Vice Chancellor Is Deeply Worried and Says, UDS WILL DIE!

Professor Gabriel Teye

By Bajin D. Pobia

Professor Gabriel A Teye, Vice Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), has stated that the creation of autonomous universities out of the UDS would help to collapse the university.

For some time now traditional rulers in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions as well as other stakeholders in education have been calling for the conversion of the UDS Campuses in Nyankpala, Navrongo and Wa campuses into separate universities but Professor Teye sharing his opinion on the issues saw it differently.

He said what was important for the people in the three regions of the North, was to advocate the establishment of new universities in addition to the UDS but not to create autonomous universities out of UDS campuses.

Addressing the third UDS Alumni Association National Delegates Congress in Wa, Vice Chancellor Professor Teye said the UDS was surviving on the numerical strength of its students since government’s subvention was no more forthcoming.

He said the module which the UDS had used to create campuses in the regions was now being duplicated nationally and internationally by other universities worldwide and that should serve as “food for thought” for stakeholders in education in the regions.

“The three regions of the North need new universities and not a piece of UDS. Having new universities will be more helpful than advocating the autonomy of the various campuses of the university”, he suggested.

However, Professor Daniel A Bagah, also of the UDS who gave documentary evidence leading to the conversion of campuses into autonomous universities, said: “as an insider making the campuses fully-fledged universities is a down deal”.

He described the debate about the creating or not creating universities out of the campuses as “academic rationality as against political convenience”.

According to him, any contrary opinion would be subjected to political brushes, saying: “Political convenience is dominant”.

Professor Bagah who was the guest speaker, said the UDS would not die but would continue to exist if its campuses were converted into separate universities.

“Reflecting on UDS issues seriously, the autonomy of the UDS campuses as universities is a down deal”, he pointed.

Dr. Felix K. Abagale, UDS Alumni President, said the Association has assisted UDS in various forms including the extension of electricity to campuses, providing support for the establishment of clinics and contributing to the UDS policies to improve the image of the University.

He appealed to members of the association not be bystanders but be serious alumni helping to build the image of the University to provide quality academic performance and contributing its quota to national development.

“Let us be part of the University and participate actively on issues of the University to make it one of the best in Ghana and the world”.

Dr. Abagale urged authorities of the University to improve lecture halls, accommodation facilities, sanitation, general security and Information Communication and Technology among others in the University.

Editorial

SAVE UDS

If Professor Gabriel A. Teye, Vice Chancellor of the University of Development Studies (UDS) is right, then all well-meaning Ghanaians have a responsibility to ensure that our government does not ponder unreasonable political pressure.

Professor Teye has warned that if the various campuses of the university are used as nuclei of autonomous universities, the UDS will die.

We urge the Government to listen very carefully to Professor Teye and to avoid doing anything which can collapse the UDS.

Government can go ahead and establish autonomous universities in other regions but it must please leave the UDS alone.

We cannot continue to play politics with everything including the future of today’s youth and tomorrow’s leaders.

President Akufo-Addo promises to support local Pharmaceuticals

President Akufo Addo

By Ken Sackey

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Friday said government was determined in to support local pharmaceutical companies to manufacture anti-retroviral drugs for persons living with HIV and AIDS.

He said the development of the country’s pharmaceutical industry, the production of drugs, particularly anti-retrovirals, was a key commitment of his government, and a part of a wider programme for the industrial growth of the country.

“We are going to make a determined effort to try and reverse the structure of the economy and we have chosen the pharmaceutical industry as a key point of that programme,”, President Akufuo-Addo disclosed when the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), Michael Sidibe, called on him at the Flagstaff House in Accra.

The President said it was unacceptable that three out of four people living with HIV and AIDS in the ECOWAS region had no access to treatment, stating that it was important that Ghana got UNAID’s endorsement to enable local pharmaceuticals in the region to manufacture anti-retroviral drugs to reverse that statistics.

“Whatever is required to be done to improve those statistics, it is incumbent on us to do it because these are no statistics that should be allowed to fester, there is a requirement that we do something about it and change these facts.”, he told Mr Sidibe

President Akufuo-Addo pledged government’s commitment to support the work of the UNAIDS, adding that Ghana would leverage its leadership role in ECOWAS and the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board to play a frontline role and ensure issues about the disease was taken seriously.

He also expressed the government’s commitment to support and increase the capacity of the Ghana AIDS Commission to make it play a lead role in the fight against the deadly disease.

President Akufo-Addo said the collaboration between the UNAIDS and regional as well as the continental bodies should be strengthened because it was critical to tackling the scorch of HIV and AIDs and other communicable diseases.

He stressed the need for decisions taken at regional and continental levels on the HIV and AIDS disease to reflect “on what is happening on the ground so that our people can feel the benefit.”

Mr. Sidibe said the UNAIDS would be adopting a new model to comprehensively address the HIV/AIDS and its related disease, urging Ghana to support the move.

He commended the government’s commitment to produce the anti-retroviral drugs and stressed the need for countries in the ECOWAS region to come together to consider the possibility of producing the drugs locally.

GNA

Mahama laid solid foundation for free SHS – Ablakwa

Hon Samuel OKUDZETO ABLAKWA

By Marian Ansah

A former Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said the massive improvement in educational infrastructure by the previous NDC government, will facilitate the new government’s plan to roll out the free Senior High School (SHS) programme.

According to him, the Mahama administration invested millions of dollars in expanding infrastructure in the education sector, paving the way for the current government to implement the policy.

“Now with President Mahama’s community based schools and with the Secondary education programme, which the World Bank supported with 156 million dollars, a very solid foundation has been laid for a take-off. Article 25 says secondary education should be progressively free, and that is what we implemented. We were only satisfying what the constitution says because the framers of the constitution were aware of the challenges confronting secondary education.”

Gov’t must focus on quality 

The North Tongu legislator advised government to also focus on quality education, saying, “at the end of the day, if it is all about taking everybody to school but we do not have quality education then there is nothing more dangerous than a poorly educated citizenry. You certainly will be creating a nightmare and a danger for the future of your country.”

“Now looking at all the investments that have been made, I will say that now you can begin talking about improving on the progressively free secondary education programme. However, the word of caution is that, it is important for us to see that the programme of action is on quality, because they must not abandon President Mahama’s quality and access initiatives as we introduce Free SHS . If we do that, then we run the risk of destroying secondary education because public secondary schools do better. Your Grade A schools do better, so it is important that we maintain this tradition. We should be guided by how public basic education slipped.”

GNAT welcomes free SHS

Meanwhile the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), has asked government to ensure the timely release of funds for the implementation.

Speaking to Citi News, the General Secretary of (GNAT), David Ofori Acheampong, while endorsing the initiative, said government must ensure that there is a reliable source of funding for the programme.

“We have to look at the budget. Look at what budget we have to bear as a nation  to carry that programme through and clear source of funding for that project. The policy should address timeous release of resources because if we are not going to commit parents to any of the monies that they have paid over the years and government is going to take that responsibility then  there must be timeous release of resources.”

Free SHS to begin in September

President Akufo-Addo has assured that his government will fully implement the free SHS policy from September 2017.

The policy is expected to ensure that Ghanaians who qualify for SHS are not burdened with financial difficulties.

“By free SHS, we mean that, in addition to tuition which is already free, there will be no admission fees, no library fees, no science centre fees, no computer lab fees, no examination fees, no utility fees; there will be free textbooks, free boarding and free meals, and day students will get a meal at school for free,” the president clarified.

YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO THIS SIGN ON THE TOOTHPASTE

By Philip
Most of the people, when buying a toothpaste, only read the label. But, how many of them actually read what is on the bottom of the toothpaste package? Do you have any idea how important that is?

The bottom of the toothpaste reveals something of crucial importance. It says whether the paste is made out of organic substances or not.

Go to the bathroom and take a look at the bottom of your toothpaste. There should be a square of the color blue, red or black. These little squares tell the quality of the paste.

Here is how the scheme of the colors:

·         if your toothpaste has a black square on the bottom, then it means that it contains only chemicals

·         if your toothpaste has a red square on it’s bottom, it signifies that this paste is made out of combinations of chemicals and natural substances.

·         if the square on the bottom of your toothpaste is blue, it signifies that the paste contains only natural substances and drugs.

·         And finally, if the square you see on the bottom is the color green, this means that the toothpaste contains all-natural ingredients.

·          

Preserving the health of your teeth is crucial to your overall health. So, always remember this – next time you go to the market, stop at the isle where the toothpastes are.

Take the toothpaste you usually use and open it. See what kind of color is the square at the bottom. If it is anything but green, return it immediately.

If you do not feel like checking all the toothpastes there are, make sure you ask an employee, they will definitely be of an assistance to you.

It is okay if you even take a paste with a blue square, but make the green one your priority. Put the health of your oral cavity first.

You will notice the change within the first week of changing the toothpaste.

PLASTIC BOTTLES: Bad For Pregnant Women And Babies

A new study has linked drinking from a plastic bottle during pregnancy with child obesity, stating that it could be triggered by the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA).

BPA is used in plastics and resins and is found in a variety of food containers. It is also a component in metal can coatings, which protect the food from directly contacting metal surfaces. Although it hasn’t been comprehensively proven that BPA poses a direct health risk, it has been closely studied since 2008 over safety concerns. 

It is known that small amounts of packaging materials may transfer into food when the two come into contact. 

A recent study carried out on mice by the Endocrine Society, based in Washington DC, revealed that baby mice born to mothers exposed to BPA were less responsive to the hormone leptin.

Leptin is essential to feeling full, as it helps inhibit the appetite by reducing hunger pangs when the body does not need energy.

“BPA exposure permanently alters the neurobiology in the affected mice, making them prone to obesity as adults,” the study’s senior author, Alfonso Abizaid, said.

Researchers also found that mice exposed to BPA before birth had reduced fiber density and brain activity involved in regulating energy expenditure and the amount of calories needed to function.

“Since BPA has also been linked to obesity in humans, people need to be aware that environmental factors can lead to increased susceptibility to obesity and cardio-metabolic disorders,” Abizaid warned.

In 2012 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby bottles and ‘sippy cups’ as well as the use of epoxy resins in infant formula packaging.

Research in 2011 led by Joe Braun from the Harvard School of Public Health linked early exposure to BPA to higher levels of anxiety and aggression in girls by age three.

Murder And Mayhem In Liberia: What America Wrought In The Country America Created

President Willaim Tolbert

By Brooks Marmon

The US was deeply involved in the overthrow and assassination of Liberian President William Tolbert that led to a 14-year civil war in which as many as 250,000 Liberians perished. Subsequently, America was also implicated in the removal from power of two other Liberian heads of state. The truth of this extensive meddling is important for genuine reconciliation among Liberians.

 “You are one of those Tolbert bitches? Strip his ass, carry him inside!”

Thirty-five years later, Richard Tolbert vividly recalls the words that were barked at him after armed soldiers raided his office at the Mesurado Group of Companies, Liberia’s largest and most successful private enterprises.  He was bundled into a Cadillac and driven to the Post Stockade, a military prison on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

Richard had just come out of hiding after receiving assurances he would not be subjected to such treatment. Several weeks earlier his uncle, William Tolbert Jr., the President of Liberia, had been murdered in a bloody coup that ended 150 years of political domination by the nation’s American descended settler elite. 

In the early morning of April 12, 1980, as the President prepared to go to sleep, a small group of enlisted soldiers shot their way up to the presidential suite on the eighth floor of the Executive Mansion and executed their Commander-I-Chief.  At least six of the attackers had been trained by the US military.

Several days later Richard watched in horror as his father Frank, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was executed live on TV. He and a dozen others crumpled before a firing squad as hundreds of Liberians cheered the beachfront spectacle.

Thirty-six years later, the families of the old ‘Americo–Liberian’ elite continue to grapple with these events. Indicative of the complex historical relationship between the US and Liberia, the surviving family members entertain the possibility that the coup was enabled by American Cold War interests. In her autobiography, President Tolbert’s widow, Victoria, noted that her husband’s killers exclaimed they would receive a $25,000 bounty for their handiwork. Her youngest son, William Tolbert III., laments that the successor government formed by his father’s killers received more aid in just five years than the country had in its entire history.

I spoke to members of the Tolbert family, members of his government, and the political opposition.  Now in their twilight years, many of them are haunted by the idea that US actions led to the demise of Tolbert and gave way to a 14-year civil war in which as many as 250,000 Liberians perished.

Shortly before he was named the Government’s Peace Ambassador in 2015, Tolbert III. publicly addressed the critical need for Liberia to uncover the truth behind his father’s death.

“We remind government of our desire to bring closure to those tragic events of April 1980.  Our desire should be linked to their commitment to assist us and ensure accomplishment of this goal. However, there are questions which remain unanswered.  These affect genuine reconciliation, peace and security, for all Liberians.”

The closest that Liberia has come to closure was the 2009 release of the final report of the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Most international media attention centered around the Commission’s recommendation that the sitting President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, be barred from office for 30 years. The report’s allegation that during the Tolbert era “both the CIA and the Pentagon were now prospecting for leadership change in Liberia” was largely overlooked.  Likewise, Beneath the Cold War: The Death of a Nation, a highly critical book on US policy towards Liberia by the husband and wife team of Sadie and Leonard Deshield, mid-level operatives in Tolbert’s True Whig Party, has gone unnoticed outside of Liberian circles.

Tolbert III. and other family members of those who lost loved ones during the coup have established the “April 22nd Memorial Group” to push for further disclosures. Although its activities are primarily confined to annual commemorations of the coup, Sirleaf’s successor will be elected next year.  A new political dispensation in Liberia may represent the best chance for the group to uncover the whole story.

Samuel DOE

Rupture of the ‘special’ US – Liberia relationship

Liberia is one of the few African nations without a European colonial history. The West African nation was settled throughout the 19th century by black Americans with the support of an under-resourced white American led resettlement organization, the American Colonization Society (ACS).  The Americo–Liberian settlers alternately fought and assimilated with the indigenous Africans.  They forged an uneasy arrangement that resulted in what was nominally the first African republic in 1847, after a quarter century of ACS rule.

Richard praises the efforts of his uncle to help Liberia emerge from this historical burden. “Willie genuinely tried to reform the Americo–Liberian class, he was a part of that class and that’s what he paid the price for.” 

Throughout the 1970s, Tolbert struggled to balance a reform agenda and international leadership aspirations against pressure from the governing True Whig Party, an emboldened opposition, and the US.  Tolbert assumed office in 1971 after 19 years as Vice-President.  Displeased with the extent of support traditionally offered by the US, he quickly signaled that in the Cold War struggle, Liberia would shift toward the non-aligned camp.

In 1973, he severed relations with Israel.  Richard believes that this was “one of his greatest foreign policy mistakes that could have led to his demise.”  Liberia also established relations with a number of America’s Cold War enemies, including Cuba, Libya, and the Soviet Union.  Winston Tolbert, the president’s biological son who was legally adopted by his uncle, Stephen, says that these actions had consequences: “the US government looked at him as a radical, a leftist, and that he was not in support of their Cold War policies…he was an irritant to the American establishment.” 

As Tolbert consolidated his authority, he not only engaged in dialogue that displeased the US, he pursued policies that undermined the ability of American companies to exploit Liberian resources.

Stephen Tolbert was the president’s University of Michigan educated minister of finance and the founder of the Mesurado Group.  He maintained a vacation home at Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. and irritated the Americans considerably more than his brother.  He went after a number of US companies operating in Liberia.  His most notable target was Firestone, the Ohio-based rubber conglomerate. 

Richard Tolbert was then a law student at Columbia University and sat in on the negotiations.  He reflects: “[Stephen] saw how they were screwing us.  He tightened up all the loopholes, but he did it in a brusque manner.” 

In April 1975, Stephen Tolbert died in an airplane crash.  The Nigerian press suggested that the CIA had tinkered with the plane (incidentally, Liberia was home to a CIA listening facility).  The Liberian government investigated – with US support.  Although no foul play was proven, Winston notes that the demise of his adopted father was the beginning of the end for his biological father.  “My dad helped [the President] a lot with security.  He watched his back.  To get President Tolbert out of the way they had to get [Stephen] out of the way first.” 

Further damaging US–Liberian relations were contentious remarks made by Liberia’s Foreign Minister, Cecil Dennis, at US Independence Day celebrations at the American Embassy that same year.  His brother, James, says that Cecil took the opportunity to express the administration’s view “that the US should have given [Liberia] much more than what they did.  They had not shown what the British and French did for other African countries they were close to.”  Ambassador Melvin Manfull resigned not long thereafter.

Rising domestic pressures

By the mid-1970s, domestic political opposition to the Tolbert government and 150 years of settler rule was coalescing. The Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) was formed in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1974 by Liberians studying in the United States.  It was led by G. Bacchus Matthews who had close ties to the Tolbert family.  However, he bore a grudge against the president due to his dismissal from the Liberian Consulate in New York as a result of alleged financial improprieties.

Marcus Dahn was a senior member of PAL who graduated from the University of Akron.  He notes that it has American roots.  “We call [PAL] the product of the Peace Corps, they did such a good job for us when were in high school.” 

A homegrown campaign, the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA), led by the University of Nebraska-educated Togba Nah Tipoteh, emerged at the same time.  MOJA indoctrinated a number of members of the Armed Forces of Liberia in its pan-African ideology, including the future coup leader, Samuel Doe.  The young soldiers attended night classes at MOJA’s Marcus Garvey Memorial High School.  Winston believes that both groups were supported by the CIA.  Tipoteh would not confirm this, but he does claim that Matthews, now deceased, was “a paid agent of the CIA, at the level of $25,000 a month.”

The US government would not have seen PAL’s radical young leaders as a palatable alternative to the Tolbert administration.   When it came to destabilization of the government, however, their aggressive style would have made them a useful tool in waging what Winston Tolbert terms “psychological warfare against the people of Liberia.”

In the late 1970s, President Tolbert again angered the US by refusing around the clock access to bunkering facilities at Liberia’s international airport (which was constructed during World War II by the US).  Richard says his uncle informed the Americans that they would only gain such access over his dead body.  He adds that this was a self-fulfilling prophecy as his uncle died shortly thereafter and Liberia’s Robertsfield International Airport was soon facilitating US arms shipments to Iran and the UNITA rebels in Angola.

In April 1979, the CIA saw some of the most overt rewards of its alleged assistance to the opposition.  PAL led a violent march through downtown Monrovia on the Executive Mansion protesting the government’s plan to raise the price of rice, Liberia’s staple food.  Dozens (possibly as many as hundreds) were killed and the government relied on its neighbor, Guinea, a strong ally of the Soviet Union, to restore order. Nonetheless, in January 1980, PAL registered as a legal opposition party, the Progressive People’s Party.

Two months later, following a mysterious late night PAL demonstration at the Executive Mansion, the government swiftly retaliated. Tolbert accused Matthews and his associates of masterminding a coup in a legislative address. “Intelligence reports reveal that the Progressive People’s Party had designed a plan to execute an armed insurrection with intent to overthrow the duly constituted Government of the Republic of Liberia.”

Who really killed Tolbert?

Despite being on heightened alert, Tolbert was massacred just one month later. When asked if he believes that the US played a direct role in the coup, Richard Tolbert replies:

“I can’t say for sure.  I would love to know.  I hope that one day it will be revealed.  It was very professional.  Liberia did not have the trained experts who could overpower forces all the way up from the ground floor to the 8th floor.  There is no question that the CIA supported the opposition to Tolbert.  As to direct involvement, I couldn’t say.”

James Dennis echoes this assessment. Asked if the 17 soldiers were capable of carrying out the coup alone, he forcefully responds, “No way!”  He adds that his brother’s secure phone line at the Foreign Ministry was cut, something that he does not think the low-ranking soldiers were capable of carrying out on their own.  Dennis’s suspicions were also aroused by a neighbor, a US Embassy employee (who Dennis believes was a CIA agent) who reported at around 2am that the coup was successful.  To Dennis, this indicated that the US Embassy was in close contact with those leading the assault.

Tolbert III. notes that Samuel Doe, the figurehead of the coup, was sleeping on the grounds of the Executive Mansion while the assault unfolded.  He asks, “if President Doe did not kill Dr. Tolbert, who did?” 

Tipoteh claims that an American was in the Mansion yard as the coup was unfolding, providing one possible theory.  Emmanuel Bowier, Doe’s Minister of Information, observes that the local rumor mill alleges that a gravely wounded Caucasian in military fatigues was seen outside the Executive Mansion during the coup. 

Elwood Dunn, a member of Tolbert’s cabinet, embarked on a noted career in academia in the US following the coup.  He has been trying to determine if the US played a role in Tolbert’s ouster.  He has not found a paper trail, but says that the US – Liberia relationship was severely strained and believes that “if the US found a way covertly to remove [Tolbert]…. then I think they would have done so.” 

Liberia’s descent

Following the coup, the situation quickly spiraled out of control. On April 22, tied to poles with their backs to the beach, 13 officials in the Tolbert government, including Frank Tolbert and Cecil Dennis, were executed.  Tolbert’s eldest son was seized from the French Embassy and disappeared several months later.  Other Americo–Liberians were imprisoned for up to two years.  William Jarbo, a US trained Ranger with close ties to the US military mission in Liberia, was shot down by Doe loyalists while trying to escape the country a few weeks later, a twist of events that has never been adequately explained.   Bowier alleges that the US initially looked to Jarbo to lead the coup, only to backtrack once the Embassy discovered the he was related to Tipoteh, the pan-African firebrand.

In 1982, Doe was warmly welcomed by President Reagan at the White House around the same time Tolbert III. was released from prison.  The Master Sergeant’s intolerance for dissent was just beginning to crystallize however.  Just days before he arrived in DC, Doe presided over the execution of 5 of his comrades who had played a role in the coup.  The Washington Post reported that they had “criticized what they perceived as the Doe government's "errand boy" relationship with the United States.”  Doe was expected to make way for a civilian government in 1985 but rigged elections that year with US acquiescence.

His inability to step aside prompted an almost immediate unsuccessful coup attempt from one of his fellow 1980 conspirators.  The assault was led by Thomas Quiwonkpa who lived in the suburbs of Washington, DC after he fell out with Doe. Doe and most of his fellow coup makers were dead by the early years of the Liberian civil war, which broke out in December 1989.  However, at least one survivor, Jeffrey Gbatu, now lives in the United States. 

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

America’s ties to Liberian conflicts are numerous. Prince Johnson, a sitting Liberian Senator who presided over Doe’s videotaped execution in 1990, attempted to reach the US Embassy to obtain instructions on how to handle his captive.  Liberians hope the final chapter in their crisis closed in 2006 when George Bush backtracked on his promise not to pursue the extradition of Liberian President Charles Taylor, whose departure to Nigeria finally ended the war in 2003.

Amidst contemporary violence in Burundi and the Congo as leaders seek to extend their rule, Richard takes pride in the way his uncle managed opposition to his administration.  “The Tolbert family does not have blood on our hands.  The Tolberts can go anywhere in Africa and hold their heads high.”  Richard’s words stand in stark contrast not only to African leaders who have relied on nefarious means to stay in power, but also to the global superpowers who have a dubious history on the continent. 

While the former American Ambassador, Deborah Malac, denied that the US makes “secret handshakes” with Liberian leaders, the historical record in Liberia and elsewhere leads Africans to believe otherwise.  It has been widely alleged that the CIA supported regime change in nations like Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1960s as Africa struggled to emerge from colonialism.  The academic Neils Hahn has written about US covert and overt actions in Liberia and notes that the US played a prominent role in pushing out three successive Liberian heads of state, most recently Charles Taylor in 2003.

The early meddling established a precedent.  The Liberians who attribute the eruption of violence in their country to a history of American initiatives characterized by paternalism at best and outright maliciousness at worst are not alone in their struggles.  Since 2012, military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso have been led by officers with close ties to the US military. 

On the 35th anniversary of the coup, Tolbert III. reiterated the importance of uncovering the truth behind the coup.  He spoke before the April 22nd Memorial Group at the crumbling Palm Grove cemetery in downtown Monrovia, where the remains of up to 200 officials of the Tolbert government lie in a mass grave beneath overgrown tropical bush. 

“I am of the opinion that as long as these lingering questions remain unanswered, they undermine [the] genuine reconciliation in Liberia that we all yearn for.  Now is the time for Government to mobilize resources to promote and support all initiatives that will guarantee genuine reconciliation amongst all Liberians.”

Dennis, nearly 90 years old, mourns the demise of his brother, the destruction of the printing presses that provided his livelihood, and the dissolution of his marriage in the aftermath of the coup.  Now married to a relative of Benoni Urey, a leading opposition presidential candidate, he pleads:

“We are still asking the question, why?  Why is [my brother] dead when he should be alive? We need answers.”

Unless the political equation within Liberia changes this year, it seems unlikely that the April 22nd Memorial Group will uncover any answers.  Adoring audiences recently flocked to Broadway to enjoy Lupita Nyongo’s performance as a Liberian child soldier in Eclipsed.  Neither there nor elsewhere do serious questions of American culpability in the Liberian tragedy arise.  When contacted for comment, the US State Department’s Office of the Historian responded, “our office does not provide commentary or take positions on historical events.”

* Brooks Marmon is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies.  He previously worked in Liberia.  Follow him on Twitter @AfricaInDC.

Libya on brink of economic collapse - World Bank

Fighters of Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government take cover during a battle with Islamic State militants in Ghiza Bahriya district in Sirte, Libya October 31, 2016

The Libyan economy is facing collapse as the civil war is disrupting the country's main source of income oil production, warns the World Bank.

 “With oil production just a fifth of the potential, revenues have plummeted, pushing fiscal and current account deficits to record highs. With the dinar rapidly losing value, inflation has accelerated, further eroding real incomes,” the report said.

As a result of falling crude prices and low output, Libya's foreign reserves have shrunk from $107.6 billion in 2013 to a projected $43 billion by the end of this year.

Over the first half of 2016, the country managed to produce an average of 335 thousand barrels per day, down 20 percent from last year. Libya's daily oil production before the 2011 uprising stood at 1.6 million barrels.

The Libyan economy has shrunk by an estimated 8.3 percent, leaving the country in recession since 2013, with GDP per capita dropping by nearly two-thirds of its pre-revolution level, the bank says.

In the first seven month of 2016, Libya’s state income of 3.2 billion dinar ($2.28 billion) was just a tenth of what it was during the same period last year. The Libyan dinar has dropped 73 percent against the dollar on the black market. The budget deficit remained high at 69 percent of GDP. “While the central government was a net lender before the revolution, domestic debt has since quickly increased to reach a high 110 percent of GDP in 2016,” the WB reports stressing that the deficit was financed mainly through borrowing from the Central Bank of Libya.

Constant shortages have meant food prices have increased 31 percent in the first half of the year, according to World Bank calculations. “Headline inflation jumped to 24 percent over the same period,” the report says. Inflation is expected to average 20 percent this year.

State spending on subsidies fell by 25.4 percent due to lower imported fuel prices and the removal of food subsidies.

“Wages also fell by 8.7 percent reflecting efforts to remove duplicate payments from government payrolls through extending and enforcing the use of the national identification number,” the report says.

At the same time, the World Bank notes that outlays on wages at 61 percent of GDP and subsidies at 18.4 percent of GDP remain very high.

Libya is also facing a political crisis with two centers of power in the country; the internationally recognized government in Tobruk, the Government of National Accord (GNA) and Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC). The GNA is the centerpiece of UN efforts to end five years of chaos in Libya and it now faces an even tougher battle to assert its authority over the rival administration in the east.

Age of liberal demagogues – Trump vs. Muslim Brotherhood 

Supporters of Muslim Brotherhood

By Catherine Shakdam

Liberals beware Trump is on the prowl, and he means business. This time America’s 45th US President is going after the infamous Muslim Brotherhood, and liberals have a lot to say on the matter. Welcome to 2017, the year of demagoguery.

For those of you still reeling from the “Muslim Ban,” news that the Trump administration is currently looking to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, courtesy of one Senator Ted Cruz, must have felt like another blow to the solar plexus.

On January 10, Sen. Cruz opened the festivities against everything “Islam-like” by reintroducing a Bill to Congress that, if enacted, would brand the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Right on cue, activists and all manner of liberals have decried the ignominy of Trump’s cronies, hammering on about America’s descent into the throes of fascism. I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but I believe the United States threw its moral high-ground into the river when a boisterous President George W. Bush over a decade ago, split the world in two with his: “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

While I do not hold Senator Ted Cruz, or the Trump administration for that matter, in high esteem … orange is not my color, I find demagoguery insufferable. I categorically refuse to be played for a fool on account Muslims have become liberals’ Holy Grail against President Trump.

More importantly still, I will not be bullied into supporting the Muslim Brotherhood for it has the word “Muslim” in it. Who are we kidding here? Can I gently remind everyone what this organization stands for, speaks for, and most troubling still, what powers it harbors behind its veneer of respectability?

Call me crazy but America’s sudden love affair with all things Muslims screams too much of a manipulation for me to buy into it – never mind bite into that poison apple. While I welcome people’s rejection of those policies which rhyme with fascism, I must say that I would have much preferred America’s interjection of genocide.

If anyone were to choose between irrational xenophobic policies and wanton murder across several continents I would assume that reason would dictate the former. One can reform insanity … death is somewhat permanent!

Sorry America, but singing Kumbaya on Capitol Hill rings hollow in the face of your overwhelming quietism before the cruelty of your government’s military interventionism.

Here I must recall the remarks State Senator Richard Black made during our last interview: “The war against Syria was a war of aggression, instigated by foreigners attacking a neutral, non-belligerent country. What has been particularly galling to me, is that the US and Great Britain were training terrorists in Jordan, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and that we were arming and funding Al-Qaeda, the same force that attacked the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9-11. Our covert assistance to Al-Qaeda, which had murdered 3,000 Americans, was treason of breath-taking dimensions.”

If it is outrage you are after, I would suggest you fall behind Senator Black and direct your righteous anger at those demons eating away at all of our freedoms – that would be a tad more constructive than a sea of pink hats wearing questionable outfits while calling it socio-politically progressive.

But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night!

So what Sen. Ted Cruz wants to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood? Would it be that terrible to see an organization dismantled which has flirted with the radicalism of Wahhabism, all the while promoting religious exclusionism to rise itself holiest of all?

The main argument so far has been that the Muslim Brotherhood holds such a monopoly on American-Muslim civil societies that a ban would collapse countless organizations, and thus sit Muslims outside the mainstream.

Shenaz Kermalii argued in The Independent that: “Blacklisting an Egyptian group with alleged links to terrorism has a direct impact on American citizens because these “affiliates” encompass several US Muslim advocacy organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA).”

Although I understand the logic behind such reasoning, rationalizing “terror” on the basis it would be inconvenient to American-Muslims is sheer insanity. Let me put it to you differently: would you ever ask an oncologist to keep some cancer rather than risk life with a physical deformity?

President Donald Trump

Before you ask, yes I am aware that most will call for solidarity out of fear. Trump and Co. will keep coming at Muslims from all angles until only dust is left on the floor. I hear you … but I still can’t bring myself to support an organization which ethos is anchored on labeling all “others” infidels deserving the slaughter.

And yes I will admit that back in 1928 the Brotherhood may have looked like a good idea since focused on bringing positive social change. But that was before one nasty Sayyid Qutb decided to preach bloodshed as a grand religious cleanse. Qutb’s writings helped inform the Islamist ideology known as Qutbism, which advocates violent jihad—and the killing of secular Muslims—to implement sharia.

Which part does sound like a good idea?

Here is my question: are we arguing Trump administration’s new plan out of spite or are we wholeheartedly suggesting defending radicalism? How fast can you spell Freudian displacement?

In the face of Trump’s insanity, I maintain that any, and all efforts spent toward the disappearing of radicalism/exclusionism are a good idea - especially when it involves the Muslim Brotherhood.

May I dare suggest that Trump’s administration is but the product of a grand-scale Muslim witch-hunt both Democrats and Republicans have been keen to package under the cute label: national security.

What gives today is that President Trump does not bother much with branding. Ultimately the joke is on us.

I’m not alone advocating a little soul searching. Dr. Seyed Ammar Nakhjavani – Imam Ali Chair at the Hartford Seminary happens to agree with me. He noted: “The second we compromise our principles for the sake of convenience or out of fear, we have already lost the argument. Radicalism’s best weapon has been its ability to embed and weave itself within civil societies. We owe it to ourselves to tackle this issue rationally, away from the hype of politics.”

So maybe a little more thinking and less reacting …

Why A Blockade And Not An Embargo?

Cuban Farmers

By Granma International news | informacion@granma.cu

The measures adopted against Cuba by the United States government do not fall within the category of "embargo." On the contrary, they go beyond this definition to represent a "blockade," on seeking to persecute, isolate, suffocate and immobilize Cuba, with the aim of suffocating its people and forcing them to renounce their decision to be sovereign and independent. These are all fundamental elements of the concept of a "blockade," which means to cut or close off a nation to the outside world, in order to isolate and oblige the besieged country to surrender by force or starvation.

Blockades have been recognized as an "act of war" in international law since the London Naval Conference of 1909. In accordance with this principle, such a measure can only be exerted between warring factions. On the other hand, there exists no international law justifying a so-called "peaceful blockade," as was commonly used by colonial powers during the 19th and early 20th century. 

Nor does such a controversial concept have a tradition in international law as accepted by the United States of America, but U.S. authorities have a bad memory and forget that in 1916, they warned France that "The United States does not recognize the right of any foreign power to impose barriers to the exercise to the commercial rights of non-interested nations, by using the blockade when there is no state of war."

"Embargo" is generally understood to be a legal method of retaining goods to ensure the fulfillment of a legitimately contracted obligation. It can also be a preventive measure of a patrimonial nature authorized by a judge, court or competent authority with the same purpose of obliging the debtor to fulfill commitments to creditors. Is Cuba indebted to the United States? Has Cuba committed any such crime that would justify the seizure and liquidation of its assets by the United States? The answer is clear and conclusive: No.

Cuba hasn't been, nor is it, a threat to the security of the United States, thus the attempts to apply measures in the name of legitimate self-defense with regard to the island stand in violation of international law, given that such regulations do not recognize the concept of subjective legitimate self-defense, nor the claim of legitimate defense as advocated by the Monroe Doctrine, which is in fact a policy of aggression.

Cuban President Raul Castro

Despite their use of the term "embargo", this group of coercive and aggressive economic measures is in fact an illegal blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba. This criminal behavior against the island can not be concealed, nor can action be taken against the island based on legal concepts that do not exist. The U.S. government uses the concept of an "embargo" to conceal its application of wartime measures against the island, of an undeclared war against the Cuban people. The blockade against Cuba is the utmost expression of genocidal conduct by the United States, aimed at intentionally subjecting Cubans to extremely hard living conditions, which could potentially cause total or partial physical damage in order to weaken their resolve to fight and overcome.

Although the United States didn’t fully implement the blockade against Cuba until February 7, 1962, it had been applying similar policies against the island since 1959. For example the island's sugar quota was cancelled, the most important sector for Cuba's economy and finances; while U.S. oil companies, which controlled energy production and distribution in the country, decided to suspend supplies and refused to refine oil, in order to weaken key points of Cuba's defense and economy, and paralyze the country; something which they did not achieve. Meanwhile, an underhanded boycott of any purchase of spare parts manufactured in the United States for Cuban industry was added to the aforementioned list of measures, again with the same futile purpose.

However, when the U.S. government realized that a partial blockade wasn’t enough to defeat the Cuban people, a total blockade against the island was declared by then U.S. President John F. Kennedy, beginning at midnight on February 7, 1962, complying with the order from the U.S. Congress established under Section 620a of the Foreign Aid Act of September, 1961.

The obvious intentions of the blockade stand in contradiction to the human rights of the Cuban people and their freedom to exercise their right to self-determination, a right enshrined in the United Nations Charter, the Declaration on Human Rights and in Article 1 of the International Treaty on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Treaty on Civil and Political Rights. Who is then violating the rights of the Cuban people?

Such acts of aggression have been repeatedly condemned in numerous UN resolutions. For example, Resolution 2625 of October 24, 1970, approved during the 25th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, where the sovereign equality of states, peoples’ right to self-determination and the obligation of all nations not to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, were established.

Resolution 2625 also asserts that "No State may use or encourage the use of economic political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind… Every State has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another State." •

Excerpts from the book Cuba–USA: Nacionalizaciones y Bloqueo by Dr. Olga Miranda Bravo, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1996. Source: http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu