A prominent Liberian Human Rights lawyer and pro-democracy advocate, Atty. Samuel Kofi Woods was recently chosen and invited by the US-based Association of Liberian Journalists in the Americas as Guest Speaker, to address the Association’s Annual Benefit Banquet on the evening of Saturday, October 1, 2022 on theme, “Sustaining Liberia’s Democracy Now and in the Future: The Media and the 2023 General Elections.” Atty. Woods is legal consultant at the Liberia Law Society and previously served as Minister of Labour and Public Works under the administration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Prior to joining working for the government of Liberia, Atty. Woods became the face of the Catholic-owned Human Rights Advocacy organization, the Justice and Peace Commission (JPC), a rights organization that fought the commoners’ rights and those who rights were abused by the powers that were at the time.
The ALJA’s Benefit dinner is an annual event that mobilizes financial and material support for the association’s media advocacy, development and training programs in Liberia. The program includes the Joe Teh Memorial Scholarship Program which supports select students at the Department of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Liberia.
Please see below Atty. Woods’ Full Speech.
“Mr. President, Officers, and Members of ALJA
Guests
Fellow Liberians
My Dear Friends
Friends of Liberia
I have been invited to partake in the annual stock-taking and reflections of men and women of the pen: an instrument deemed mightier and more intrusive than the sword.
The honor you confer on me today appears to be a continuation of and bears testimony to years of joint and collective actions, engagements, and collaborations with all of you.
Much of this room is misted with old friends, comrades, co-conspirators but also with testimonies of struggle for Press Freedom. We have all endured threats, exiles, imprisonments, tortures, deprivations in advancing the promotion and protection of human rights as guaranteed by our constitution.
Most of us are old enough to have survived the brutal civil war but today we mourn the loss and remember those of our compatriots who cannot be with us today.
We recently lost to the inevitable another Icon of the pen, Phillip Wesseh of the Inquirer Newspaper, “GINA”: A good man, a gentle soul, a humble patriot, a soldier, crusader, and protector of the pen. May we stand to offer prayers for his soul and many others gone before us. The tales of their gallantry, raging bravado and fierce crusades for press freedom and the right to freedom expression will be recounted by generations of journalists and Liberians yet unborn. They helped prepare an army that will crush any dictator rearing heads in Liberia and insanely entertaining the thought that the press would return to the dark days of Liberia’s past. LIBERIA WILL NEVER BE THE SAME WHEN THE PEN WAS INTIMIDATED AND MUZZLED!!!
The last time I had an opportunity to speak here in the USA was earlier this year was during my high school’s alumni homecoming. At that engagement, I bemoaned the tragic shooting in Texas and chided the lack of global leadership of America on gun violence. I also expressed frustration over the leadership deficit in our country, Liberia. Today I join America to lament and pray for those suffering the trail of the hurricane destruction and hope for recovery. I also call for the end of the war in Ukraine. The bloodletting must come to an end and let dialogue replace confrontation.
My Dear friends, As I join you and the many familiar faces, I am reminded of what the Bible teaches us about trials and temptations and now I wonder to what temptations have I been invited as you have chosen the topic:
SUSTAINING LIBERIA’S DEMOCRACY NOW AND IN THE FUTURE: THE MEDIA AND THE 2023 ELECTIONS.
The characterization of the media as the Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the “press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame issues” in society. It is derived from the three estates as expatiated in traditional European concept: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. In democratic governance and state evolution, these three estates are portrayed by the separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
The Victorian Writer, Thomas Carlyle, saw the press as a “watchdog” of the British constitution and therefore the guardrail of democracy. As we now know, the “Fourth Estate,” was and still is as influential as any of the branches of government. For the press, the role is more of the impartial referee – the moral guarantor of how best the branches of government and society must function for the public good.
There has been a consensus to this date since Carlyle coined the phrase, that the press or media has a central role in sustaining and developing democracy. And that the press would do so by presenting a full, fair, accurate and balanced account of developments.
Given Thomas Carlyle’s observation and what we have come to see as the critical responsibility of the press and general media in enhancing Liberia’s democracy, the theme of this year’s ALJA conference could not have been more appropriate.
This is especially important when seen in the context of the political and social conflicts of the past 40 years, as well as the painstaking efforts of the country and its regional and international partners in building and shepherding a democracy that, for the current national situation, can be described as fledgling and at best depressing.
I suspect that the theme of the conference presupposes that the 2023 general elections, after having had (in 2017) a peaceful democratic transition of power since 1944 must, given this background, be a test of the integrity of whatever democratic credentials we may have acquired since 2006.
The media in Liberia must be the fulcrum of a sustainable democratic culture in our country generally and, key in upholding the integrity of the 2023 general elections.
My Dear Friends, the press in Liberia has had a presence dating back to the mid-1800s. Judging by American anthropologist Svend Holsoe’s Liberian newspaper collection housed at Indiana University, the earliest we heard of a newspaper was 1830 when the Liberia Herald newspaper was published. The Liberian Herald was a contemporary of those in Britain that Carlyle had observed. Many more have been published over the nearly two centuries since then.
Carl Burrows, a Liberian Scholar, notes that, Hilary Teage, a journalist was one of the most influential and credited with introducing the idea of a Commonwealth Government to encompass the autonomous colonies.
Since its humble beginning, the media in Liberia has had a front view to witness and feel the impact of the unfolding political and democratic culture in the country. The struggle between the independent media and the state in Liberia in terms of freedom, power and control will continue to measure the contributions of the media in sustaining democracy in Liberia in the past, today and the future.
As Liberian scholar and communication expert Carl Burrows asserts in his work, Power and Press Freedom in Liberia,1830- 1970, “The incremental implementation of …democratic changes would contribute … to the emergence of a new political culture, one that encourages loyalties, beyond personalities, to programs, policies, and principles,” the emergence of that political culture largely also depends on how the Liberian media shape public view about the need to change political behavior both by the state and the public in ways that sustain pluralism in Liberia.
I need not spend time chronicling the struggle for media freedom and its parallels for a democratic culture in Liberia.
This fight was especially pronounced during the contemporary period involving the Presidency of Tubman, Tolbert, Doe, Taylor, Ellen and now Weah. While gains have increased since 2006 with the signing of the Table Mountain Declaration in 2012 and the Abdullah Kamara Act which sought to decriminalize free speech, the tactics of the state – and its collaborators – as an agency in this struggle has not changed. The experiences of PUNCH FM and ROOTS FM presents ample evidence.
State control of the means and tools of communication including licensing; censure of private owned printing houses, libel laws, incarceration of journalists, establishing selective and government sponsored media outlets, deliberately suffocating and refusing to pay the debts owed media institutions and many more actions to restrict press freedom persists.
Despite this binary feature of the struggle and the deep resentment that contributed to the Liberian conflict in later years, one constant remained; that the struggle for democracy involving the media is an unending fight that will continue to be shaped by the changing political, economic, social and cultural landscape.
What can the media do to sustain democracy now and the future?
It is said that democracy is meaningless without an active, independent, transparent and free press. To achieve this, the media must adopt a structural and functional approach.
Structural: self-assessment and self-regulation, building capacity and independence;
Capacity building including adequate training of journalists to improve professionalism, training in business management of media entities and the development of other organizational structures to ensure independence of the media from state control
Improve access and ownership to the means of production and distribution of information
Build alliances with civil society and citizens groups
Increase collaboration between media organizations and contacts among professional media personnel
The Media, ALJA and the PUL must establish a common fund for the Liberian media to encourage investment (A business enterprise), training and access to production and distribution of information as well as a legal defense fund.
Functional
Unfettered and objective delivery of information and truth to the public without fear or favor
Create the platform for open debate to prevent the control of information and audience by the state
Avoid rent seeking and largesse from the state and private actors that undermine the objective delivery of information to the public
The Media and the 2023 Elections
The 2023 general elections, in my view, will be one of the most consequential in Liberia since the end of the civil war for several reasons.
First, it will determine whether the post war democratic experiment is resilient enough, and second, whether state institutions including the National Elections Commission and the judiciary have the capacity, especially given unresolved issues of the 2017 elections and the recent spike in tension and electoral violence, to deliver a result that will represent the true will of the People of Liberia.
The forthcoming elections are intended to reclaim the conscience of our country. The role of the media in the coming elections is to ensure that the process leading to the elections and the outcome is free, fair and transparent and represent the expressed will of the people.
This requires that:
The Media must put the appropriate infrastructure in place to enable an adequate preparation to report on the whole range of the electoral process. This includes training, logistics, organizations, networking with local and foreign institutions to ensure unrestricted media access and coverage, a key element in ensuring the process was free and fair
The Media must ensure transparency through its “watchdog” role as the fourth estate. A media that is self-sufficient and independent will not be reticent in reporting the stories and will not be swayed by the lure of pecuniary benefits to report otherwise
The media must serve as the platform upon which all candidates can be heard equally during the campaign and Promote adherence to the code of conduct for public officials. This will offer candidates the possibility of a fair and more competitive environment.
Besides advertisement, which is paid for, it is the duty of the media to provide voters access to public information.
Be the forum for debate where candidates, the public and others can freely discuss
The media must complement civil society by being a credible source of information in its role to educate the people about the entire range of the electoral process, promote better inclusion of the marginalized in our society especially the physical challenged and the full participation of women in leadership.
My Dear Friends of ALJA, of all your obligations as a journalist, the first is your obligation to the truth. Good decision-making depends on people having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context.
Sustaining democracy therefore is not an option. It is an unambiguous position you have taken in the fight to promote and protect the ideals of human rights, democracy, and justice. The media must therefore take the side of the people. I THEREFORE URGE THE MEDIA MUST TAKE A SIDE!!!!! BOTH PUL AND AJLA MUST WORK TOGETHER AND DEVELOP A COLLECTIVE STRATEGY. YOU MUST BOTH DECIDE WHOSE INTEREST YOU WANT TO ADVANCE!!!!!!
There are some unadulterated truths about our Dear Country and the media must not shy from these truths.
THE MEDIA
The media needs support to become an effective watchdog. We must collaborate and build constituencies for reforms. In the 1990s, the PUL and the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission then under my leadership signed an MOU which offered free legal services to Journalists. We need to revisit these pioneering efforts. ALJA and the PUL must develop a more functional working relationship. I propose that the PUL be represented at all these annual conventions and vice versa.
The media is under-funded and undercapitalized. There must be collective efforts to invest in the independent media either individually or collectively. The media must be seen in some cases as a real business investment. ALJA and its members can lead the process in setting up a media conglomerate at home. Most you have acquired expertise abroad and may have access to credits to achieve this.
THE NATION
The real truth is that Liberia is in peril. The State is sick and in urgent need of resuscitation. Our national discourse is dominated by mediocrity and our leaders threat us with disdain and the arrogance of power.
Earlier this year, when I was invited to serve as keynote speaker at the annual homecoming gathering of my alma mater, the St. Patrick’s High School, I lamented our national decay. I said that our country was grievously ill and that an urgent intervention was needed. I spoke of unchecked industrialized corruption and crime. I spoke of a government that was tone-deaf and not responsive to the cries of its people. And advised the administration to take heed and change course.
After that speech the government employed the full resources of its apparatus to attack and vilify me, instead of listening and correcting the course. Now the US Government has stepped in with sanctions, saying exactly the same things I said.
Permit me to use this opportunity to restate my assertions. Our country, Liberia is sick, it is seriously ill. A country is sick when people are dying mysteriously in the streets; a number of unexplained disappearances and murders have occurred and the government cannot fulfill its basic function of providing security and protection to its population and when asked the President’s solution was to advise citizens to purchase CCTVs. How many Liberians can afford CCTVs?
A country is sick when there is no basic healthcare, and when the government can’t even pick up trash from the streets raging with filth. Our country is sick with academic filth with a broken educational system. The country is sick when we refuse to pay our teachers and tell our nurses and other healthcare workers that we will fire them if they demand their pay.
A country is sick when people cannot exercise their fundamental rights of expressing themselves about the ills of society without being subjected to attacks, and when the ruling political party constitutes a militia to attack, beat and eliminate opponents. I am sure as media people you are aware of the attack on University of Liberia students who were protesting against corruption on July 26th, the Day of our Independence.
The national leadership deficit goes to the core of our governance. We have incompetent leaders who have no compass to lead. The nation is stranded in a quicksand and the leaders are stranded because they are clueless. And have lost the compass to lead.
Our nation is sick when it must take the intervention another sovereign country to whip our officials and public servants with sanctions for acts inimical to their public service before they can see the need to act and honor their obligations.
And our government conceded and affirmed the whipping by suspending its officials and later forcing them to resign.
How can we brag of sovereignty and independence when we are compelled by another government to fulfill our duties to our citizens?
It took a foreign country to discipline and hold our public servants accountable. How can our current bunch of leaders lead when citizens march almost daily to the Embassy of the United States imploring them to whip our leaders into submission? The fundamentals of statehood have been compromised and betrayed.
Worse still some Liberian diplomats are alleged to be exporting decadent and debased values as displayed by the arrest of some Liberian Officials in South Korean. Our Chief Diplomat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is alleged to be undergoing investigation surrounding sexual assault and human trafficking.
Our Nation is sick when the legislature betrays its solemn oath. Our National Legislature has a lot of UNDERABLES not HONORABLES. The Legislature is pretty much a rubber stamp passing budgets and laws and alleged to be confirming nominees as demanded by the executive. In some many cases there have been allegations of bribes changing hands; in addition to giving themselves huge purses rather than intensifying the enactment of good laws and effectively performing their oversight responsibility to address insecurity, education, health care and the Peoples Business.
The Nation is sick when our judiciary remains corrupt and politically subservient.
Our Nation is sick when ordinary citizens at home and abroad as well as opposition politicians blind themselves to the real issues at hand and ignore their civic responsibility to work together for the greater good of our country.
Our nation is sick when the tragedies of drug addiction and sexual assault are on the rise in our communities without solutions in sight.
WHERE I STAND ON SOME BURNING NATIONAL ISSUES
I support the dissolution and dismantling of the Ministry of Information in favor the establishment of separate Commissions on Tourism and on Culture: The Ministry of information is a relic of an outdated past and an instrument of intimidation and threats to Press Freedom and Freedom of expression: a tool in the hands of a backward and entrenched decadent political order. Decree # 46 establishing the Ministry must be repealed!
I support the call by Liberians and Friends of Liberia that US Government withholds its support to the National Elections Commission (NEC) if those sanctioned by the US Government becomes candidates in the 2023 elections. US Monies should not and must not be used to support the vehicle that will promote their participation in the process. This position is necessary because the response of our own government remains inadequate and wanting both in character and its obligation to the country.
DIASPORA VOTING
The Press must begin to discuss and debate the issue of diaspora voting; If not in these elections, it should be possible in future elections. This is a constitutional right that has been denied our citizens living abroad. Like one of the Forerunners of this idea, Dionysius Sebwe argued “that the Framers of the Constitution were farsighted by adopting absentee ballot to allow a multitude of Liberians scattered across the world to participate in the political process. They reasoned that election be an inclusive process intended to enable every Liberian citizen to partake in choosing the president and other elected officials.” Absentee Ballot is not a cosmetic goal, rather a major component and extension of the voting process as provided for in Article 80 ( c) of the constitution. The voices of Liberians in the Diaspora will give new meaning to our democratic attempts in fostering a more stable and peaceful Liberia.
BIOMETRIC VOTING SYSTEM
There is a need to review the biometric voting considering queries raised by political parties, the questionable procurement process, the lack of education and lack of full understanding of the advantages and disadvantages thereof.
My Dear Friends, I have provoked these issues to encourage a deeper debate which will clarify and spur political opinion by the Media as we deal with 2023 and beyond.
My comments and position in no way suggest a general state of hopelessness. There are series of initiatives undertaken by ordinary Liberians and friends alike: women, youths, religious leaders, teachers who make sacrifices, nurses and doctors dedicated to patients, healthcare and social workers who are involved drug prevention, awareness and rehabilitation, lawyers who honestly defend their clients, public servants, journalists, workers, market women who offers hope and give us cause to celebrate that Liberia will rise again.
As an opinion leader, I will be condemned and criticized but some will understand me.
Colleagues and Friends, we have made tremendous gains in our struggle for press freedom, freedom of expression and the respect for fundamental rights. Unfortunately, some governments want to take the credit for this. I DISAGREE! Most governments have been reluctant and pretentious about Press Freedom. The real heroes and heroines are many in this room, the unsung heroes whose life was cut short.
I will not give credit to any government. They surrendered in battle because they were left with no choice.
The elections of 2023 is a fight for the SOUL of our country. We must fight to redeem it!!!!!
Let the word go forth from this day and place that we will win. Liberia will never be the same again!!! It is possible. WHY NOT!!!
I THANK YOU. GOD BLESS!!!!!”
