Fussing Over Morlu-Obama Meeting

By Jay Nagbe Sloh
Managing Editor
Sloh Information Service

Introduction
On Monday, July 13, 2009, the United States Embassy near Monrovia issued a press release in which it "categorically denied" that the head of the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court in Liberia, Mr. Mulbah Morlu, met with President Barack Obama in Accra, Ghana, last Saturday as Morlu claimed. The Embassy said: “There was no such meeting or conversation between the two men”.

Before the Embassy’s clarification, FrontPageAfrica, an online media outlet, reported on July 12, 2009 that Mr. Morlu and the Executive Mansion were "embroiled in exchanges" over Morlu's claim he met with President Obama in Accra, Ghana, on Saturday, July 11, 2009. It quoted Morlu as saying he held20a six-minute discussion with Obama who was in Ghana on his first visit to sub-saharan Africa as President of America. However, Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf, shun by the Obama Administration since Obama took office last January, jumped into disputing Morlu's claim of meeting with Obama. FrontPageAfrica quoted her spokesman, Cyrus Badio, as describing Morlu’s claim of the meeting as false. Dr. Abdullah Dukule and other Liberians, either paid and/or sympathetic to the Sirleaf Government, also joined the President's chorus refuting Morlu's claim.

Before and after the Embassy’s clarification, the exchanges between Morlu (on one side) and the Mansion and its agents (on the other hand) had raised more concerns and questions than answers: Did Morlu meet with Obama? Who arranged the meeting? Where - exactly - in Accra was it held? Why would the President of Liberia abandon burning national issues, such as her current indictment by the TRC, to worry about a Liberian citizen's meeting with the head of a foreign government?

Reputation of Morlu and his organization
Credibility is the first requirement in the human rights business. As such, we hold human righ ts organizations and their officers, such as Morlu and his group, responsible for what they write, say, and/or publish. The Embassy's refutation of Morlu's claim dwarfs any ounce of reputation he and his group may have built locally and internationally. It questions the legitimacy of its past activities and public statements while seriously eroding public trust in the group and its officers for the future.

Morlu's statement really sounded so believable that the denial from the American Government now reminds me about one kind of liar Bishop Marwiah once spoke about on Liberian television. He said this kind of liar (I have forgotten the exact name) works so smartly that even his/her victims would believe him/her. Morlu did not only claiming a meeting, he also attached a timeline to his "meeting" with Obama - claiming it took six minutes. Listen to him: "I can tell you for sure, I met President Obama on Saturday in Accra, Ghana, the purpose for which we flew to that country. People who are saying that we did not meet Obama are ashamed because you can remember sometime ago Madam Sirleaf left this country and stayed over a month in America lobbying to see Obama but to no avail. They are ashamed that a little advocate like me was able to meet Obama” (FrontPageAfrica.com, July 12, 2009)."

Although I had no information to conclude that this guy was telling the truth, he came across truthful (and the American Government was still mute on his claim) that I told a friend it would take more than expression of mere "doubts" by the President and her agents to block him out of believability. On one hand, Morlu had made his claim, and he appeared not to care whether or not anyone - the Liberian Government in particular - believed his claim. After all, he was representing his organization, not anyone else (especially those doubting him). On the other hand, the Liberian Government was accusing him of lying.

Under the law, I thought (rightly so) that the burden of proof lied on the shoulders of the accusers, the Liberian Government and its agents thought, and I still believe, that the Liberian Government had a responsibility to convince us, through the preponderance of evidence, that the "meeting" was a hoax. The U.S. Embassy has done the accuser's job for them. So, now that the cat is out of the bag, the honorable thing for Morlu and his group to do is to immediately apologize to the U.S. Government publicly and shut down their operations because no one would trust and/or believe them anymore. A lesser way out is for Morlu to resign or be fired, unless he is the sole owner as is the case with many brief-case organizations.

Meeting arrangement
I was not really concerned about who arranged the meeting. Firstly, the name of the person who arranged the "meeting" and the channel of the arrangement were, in my view, irrelevant than whether it actually took place. I cared les s because if a meeting took place between two parties, any of them could have arranged it directly with the other or through third parties. Interestingly, the U.S. Government - whose current Ambassador is a proven expert on current events - had not refuted Morlu's claim.

When FrontPageAfrica asked Morlu who arranged the meeting, he told them that he wrote President Obama in January this year, requesting a meeting with him to justify his request for the United States to support the establishment of a war crimes court in Liberia. “We have people in Washington who are members of the Forum for the Establishment for War Crimes Court in Liberia. So when I wrote President Obama, they have been following up on the letter and our meeting with President Obama, but for their security, I will not call names now,” Morlu continued.

He claimed he received confirmation to meet with President Obama before Obama made the trip to Africa. For me, that was enough information to answer this question. In addition to how Morlu claims his meeting was arranged, I also know that there could have been other sources who arranged the meeting. U.S. diplomacy works in many ways and manners that, sometimes, only those associated with particular events/issues know about them.

The current U.S. Ambassador in Liberia is very, very friendly and sympathetic to private organizations like the one Mulbah heads. She COULD (key word) and may have arranged a private meeting between Mulbah and Obama directly or through the State Department, the White House itself, or her counterpart (American Ambassador in Ghana)? You bet!

Did Charles Taylor actually break jail in these United States where I have lived for 12 years now? No way! American diplomacy released him and unleashed him onto Liberia. Also, the Doe Government alleged, and it is widely believed, that American diplomacy surreptitiously took Quiwonkpa out of Liberia in a "suitcase" and safely landed his entire family in America before he returned in 1985 with his failed "patriotic forces."

Additionally, it is widely believed that American diplomacy split Prince Johnson and Taylor in the bushes and "gave" Johnson intelligence and communication equipment linked to the U.S. embassy. I am sure we still remember "Tango" cutting Samuel Doe's ears on September 9, 1990 and he calling "sunshine" to "speak with Mr. Porter or the Ambassador" for instruction on what to do with Doe. Mr. Porter was then the political officer at the U.S. Embassy.

As Morlu rightly said, the Sirleaf Government has not entered the Obama Government's radar of friendship. President Sirleaf, who visited George Bush's White House and met with Bush several times in a short period, has reportedly made several unsuccessful attempts to see Obama. In fact, Bush visited Monrovia before leaving office. His wife, Laura, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier attended Sirleaf's inauguration in January, 2006. When the White House announced the President was planning a visit to Africa, the Sirleaf Government unsuccessfully tried to pull him into Monrovia.

I mention these to make the point that the same reasons that keep Ellen and Barrack apart could be the very same reasons that could (key word) inform and engineer Barrack's friendship with a so-called anti-Ellen figure like Morlu, Jay Nagbe Sloh, or Dennis Jah. In fact, Barrack is a human who has feelings that can be hurt. In the early stage of the last American presidential race, Ellen came to Washington, and publicly endorsed Hilary Clinton over six other democrats, claiming women made better leaders than men. I wonder where she drew that untested opinion.

Even George Bush, I am sure, was surprised by the endorsement. I am sure, considering his loose friendship with Ellen, that he expected her to either be neutral or quiet (as diplomacy requires) or endorse Bush's choice (which he had not made at the time). To help Obama make his case of not wanting to meet with Ellen, his Government has a policy of not doing any business with a corrupt and brutal Government. Ellen's Government is guilty of both. Rampant corruption is the order of the day in Liberia. Morlu was still nursing wounds of police brutality when he "met" with Obama.

With all of these, anyone could have arranged the meeting, and Obama would have been expected to be open to such meeting. Meeting venueI had very little interest in knowing the exact location of the meeting because: (1) If they actually met, the meeting could have been held anywhere in Accra where Obama was; (2) More so, not every activity of Obama in Ghana was public; (3) Obama's arrival and departure were both in the night hours, and the meeting could have taken place during those hours; (4) Obama spent some time at his Embassy in Ghana and slept in some structure in Ghana. They could have met at any of these places. Above all, I believed, and I still think, that it is the right of both parties to keep the details of their meeting private.

Liberian President's involvement
FrontPageAfrica reported (July 12, 2009): "Presidential Press Secretary Cyrus Baddio Sunday phoned FrontPageAfrica to ascertain the source of the information regarding Morlu’s meeting with Obama going as far as to doubt the authenticity of the information. Pressed as to what sources the government was relying on to disprove Morlu's claims, Badio de clined to offer a response. But said the Executive Mansion ha d information that Morlu's meeting with Obama never took place. Another figure closed to the Executive Mansion media circle, Abdoulaye Dukule, emailed an article to FPA in which he declared that Morlu is not saying the truth concerning his pronounced meeting with President Obama."

Although the U.S. Government has now refuted Morlu's claim and we know he lied, I still do not understand the Liberian Government's involvement in this "you say, I say." Let's agree that Morlu was "blowing his own air "about meeting with the U.S. President as the truth has revealed. Or, better still, let us assume that the meeting actually took place. What makes either case the Liberian Government's business that its officials, paid with tax payer dollars, spend sleepless nights and government funds fighting to disprove it? Did Morlu use Government resources on the trip? Was Morlu a functionary of the Government when he "met" with Obama?

Why would the President of Liberia abandon burning national issues, such as her current indictment by the TRC, to worry about a Liberian citizen's private meeting with the head of a foreign government? Why would the President of Liberia abandon burning national issues, such as rampant corruption and escalating armed robbery, to worry about a Liberian citizen's private meeting with the head of a foreign government? Why would the President of Liberia abandon burning national issues, such as the lack of electricity and safe drinking water, to worry about a Liberian citizen's private meeting with the head of a foreign government?

Why would the President of Liberia abandon burning national issues, such as death traps sitting around Liberia calling themselves health care facilities, to worry about a Liberian citizen's private meeting with the head of a foreign government? I want to know why the President of Liberia would abandon burning national issues, such as mountains of dirt in and around Monrovia, to worry about a Liberian citizen's private meeting with the head of a foreign government. Instead of President Sirleaf and her mouth-pieces abandoning burning national issues, such as lack of quality education, to worry about a Liberian citizen's private meeting with the head of a foreign government, some of us want to know where the Liberian Government spends the millions of U.S. and Liberian dollars it gets from taxes and grants that Liberia now has to rely upon the goodwill of the Chinese Government to pave our roads and build other infrastructure.

Involvement of Ellen's surrogates
One of the Liberian Government's surrogates, Dr. Abdoulaye W. Dukulé, who is said to be one of the Government's highly paid agents abroad, refuting Morlu's claim of the meeting, said : “We will not go as far asking about Mr. Morlu’s commitment to his cause. It seems to be the only thing he does, day in day out. Just like a few people in Liberia have turned “Standard Bearer and Presidential Candidate” into a profession, Mr. Morlu seems to have no other job but to call attention to his cause: the institution of a war crime tribunal in Liberia. How far will he go to be taken seriously? He has been arrested on numerous occasions and released, just as people get arrested and released in Washington, DC, on a daily basis when protesting for cause. Some time back in 2008, he was arrested by calling President Sirleaf a rebel and asking for her resignation and prosecution. The President, out of the country at the time, ordered that his release as soon as she returned home... On the day foreign dignitaries were coming to Liberia for the International Women Colloquium, he called for a demonstration against Mrs. Sirleaf. He has been relentless. Meeting US President Obama would have been the icing on the cake” (FrontPageAfrica, July 12, 2009).

What is the connection between Morlu's claim he met with Obama and this tirade? Of all the irrelevant questions Dukule asked in his article, published by the Liberian Journal, this one is funny: "To what extend would some people go in our current fragile situation to make a name for themselves and a few bucks?" How many "bucks" has he not made from the Liberian Government for public relations campaigns that have generated no positive result for a Government buried under rampant corruption? Or he wants us to believe that he is the only one for whom "few bucks" are justified. Dr. Dukule sits in his "glass house" and wants to throw stones. We are told that John Morlu's audit reports contain his name for heavy payments for public relations. Can the same be said about Mulbah Morlu? I hope so.

Conclusion
I believe the Liberian Government should shut up about Morlu's "meeting" with Obama and concentrate on the work for which it was "elected." After all, meetings between private Liberian citizens and foreign governments are not the Liberian Government's business. There are many pressing national issues that the Government needs to address instead of wasting our money on who private Liberians dine with. As I said earlier, the time has come for Morlu to the honorable thing: Resign or dissolve the group and find place to sit down since you no longer have any credibility.About the author: Jay Nagbe Sloh is a Lierian journalist who has worked for several Liberian and foreign media organizations. He can be reached at townchief@aol.com, slohinfoservice@aol.com, or 267 679 4455.