Sierra Leone News

Courtenay Griffiths, QC, Lead Counsel for Charles Taylor, SLENA, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 24 March 2009

I have come to Sierra Leone at a critical stage in the trial of the former President of Liberia Charles Taylor.  I come in the hope that Sierra Leoneans can see beyond the pain of the brutal civil war which engulfed this beautiful country and its people and recognize that there is more at stake in the trial of Charles Taylor than the fate of one man.  My intention is to rekindle that hope that Africans can be treated equally  on the global stage.  Sadly, if the experiences of Charles Taylor and more recently President AI Bashir of Sudan provide a guide, then we Africans must be prepared to continue that struggle.

 At a brief ceremony at State House today, President Ernest Bai Koroma told the new ministers in his cabinet that they are coming in at a time when much talking is not needed, but this is “a time to deliver.” “We have been in office for over a year and half, and the public expects us to fulfill our promises,” he declared. 

LANHAM, MARYLAND, USA -  The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in North America strongly condemns the confirmed brutal gang rape of six of the party’s women supporters (including a pregnant woman and an elderly woman) at the national party offices in Freetown, the merciless beatings of scores of the party’s members, the looting of the party’s radio broadcasting equipment, and the complete destruction of the party’s offices on Wallace Johnson Street in Freetown, Sierra Leone by militants of the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) on Monday, March 16, 2009.