Movement To Stop Sale Of UPP Formed

(WASHINGTON, DC, November 29, 2002) -- In the wake of media reports about plans for a merger between Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Party (NPP) and the United People's Party (UPP), members of UPP in the United States and others in West Africa have grouped themselves under an organization they call the Movement To Stop The Sale Of UPP (MOSSUPP).

In a statement issued in the United States today said MOSSUPP was established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Friday, November 29, 2002, during a meeting of UPP partisans from across America, after telephone and electronic consultations with other partisans in West Africa.

The statement, signed by MOSSUPP Secretary-General J. Nagbe Sloh of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and former past Acting National Chairman Bodioh Wisseh Siapoe of UPP's Political Action Committee of Baltimore, Maryland, said UPP has a strong history of opposing guns in politics, and would not do any political business with the NPP, an organization recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most destructive armed group in Africa.

"The United People's Party must refrain from any political undertaking contrary to its fundamental objectives , which include, among other things, respect for the rule of law, financial accountability, transparency, security for all, protection of human rights and above all, the guarantee of freedom of speech, expression and assembly of all citizens," the release said.

MOSSUPP said mergers between political institutions must consider similarities of ideologies and principles of the merging parties. The group said the policies and ideologies of the UPP and NPP are so diametrically opposed that the two can never ever do any business together. MOSSUPP indicated that should need be for the UPP to merge with any political party, Liberia is not bankrupt for progressive and law-abiding political parties with whom the UPP can do business.

The release said UPP believes in the rule of law and attaining power through the ballot box while the NPP creates and thrives on blood-letting and total anarchy as a way of attaining political power.

"Any UPP partisan desirous to pursue a contrary political agenda from that of the United People's Party is at liberty to leave the UPP for other political institutions, and not to undermine the UPP from within to merge with the National Patriotic Party to preserve their current political portfolios at the expense of the Party's future and the aspirations of its members.

"Our party's institutional principles give every partisan an opportunity to make political choices. We urge those unscrupulous elements in the Party and their likes to exercise their constitutional liberties by declaring publicly their membership in the National Patriotic Party, or any other political party, where they feel better able to make contributions 'in the cause of the people' and not to nurture acrimony within the United People's Party.

"MOSSUPP hereby rejects any attempt in any shape or form to merge with the NPP, given that the NPP has failed to deliver the political bacon which it promised the Liberian people during the 1997 general elections, but opted to inflict madness, anarchy, chaos, banditry and regional instability thereby making Liberia a pariah nation," the statement added.

MOSSUPP said while any member of UPP may join any other political party of their choice, including the NPP, no member or group of members will be allowed to sell the party to any group. The statement said MOSSUPP will use every legal means available to stop any relationship, be it merger or friendship, between the UPP and NPP.

"UPP has managed to reach this far by the sweat and blood of committed partisans, and we shall never ever allow its sale to any individual and/or group for any reason," MOSSUPP concluded.