Why Didn’t Pres. Sirleaf Attend US-Liberia Summit in DC?

It would be suffice to say that the only reason Liberia and the world’s most traveled head of state, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf didn’t make this trip to Washington is because her friend Hilary Clinton lost the US presidential elections, coupled with the disparaging remarks by President Sirleaf against President-elect Donald Trump when Sirleaf said she was “disappointed by the choice of the American voters” who voted for Mr. Trump instead of Hilary Clinton.

This would have been a good opportunity for our frequent flyer mileage compiling President Sirleaf to be present for the inauguration of her friend, Hilary.

But Trump doesn’t forget easily and in less than 10 days, Trump would be in charge of the American people’s money vault, money that goes to corrupt, rogue regimes around the world dubbed as “foreign aid” without any accountability. A new Sheriff is taking over The White House.

To hear the Liberian Foreign Minister, Marjon Kamara who is also a close friend of President Sirleaf heap flowery praises on a failed regime’s policies that have caused more suffering for the Liberian people despite the billions of dollars the United States has pumped into Liberia, is very disingenuous at best and an insult to both Liberians and the smart American people who know better.

Foreign Minister Kamara: “We share common values of freedom, human dignity, equality and justice, which make it easy for us to collaborate.

“And Dr. Linda Thomas Greenfield, the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa knows better because she served in Liberia as US Ambassador during the Sirleaf regime.

In the aftermath of the Global Witness Report that exposed the corrupt culture of investment in Liberia, Dr. Thomas Greenfield was again dispatched to Monrovia and delivered yet in the strongest undiplomatic language the disgust and outrage of the US government because of the corruption at the highest level in the Liberian government.

The Assistant Secretary of State undiplomatically warned the government of President Sirleaf to take seriously the Global Witness Report and that the US Government “knows of individuals, past and present, in government who have been stealing government money, putting it in bank accounts all over the world and buying mansions” in America, she said then in Monrovia.

This is why the Sable Mining bribery case is underway but Liberians don’t expect much to come out of the trial when already the government is engaged in targeted prosecution while leaving out a son of President Sirleaf and two of the President’s close friends.

Back to Foreign Minister Kamara who sees “freedom, human dignity, equality and justice” flourishing in Liberia under President Sirleaf.

But the very US State Department will contradict her assertions when its 2016 Annual Human Rights and Labor Practices Report comes out around March this year.

And for each year of the Sirleaf presidency, the State Department Human Rights Reports for Liberia always meticulously document human rights violations, corruption, injustice and a corrupt Liberian judiciary, poor labor practices and other ills of society.

But Foreign Minister Kamara who may not reside in Liberia after she leaves office ironically sees a thriving democracy in Liberia. But Liberians and our American supporters know better. Madame Kamara and team are on their regular US vacations and shopping trip camouflaged as an investment promotion trip.

They each get over $400.00 a day for hotel and meal despite the fact that most are living with family and friends or in their private mansions they own in America.

They also use such trips to shop for hard-to-find medications in Liberia, do routine medical exams and pay off mortgages that Dr. Thomas Greenfield alluded to in warnings delivered in Monrovia last year. Such is the beauty of the “Liberian democracy” that caters to a few, for a few and by a few…the corrupt rich.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA