PRESS STATEMENT
ATTACK ON SLPP NATIONAL HEAD QUARTERS
The attention of the UK and Ireland Branch has been drawn to the unprovoked attack on the National Office of the Party by supporters and members of the governing APC on Wednesday August 13 2008.
We condemn this cowardly attack without reservations, and see such actions as an attack on democracy.
Unfortunately, these attacks have taken a menacing regularity, with the clear intention of instilling fear amongst our supporters.
The timing of the latest attack is no coincidence, as it has been deliberately staged to provoke our supporters into reacting so as to give the government the pretence it so desperately craves to have an atmosphere of national crisis to divert the attention of the nation and those of the international community from the cocaine saga in which it is now embroiled that has brought a national embarrassment to our Country.
Rather than manufacturing a crisis, we urge the government to instead concentrate on the cocaine problem, and weed from its ranks those characters that have been involved in this sordid trade.
Whilst we as a party will continue to be law abiding, we are constrained to say that we cannot continue to turn the proverbial other cheek in the face of continued harassment by the government and its supporters.
The most pernicious aspects to this growing atmosphere of intimidation are that the Police are either unable or unwilling to discharge their Constitutional duty of protecting lives and property.
To this extent, we see the contours of another totalitarian state emerging, with the Police as part of the coercive instrument in this sinister move. We want to warn the APC that Sierra Leone will never again become a one party dictatorship.
We want to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the international community and other development partners that the SLPP has reached its limit of endurance, and that any further acts of provocation will be resisted by our supporters.
Signed
Harold Saffa
Chairman
London 13 August 2008.