Talking Drums

The West African News Magazine

What The Papers Say

Sunday Concord, August 4

Why, Samuel Doe? Why?

When the then Master Sergeant Samuel Doe shot his way to power in April 1980, the world was naturally shocked by the brutality of it all.

However, even those who opposed his manner of entry into politics were wont to concede that the True Whig Party (led by Dr William Tolbert) had for too long (130 years) monopolised power to the detriment of other political interests in the country. However, this was no excuse for the bloody orgy that marked the exit of the True Whig Party. Yet it summed up the moral crest wave on which the Doe administration was received by many Liberians.

On the other hand, Samuel Doe who has since been promoted to Commander General, has turned Liberian politics into anything but a nightmare for those who dare to take an alternative view or position from his. He has systematically eliminated or neutralised his fellow coup makers of 1980 and has terrorised the civilian populace with his army in the manner of Uganda's former President Amin. Recently, Gen Doe ostensibly launched his country on a return to civil rule in January 1986. All of which would have been well and good if only Doe himself was not fielding a party, the National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL). In preparing for the elections Doe has been making his oppon- ents to "withdraw voluntarily" from the supposedly democratic race, by subjecting them to all manner of political and physical harassments.

Chairman Doe's deputy, Brigadier-General Abraham Kollie, recently announced the arrest of all executive committee members of the opposition Liberian People's Party (LPP). Other LPP leaders are already in jail on various charges while the party's chairman, Professor Amos Sawyer, has since February been prohibited from engaging in any political activity. On the other hand, the United Party and the United People's Party have each had to obtain court verdicts to qualify for the October and November elections.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that five political parties (four had not in fact registered at the time) were a few days ago calling for international observers to supervise the conduct of the elections? And why in any case, does Commander- General Doe have to go through the democratic electoral farce to transform himself into a civilian leader when a mere decree would perhaps have saved his opponents from their ordeals and wasteful spending in elections whose results are predictable.

The elections in Liberia belong to the mockeries that come in the name of democracy in Africa. It shames the continent.






talking drums 1985-08-12 Ghana's former vice-president speaks from exile