Liberia’s leading daily newspaper, Front Page Africa, on Thursday, September 29, 2016, published an editorial titled, “Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) – Let Liberians Come Home.”

As an advocate who has spent over a quarter of a century fighting for Liberians forced to flee unspeakable horrors and violence at home, I write to denounce the editorial as erroneous, heartless, ill-informed, grossly ignorant, and an attempt to violate the human rights of the Liberians in question.

Liberians forced into exile by a senseless war have every right to return home anytime they feel safe and on their terms. Instead of standing up for weak and vulnerable Liberians, Front Page is flexing its media muscles against them.

Instead of calling for a new system of governance with guaranteed security and equal opportunities where citizens can exercise real powers, beginning with citizens’ input in setting the salaries of public servants, Front Page Africa claims Liberia is a better place than America.

Even so, the Truth and Reconciliation Report is yet to be fully implemented. The warlords, rebel leaders, and political elite sponsors of the Liberian Civil War are still at the helm of power with all the money looted during the war.

There have been no apologies, no compensations, no incentives for people to return and the door is effectively closed with inadequate consular services or visa waivers for those forced into exile.

The corrupt system of governance that enables politicians to enrich themselves at the expense of the country is still firmly in place with the budget of the Speaker of the House at over a million US dollars.

The dreams of a real republic and true democracy remain elusive with the president appointing all mayors, all governors, all ministers of government, all judges, all heads of public corporations, and all boards of directors of all public corporations.

With thousands graduating from Liberia’s colleges yearly, there are few opportunities for employment or advancement.

Why did the Liberians leave in the first place? In 1989, a consortium of Liberia’s political elite and armed rebel groups, many of whom are still in power today, along with the defunct Armed Forces of Liberia, began a barbaric campaign of terror, raping and killing of innocent unarmed citizens that claimed the lives of over 250,000 people and destroyed millions of dollars of property.

Many who remained in Liberia were killed. Those who fled survived. A government has an obligation to protect the life and properties of its citizens.

But because the government of Liberia was a party to the mayhem, torture, and death of innocent citizens for which there has been no apologies, compensation, genuine government-led reconciliation, or the slightest incentives for survivors in exile to return, how dare anyone, let alone a for-profit newspaper which isn’t supporting the Liberians in exile or paying for their repatriation, decide when is the right time to return home?

First of all, the editorial was at best, erroneous! It read, “Temporary Protective Status, which came into place in 1991 as a means of providing a sanctuary for Liberians who fled the country from the armed conflict of 2003—dubbed in Liberia the ‘World War I, II and III.’”

In fact, while many Liberians fled to the United States due to the armed conflict that began in 1989, Temporary Protected Status, better known as TPS, was never granted to any Liberian who came to America during the conflict of 2003.

All Liberians who entered the USA in 2003, including Liberian parents evacuated along with their American citizen children by the United States military during Operation Shinning Express in July 2003, were effectively denied TPS for no justifiable reasons for over a decade.

Despite numerous appeals from Congress and a lawsuit, neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations offered protected status to Liberians who fled in 2003 to the USA. The Liberians who were granted Deferred Enforced Departure, known as DED, in 2003 inherited the status from prior grants of TPS that was first initiated in 1991 and benefited 10,000 Liberians, 54,000 Chinese and other nationalities and renewed yearly until 2003. The claims of the editorial are false.

Secondly, the editorial was ill-informed and misleading. Front Page Africa wrote: “The American people came to the aid of Liberians at the time the Liberian people needed them most. They would continue their generosity during the dreaded Ebola epidemic basically in 2014 and 2015.”

Clearly, the victims of the war of 2003 that justified the 2003 American military deployment and an evacuation of American citizens did not evoke compassion or convince the United States to offer protected status to Liberians in general. Nor was there compassion for Liberian parents of American citizens evacuated by the US military and abandoned in the deadly winter weather for over a decade.

Furthermore, the grant of protected status during the Ebola outbreak was not a continuation of TPS previously granted Liberians. In fact, the initial response of the Obama administration to Ebola was not TPS.

Rather, the Obama administration, on August 15, 2014, granted an extension of visa for those stranded in America. TPS was only granted on November 20, 2014, after advocacy efforts on behalf of those stranded. It was this effort that finally allowed the Liberian mothers evacuated by the United States Military more than a decade earlier in 2003 to get TPS.

Thirdly, the editorial is heartless. Front Page Africa wrote: “THESE Liberians surviving on TPS and living at the mercy of DED are not in the best interest of the foreign policy of Liberia.”

I disagree with this Liberian foreign policy assertion because the editorial failed to state how these Liberian survivors of torture are working against Liberia’s foreign policy interests. In the US, they work and pay taxes, but are effectively banned from any benefits of taxpayers.

How are they “taking this whole handout mentality and jingoism to higher heights?” TPS holders are instead supporting their families in a Liberia, a country with systemic corruption and the fourth poorest country on Earth, where the lawmakers earn higher salaries and benefits than American lawmakers.

According to Front Page Africa, “Their prolong [sic] stay in the United States is costing the country its progress and development.” This claim is false. The longer Liberians stay in America, the better it is for the poverty-stricken and war-ravaged country.

Unlike the 250,000 killed, Liberians who fled and are on TPS are still alive. Many have acquired advanced degrees at reputable universities. They are supporting the American government through the $350 yearly fee paid for work permits plus taxes to the US, for which they are banned from all benefits of taxpayers.

Not only are they supporting the US Government, but they are also supporting the Liberian government through remittances to the sea of jobless Liberian citizens in a country where the government offers no basic services.

On a fourth note, the editorial is grossly ignorant of the realities of life in Liberia and America. While the editorial in question is about TPS, the editorial’s reference to Liberians flocking to the USA after the 1980 military coup seems to suggest that TPS was granted to Liberians who fled the 1980 coup.

TPS was first created in 1991 and granted to Liberians who fled to the US because of the civil war that began in 1989. The editorial read, “But now, the story has changed: they are leaving for general better opportunities in a country probably the hardest place to live on the whole earth.”

Liberians on TPS only left to save their lives, not seeking opportunities because many of them had previously visited America or studied in America and returned to Liberia only to be uprooted by the barbaric war. Additionally, Front Page claims that America is the most difficult place to live on Earth. If so how do they rate the quality of life in Liberia? Why aren’t Liberians sending remittances to their family members in America if life in Liberia is full of equal opportunities? Why didn’t Front Page Africa assist the countless Liberians denied TPS for decades who could not work in America?

Finally, this editorial exposes Front Page Africa’s cowardice in its attempt to violate the rights of weak and vulnerable Liberian victims of a senseless war. They include amputees, quadriplegics, and women with post-traumatic stress disorder, who lost everything. If you can’t help them, don’t hurt them!

According to Front Page, America has been generous. The truth is that the United States has been very unfair to Liberians, many of whose ancestors toiled in slavery to build America. Ten presidents of Liberia were African Americans born and educated in the US. While keeping 10,000 citizens of Liberia, a friendly country, in limbo on TPS since 1991, America granted TPS to over 50,000 citizens of China, a rival country, and quickly changed their TPS into permanent residency status in no time.

In 2014, over 22 million citizens from 38 countries were allowed in the United States without visa under the Visa Waivers Program.  On the other hand, Liberia, a country whose citizens helped to build America, witnesses routine visa denials and forfeiture of non-refundable visa fees in hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was not China or Russia but Liberia, which admitted thousands of American refugees during the period of racial segregation from 1822 until 1965.

US Senator Jack Reed, the author of the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, made the following statement:

10,000 Liberians have lived, worked and paid taxes in America. Many of them have had children born as American citizens here, yet year after year they face a needless deadline that could send them into a potentially unstable country.

For so long, they have contributed to America, it is time that America finally grants them permanent residency. According to Reed, there are few groups which have received protected status have remained in this immigration limbo longer than the Liberians.

In the time since the Liberians left their homeland because of a bloody civil war, Congress has passed a law allowing 4,996 Poles, 387 Ugandans, 565 Afghanis and 1,180 Ethiopians to adjust their status. The 102^nd Congress passed a law to change the status of over 50,000 Chinese nationals who had been granted DED after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

And when Congress passed the legislation known as NACARA, 150,000 Nicaraguans, 5,000 Cubans, 200,000 El Salvadorans, and 50,000 Guatemalans became eligible to change their status.

If visa and green cards are good for these nationals, why not for Liberians? Why is America still eating poor Liberians’ visa fees without giving them visa?

While Front Page Africa, in its heartless and erroneous editorial, claimed that Liberians on TPS are “runaways,” the United Nations and human rights organizations documented that both the Armed Forces of Liberia and all rebel groups committed human rights abuses, including rapes, killings and the forced recruitment of civilians.

Refugees have every right to return home whenever they feel safe and on their own terms. Front Page Africa, you owe Liberians on TPS an apology.

Featured photo by Li Tsin Soon