[align=center]Public Statement.[/b][/align]
[align=center][/b][/align]
[align=center]Topic: ‘UNITED STATES SECRET PRISON DUNGEONS IN SIERRA LEONE’.[/b][/align]


To: The International Media. Date: 20[suP]th[/suP]. April 2007. [/b]

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From: ALIMAMY BAKARR SANKOH, Chairman and leader of the Sierra Leone People’s Democratic League (PDL); and Presidential Aspirant for the position of President of the Republic of Sierra Leone.[/b]



When a state is steering along the designs and tastes of the big mafia, the people become automatically a pariah entity that is exposed to all sorts of insults, mockery and public scorn. This is true of the situation in Sierra Leone today, where the mafia rule introduced in the country’s body politics has brought untold sufferings, hardships and embarrassments for the people. It has also inflicted painful wounds and scars on the county’s integrity, and tainted its image to the outside world.



As the campaign for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the neighbouring dictator Lansana Conte’s forces out of Eastern Sierra Leone, and ending years of unmandated, unwanted brutal aggression and occupation of our beloved country heightened, another disturbing development has unfold, with the DISCOVERY OF UNITED STATES[/b] SECRET PRISON DUNGEONS[/b] in the occupied Sierra Leonean Eastern town of Yenga and its surrounding areas. The facts of this credible information were gathered after four years of intense investigations.



Being a concerned Sierra Leonean and someone aspiring to become the next legitimate President of Sierra Leone, I find it totally unacceptable to allow any part or parts of Sierra Leone’s sovereign territory to be used either a torture land or land for dehumanisation of foreign nationals. With this development in the occupied towns and villages of Eastern Sierra Leone, I demand explanation from the Bush Administration in Washington about its role in the illegal occupation of our country. My fellow country men and women, and the larger international civilised community would also want to know why Sierra Leone the choice for torture, secret and squalid prisons and disappearances of foreign nationals, on mere suspicion that they are agents of the Lebanon based Hezbollah group.

It must be recalled that in February and March of 2003, the Sierra Leonean President, Mr. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah signed two letters and addressed to President George Bush in Washington. The contents therein those letters were about an alleged allegation that some Muslim business people in the Sierra Leonean diamond rich Kono district belong to the Lebanon based Hezbollah group. Mr. Kabbah alleged also that these Muslim traders in that part of the country were in the diamond trade to generate funds to boast the terror activities of the Hezbollah against Israel.

By June of the same year, President Bush sent a team of CIA [/b](Central Intelligence Agency) and FBI[/b] (Federal Bureau of Investigation) to the area, to investigate the alleged complaints. The visiting United States team of security men and women and their Sierra Leonean counterparts did not find any traced of Hezbollah presence in Sierra Leone, let alone in the said diamond rich areas. But some Lebanese and Sierra Leonean business men were picked and taken away on board two United Nations peace keeping helicopters to unknown destination.

This incident was recorded by the Pakistani contingents of the United Nations Peace Keepers in Sierra Leone at the time, which was also reported by the Pakistani based ‘The NATION’ newspaper.

After four years of intense traces and investigations, with the recent discovery of US secret prisons in the country, there is every reason to believe that, the business men kidnapped in Kono may be languishing in these illegal US dungeons. One can also conclude from evidence gathered in our investigations why the Guinean forces still occupying our country illegally, without action or a word of condemnation by the international community.

I am worried because, if the government of President Kabbah can be so wicked to the people of Sierra Leone, that it cannot provide security for the ordinary person, let alone defending the sovereignty, territory and integrity of the nation against external threat or aggression, then the sanctity of governance is no longer there. Because, the primary objective of an elected government in office is to guarantee the safety and security of life and property, in which the government of Mr. Tejan Kabbah as failed to provide since its inception, ten years ago. The current level of control exercised by foreign security personnel over national security issues brings to question where is the sovereignty of Sierra Leone.

In my candid opinion, President Kabbah is not on it alone, but with top Party gurus of the so-called ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP).



None the less, I will personally appeal to my big brother, Prime Minister Dr. Lansana Kouyateh in neighbouring Guinea to publicly dissociate his administration from the wholesale violation of the sovereignty of Sierra Leone, and of international human-rights law and the Geneva conventions that have taken place in the last four years in the occupied Eastern lands of our beloved country. I will personally ask Prime Minister Kouyateh to withdraw all Guinean troops out of Sierra Leone, and restore the long time peaceful and harmonious relationship between our two countries, but which have in recent time suffered suspicion, malice and hatreds.



The "war on terror" is taking a terrible toll on Muslim families and societies through a vast programme of secret detention and torture. Much as I condemn terrorism and all acts that constitute terror, I cannot understand why the Bush doctrine of war against terrorism should be tailored to annihilate whole nations and peoples perceived as threat to the United States geo-political hegemony. I am appalled to hear what the government in Freetown has chosen this dangerous journey, to taint the image of our country. If for any just reason there should be a prison of such nature in Sierra Leone, it has to receive the blessing of the United Nations, which by all moral justifications should lead the war against terror and all terrorists.



The presence of US secret prisons in Sierra Leone in my opinion sends two messages. First, America and its allies are keen to spread/impose democracy on the rest of the world then they have a responsibility to respect other people’s rights to exist as human beings, and should live up to the Geneva convention and democratic law. And second, the transformation of African territories into secret prisons for the kidnapping and treatment of foreign nationals in sub-human fashion constitute axis of evil and threatened peace and development on the continent.



My fear, which I know is causing restiveness among Sierra Leoneans is that the Bush Administration may attempt to repeat the blunders committed by his predecessor, the late President Ronald Reagan in the Mano River Union (MRU) triangle in 1981, by using neighbouring Liberia to annex oil rich Sulima from Sierra Leone. I know the SLPP would be more than willing to give up those territories for peanuts.



With the above, I want to appeal to the international community, the United Nations, European Union, Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the African Union, Arab League, human rights’ groups, the media and peace-loving people everywhere to exert pressure on the Bush Administration in Washington, to close its secret prisons inside Sierra Leone. I call upon the international community to visit the areas in Eastern Sierra Leone concerned with a view to arrest the terrible human rights abuses taking place in those secret prisons. The international community must also prevail on the authorities in Conakry to withdraw all Guinea forces out of Sierra Leone.



If need be, I am willing and ready to meet President Bush and members of the US Senate and Congress to discuss this issue and to present more evidence on facts about the presence of secret US prisons in our country. By this statement, I want to make it abundantly clear to all citizens of America that I am not anti America. What I am doing is to address some of the problems facing Sierra Leoneans as a nation today, problems of security and peaceful co-existence with our neighbours. When I become elected President of Sierra Leone, my administration will go further to improve Sierra Leone’s relationship with the US in areas such as democracy, human rights, freedom and rule of law, which are currently in Sierra Leone lacking under the Tejan Kabbah dictatorship. My Administration will play active role in the war against terrorism by lobbying the United Nations to take the lead.



Down with terrorism and all terrorists!

Down with the enemies of progress!





Signed:



Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh.

i read an interesting article in the guardian today by writer NOAMI WOLF

titled 'Ten steps to a fascist america', it pretty much confirmed everything left wing liberals have been fearing since bush gained power....in the article, Wolf points out the complicit natureof thebush administration to support tyrannicalregimes ironically to twatglobal terrorists...the article, in summary,said that the bush administration is slowly turning america into the thing it hates the most, a rouge state....