Political Neutrality: Keeping the Armed Forces of Liberia Out of Politics

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
December 8, 2022

Maj/Gen. Prince C. Johnson, III

The old teaching and the military philosophy in Libera have always been that the military should have nothing to do with law enforcement duties unless the situation reaches a stage where the civil power can no longer contain it. The National Defense Act of 2008 re-emphasized that military philosophy where Section 2.3(e) says “the duties of the AFL in peacetime shall include support to the national law enforcement agencies when such support is requested and approved by the President. Such support shall include the exchange of information, personnel training, and mobilization and deployment of security contingents. At no time during peacetime, however, shall the AFL engage in law enforcement within Liberia, such a function being the prerogative of the Liberia National Police and other law enforcement agencies. Notwithstanding, the Military Police of the AFL may, on request of the Ministry of Justice made to the Ministry of National Defense, and approved by the President of Liberia, provide assistance to these law enforcement agencies as determined by prevailing situations. The AFL shall intervene only as a last resort when the threat exceeds the capability of the law enforcement agencies to respond.”

During the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) Chief of Staff Maj/Gen Prince Charles Johnson’s press conference on December 6, 2022, he also re-emphasizes Section 2.3 of the law by sending out as strong “a caveat for whosoever may feel or is disenchanted as we approach the 2023 elections to use the court system as was seen in the 2017 Presidential and 2020 midterm Senatorial elections. If you decide to take the law into your own hands (disregarding the rule of law), regardless of your current or past status or affiliation, and if the LNP can’t control your actions and/or is overwhelmed, we will execute our constitutional duties. We will not allow anyone or a group of people to obstruct our hard-earned Peace and Democracy. We will support the LNP and relevant agencies to protect key installations where necessary.” Maj/Gen. Johnson’s warning comes amid a planned protest under the auspices of the opposition Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) scheduled for December 17.

According to the National Defense Act of 2008 approved on August 21, 2008, the role of the military, mainly, is to ward off a foreign invasion, maintain territorial integrity on the land, sea, and air. If there is a breakdown of law and order by virtue of an insurrection, the military can come in with the approval of the President and Commander-in-Chief and the approval of the National Legislature. Article 86, Article 87, and Article 88  of the constitution of Liberia talked about EMERGENCY POWERS and the extraordinary role of the military, which must be done only when there is a state of emergency and the President and National Legislature have approved it.

Some Liberians now do not see any security arrangement as being effective unless it involves the military. That is unfortunately the thinking of most Liberians now. In fact, people tell you that the police cannot provide security. My worry is if anybody who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces has unfettered discretion over the use of troops, it means he can use them even for the purpose of election in the name of a declaration of a state of emergency. If this becomes the norm, we might as well say goodbye to democracy because no opponent of the President will win and no opponent of the President’s choice will ever win because once you have the military, the most cohesive force of the nation, you have everything.

Political Neutrality Of Soldiers
Soldiers must realize that they are recruited to serve the nation. They are paid by the nation and the uniform they wear belongs to the nation, therefore, at all times, those wearing the uniform must be prepared to protect the nation. Section 8.3 of the National Defense Act of 2008 says “as citizens all members of the AFL have a right to a secret vote, but in all other ways they should be politically neutral and shall not join, support or participate in the activities of any political party or similar organization.” The laws say those in uniform cannot be involved in partisan politics. There must be a means by which such a law is enforced; there is also the need to train and retrain officers and men on the need to subject themselves to civil authority. The Ministry must craft a policy based on section 8.3 of the National Defense Act of 2008 if they haven’t done so yet so as to encourage members of the armed forces to carry out the obligations of citizenship while keeping with the traditional concept that members of the AFL should not engage in partisan political activity. All members of the armed forces are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaigns or election events.  

Law enforcement and training, emphasizing rules and regulations are the only means by which you can insulate members of the armed forces from partisan politics. Anybody who fails to follow the rules should be shown the way out of the force. The constitution is there, and military rules and regulations are there. As a matter of fact, if a soldier or an officer is interested in taking part in an election while still in uniform, he can apply for discharge and usually, the army would not stop him from leaving if his reason is that he wants to contest an election.

The military must be insulated from politics because they are a symbol of national unity and cohesion. But it is not only the military that should be insulated; the police in Liberia have also largely been accused of being partisan and playing politics in the discharge of their duties. The military, the police, and other security agencies' involvement in elections and other political activities must be defined and partisanship must be avoided. One way to insulate the military and the police from politics is to have effective leadership. If the leaders of the military are partisans, there is no way the men and officers will not be partisans. It flows from the top. So, the leadership of our security agencies must live by example and do what is right. If the military is partisan, it is going to definitely affect the conduct of the 2023 general elections which the world is interested in. We may also have lots of security challenges and when we have such loopholes, it is the military and other security agencies that will still bear the brunt.
So, we need isolated leadership first. Two, the AFL must not bow to political pressure. We know that the AFL takes orders from the authorities, but they must be seen to be non-partisan. This is because they are paid with taxpayers' money, and the taxpayers represent all the segments of the country; not one political party or group. 

Therefore, we must be very careful about allowing the military or the police to become a political tool. For example, the Progressive Alliance of Liberia(PAL) called for a peaceful demonstration to protest the proposed price increase on April 14, 1979. The government called in the soldiers from the AFL to reinforce police units in the capital, which were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of rioters. In 12 hours of violence in the city’s streets, at least 40 civilians were killed, and more than 500 were injured. Hundreds more were arrested. 

On April 12, 1980, President William Tolbert was shot three times in the head by a band of soldiers who broke into the executive mansion at 1 a.m. Samuel Doe, the leader of a People's Redemption Council denounced "rampant corruption" and the "continued failure of [Tolbert's] government to effectively handle the affairs of the Liberian people. 

Although the National Defense law of 1956 at the time said military personnel should not be used to monitor the elections, however, during the 1985 presidential elections, the soldiers of the AFL were brought in to intimidate and threaten voters as well stuffing ballots in the ballot boxes on behalf of Dictator Samuel Doe to me, it was an eyesore. In September 1994,  General John Hezekiah Bowen was accused of factionalizing the AFL for power at the Accra Conference.
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Under the ECOWAS Peace Agreement, the AFL under General Bowen's leadership submitted a Two-Count Position Paper and a One-Backup Position Paper. Under the Two-Count Position Paper, ECOWAS leaders were advised that firstly, the AFL was a national army created by law to be restructured, not disbanded, at the end of every war. Secondly, service members of the AFL listed for discharge should be discharged with honors and respect in keeping with the laws and Army Regulations. Under the One-Backup Position Paper, it was proposed that if the AFL would be disarmed and disbanded like other warring factions, then AFL should be included in the power-sharing arrangements. At the end of the day, the ECOWAS leaders endorsed General Bowen’s Two-Count Position Paper and offered him the Defense Minister post. 

If we go into the 2023 general elections with the 1985 mindset of using soldiers to threaten, intimidate and cheat, I assure you that this country is going to go into election violence. This is because everyone is now conscious of their political rights and nobody wants to be taken for a ride. Thus, whether it is the ruling or the opposition political parties, everyone must learn to do the right thing and allow the military and other security agencies to do their work without interference.

What needs to happen is to have a strong polity and to have a strong polity doesn’t come by magic. It has to be by a conscious consensus among the so-called political elite who will bring in political parties that are stable. We are talking of political parties, not as a platform for people to jump from one to another. Politics must also be played honestly, not a situation where you say to yourself I want to be President, Senator, or Representative if I am NOT there won’t be stability. The only way you can have strong political parties is to have politicians who play the game responsibly conscious of the need to have a national consensus. You can insulate the military when you ensure that the polity is harmonious.

Having been privileged to read about what led to numerous coups in West Africa lately, especially from those who have participated, I have an understanding of some of the reasons given by those who carry out coups. The most common reason is general discontent among the populace. It encourages those prone to think about coup d’état in the military to consider, concretize and execute their plans. The coup plotters often cite patriotism as the reason for their actions. On September 5, 2021,  Colonel Mamady Doumbouya ousted the country’s civilian leader Alpha Condé, proclaiming that “the duty of a soldier is to save the country.”  On 24 May 2021, the interim president Bah N’Daw, his prime minister, Moctar Ouane, and several other Malian officials were arrested and taken to the Kati military camp near the capital Bamako. Colonel Assimi Goïta issued a statement on national television announcing that he was “removing the prerogatives of the president and his prime minister”. He accused them of incompetence and above all of forming a new government without consulting him. On January 24, 2022, Burkina Faso’s president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was overthrown in a coup. Both civilians and defense and security forces have long voiced their discontent, including with Kaboré’s political stewardship.

Shreds of evidence from the recent coups in Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso suggest in those in the military nursing the ambition to take over any administration often kept a keen watch on the barometer of the society by gauging the level of general discontentment of the people and the auspicious moment to strike so as to attract immediate goodwill and acceptance by the people. Politicians should be clever and act responsibly instead of engaging in acts that are likely to induce another round of military interventions in Liberia. First, the political class should strive for genuine peace, unity, and positive development in all spheres of human need; avoiding being sectional too in the redistribution of the commonwealth. If the masses are groaning under hardship and the political class is seen fighting among themselves and are seen living in affluence with very little or nothing to show that efforts are being made to revamp the economy, this could be a recipe for a military coup. The political class should take steps that would actually prove to everyone that, indeed democracy has a real edge over military regimes by respecting the rule of law and delivering the expected dividends of democracy. Once the political class is seen to be acting in ways that portray them as responsible and caring, such would discourage military intervention. 

In respect of the elections of which law enforcement agency can boast of some experience in the last 17 years, if the Liberia National Police which is the civil force primarily responsible for the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order lives up to both its professional duty and the repeated expressions of commitment by its leadership to protect the electoral process, it should be able to contain incidents of lawlessness where they occur. On the other hand, the police must be saved by applying strong tactics to keep the peace. All contending political parties and their supporters must, therefore, eschew violence and adhere, as a matter of honor to violence-free elections. The leadership of the respective parties must also do nothing in words and actions that may incite party foot soldiers into violence.
  
In many democratic jurisdictions, the military is a rare sight within the civil society; they have housed far away from the civilian population; indeed, the military lives in an intensely disciplined world of its own. It moves and acts only in strict obedience to the directives of the elected president as commander-in-chief.  

Once again, it is gratifying that the Armed Forces of Liberia has affirmed that it will not engage in, condone or encourage any act that has the capacity to undermine or subvert any aspect of the democratic process. However, the military as a disciplined profession takes and must carry the lawful order of a higher authority. With this in mind, irrespective of the provision of Section 2.3(e), the political authority to which the military reports, and the political elite on both sides, should not precipitate any act that may necessitate the involvement of the military in helping to keep the peace, as this will be tantamount to undermining the impartiality, the integrity, and the respectability of the military institution as a protector of our Constitution. I rest my case.