A Review of Ambassador Kabs-Kanu’s Reasoning on the ECOMOG Mission in Sierra Leone:
By a diplomat
With due respect, please review the analogies drawn and or made on the ECOMOG’S mandate in Liberia under the late President Doe with a view of relating it to the extant political milieu in Sierra Leone.
In particular, you stated that:..the “ECOMOG told Samuel Doe to leave (power – my emphasis) in 1990….they were not the Supreme Court of Liberia, …because Doe had lost his authority through war… .”
Rationalise that with the extant political milieu in Sierra Leone:
The 24th. June, 2023 Multi-tier Elections in Sierra Leone were universally adjudged to be saddled with inter-alia: irregularities; statistical inconsistencies; collation, verification and transmissions of electoral data were grossly at variance with international standards.
The Three-way Leadership Committee – the Tripartite Committee (TC)’s ToRs were flagrantly rebuffed to a nonsensical outcome by the refusal of the ECSL to produce and deliver the disaggregated elections results by polling stations.
A position which, by and large now turned out to be in consonance with incumbent’s position as particularised under the divergences of the report.
Where it had complied and established the veracity of the ECSL’S declaration of results and winner, that would removed the legitimacy issue, I believed of the incumbent’s position as declared by the ECSL.
However, despite demands made by all stakeholders including but not limited to the APC (Party), Carter Foundation Centre, US Embassy, UK High Commission, Irish Embassy in Freetown, EU Mission to Sierra Leone, AU, ECOWAS Commonwealth and UN; the ECSL vehemently refused to comply with those demands.
The incumbent administration membership to the Three-way Leadership Committee otherwise referred to as the Tripartite Committee (TC) did not, I believe, comply with its commitment under the Terms of Reference (ToR).
Thus the TC Report contained convergent and divergent positions of the Principal Parties to the Agreement for National Unity (A4NU) cum the TC, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) and the All People’s Congress (APC) Party.
It is incontrovertible that, both the convergent and contentious issues, form an integral part of the report now awaiting implementation and action.
The modus operandi in which the implementation and action would follow cannot be determined with certainty by any one including your good self and the “bloggers and errant people – so referred to by your good self.
Mind you, Ambassador Kabs-Kanu, the controversy punctuating the elections under review remain not only unresolved by the Principal Parties; but has wittingly been shifted to the international community as moral guarantors to the A4NU for implementation and action.
Worthy of note is that, the TC Report has been commissioned to the UN Security Council m, AU and the ECOWAS for consideration on implementation and action.
From the premise of your analysis, it is clear that, the ECOWAS through its ECOMOG, caused President Doe to relinquish power of the Sovereign Republic of Liberia; not by any judicial decision promulgated by the Supreme Court of Liberia.
It could be recalled that, President Laurent Gbagbo (emeritus) of Côte d’Ivoire, had his presidency repudiated by the resolve of the ECOWAS; notwithstanding that Country’s Constitutional Court upheld his victory in those elections and endorsed by the AU Commission.
Looking at the APC Party’s decision against mass public manifestation as “cowardly”, and to return its elected MP to Parliament and appending its signature on the report of the TC…as a seeming misplaced opportunity, it is, with respect, a skewed assessment of the situation which engulfed the Party and the electorate at that time, and even as it is being discussed now, Ambassador.
The human and property carnages of the protracted brutal civil war in the Country, left lingering sad memories in the minds of the people, which, never again, would they, or any political party leader in their right frames of minds, cause a recurrence of that unfortunate episode in the Country’s political annals.
Unless your analysis of the situation surrounding the 2023 Multi-tier Elections is to the extent that: they are “done and dusted”, many well meaning Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad, strongly hold the view that, the restoration of Sierra Leone’s battered democracy through “Electoral Justice”; is the only way to legitimise the governance milieu in Sierra Leone.
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