Liberia, spin doctors and a "young democracy"

By TART TEH
Special to USAfrica The Newspaper, Houston

I won't be surprised if this is the beginning of an editorial-by-consignment campaign - write an editorial or two defending the indefensible in your own
name and get a bag of rice or two. It happened before. When Monrovia was littered with dead bodies from hunger and disease at the height of Taylor's drive for power, the interim government of President Amos Sawyer paid residents one bag of rice for every two corpses buried.

The Liberian National News Agency (LINA), the supposed bastion of editorial talents for the country, has issued scant bylines for the numerous articles it has cranked up since the government of President Charles Taylor closed down the two leading independent radio stations in the country.

Without fielding its own editorial talents, LINA has found a James Wesseh to mouth the latest euphemism for the unfolding disaster to which fewer and fewer people are willing to bear witness, let alone be a part of. So if you thought Liberia was the oldest democratic republic in Africa, think again. We are now ''a young democracy.'' It makes you wonder how young Liberia's democracy really is. I would guess that we are going on three years - our anchor year being 1997, the year of the mudslide the brought President Charles Taylor to power. But some of the euphemisms are just slightly older than Liberia's democracy. ''Greater Liberia'' began in the early 1990s in what was once known as the Hinterland (spelled with a capital H in Liberia's official literature).

That was because the Pioneers' surrogate, then rebel leader Charles Taylor, had to reside in the Hinterland for as long as it would take for him to drive from office the only African Liberian to be elected president of his own country, Samuel Doe. And so rebel leader Charles Taylor lived not in the Hinterland but in ''Greater Liberia.'' Because Taylor had to do a lot of it, killing was renamed ''erasure,'' at least according to Mr. Thomas Woewiyu, during one of the speeches marking one of his defections from the Taylor camp. Of course he's back with President Taylor. Mr. Woewiyu's conviction was a shifting deal. It usually ended up where the easy money was. Hence, in the absence of conviction, reward is sufficient as inducement for pitching for the Taylor team.

Milton Teahjay is a well-paid spokesman for the Taylor government. But lately if he writes at all, he does so under the label LINA. He goes to conferences abroad, but has lately skipped the press interviews that were once a staple of his high-profile defense of the Taylor government way ahead of the Minister of Information proper, Mr. Joe Mulbah. Now perhaps prudence has set in, so Mr. Teahjay assumed what must now be his rightful place in the wait-and-see corner. I guess the logic is ''Why get your hands dirty when you have a James Wesseh seeking to make a name for himself?''

I won't be surprised if this is the beginning of an editorial-by-consignment campaign - write an editorial or two defending the indefensible in your own name and get a bag of rice or two. It happened before. When Monrovia was littered with dead bodies from hunger and disease at the height of Taylor's drive for power, the interim government of President Amos Sawyer paid residents one bag of rice for every two corpses buried.

Wesseh, however, is not a push over. He was probably shown this suitable target, and so he wrote: ''In all sincerity, the PUL [Press Union of Liberia] leadership has done disservice to the country by outrightly condemning the action of government in the absence of investigation. Now that the ownership of Star Radio has been clarified, what is the PUL role on this matter? In a young democracy like ours, the PUL must learn to divest itself of partisan postures which are still glaring both in actions and utterances of its officials.'' And since everybody but the press knows its role in Liberia, Wesseh leaves with this lecture: ''The press, the world over, is a professional institution that engages in investigative, analytical and balanced reporting of events and not rumours and emotions.''

There is hope for rehabilitating the editorial prostitutes. But we can reduce the likelihood of this shameful and coerced thought peddling by removing the cause of it. President Charles Taylor is prepared for the long haul. But we don't have a prayer for recovery as long as Taylor is a part of that process. There is no room for any compromise with President Taylor; there is no room in Liberia for both him and us.
•Teh is the Washington D.C-based columnist of USAfrica The Newspaper. 3/26/00