Monrovia – The Inspector General of the Liberia National Police says there is now a relative trust between Liberians protesting for the ‘missing billion’ and the police following a peaceful protest on Monday, September 24.
Report by Alpha Daffae Senkpeni, [email protected]
Col. Patrick Sudue is confident that “the level of discipline” exhibited by police officers covering the recent pretest has further strengthened the LNP relationship with the #BringBackOurMoney protesters or any group of Liberian opting to express their democratic rights through protest.
“It is our duty to ensure that those who are protesting against the government are protected under the law,” the LNP boss told FrontPage Africa.
“So the strategy was: we met with the protesters and we alleviated their fears that the police is for everybody, [that] we are not going to arrest anybody and definitely we were going to protect them till the climax of their protest.”
He said there were no incidents of scuffle amongst the protesters or any other groups of individuals that were opposed to the protest.
The police decided that no officers covering the protest should carry firearms and that they should open-handedly guard the protest, he said.
“Our strategy was those with ballistic materials, we had them on standby at our police stations and firearms carriers where absolutely not allowed to come close to the protesters. So those who were carrying firearms were told that either you left your firearms at the armory or at central headquarters.”
Event preceding the ‘missing billions’ protest casted concerns about a potential chaos, and many expressed fears that protest would have gone out of control. But the Police IG says “building relationship” with the protesters ahead of the September 24th demonstration was a significant step to avoiding tension.
He said incidents of the past, which saw protesters beaten and arrested, caused lingering fears in the minds of the ‘Bring Back Our Money’ protesters but they are now convinced that the police is determined to avert ant chaos.
“We ensured them that they will not be arrested once they are acting in conformity with the law,” he said.
Prepping For Future Protests
Col. Sudue disclosed that the police is prepared to cover any future protests in the country based on its recent performance.
“Just how we guided them in the first protest – we will reach out to them, we will guide them… if they are having any future protest when we reached out to them they will coordinate with us because they know that we are not brutes.”
Community Policing
Meanwhile, the Police IG added that community policing is paying off and that the LNP is embarking on several community-based activities outside Monrovia to ensure ties between communities and the force is rekindled.
“This police is not the police that believes in brutalizing citizens. We will do everything to ensure that the police and the citizens have the cordial working relationship because if you find that the people have that trust in the police obviously you will find out that the act of police brutality will definitely seized,” he said.
He reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to weeding out ‘bad apples’ in the force, adding that several officers caught in misconduct have already been dealt with according to the law.
Recently, the LNP announced that it had suspended and launched an investigation of nine officers linked to the escape of a murder suspect, who was in police custody.
“So, those bad apples will be weed out; we will not condone anybody in the service of the Liberia National Police to misbehave in the public or go against our citizens. This police is for the people and we must be service- oriented.”
The Police IG also disclosed that he has been mitigating several conflicts between communities. He cited a recent feud between two communities in Zorzor, Lofa County, outlining how his intervention help brokered peace between the two tribes in the county.
“We had a very fruitful discussion and up to now – as we speak – the two communities are living together [and] we signed a resolution that no more those two groups will have any confrontation that will escalate to that level that we saw the last time that somebody had to get killed.”
He also disclosed that he would be holding several interactions with universities and high schools across the country to engage students.
He said it is a move to educate them about the importance of public safety and crime prevention in their respective communities.