May 8, 2009 - Dangerous signals - Philip Neville of the Standard Times should come up with concrete evidence. There should be a limit to finger-pointing.

Two articles in the Standard Times online news outlet seen today Friday May 8, 2009 and we are informed also replicated in the hard version in the mother country would have any reader feel uneasy, if not extremely agitated and apprehensive given what the country has had to go through in the decade of war, deprivation, murder, rape and outright rule of the beasts in human form. And so to read the two articles published by the Standard Times (never mind the absence of a by-line) raising the spectre of war and insurrection by no group other than the main opposition SLPP - a party that gave way to the then and now ruling opposition party APC to have its leader occupy the top seat and hence become President of the Republic. One item sets the scene, purporting to have evidence of communication within the opposition preparing for war by whatever means against the government while the commentary is a goading to the Ernest Bai Koroma set-up that the government should arrest and hang the opposition to silence them forever. It could have worked during the Stevens and Momoh tenure, but not this time we hope. The items by Standard Times call for a thorough investigation not only by the authorities, but by a committee that should include representatives of the international community. The Sierra Herald would want to alert each and every member of the international community with representatives in Sierra Leone as well as other governments more so those in the West to take a particular note of this, lest the country gets dragged into another quagmire by a government which has increasingly shown contempt for any form of opposition. Sierra Leoneans forced to leave home, friends, community and the land that they love yearn to go back to a country that has paid a dear price for peace.