In the early nineties, CONCORD TIMES NEWSPAPER came out once a week. Below on this page is a snapshot of the front page of the edition covering January 5-11, 1993 (i.e: Volume 1 No. 21).
It was the first edition of the year and it covered Concord Times’ version of incident of December 29th 1992 when 33 (thirty three) innocent citizens including gallant military officers, dedicated policemen, Ports officials, Firemen AND a Pregnant Lady were brutally slaughtered on LAKKA BEACH by current SLPP Presidential Candidate Julius Maada Bio and his allies.
As TRC reveals, this herebelow is false information dumped on the public; under sponsorship of NPRC agents like Hindolo Trye (the then NPRC Information Minister and current APC Labour Minister).
Its by-line includes one JONATHAN LEIGH currently running a ragsheet he calls INDEPENDENT OBSERVER. See down below for image of back page of that edition.
Information Sec. Named - NEW CITIZEN (Monday August 17th 1992)
Published By Ibrahim Ben Kargbo
The Department of Information, Broadcasting and Culture, last week got a new Secretary [of State], Mr. Hindolo Trye, a one time student leader at Fourah Bay College and journalist who worked for the crusading TABLET newspaper. When the TABLET ceased publication, Mr. Trye travelled to the United States where he stayed until the April 29th military coup.
A popular activist among the youths and one of the brains behind the famous TABLET tabloid in 1981, Mr. Trye felt unsafe when the newspaper office for which he worked, was wrecked by political vandals. Mr. Hindolo Trye’s appointment is appropriate since his knowledge of newspaper work and his journalist friends and acquaintances will put him in a better position to understand the numerous problems confronting the press in Sierra Leone.
President Koroma, Conscience Sir!
Dear Mr. President,
Please excuse me in advance for any aspect of this piece which offends you. I am a plain preacher and I think it is time someone told you to your face that you are acting in a manner which questions your supreme position held as the CONSCIENCE of the Nation and as our FATHER OF THE NATION whom we all look to for leadership and guidance.
Mr. President, on this Page today is the Front Page of a Concord Times edition containing a whole stack of LIES against innocent souls. Those LIES have stood legally unchallenged for 20 years now with the relatives left behind weeping silent pains.
Mr. President, also on this page is a scanned copy of the Back Page of that same edition of Concord Times showing a continuation of a Jonathan Leigh co-authored malicious (lie-lie) report with stage managed demonstrators carrying placards saying “KILL THEM ALL! NO DELAY”.
This fake demonstration was the work of NPRC agents back then who are today serving in national political light; both within and without your current APC Government.
Despite repeated appeals and tears and emotional cries for the TRUTH to come out, you have remained stoically SILENT Sir. The question, in the face of your silence, which many are asking is “Just who is Ernest Bai Koroma fooling that he cares about the families of those executed when the executioners, their colluders and media Goebbels are with him running the APC Government?”
Hindolo Trye your Minister of Labour has listened all this while as Julius Maada Bio and his media handlers LIED and LIED and LIED to this Nation that Bio was a mere Information Minister at the time of the killings. Hindolo Trye has not corrected the false information.
Sir, please read the contents of a box also on this page. The truth is that as I.B. Kargbo (your current Information Minister) himself published in NEW CITIZEN back then, Hindolo Trye was the NPRC Information Minister since August 1992!!!! It was Hindolo Trye who was NPRC Information Minister at the time Bambay Kamara and others were killed; NOT, as Bio would like us to believe, was Bio the lowly Information Minister. That was Hindolo Trye!
I can understand self-preservation will want Hindolo Trye to stay silent and not correct Maada Bio’s lies but I must confess that my curiosity is stirred as to why Hon. I.B. Kargbo has also not corrected this misinformation of Maada Bio all this time? Obviously, he knows Maada Bio has been LYING as he published it himself.
On Tuesday July 7th 1992, Captain Valentine Strasser as Head of State, announced he was creating Super-Minister positions to be known as Principal Liaison Officers (PLOs). That was the time the then Lieutenant Julius Maada Bio was appointed as PRINCIPAL LIAISON OFFICER (Super Minister) NUMBER ONE in charge of Finance, Foreign Affairs & Information making him effectively the Number Three (3) man in the NPRC regime answerable to only SAJ Musa and Valentine Strasser from July 1992 until the time of the killings. He was NOT a mere Information Minister but the all-powerful Number 3 man.
You yourself Mr. President, less than three months after the killing incident on LAKKA BEACH, were arrested and detained on the untested allegation of the brother of Julius Maada Bio, the late Stephen Cathy Bio, because of petty unfounded feelings he had about you. But for the grace of God, you might have also breathed your last at LAKKA BEACH.
Today Mr. President, you have well educated children you must be proud of. However, the children of those who were executed have been crying out and appealing for a chance to meet with you but you have snubbed them! The fate of those families you are today snubbing, could have been the fate of your own children had you not survived your illegal detention for coup plot back in March 1993. Think about this Your Excellency! This is not politics. This is simply human conscience and human morality Sir! Where is your conscience Sir?!
This is why I find it immoral for any Sierra Leonean to question the foreign embassies for granting a VISA to Julius Maada Bio to visit their countries. If you, as Father of the Nation are continuing to treat the children of the victims as if they have leprosy and do not exist, what do you expect the foreign embassies to do? They will toe your line and also pretend as if these victims’ children do not exist. Afterall, the colluders of KILLERS are sitting right there with you in your Cabinet.
This is the reason why those journalists like Jonathan Leigh who helped to COVER UP MURDERS OF INNOCENT PERSONS, have the gall to pen down some of what he is penning down these days.
Mr. President, for 20 years we have lived amidst a national outrage which you as Head of State, are sadly continuing to propagate.
Your Excellency, where is your conscience? Those children roaming today uneducated and lacking fatherly care just because of the actions of the NPRC KILLERS could have been your daughters.
I rest my pen!
DR. SYLVIA OLAYINKA BLYDEN (Officer of the Order of the Rokel)
© Copyright by Awareness Times
Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
