Local NGO Welcomes ‘Jungle Jabah’s’ 30 Yrs. Imprisonment

-Says It Is A Victory For War Victims

A local Child Rights Advocacy Organization, Forerunners Children’s Universal Rights for Survival (FOCUS), has welcomed the 30 years imprisonment of one of ULIMO K Notorious Rebel General, Mohammed Jabateh, alias “Jungle Jabah.

Jungle Jabbah

FOCUS says the 30 years imprisonment represents a new dawn in Liberia where warlords are being apprehended one by one to account for their wartime stewardship.

The organization in a release under the signature of its Executive Director Anthony Boakai, Sr. said the day is also a victory for war victims, especially former child combatants who were drugged, armed, and reduced to monsters of cruelty by Rebel Generals to at randomly torture, maim, rape and gruesomely murder innocent civilians.

The 51-year old Mohammed Jabateh, alias “Jungle Jabah”, has since received a 30 year jail sentence in the United States on multiple charges, including immigration fraud, perjury coupled with heinous atrocities he committed during the Liberian civil war.

The report said Jabateh is the third warlord to be sentenced to prison. In 2008   Chuckie Taylor received 97 years sentence in the U.S, on charges of torture and conspiracy.

His father, former Liberian President, Charles Taylor was sentenced by the ICC in 2012 and is currently serving a 50-year jail term in Britain for his roles in the erstwhile Sierra Leonean war.

Meanwhile, FOCUS has called on the Liberian government to muster the courage for establishment of tribunals to prosecute major actors of the civil crises in order to serve as deterrence for war mongers or would be war mongers; as many of them are now considering Liberia, as a safe haven: where they are given or elected to positions of prominence in appreciation for atrocities committed during the civil crises.

At the same time, FOCUS, says President George Manneh Weah’s decision to provide care for the three children of the former PUL President, the late Abdulai Kamara is magnanimous and timely.

FOCUS said the President’s magnanimity will not only help to maintain the late Kamara’s children in school, but it will also help to minimize Liberia’s alarming illiteracy rate which is estimated at 60%.

A FOCUS release issued in Monrovia admonished President Weah to make good his promise in order to relax the mental agony of the mourning Kamara children and family.

The release said the President’s swift intervention is a clear demonstration of his recognition of the late Kamara’s invaluable contribution to the enhancement of the Liberian media and society.

The release further said President Weah’s gesture is in consonance with Article 28 of the United Nations Convention on the Child.

The Article encourages state parties to the convention to make compulsory primary and vocational education accessible to all school age going children.

Liberian Government signed the convention in 1989. Due to the civil war, the government ratified the document three years later in 1993.