The scents was so nauseating that I could not breath so easily and I ran to the other side of the cell where a Sierra Leone, called Kenneth is held and I put my nose to the little opening there to breathe. Another Sierra Leonean, simply called Samba, lying down on the floor was asleep but he soon developed cough and coughed throughout the night. I asked Kenneth whether this was a normal routine exercise and he said “this is first time that such thing has happened”. Because I could not remain standing up throughout the night, I went back to my side of the prison cell to sleep and had to inhale the dangerous scents of such chemical contained in the spray. Kenneth is still in jail at the NSA and I can prove this. When I raised the issue with the two NSA agents allegedly under detention with me, one them claimed responsibility. But his action raises a number of questions. Why he chose to spray the cell (if it is true) when he was no longer inside? (2) If he felt that the odor of the place was offensive, why he did not ask for his pray when he was inside? (3) If he meant well as he wanted me to believe why he did not hand me the spray to spray the room myself? (4) Why he did not stop when I asked who is spraying this room with this kind of spray? (5) Why did he take to flight after spraying the room and why did he cover his mouth and nose?
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, as I speak, my chest, sides and my neck are hurting. I can breathe so well. I am feeling pains below my abdomen (stomach) which began hours after the spray was sprayed. I am not sure whether this is due to the severe cold condition I was subjected to or whether the harmful spray is a proximate cause of what I am experiencing. My basic human rights were abused by a government that claims that it subscribes to press freedom, freedom of expression. I was treated like a hostile enemy combatant caught in active combat during war. I was shown the other side of Fumba Sirleaf’s concentration camp for a news article published in my paper. What is amazing is that, the news article in my paper accused the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and for that reason, I was turned over to Fumba Sirleaf the President son’s to face investigation. What a drama! Do you think such investigation would have produced credible results? Do you think my rights would have been respected? This is my story; this is tragedy! In summary, I am sick and I want the world to know that I went to the NSA as a healthy man, strong and kicking. But I am out sick and worn out just within 29 hours of my captivity there under Fumba Sirleaf. I thank all my friends from the PUL, the Publisher Association of Liberia and the great women of Liberia who stood with me either in prayers or words of support during my captivity in the hands of Fumba Sirleaf. I promise I shall neither budge an inch nor flee for the battle to turn me into a chicken that is chased around and when it is tired or run out of stamina then it is caught and slaughtered has just begun,. But I am not a chicken---I am a child of God. Let us give thanks praises to the oppressed of yesteryears--- the champions of democracy and social justice---our new oppressors--- those who persecute us for what we belief in and do. Tough times don’t last but tough men and women do. Though I am sick and weak, but God willing, I shall not die; I’ll survive to see another day!!!
I Thank You
If President Charles Taylor had a beastly dog in the name of his son Chucky Taylor who went on the rampage attacking and maiming human rights activists, dissident politicians and journalists alike, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has got her own attacking dog in the name of her son Fumba Sirleaf who has invariably gone head wired arbitrarily detaining and poisoning journalists in a Nazi German-like Concentration camp. Fumba, who almost singlehandedly runs the historically vindictive Liberia ’s National Security agency, may now be said to be a Liberian counterpart of Chemical Ali, the heartless Saddam deputy who allegedly poisoned thousands of dissident Iraqis during Saddam’s reign of terror.
Mr. Cyrenius Cephus, allegedly a former Taylor apologist who publishes the anti-Sirleaf Administration Plain Truth Newspaper, has just been released from the notorious NSA headquarters. The chap, who now complains of a severe breathing difficulty, said he was sprayed with some chemicals while in detention. He said Fumba Sirleaf has effectively turned the NSA headquarters into a de facto concentration camp. Mr. Cephus, whose paper has been an excruciating pain in the neck of the corrupt Sirleaf Administration, published a story based on persistent speculations in Guinea that the queen of armed rebellion in West Africa , to paraphrase the notable Winston Tubman, was the one stirring up the trouble in the neighboring West African country. The Sirleaf Administration has done nothing to officially dispel the nagging speculations, but Fumba has rather punished the dare devil Cephus for washing the Oldma’s dirty linens on the front porch.
A practicing lawyer, Cyrenius Cephus once served as attorney for president Sirleaf when she went after the indomitable New Democrat newspaper some time this year. How the unpredictable Cephus has fallen out with the Iron Lady is another story. In any case, hear him out:
A Concentration Camp run by Fumba Sirleaf?
