Subject: WHO BETRAYED THE CDF – A response to the Honorable John Leigh
From: M. Alieu Iscandari Esq
To: All
Date Posted: 23:32:51 07/20/06 ()
Email Address:
Entered From: cache-ntc-ad04.proxy.aol.com at 207.200.116.198
Message:
Lets face it, I am unlikely to everr agree with you on this matter. – JL
Aint that the truth John. We must agree to disagree and still maintain respect for each other unlke some of the people on this forum who are one track minded.
Suffice it to say that having seen the evidence against the CDF particularly I am particularly wary of any assertions that Hinga Norman is a Sierra Leonean hero, an SLPP one may be. His record of political intervention on behalf of the SLPP is an open book. Hinga was not fighting for sierra leone, he was fighting to maintain the political hedgemeony of the SLPP.
I bothers me greatly when you allud that because somehow he was a part of the victorious side in the war, that his crimes perpetuated against humanity in contravention of the Geneva Convention should somehow be forgiven and that the crimes of the losing side should be prosecuted. That is not the way the law should operate. The law should operate in a manner such that Justice must be blind. All who have committed crimes MUST be punished their standing in society notwithstanding.
It is ironic that those who advocated most for a war crimes tribunal were the most voiceferous advocates for some kind of amnesty for the Kamajors. That my dear sir makes no sense to this writer. The bottom line that most people do not understand is that Hinga Normans arrest had a little bit of what you have so aptly described as “kukujumuku” politics. Norman was overly ambitious and he had many men under arms. He posed a threat to the Kabba Administration and he had to be sidelined. The ONLY way he could have been sidelined short of being killed was to make it appear that it was the international community that indicted him. Clear and simple.
What better way to get him out of the way, than to have him be indicted and prosecuted for war crimes which the government that he supported KNEW he was allegedly committing. Stories are rife in Freetown of Kamajors atrocities. There are stories of how they killed people in Freetown because they claimed that they “smelled” like rebels. Most of these people were innocent citizens. There was testimony at the special court which made my body run cold. The witness testified that some alleged members of the RUF had been taken prisoner. The witness testified that they were ordered to kill them all and they subsequently opened fire and killed all of them. This is a war crime and it falls within the ambit of the crimes for which the special court was set up to prosecute. This is all public records now sir.
You may call them genuine heroes Mr. Leigh. To me and most of their victims they are VILLAINS of the worst order. My childhood friend Ade Turay the son of a well known engineer at PWD MR. Len Turay (late) was taken by Kamajors and placed in the trunk of a vehicle and that was the last anyone ever saw of him. My investigations have shown that he was killed in cold blood by his captors at Cockeril Military headquarters as a COLLABORATOR. By the way do you know who coined that word? Just like we all know that the term coupligans was coined by you, the term COLLABORATORS was coined by Mr. Berewah and after the overthrow of the AFRC regieme many people were accused of being collaborators by the SLPP government and arrested, manhandled, jailed or murdered by their agents. My Uncle the late Retired Major DABS Noah (commonly called Abu Noah) told me of the way he was treated by the SLPP government on its return to Freetown when he was accused as being a collaborator and thrown in prison. His only crime, he had written a letter to the Kabba Administration in exile and advised against the wanton shelling of certain heavily populated parts of freetown because such shelling would have untold civilian casualities.
Mr. Leigh the SLPP after the AFRC Interregnum became a vindictive party and it alienated many sierra leoneans then and continues to do so today by the demonstrated intolerance exhibited by its supporters both at home and abroad. This sir is the record of the SLPP and when the history of our dear republic is written, I do hope that juxtaposed with the ills of past APC regiemes will be a chapter on what the SLPP did after the AFRC interregnum.
Everyone knows that after the execution of Kula samba et al and their subsequent disgraceful burial at a mass grave at Rokupur cemetry, stories abound that acid was poured into the grave. Why were their corpses desecrated? It may be anybodys guess but I am sure that someone in the SLPP knows why this was done.
You guys must be very careful when you trumpet the perceived evils of the APC because the SLPP history is replete with evil acts compounding upon other more dastardly evil acts.
With bated breath and clenched teeth we await the 2007 elections when once again history willrepeat itself and we would throw the rascals in the SLPP out of power.
Stay Blessed my learned friend.
Subject: Re: WHO BETRAYED THE CDF – A response to the Honorable John Leig
From: Savage Betrayers
To: All
Date Posted: 11:23:57 07/21/06 ()
Email Address:
Entered From: 250.167.207.205.rev.connection.ca at 205.207.167.250
Message:
SLPP still have the record of being the first party to face a comission of enquiry for official malfeasance.
The SLPP with NDOGBORWUSU began internal insurrection against citizens of Sierra Leone…Foday Sankoh and his feral minions perfected the art later with NDOGBORWUSU recruits.
SLPP was the first government to execute a female by firing squad at the time when she was experiencing her menstrual cycle…(they behaved as if they were not born of women)
Anyone proud of such a political record is insane.
Subject: Re: WHO BETRAYED THE CDF – A response to the Honorable John Leig
From: Albert Moinina
To: All
Date Posted: 04:55:12 07/21/06 ()
Email Address: [email protected]
Entered From: at 218.248.0.180
Message:
The sad thing, my brother Alieu, is not what Hinga and others did or did not do, but why him and not the whole SLPP top leaders including Pres. Kabba. The Kamajors, Capras, etc. were not Hinga¡¦s personal forces although he may have been their coordinator or leader, but were sanctioned by both parliament and the government. I am making an educated guess, correct me if I am wrong with regards to parliament. It is completely unfair to use him as a scapegoat and I pray our SINS against this man and others who genuinely tried to save the country and its people whether directly or indirectly, would one day come hunting us all.
I read with dismay Kabbah’s strenuous efforts to desist from appearing before the Special Court. What a shame. Kabbah has two major blunders history will have to judge him as he leaves: one his neglect to seriously fight corruption (I don’t believe he is corrupt himself) and the Hinga issue. The third still hanging, if true and if Berewa “wins”, his imposition of Berewa on SLPP and God forbid winning the next election.
Come what may, we have to work together (Ernest and Margai) to get rid of our plunderers, opportunists, and good for nothing so called leaders we currently have. Margai has got the “arrogance” to deal with these types and that is why I fully support him. I strongly believe, Ernest and Margai can form a good team capable of dealing with the cancer of our beloved country. Influence your man if you have the opportunity, please. And for those who have influence with Charles, please do the same if this makes sense to you. How wonderful it would be to have Leigh on that team. I know it is not a simple task, but just my heart¡¦s desire though we are seeing signs of corporation between the two.
I only wish Leigh and other good SLPP members can realize that where the Banya¡¦s, Abass Bundu¡¦s and most of the opportunists and plunderers of old APC rule there is absolutely no hope. You cannot filter them either, because they come in all sizes, colours, religions, tribes, they are capable of turning black into white and vice versa, and blend in their environment or surroundings much better than the chameleon. It is never too late, rather better late than never to join the patriotic citizens in moving our beloved country forward.
To end, I had an opportunity to chat online with a friend in Sierra Leone the other day I have not seen or talked with for several years. When I asked him how is Sa Leone? His reply was ¡§corruption is worse than under the APC government¡¨.
We are pathetic and it does have to be this way, but there is hope. The hope is PMDC.
Subject: Re: WHO BETRAYED THE CDF – A response to the Honorable John Leig
From: CADMUS
To: All
Date Posted: 08:14:55 07/21/06 ()
Email Address:
Entered From: host86-130-36-151.range86-130.btcentralplus.com at 86.130.36.151
Message:
MOININA
Nothing can be worse than the period of the APC in sierra leone.
Do you know how many SLPP supporters and members of Parliament were held at Pademba road prison without trial and without any recourse to the Law and proper judicial process under the APC? One of those I am told at one time is in fact your very own leader Charles F Margai, and the entire SLPP Parliamentarians. Do you know how many Journalists suffered the same fate under the APC? If you don’t please ask around.
As we write how many political prisoners do we have at Padember Road today? How many Journalist?In fact there is no one been held at Pademba road prison at the moment without legal justfication and who has not gone through the due process of the law and judiciary system.
Dont be fooled by Alieu Iscandry,his APC are bunch of Thugs, all they want to do is to scrap the lettle earned democracy we are now enjoying.
They are all fakes.
SLPP is by no mmeans perfect, by God, no one will ever be, just look at the great democracies in the world.. not even they are perfect..but for Sierra leone, and for now at least, SLPP is the only way OUT and the only way forward, always remembering the power of the people.
Subject: THE IGNORANCE AND SHALLOWNESS OF Dr. AL. N-W
From: John E. Leigh
To: All
Date Posted: 20:46:52 07/20/06 ()
Email Address:
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Message:
Dr. AL. N-W:
I have read through your piece and I can confidently conclude that your analysis of my state of mind and cultural background is completely wrong and that you are ascribing your own deeply held prejudices unto another. It won’t work as explained below.
In order to carefully explain to forumites where your erroneous analysis is defective, I have broken down your personal attacks against into 9 or 10 shorter segments so that I can more effectively zero in on your monumental flaws and missed clues as follows below.
1. Dr. AL N-W, ATTACK: “As is characteristic of Mr. Leigh, and as evident in the achives of this forum, monikers engaging him with provincial (kontri) last names are summarily dismissed in a fury of derogatory tribalistic and regionalistic diatribes.
LEIGH REBUTTAL: The above claim is a very vague one. Please provide the forum with the specifics you relied on to make this wild claim. I will then respond to each and every one of them and demonstrate that the names of individuals or the monikers they use have nothing to do with my swift, tit-for-tat, point-for-point, rub-it-in counter-attacks.
2. ATTACK: “Yet this is the same man who has repeatedly denied using ethnic slurs against Limbas on American television when young forumite, Ishmael once accused him of doing so.”
REBUTTAL: I have asked Mr. Ishmael to obtain the tape of the TV show in which he claimed he saw speaking anti-Limba. I also told him that Mr. Bami Thompson of PMDC once told me that he has all my TV and radio tapes and that he ought to contact him to see whether he has the alleged anti—Limba tape.
Mr. Ishmael also accused me of being anti-Temne. I asked him for proof but he has not responded. What I suspect is that Mr. Ishmael might have heard the Frog Doctor’s falsities about me and started running his mouth without any valid proof.
Before you start running your own mouth with your shallow analysis of missed clues, may I suggest you help Mr. Ishmael obtain the proof he needs. TV stations are always willing to oblige. A professional analysis must be based on facts, not speculation, supposition, guesswork or hearsay. Please show forumites that we should take you seriously by proving your case rather than rushing to jump to erroneous conclusions.
3. ATTACK: “Leigh’s quoted words above have their origins in global racist systems which proceeded from centuries of slavery. Slavery as a mode of production predates racism in that through its institutionalized brutality of Blacks by Whites, it conferred a misplaced feeling of biological superiority on Whites. Colonial systems that developed in Africa after slavery was abolished pursued the legacy of slavery – racism, often in its most blatant forms. Consequently, Western colonialists viewed Africans as savages who had a lot to benefit from Christianity.”
REBUTTAL: My quoted words had their origins in the attack piece that was before me at the time I responded. I am not an intellectual and have never studied slave or racists systems as you credited me with unfairly. I am just a lawyer arguing my case based on the falsities and bogus allegations in front of me. You are reading far too much into my writings.
4. ATTACK: “Leigh was born in Bo Town of a Creole father and a Mende mother but grew up in Freetown with his father. Like any other Sierra Leonean, the environment in which Leigh grew up shaped his cultural views. This does not in any way indict all Creoles for tribalism or vindicate all descendants of the provinces of this social vice. It is a fact that both progressive Creoles and non-Creoles have at various times used our nation’s cultural diversity to support and promote policies that are progressive to nation building.”
REBUTTAL: What’s your point? I have a multi-cultural background different from what you based your shallow analysis. For your information, Freetown was not the only place I grew up in or my only base for cultural development.
Although I grew up in my father’s house, my father’s house was all over Sierra Leone – Bo, Kenema, Mano, Bonthe, Kono, Makeni, Lungi, etc. I myself spent a very happy period in Tonkolili District during a most formative time in my life – and my guardians were NOT CREOLES. My parents had hundreds of provincial friends in and out of our home. I like my father and two brothers, attended the Number One integrated secondary school in all of Sierra Leone then – the Albert Academy – from start to finish. I schooled with people from all over SLeone and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
My background has also been shaped significantly by my US education and my many and varied experiences around the world, not just by my Freetown residence as you have recklessly concluded.
Because you based your sophomoric analysis wholly on the Freetown part of my life and ignored the larger experience, you are unable to correctly figure me out. Your analysis is extremely shallow and full of ignorant conclusions.
5. ATTACK: “A typical example of such pronouncements is the following pejorative onslaught in his continued crude dismissal of the moniker Albert Moinina:
“Mr. Moinina’s stink utterance… conjures up images of his highly primitive village with no paper, no pencil, no eraser, no pen, no books, no desk, no water-well, no electricity, no pipe-born water and worst of all, absolutely not a single latrine. So, he is used to defecating all over his backyard to feed flies and unthinkingly spread typhoid and other infectious diseases. Hence the stink, the flies on his brother’s food; not to mention the frequent sickness and very short life span of his own very people and with no immediate solution in sight for their painful plight…”
REBUTTAL: Mr. Moinina brought this attack upon himself. He invited my deluge by going public and erroneously accusing me of answering each and every personal attack against me like a frog who had been injected with a stimulant, ala frog doctor’s paramedic experiment.
I then went to my archives to review the various personal attacks against me that I have never countered. I then selected one Mr. Moinina had written weeks ago but which I thought was not worth my attention because I really pitied the writer. Had he pushed his luck by going public and poking his frogie fun at me, I would not have responded – whether or not his name or moniker was Freetownish or otherwise.
The substance of my counter-attack was borrowed in its entirety from his unhygienic personal attack and from no other source thus:
” MAN COOL OFF. WHAT IS THIS TRASH? IS IT REALLY TRUE
> THAT YOU HAVE LOST
> YOUR MIND AS REPORTED IN THE NEWS PAPER? PADDIE MAN
> BO TAKEM SAFUL.
YOU MUT E TOO SHARP AND GOOD FOR NOTHING.
STOP FOR DAY KAKA ALL SAI. E DAY SMELL TOO MUCH.”
I have been to villages all over the country – Western Area and the Provinces. I have seen villages or portions of villages in all sections of our country where the situation is as described by Mr. Moinina and me. That is why I never indicated I was referring to any particular district or province or area.
You have thus again rushed to conclusion, imposing your own 100% ethnic prejudices on forumites. You are wrong to do so, doctor! I never indicated that Moinina was provincial at all.
At any rate, Mr. Moinina has apologized fully like a gentleman. So, let us drop this particular incident and carefully search for suitable alternate remarks of mine should you wish to continue your poorly analyzed trash.
6. ATTACK: “Interestingly, Leigh makes the above remarks without any consideration of the possibility that Albert Moinina could either have been born or raised in Freetown or that it is a Creole forumite using the moniker Albert Moinina, a name with origins in the Southern and Eastern provinces of Sierra Leone.”
REBUTTAL: You sound like a Krio man who has never traveled beyond Waterloo because you do not seem to know your country at all. You write with extreme pomposity but you are truly ignorant. I cared nothing about Mr. Moinina’s tribe. What was on my mind was his uncivil, unhygeinic writing. You are needlessly fixated on Creoles vs. Kontriman. I am not.
Sierra Leone is slowly and steadily becoming an integrated society.
There are many genuine Creoles with provincial last names; and certain names such as “Kamara, Bangura, Kanu, Mansaray, Smith, John Bull, Leigh, Carter, Davis and Koroma” are found in all sections of the country, in all ethnic groups. If you think some Creoles do not carry a name such as “Koroma” and so on and Mendes are not named Ronald Smith or Eric Davis or Leslie Leigh, then you need to learn more before you write your next shallow analysis about anyone.
I went after Mr. Moinina because of his provocation and the nature of his unhygienic advice. Frankly, I cared nothing about his province of origin only that he sounded like a disgusting villager somewhere in SLeone. UNDERSTAND, Doctor?
7. ATTACK: “But this is typical Leigh –shoot from the lip and think later. To Leigh, Albert Moinina, by the very nature of the name, hails from a village in the provinces where it is usual for people to behave in a manner that fits his quoted words above.
REBUTTAL: You are clearly the reckless chap shooting from the hip without thinking. You seem to have a one-track mind: everything originates from your slave and racists studies. So you shoot first then revert to your superficial analysis later.
Not me. I am a street fellow, a practical man. Besides, my response to Mr. Moinina is not typical. I have responded to numerous personal attacks but only two dealt with unhygienic trash. Thus I saw a very damaging opening in my archives that would devastate Mr. Moinina and make nonsense of his personal attack on me.
Accordingly, I went for the kill. If his name was Erubami Johnson, Olayinka Gongorlee Wohwoh, or John Brima I would have done the exact same thing. I fear no foe and don’t give a damn about ethnicity. Please try and understand this cultural trait of mine.
The unhygienic conduct described in our words happens in all four provinces/Area of SLeone, not just outside the Western Area. You are the one with narrow-minded prejudices. You ought to try and get to understand your country much better.
8. ATTACK: “Perhaps an even more interesting aspect of Leigh’s shallowness and apparent ignorance lies in the fact that in his all too often characteristic rage especially as they relate to the social status of Sierra Leoneans, he ignores the fact that like many in the higher echelons of his party – the SLPP, his newly-found “best friend” Solomon Berewa had a very humble upbringing. Berewa was born and raised in a village called Yengema, which is three miles from Serabu in the Bo district.”
REBUTTAL: I have absolutely no shallowness in me. If you know the life I have made for myself as well as for a number of my relatives and friends; the things I have done for complete strangers all over SLeone and in Nigeria and the USA; as well as the things I have accomplished in my life and the real problems I have solved, you would never attempt to tag me with shallowness.
Next, there is no apparent ignorance about me as far as the social status of SLeoneans is concerned. I am familiar with virtually every single corner of Sierra Leone.
Just today, I received the following e-mail from a friend living in Kailahun who traveled to Kenema just to send it to me:
Subject: My honour
To: [email protected]
Dear Sir,
I always feel happy within myself about your good responses that you make in any of the press conferences. Keep it up Sir ,you are a true patriot and i hope God will one day come your aid. Mohamed keeps in touch with me and others in Kailahun about any of your undertakings. I still continue to re-echo your good gesture made to us during your last visit in Kailahun. I know you have a lot of future plans for our country and i hope you will surely succeed in doing this ventures. Please inform me about your plan in making any special visit to us in Kailahun again.
Thanks so much for your courage.
Best regards,”
xxxxxxxxxxxx
You know far less about me than you purport or can ever imagine.
You next talked about my so-called “characteristic rage”. What you call rage is what I call “tit-for-tat, point-for-point, rub-it-in counter-attack. If I am not offended, I will attack no one. If the attacks on me are outrageous, I come back like a ton of bricks on my tormentor. If the attack is measured and not personal, I will return the decency.
My objective in all this is to teach the younger ones to do proper research before attacking others and to use logic and intelligence, not insults and phony frog experiments when arguing a case. Those who shoot first from the hip are likely to receive the full measure of my response. This is not misplaced rage. It is pinpoint accuracy to flatten and demoralize all those who engage in outrageous personal attacks against me.
How do you think I was able to make mincemeat out of the RUF, AFRC, Charles Taylor’s propaganda machine in Washington and the Ninjas? By rolling over and playing dead? No way. I counter-attacked measure-for-measure.
Finally, VP Berewa is not my “newly-found best friend”. I have never made such a claim and never will. Frankly, you have no right to imply such based on the very little you know. Suffice it to say that I have dealt with Mr. Berewa since 1992. And whether or not Mr. Berewa comes from humble origins is irrelevant in this case because the issue here is the actual unhygienic writing that I counter-attacked and not the origin of the writer or his name.
9. ATTACK: “And to even hit closer to home, chances are that Leigh’s mother who lives in Bo may have relatives living in some of the villages near Bo. But to Leigh who lives in luxury in Boston, Massachussetts, there is nothing wrong with ridiculing the poverty of a segment of Sierra Leone’s population even if such an exercise has the appearance of tribal or regional prejudice.”
I have relatives and friends who live or have lived in villages. And I have frequently fresh poyo with the “boys.” Its fun. I am as comfortable in my relatives village as I am in Massachusetts or in Freetown.
Although I live in Massachusetts, I do not live in luxury. I work every day. I cook for my wife and daughter frequently. I take the garbage out. I unload groceries from my wife’s car. I maintain our lawn and drive myself around.
Next, I have never ridiculed poverty and I think it is absolutely wrong to do so. In fact, I am deeply concerned about the endemic poverty in SLeone and would like to do something about it. Please read again my e-mail above. I am very, very serious about uplifting the lives of our suffering.
You do not appear to be a smart thinker at all and are constantly reaching unsubstantiated conclusions lacking in merit.
What I was ridiculing was our friend’s unhygienic advice but only after he had gone public and compared me inappropriately to a frog. I wanted to educate him about why unhygienic advice is uncivilized. So I rubbed it in with salt and pepper regardless of his province or area of origin.
Too often, our people rely on unhygienic sayings that make foreigners flinch. I took Mr. Moinina’s foolish mistake to teach him an excellent lesson he may never forget.
To me, Mr. Moinina seems far more intelligent than you and far more responsible. He has courageously recognized his error; graciously apologized publicly to all of us for this mistake like a perfect gentleman should; and he has moved on. My respect for him has shot off through the roof.
Meanwhile, you are wasting my time with your shallow analysis of ignorance, missing each and every one of the clues that should have given you a better understanding of my writings. Please don’t tell us that you are one of those brilliant people who got their fantastic degrees from some prestigious college or university somewhere! But if you do, I won’t be surprised.
IN CONCLUSION, your advice that I have “neither ideas nor a vision that can move Sierra Leone forward” and that “the prudent thing for [me] to do is to gracefully exit Sierra Leone’s political space” is utter rubbish and trashy.
You know very little about my work. Your own writing has now exposed your shallow intellectualism. And if you are a professor in one of America’s remedial colleges, your charges will need further remedial help after graduation if they are to make any headway in this world because to seem hard of understanding. How can you analyze when you can’t understand?
You know nothing about political developments in Sierra Leone as reflected in your misdirected writing as dissected above. Instead of officiously intermeddling in politics in SLeone, you ought to concentrate on improving whatever thinking faculty that you may have left.
In the meantime, I thank you for this opportunity to further explain my writings as well as my cultural background to all forumites. – JL
Subject: Re: WHO BETRAYED THE CDF?
From: John E. Leigh
To: All
Date Posted: 21:09:42 07/20/06 ()
Email Address: [email protected]
Entered From: cache-mtc-ae04.proxy.aol.com at 64.12.117.8
Message:
Dear Al:
I wholeheartedly agree with Moijue that Chief Norman and his CDF colleagues were treated poorly. They are heroes who should never have been charged, let alone thrown in jail. They belong to the Pinnacle of our society.
I believe that their plight is the unfortunate result of an error on our government’s part during the negotiations for the establishment of the Special Court. And the Kabbah Administration has apparently admitted as much.
In my view, the CDF leaders ought to have been given immunity from protection or protected from indictment, arrest and trial in some other way as are those who fought on the victorious sides in Rwanda and Cambodia.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that the SL Government lacked the clout to gain such a concession during the negotiations. To me, it is most painful to see genuine heroes who were the main bulwark against the RUF/AFRC barbarians despite their threadbare resources thrown in jail by winning victory for all of us.
Lets face it, I am unlikely to everr agree with you on this matter. – JL
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