The US government’s decision to even consider Sierra Leone’s eligibility for Compact Funding under President Julius Maada Bio has deeply troubled the country, according to a damning letter sent to the Board of the US Millennium Challenge Corporation by Ranking Member James E. Risch and Chairman Christopher Coons, two senior members of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
The letter demonstrates unequivocally the extreme mistrust and disdain that members of the US Foreign Relations Committee now harbour for Maada Bio, who has repeatedly demonstrated his deplorable human rights record and disrespect for democracy and civil liberties, making him unqualified to serve as president of Sierra Leone.
The senators issued a warning against the MCC engaging in economic dealings with rogue leaders such as Maada Bio, a veteran military Junta leader who illegally massacred 29 Sierra Leonean people in 1992 and has since killed over 200 more since seizing power in 2018.
In Africa and around the world, democracy faces significant obstacles. The pool of possible MCC partners may have shrunk due to the recent spike in coups and the shrinkage of democratic spaces around the world, but that does not imply the MCC should compromise its principles.
The massive $450 million that the MCC had set aside for President Bio’s administration has been suspended in the wake of President Bio and his appointed Chief Electoral Commissioner’s flagrant manipulation of the results of the general and presidential elections in
Foreign relations committee members in Western capitals typically possess extensive, complex, and highly sophisticated intelligence networks that allow them to know more about a nation than its citizens. According to what I hear, the most lethal spies are run by individuals who don’t even have an office and are unknown to even the spy agency’s employees.
Therefore, the fact that members of the US Foreign Relations Committee have such a negative opinion of Bio indicates that they are more knowledgeable than we are, and both the State Department and the White House man paid close attention to these individuals. Simply said, Bio can disregard better ties between his administration and the United States, which places the MCC money (half) at risk.
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