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Public Frustration Triggers Violent Protest

The Analyst (Monrovia)
EDITORIAL
September 14, 2004
Posted to the web September 14, 2004

FRUSTRATIONS AMONG THE marketers over the government's apparent failure to
arrest perpetrators of the killing of some traders yesterday led to violent
demonstrations by hundreds of youths describing themselves as marketers. The
situation once again brought Monrovia to a momentary standstill with the youth
- armed with crude weapons like knives, sticks, scrap metals and rocks -
parading the streets and burning down several ghettoes and suspected hideouts
of drug addicts and other notorious criminals. They were apparently avenging
the death of one marketer allegedly murdered by gangsters who pounced on a
Fulani and two Liberian businessmen and made away with their money.
MOTORISTS AND PANIC-stricken pedestrians ran for safety as traders closed their
shops. But the situation was brought under control when the United Nations
troops and police chased the trouble makers.
The police reportedly arrested several people described as "gangsters" who are
expected to appear in court shortly for prosecution on violent related crimes.
THE LATEST DISTURBANCE is not the first of its kind since UNMIL took control of
security in Monrovia last October. Just last Friday, tension erupted in the
capital when UNMIL moved its tanks onto the Main Campus of the University of
Liberia after the students and faculty protested the installation of a new
university president. Then few weeks ago, normal activities in the city were
briefly halted after former combatants rioted for disarmament benefits.
ALTHOUGH THE GUNS in Liberia's civil war have been silent for now as the UN
makes tentative efforts to establish lasting peace; inhabitants of the capital
seem to have simply exchanged some sort of war for another: the battle against
criminal justice.
THERE IS NO denying that 14 years of intermittent fighting have stripped
government departments of the personnel and equipment needed to perform their
duties and the police force is no exception. The authorities say they cannot
send their men to the crime scenes without the necessary logistics such as
vehicles, communication equipment, forensic kits, and crime scene tools, police
authorities say. A similar complaint has been voiced by the Justice Ministry.
THE RESULT OF such a situation has been that citizens have taken to meting out
mob justice to perceived and real criminals ever since the power sharing
transitional government was installed to manage Liberia, following former
president Charles Taylor's exile in Nigeria. Residents were reported to have
set fire to suspected thieves and murderers last year.
Then, their reaction to the spate of abductions and killing of vulnerable
people in practices that were widely believed to improve the fortunes of those
who carry them out also made matters worse.
IN ANOTHER EPISODE, a police post in the Paynesville area was burnt down after
authorities refused to surrender to the mobsters a suspected child kidnapper to
a crowd. The government's apparent insensitivity to these deadly episodes
prompted the women to stage a protest demonstration demanding government's
intervention.
WHILE WE ABHOR the dispensation of mob justice, we also believe that the
government has not done enough to take practical measures to protect and defend
the citizens and residents alike. This is why we are calling on it to leave no
stone unturned in apprehending perpetrators of the latest violence and effect
appropriate legal steps that will serve as an important crime deterrent. This
is because we are of the view that due process of law offers the best way of
ensuring that innocent people are not unduly punished.

   

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