30/06/2025
PRESS STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
LINSU FROWNS ON GOL-SELECTIVE MEMORIAL SCAM, CALLS OUT TACITURNED PROGRESSIVE PROTÉGÉS IN GOVERNMENT, AND DEMANDS A REALISTIC EFFORT TOWARD WHOLESOME NATIONAL UNITY
Monrovia, Liberia – June 30, 2025
The Liberia National Students’ Union (LINSU) finds it historically imperative and revolutionarily dutiful to frown on the concocted ongoing exhumation, reburial, healing, and reconciliation initiative of President H. E. Joseph Nyuma Boakai. This state-sponsored rebranding of tyrants and appalling oligarchs under the deceptive guise of “national memorial” is a grotesque betrayal of Liberia’s progressive legacy and a subtle act by remnants of the oligarchy to delay or escape accountability.
The ongoing initiative by the Government of Liberia (GOL), glorifying selected figures of Liberia’s most oppressive, corrupt, and undemocratic eras while conveniently ignoring the multitudes of martyrs and victims, is not only ahistorical but rather a national scam perpetrated against the conscience of a deeply wounded people yearning for justice.
In this time of our national existence where justice is being demanded and not deferred, when the office of the War and Economic Crimes Court is incapacitated to execute its functions due to underfunding, when truth must be confronted and not contorted, and where reconciliation must be holistic, not selective, it is displeasing to see a quote-on-quote National Memorial overtures amounting to a Ponzi-Scheme of historical appeasement intended to pacify the elite remnants of the oligarchy and the brutal military dictatorship of our bitter past.
This rebranding of infamous legacies as national pride is an outright affront to the blood-stained memories of many noble compatriots who were martyred by the behest of the Oligarchy on April 14, 1979, the Military Dictatorship on April 12, 1980, the ashes of April 22, 1980, the mass killing of Liberians in Greystone on November 12, 1985, an insensitive military evasion of the University of Liberia in the 80s, and the silent cries of the over Six Hundred (600) Liberians, mostly women and children who were butchered over-night on the ground of the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in July of 1990.
If we may ask, whose pain do we remember? And whose wounds are we healing? For while the bones of Presidents are being exhumed for ceremonial glory, what about the forgotten mothers of Quardu Gboni, the shattered dreams of student martyrs like Wuo Garpi Tappia, Momolu Lavela? To date, the memory of Sinje and Bo Waterside still drips with unanswered blood of women who were r***d, of children who vanished, and of elders whose prayers could not stop the guns.
With all these questions and the haunted conscience of a nation still unacknowledged and unanswered, what is most disheartening—if not revolting—is that which appears to be the deliberate silence of supposed progressive protégés currently found within the state apparatus. Comrades who once hoisted the banner of justice, who once shared the trenches of student radicalism, who once declared allegiance in the cause of the people have now retreated into the cold chambers of political complicity and cowardice.
We say this with no ambiguity, you cannot sing Fidel, Che, Nkrumah, and Sankara in No-Position or Opposition, and whisper Tolbert and Doe in power. You cannot invoke the names of Wuo Garpee Tappia and Albert Porte while toasting the legacy of the very regime that spilled their blood. Political power is not a license to forget. It is a duty to remember, a chance to govern, and an opportunity to execute an ideological agenda for the liberation of the ordinary people and the transformation of this backward country.
To you, Mr. Ministers , Directors , Commissioners, et’ al, your silence in the face of this form of historical distortion is cowardice, betrayal. And betrayal under the cloak of ideologically bankrupt state bureaucracy is treason to the people. We say condemnation!
Henceforth, in defense of truth, and the spirit of genuine national healing, the 6th Post-War National Executive Committee of LINSU hereby calls for:
1. The Establishment of a People’s Memorial Commission (PMC) whose mandate will be to honor ALL who perished in the struggle against oligarchic and military oppression, including the victims of state massacres, student repression, and wartime atrocities.
2. A national dialogue, inclusive of the PMC, civil society, victims’ families, student representatives, and traditional elders that will shape a collective path toward remembrance of all compatriots who lost their lives during the infamy of our civil unrest.
3. The immediate allocation and disbursement of State Resources Toward the Full Operationalization of the War and Economic Crimes Court—for without justice, memorialization is merely performative politics.
4. A Policy of Balanced National Narrative in our curriculum, media, and monuments—where the names of good people like Irene Nimpson, Tonia Richardson, Sharkey Kamara, Odell Sherman amongst others stand side-by-side with any commemorated political figure.
In conclusion, we want to state categorically clear, that the student movement of this country under our stewardship will always be around to detest any form of historical falsification, build national consciousness, and always serve as a guardian to the governance system and democracy of Liberia. LINSU will always be around to echo the voices of resistance against any attempt to reconstruct tyranny as patriotism and whitewash repression as heroism. We are calling on President Boakai, if he is truly intent on leading this effort of a reconciled nation, let him first stand where the victims of our bitter past fell.
In the cause of the student masses and the Liberian People, the struggle continues…
Signed:
Darius S. Toweh
Secretary-General
Approved:
James Gbelee Washington
President
