Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County – A one-day fact-finding mission to Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County, has come to an end for the civil society organization Solidarity Trust for A New Day (STAND).
STAND engaged with women, young people, and elders in Kinjor throughout the tour by sending out roughly twenty human rights investigators.
After the engagement, the national chairman of STAND, Mulbah Morlu, who recently resigned from the Coalition for Democratic Change chairmanship, apologized to the Kinjor residents for the former government’s failure to hold the Bea Mountain Mining Company accountable for not fulfilling its share of the mineral development agreement.
“As of right now, I am no longer the Chairman of the CDC, and I have to apologize for the Weah-led government’s alleged disregard for human rights violations and other forms of mistreatment of workers that the company and the Liberia National Police are accused of committing in the past.”
He claimed that he is in Kinjor on behalf of a CSO called “STAND,” not the CDC or the current administration. “I want to convey our sincere condolences for the deaths at the hands of the Liberia National Police officers.”
According to Morlu, the visit is a component of the organization’s effort to represent the concerns of common people and laborers who have been subjected to unethical labor practices by the Bea Mountain Mining Company.
The Liberia National Police put an end to a wild-cat demonstration by the villagers, which resulted in three deaths and eleven injuries before STAND’s fact-finding visit.
The incident resulted in the demolition of the local radio station, other private homes, the police deport, and the barracks in Kinjor. After the event, President Joseph Boakai subsequently directed officials and soldiers from the Armed Forces of Liberia and the National Police of Liberia to leave all concession zones.
“More than twenty human rights investigators have determined the facts surrounding the demonstration, including the number of injured and killed, as part of the fact-finding mission.”
He claimed that SYAND was in Kinjor to check on the company’s implementation of some of the local demands that prompted the demonstration. The company has started carrying out development per the protestors demands.
According to Morlu, STAND also planned to visit other concession communities, such as Rivercess County, where Liberians lost their lives in the mining process.
Reported by: Augustine Octavius
Contact: +231777463963
Email: augustineoctavius@gmail.com
