On Y!CN Medical News by Charles SimminsThe Feds have dropped criminal charges against Liberian warlord George Boley.
That’s disappointing, but hardly unexpected. He’s had U.S. patrons for years or he wouldn’t have been able to do what he did. Some coffee or sugar company, or someone deep into conflict diamonds.
Liberian Warlord George Boley has a soft and gentle side. That’s the tone of a Democrat & Chronicle story in today’s paper. As the warlord’s court date to face immigration charges nears, the press is on to ensure that he is seen locally as a great guy, “sweet and kind”.
Presumably between the times his troops were looting, raping and press ganging twelve year olds into military service.
Neighbors, including some who didn’t want to be quoted or named, universally described Boley as polite and kind.
“He’d do anything for you if you asked for help,” said Mary Lou Pack, who has lived next door to the Boley family at least 15 years.
“They’ve always been really sweet and kind with us,” said Chris Bates, who has lived across the street from the Boleys for a little more than a year.
Marah thought enough of Boley’s credentials, which include a book on Liberian politics, to consider him for an adjunct teaching position at SUNY Brockport. That was until he read in July that Boley’s immigration status was in question.
P. Reffell Conteh, a native of Sierre Leone with Liberian parentage, worked under Boley for a year at Rochester’s Thomas Jefferson Middle School a few years ago. “I think he’s a wonderful man. He’s a smart guy. He’s knowledgeable, he’s educated,” she said.
Conteh said Boley was in charge of one “house” within the former middle school. Whenever he proposed new ideas, though, his staff shot him down, she said, which she attributed to prejudice against foreign-born educators.
When you read the accounts of those times, you don’t find anyone with clean hands. George Boley was not the most horrific of the warlords, but he was no innocent. Now he’s laid on a campaign to allow him to remain in this country because he’s such a nice guy. The truth appears to make him as guilty as any of the concentration camp guards we’ve deported in the last decade. We’re sending eighty year old women back to the old country to face trial. Boley should have the same opportunity.
Previous coverage:
Liberian Warlord George Boley has had his immigration case continued until September 25.
Liberian warlord George Boley has received some favorable net coverage from some fellow Liberians. He claims he is mystified by his recent immigration arrest.
Analyst
Two days after his arrest by U.S. Federal officials, the former head of the Liberian Peace Council, George Boley has spoken out about the arrest and how he and his family are coping in the aftermath of what he described as a very shocking incident. He was arrested on federal criminal immigration related charges.
Speaking to FrontPageAfrica Thursday by phone from his residence in Clarkson, Rochester, Boley said the arrest took him by surprise and he has no idea why he was arrested.
“I really, honestly don’t know what’s going on. I have no idea. All I know is that on the 11th of July federal agents came here and served an arrest warrant and a search warrant and executed those warrants.
They then took me down to the federal court and notified me of immigration violation going back 18 years and that’s all I can say.
They took me to the immigration court and then the federal court and of course you know I was released without bail and I am just waiting for my hearing on Sept. 5. But honestly I don’t know what’s going on.â€
According to a criminal complaint by ICE Special Agent Matthew Meyer, Boley was supposed to turn in his green card in 1988 after he abandoned his lawful resident status in the United States. However, he continued to travel on the green card, the complaint alleges.
Meyer said in court Tuesday that ICE would pursue immigration charges, which could lead to deportation, after the resolution of the criminal case. The newspaper reports that U.S. federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement allege that George S. Boley, 56, is illegally living in Clarkson.
Agents arrested Boley, a married father of seven, at 630 Lawton Road and accused him of fraudulent use of visas and other immigration documents to travel to and from the United States.
At the hearing Tuesday, probation officials detailed Boley’s unremarkable local history: Liberian native, State University College at Brockport graduate, married father of seven, and former City School District administrator who now works at a temporary employment agency.
What went unnoted in court was Boley’s past as an LPC leader. To this day, questions remain in Liberia about whether Boley was a would-be liberator who wanted nothing more than democracy for his homeland or, instead, a warlord who closed his eyes to the brutality of his troops. “He wouldn’t be at the top of my list (of former Liberian leaders) for whom an accounting should be demanded,” John-Peter Pham, the author of Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State, said of Boley by phone Tuesday. “But he wouldn’t be on my amnesty list either.”
Despite its name, the Liberian Peace Council targeted civilians who did not share the party’s politics, according to the international watchdog group Human Rights Watch. In 1994, Human Rights Watch reported that both the LPC and its adversarial political party were “responsible for widespread looting, arbitrary arrests, beatings and extrajudicial executions.”
“There were credible reports that George Boley … authorized the summary execution of seven of his fighters November 14 for harassment of civilians,” stated a 1996 U.S. Department of State report on human rights in Liberia.
On Tuesday, Boley surrendered a passport and was allowed to go home to Clarkson without bail, awaiting his next court date in early September. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bret Puscheck did not ask for Boley to be jailed because of Boley’s ties to the area, but his travel is restricted to western New York.
I’m afraid this case will suggest that ICE enforcement at border entry points is a bit, shall we say, lax. Not that others haven’t said so before, but this guy was presenting documents on a regular basis that ought to have raised questions.
A former Liberian warlord accused of atrocities against civilians was found living a modest life along America’s North Shore and arrested today.
Democrat & Chronicle and here, too
A Clarkson man who once headed a Liberian political party — a group accused by some human rights activists of atrocities against civilians — was arrested today at his home on federal immigration-related criminal charges.
Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement allege that George S. Boley, 56, is illegally living in Clarkson. Agents arrested Boley, a married father of seven, at his home at 630 Lawton Road today, and accused him of fraudulent use of visas and other immigration documents to travel to and from the United States. He was released on his own recognizance after a late afternoon hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Feldman.
Boley, a graduate of the State University College at Brockport, was a central figure during Liberia’s tempestuous civil war in the 1990s. In 1993 he formed the Liberian Peace Council, or LPC, to counter the reign of terror by Charles Taylor, whose tenure as leader of the west African nation was so brutal that he now faces trial on international war crimes.
But the LPC, despite its name, also targeted civilians who did not share the party’s politics, according to Human Rights Watch. In 1994, Human Rights Watch reported that both the LPC and its adversarial political party were “responsible for widespread looting, arbitrary arrests, beatings and extrajudicial executions.”
“There were credible reports that George Boley … authorized the summary execution of seven of his fighters November 14 for harassment of civilians,” stated a 1996 U.S. Department of State report on human rights in Liberia.
Boley unsuccessfully ran for Liberian president in 1997.
Liberia Peace Council (LPC)
Estimated to have 4,650 combatants, the LPC emerged in the wake of the 1993 Cotonou Accord, partly as a proxy force for the AFL. It has since made substantial gains from the NPFL in south eastern Liberia, vying for control of commercial operations in timber and rubber. A predominantly Krahn organization, it draws supporters from ULIMO and the AFL, but also from other ethnic groups who have suffered under NPFL occupation. The LPC is led by Dr. George Boley, and is implicated in widespread murder, torture and looting and in efforts to terrorise and depopulate rural areas held by the NPFL.
State Dept. Human Rights Report 1995
There were credible reports that George Boley, leader of the LPC faction and member of the LNTG-II, authorized the summary execution of seven of his fighters November 14 for harassment of civilians. Boley did not deny these allegations. Displaced persons reported that factions usually did not hold prisoners, but either released them or shot and killed them on the spot.
At the end of February [1997], several factional leaders who were running for office converted their militias into political parties. Charles Taylor transformed his NPFL into the National Patriotic Party (NPP); Al-Haji Kromah disbanded ULIMO-K and established the All Liberian Coalition Party (ALCOP); and LPC leader George Boley eventually became the standard-bearer for the late President Doe’s former party, the National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL).
n accordance with the provisions of the Abuja II Accord, presidential and legislative elections were originally scheduled to take place on 30 May 1997. After an assessment by an ECOWAS committee, and an endorsement by UNOMIL, it was agreed that the elections be postponed to 19 July. Of the thirteen political parties which contested the elections, three were led by former warring faction leaders. They were: George Boley, Alhaji Kromah and Charles Taylor. Charles Taylor won the elections and was sworn in on 2 August 1996. During the electoral campaign the various factions repatriated an estimated number of 50,000 refugees from the neighbouring countries to participate in the elections. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Liberia assisted in the voluntary return of about 1,800 refugees as in July 1997. The voluntary return of refugees and the protection of their rights on their return is a concern of Amnesty International.
The fighting between Charles Taylor’s NPFL and a relatively new faction, calling itself the Liberian Peace Council (LPC), began in October 1993 and continues at this writing. The LPC claims to control six counties — Sinoe, Grand Gedeh, River Cess, Grand Kru, Maryland, and Grand Bassa. The fighting, which began in the area of Grand Kola, got as far as the LAC plantation in early February, and had reached the outskirts of Buchanan by late April.
Little is known about the LPC. The LPC emerged after the Cotonou peace agreement was signed by the NPFL, ULIMO and the interim government in July 1993. It is clear that the LPC is an offshoot of former President Doe’s army, the Armed Forces of Liberia, and of the Krahn wing of ULIMO. It is composed mainly of people from the Krahn ethnic group. “The LPC was formed because the Mandingos [in ULIMO] weren’t going to spill blood to liberate Grand Gedeh [the county where many of the Krahn live],” a well-informed, foreign observer in Monrovia noted. “The only way to get the LPC to disarm is to convince ECOMOG that they will be safe with Taylor in the government.”
The lpc’s strength is estimated to be some 800 fighters, organized into mobile combat units. It is headed by George Boley, a Krahn and former minister of education in the Doe government, also formerly a member of ULIMO.
According to Boley, the LPC was formed because of “continued acts of atrocities by the NPFL in southeastern Liberia” since the Cotonou agreement. He also claimed that most of his fighters were refugees from the Ivory Coast who had been forced to flee from the NPFL. Boley described the LPC as “a broad-based national entity which advocates the protection of the rights of exiled and displaced citizens and residents of Liberia as well as the restoration of constitutional democratic leadership in Liberia.”
In recent statements, LPC spokespersons have made it clear that they will continue fighting until they are included in the transitional government. LPC Secretary General, Octavius Walker, told reporters on April 14 that the LPC wanted six seats in the transitional parliament as well as portfolios in the interim government, but that discussions with the NPFL had failed to produce an agreement on amending the Cotonou accord to include the LPC. “We will fight on until they include us in the administrative process,” he said. [Much more info at the link]
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