For a long time, I have known that there was one distinct and glaring characteristics of deceit in the Liberian people, called "intellectual dishonesty". What I did not realize, however, is that there were so many Liberians then as well as today, who are in denial.

I don't know how many of you read my open letter to the collective leadership of LURD (http://www.theperspective.org/openlettertolurd.html); written on April 11, 2002. Whether you read that letter or not, I would urge you to read the interview with William Hanson, senior spokesman of LURD, conducted by George Nubo of The Perspective (http://www.theperspective.org/hanson.html). The interview, to me, seems to be an attempt to answer some of the questions I posed in my letter. The one sad thing about the interview, however, is that it failed totally to address the concerns I posed in my letter. Following the reading of the interview, I came away with the following inferences:

• That LURD does not have an agenda from which they operate. That LURD is composed of a group of power-hungry and instant wealth seeking individuals who are willing to sell their souls or do any and everything to be recognized and to get that power.
  
  
• That it is reasonable to believe that the LURD organization has a secret agreement with the Charles Taylor's government to furnish it with excuses for abusing and violating the rights of Liberian people.
  
  
• That LURD's leadership is jockeying for cabinet Positions in the next Taylor's administration.
  
  
• That it is reasonable to believe that the LURD's organization is on Charles Taylor's payroll to continue it phantom war, and thereby supplying Charles Taylor with excuses to show the world that a war is going on in Liberia.
  
  
• That the LURD organization could care less about the welfare or the suffering of the Liberian people.
  
  
• That LURD's leadership does not realize that if situation should change in Liberia, that the leadership could be brought to trial for its criminal activities, leading to the murder and dislocation of so many Liberians.
  
  
• That LURD's leadership is hoping that by the time most Liberians discover their naked facades, it will be too late; they would already be in the Taylor's next administration by then.
  
  
• That the LURD's leadership underestimates the ability of Liberians to discover facts or shady Schemes on their own. For example, that the LURD membership is believed to be, at best, between 25 to 50 members total.
  
  
• LURD does not think that some of us know that it does not have a standing army nor the money to recruit one, to wage a serious war against Charles Taylor's forces.
  
  
• What the leadership of LURD will learn (the hard Way) is that one should not do business with the Devil. When Charles Taylor gets his aim to remain in power accomplished, and no longer needs LURD, he will destroy them.
  
  

I am sure that there will be some who will want to know what fish I have to fry in all of this. Well, the only fish I have to fry in all of this is the fact that I am a Liberian, going back some five (5) generations. It is very painful for me to see how the Liberian people are being used as if they were some herd of animals. It is also painful to see that those, whom the Liberian people ought to look up to, are betraying the very people that need help, and are themselves jockeying for favors and positions.

In conclusion, I am urging all concerned Liberians and friends of Liberia, to look critically at the LURD organization and what it stands for. People should ask questions such as: why is it that after two years of warfare by LURD, there isn't a single lot which LURD has seized and is under its control; after two years of warfare, there isn't one single war prisoner on both sides that LURD can point to; after two years of warfare, there isn't a single list of war casualties on both sides to be shown to anybody. And if any other Liberian should come to the same conclusion as I have, that LURD is not doing anything positive to help the struggle of the Liberian people, the least you can do is to write to LURD or anybody who is a member of LURD, to find out just what it is that they think they are doing to alleviate the struggle and suffering of the Liberian people. And if you are not happy with their answers, you should tell your friends and relatives to disassociate themselves from LURD and its activities.