Top: The FDA’s Managing Director Rudolph Merab. The DayLight/Harry Browne
By Emmanuel Sherman
MONROVIA – The Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority Rudolph Merab has bragged about the FDA’s denial of the media access to information, guaranteed by several forestry legal instruments. Riddled with false claims and unrelated references, Merab’s speech appeared to throw hints at forestry reformers and international funders.
“I don’t run my office in the press but when there is something like I told people I would call a press conference. Merab made the statement as he presented a DayLight reporter with a forestry reporting award over the weekend in Sinkor.
“I will speak once and I will try to make myself clear. After that, I will not speak again,” added Merab.
His comments come months after the FDA’s refusal to grant The DayLight access to public information. It is the first time a head of the FDA—required proactively to disclose public information—has commented publicly on the subject.
Merab incorrectly likened his refusal to the Allied Forces withholding security information during World War II. He narrated an account involving General Dwight David Eisenhower, the American commander of the Allied Forces, and journalists.
“Every time the news comes, the… news people can patch it up…,” Merab said, wearing a wry smile. “Eisenhower called the press people, carried them into the bathroom, locked them up, and said, ‘I will tell you everything about the D-Day.’”
First, there is no record to support the story happened. Before the D-Day or Normandy Landings on June 6, 1944, which defeated the Nazi army, the Allied Forces withheld or censored media publication of certain information to protect the assault’s success.
Unlike that account, the information the media seeks from the FDA does not relate to state security or national investigations. Rather, they include contracts, payments, permits, and the agency’s response to issues.
The FDA’s refusal to share public information contrasts with the Merab administration’s prompt response to inquiries. That contrast contravenes the Freedom of Information Act, the National Forest Reform Law, and Liberia’s trade agreement with the European Union.
Increased media scrutiny and reports have coincided with the rise of forestry offenses, impunity, and the downturn of the logging sector.
Colonialism
Following his false World War II claim, Merab cautioned journalists against treating allegations as a conclusion.
He again aimed a dig at a 2006 executive order that terminated all the logging contracts, including Merab’s Liberia Wood Management Corporation (LWMC). The termination stemmed from the companies’ trade of “blood timber” during Liberia’s brutal civil conflicts (1989-2003) and non-compliance. Termination was a prerequisite for the lifting of United Nations sanctions on Liberian timber.
Afterward, Merab, his LWMC and other companies were partially debarred through regulation from forestry activities until they atoned for their alleged offenses. There is no record that Merab atoned for his alleged offenses. He vehemently denied any wrongdoing in an Associated Press interview earlier this year, except for taxes he somehow admitted owing.
Merab replayed those accounts in thinly veiled remarks as he handed DayLight reporter Esau J. Farr, Sr. his certificate.
“Our country is not a colonial system. In the old days, you were guilty until you proved your innocence,” said Merab. “That was how most of our brothers who were powerful African leaders were killed. [Patrice] Lumumba and the other people were arrested and said they were guilty.”
Equating his situation to the Congolese hero Lumumba aside, Merab’s comments are largely misleading. Though people in colonial days were found guilty even before trial, due process for an accused can be traced back to the 13th Century, more than 700 years before Lumumba’s death. The Magna Carta of 1215 in England provided that no man was above the law and everyone was entitled to due process as a fundamental human right.
The comments only add to Merab’s colonialism playbook. In 2015 when Liberia signed a US$150 million deforestation agreement with Noway, he criticized the deal, arguing it would hurt the West African country.
“The neo-colonial issue cannot continue to affect us,” Merab said, who was president of the Liberia Timber Association. “You got to learn to stop letting people fool us. They are the ones exploiting us, especially Norway.”
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
