Theft At The Global Times Office

The break-in into the offices of The Global Times newspaper in the early hours of Sunday February 19, 2012 speaks volumes of possible state sponsored persecution. The thieves in their constructive breakage of the offices entered the premises with little or no damage to the locks. With a pre-conceived plan of action they went for the drawers on all the desks in the offices and ransacked them wholesomely, obviously in search of what they may have considered as “subversive documents.”  They found none and then went for the lap tops – four in all – which they carted away believing that their targeted subversive documents would be stored in those machines. By now the thieves have realized that the Global Times newspaper does not function on the premise of subversive documents or information as the thieves have already proved; they found nothing of sort in those lap tops that the stole away except they plant some inside them.  Will they therefore please return the lap tops since their cause was not fulfilled?

The intruders were by no means the regular burglars who break into homes or offices to steal people’s properties that they could trade in exchange for money.  In this case, the thieves never bothered about some thousands of dollars worth of office and personal properties including two plasma televisions, foil printers, scanning machines, 45 inches TV, DSTV decoder, 5 desk top computers with printers, generator, air conditioners, etc.  Normal thieves would have struck gold that morning having stumbled upon such expensive properties; but these particular thieves were not interested.

So who are these thieves then and why The Global Times newspaper of all the many newspapers operating in the country?  The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) governed this country for eleven years and at no time throughout those years was any newspaper office or radio station broken into and ransacked; not even for the fact that there were many newspapers and radio stations whose editions and broadcasts at times cut to the raw nerves of government then in power but at no time was anyone persecuted.  Why should newspaper offices begin to live with such strange experience now?

The Global Times newspaper was founded on the principle of objectivity, which delves into issues of public interest with a straight- from -the -bottom -approach without malice. Opinions remain free in the pages and facts sacred.  The newspaper has refused to be sycophantic and to become praise-singers; let alone to be bought over by any political party or anybody.  The position of Global Times on national issues is being dictated by the dynamism to investigate properly our stories before publication.  This perhaps may be mistaken by our detractors for opinions of the various writers which the paper has no control over; and therefore the newspaper is now being targeted for persecution.

The break-in into the Global Times newspaper is an ugly reminder of the days of the All People’s Congress (APC) party under the late Siaka P. Stevens when newspaper offices were set on fire, journalists beaten up and jailed; some like Pious Foray and many others went scampering and gate-crashing into foreign countries afraid for their safety.  Are we not returning to that ugly past yet again under another APC government this time of President Ernest Bai Koroma?   Why it is only during the APC party in power when many bad things like this happen?  The APC party once in power has always been synonymous with violence, lawlessness, division, molestation, suppression, oppression and repression of people they consider as not in their camp.  And yet our constitution which the President is under oath to uphold provides for freedom of association, expression, opinion, speech, religion, etc.

We are therefore calling the attention of the international community to what we consider as a persecution of our newspaper and by extension of management and staff.  We fear for our lives because experience has taught us that the APC government can stop at nothing in carrying out their iniquitous motives to the full length. 

We expect our sister newspapers to condemn the act because it is a town trap which could not be for the rat alone but for all others.  A threat against one newspaper is inevitably a threat against others especially those that are considered as not friendly with the government in power.

implicitly need another 96 years in power to get the remaining 940 buses it aspires to buy. These are the sorts of propaganda reminiscent of deceitful governments in Africa; with the sole purpose of maintaining the hold on power and exploiting the ignorance of the people. What the government would not disclose to the public are the bountiful kick-backs pocketed by its leadership for every contract signed. It may now be estimated that what each member of the Neo-APC leadership has siphoned from government coffers as salaries and corrupt kick-backs far exceeds the amount spent to buy the 40 buses. In other words, for each dime used in the interest of the 7-million Sierra Leone public, each member of the APC leadership squanders an equal or greater amount. Just all too because of such deceitful and exploitive governments, African societies are crumbling at such a rapid pace that history, more than ever before, is on the verge of repeating itself. That is to say, the Africans are increasingly experiencing a unique form of modern slavery under the hands of their own leaders. One would at this point not help but again ask if the level of destitution in Africa, and especially in Sierra Leone, not a sufficient social catastrophe and disgrace that African rulers should be sickened of?

As also part of the exploitative tricks, African Governments (all well known for practicing politics of the Ice-Age) use tax-payers’ money to create and support puppet Newspapers that steadily praise-sing their rule. In fact, these newspapers are never taken seriously at global international forums because of not only the least respect they have for journalism, but also because of their worst practices of journalism. Here again I take analysis of Cocorioko — a local Sierra Leone newspaper, which would hardly qualify (even under a loose definition of journalism) for the practice of this high-integrity profession. It is the blind mouthpiece of the Neo-APC Government, consciously run on the tax-payers’ money to perpetually frustrate the masses of the critical Sierra Leone public. By definition, journalism is supposed to be objective and impartial. However, the degree of APC praise-singing propaganda Cocorioko conducts is unmatched in recent history. This is yet another strongest measure of the degree of effort the Neo-APC Government has invested, of course at the expense of the tax-payers, into maintaining its grip of power in Sierra Leone.

In this survival game of blind praise-singing, it pays to pause a bit and respect the feel of others. Cocorioko needs to reflect a feel of how the hate, divisive, deceitful and exploitive pieces it publishes befit Sierra Leone. Ever since the Neo-APC came to power in 2007, not a single publication in Cocorioko is free of bias, subjectivity and prejudice. It writes of the Neo-APC leadership as if its personal savings are used to do the things they acclaim it is doing for the country. Quite on the contrary, the Neo-APC Government not only uses tax-payers’ money to wreck the havocs it does in Sierra Leone, but also extorts for the personal use of the leadership the same tax-payers’ monies from public coffers of Sierra Leone. Time and again, history shows that APC and its die-hard disciples are chronically corrupt. The endless slogans of re-branding Sierra Leone, attitudinal change, revitalized higher education, and on and on, are all calculated efforts meant to deceive and exploit the masses of Sierra Leone. Neo-APC tirelessly works to consciously reduce Sierra Leone to an illiterate destitute society. With a society of this nature, APC can keep mounting exploitation drives against the deep ignorance of the people to foster corrupt agendas that would utterly destroy all binding fabrics of Sierra Leone. One never needs to be in Sierra Leone today to feel the effects of the decaying economy and social services, the sky-high exchange rate and transportation cost, the alarming poor medical services, and the list goes on and on. In fact having even a loose random look at the sectors of the society, one would be overwhelmingly startled by the level of decadence in Sierra Leone.

To continue to perpetrate destructive havocs, the Neo-APC Government is once again using tax-payers’ money to set voter mercenaries against the peace-loving citizens of Sierra Leone. It is now apparent that the sole purpose of the Mano River Union (MRU) is voter sharing. We can no longer idly sit-by and allow the APC Government and its notorious bunch of hooligans to disenfranchise the patriotic citizens of Sierra Leone. Nature calls us to duty to unequivocally declare our discontent to the voter-lender countries of the MRU and to urge these countries not only to desist from such practice, but to also take urgent and tangible actions (e.g., closing or at least strict monitoring of strategic border-crossings) to stop this criminal activity. Failure to take immediate actions to terminate the voter-sharing initiative signed between MRU and EBK’s Neo-APC Government will be viewed as grave infringement on the franchise of all patriotic Sierra Leoneans. If not immediately stopped, all we the patriots of Sierra Leone will be forced to unite behind all actions that will turn the table on these voter-lender countries with far-reaching consequences. No government has the right to use private and/or government funds to facilitate the return of Sierra Leoneans (let alone the importation of citizens of alien countries) for the sole purpose of rigging elections. In the case where Sierra Leoneans in the MRU countries want to vote in the up-coming 2012 elections, they have to come home on their own accord and at their own expense. Government-sponsored mass repatriations, run especially on tax-payers’ monies, are viewed as illegal and therefore not acceptable.

We pause at this point to ask the Sierra Leone citizenry if enough is still not enough with APC political trickeries. The vast talented Temnes and Mendes are discriminatively left out in favor of the deceitful and exploitive minority Loko-Limbas in the current governance of Sierra Leone. We plead with all well-minded and patriotic Sierra Leoneans to decisively stand up for your right and do all it takes to put Sierra Leone back on the path of democratic governance, sanity and development. Let all know that a right is like a life, and that all that man has is life. Let no frustrations and intimidations threaten our resolve this time around to defend with fortitude and valor our unquestionable right to just life in our own and only country of Sierra Leone!!