It seems acts of violence, lawlessness, mayhem, and disorder are fast becoming the methods being adopted by some individuals and groups in Liberia to address their grievances.
Such acts of violence range from setting up road blocks along the principal streets and highways across the country aimed at the obstruction of free movement of people, goods and services to damaging hard-earned public and private facilities.
We need not mention the brazen acts of violence and disorder being implemented in various communities, and on the campuses of some learning institutions including colleges and universities, and in the operating environments of concessionaires, just to mention a few.
The latest violence that led to the death of at least two persons, the injuring of scores of others including some officers of the Liberia National Police (LNP), in Golgoma Camp in Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County, Western Liberia, is a classic case in point.
There are also reports that some properties such as the newly constructed vocational school edifice, and multiple earth-moving equipment belonging to the Bea Mountain Mining Company (BMMC) were destroyed during the latest violence protest.
The violent protest in the mining community in Kinjor early Thursday, 29, February, 2024, according to other eyewitnesses, is one of the brutal and ruthless incidents as disagreements and /or misunderstanding between residents in the BMMC host community in Kinjor and the company spread amid widespread claims by the aggrieved residents that Bea Mountain Mining Company failed to live up to its portion of the agreement with the Government of Liberia including meeting its corporate social responsibilities.
Although some residents told reporters that their protest was initially peaceful and orderly but later turned violence when officers of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), of the Liberia National Police (LNP), assigned in the BMMC facilities allegedly began to forcibly disperse the protestors.
“We were peacefully protesting until the police came to forcefully remove us. We resisted and they discharged live bullets that led to the death of two persons,” one resident was quoted as saying.
In the same vein, the Inspector General of the Liberia National Police (LNP), Gregory O. W. Coleman, has admitted to, and confirmed the discharged of live bullets by officers of the Liberian National Police (LNP) in the long standing protests against the operations of commercial gold mining company, Bea Mountain Mining Corporation (BMMC).
Addressing a major press conference Saturday March 2, 2024, at the LNP headquarters in Monrovia, Mr. Coleman said, the police discharged live bullets which resulted to the dead of two persons.
” Yes, the LNP did discharge live round on the scene. Live round was discharged. If you look at the video released, the police exercised maximum restraint, they didn’t reach to the point of using live round until there was a threat, danger feared by the officers before reaching that point,” the LNP Boss told reporters.
According to him, officers were on the line crying after they have used all the non-lethal weapons, and he placed phone calls to the Senator and leaders of the county, appealing to them to talk to the protesters to back-off, because the officers were out of non-lethal weapons.
For us, at The INDEPENDENT Newspaper, we consider the increasing waves of violence and lawlessness across the Liberian Nation as obnoxious, intolerable, barbaric and uncivilized.
Such dreadful behaviors, in our candid view, need to be immediately halted by the relevant state authorities, but within the ambit of the laws of the country, aimed at safeguarding Liberia’s hard-won peace, tranquility, and stability.
In other words, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, who just ascended to state power must courageously step up to the plate, by vigorously ensuring that both citizens and residents uphold and comply with the laws of the country.
President Boakai must leave no stone unturned in ensuring that those who are fast presenting themselves as agents of doom, anarchy and lawlessness are not only identified but also made to dance the music of law, no matter their status in the society.
We must actualize or put into practice the popular assertion in many quarters that “Liberia is a country of Law” by swiftly bringing to the altar of justice anyone suspected to have fallen into conflict with Liberian laws.
We say this simply because, no nation worldwide, with Liberia being of no exception, experiences socio-economic, technological and other forms of development and progress without fully subscribing to the sanctity of law and order.
In other words, Mr. President, your administration must guarantee and ensure that law and order are respected by all who find themselves in the territorial confines of the Republic of Liberia, no matter one status in the society.
Moreover, the acts of violence, lawlessness and bloodletting which are fast emerging across the country must be speedily halted and all those suspected to be responsible investigated for appropriate corrective actions sooner than later.