PatRobertson.com - Mr. Fred Hiatt, Editor Letters to the Editor Washington Post 1515 L Street, NW Washington, DC 20071
Dear Mr. Hiatt:
Twice in your pages, Colbert King has written allegations against me and a corporation in which I am a shareholder called Freedom Gold that is engaged in exploratory mining operations in the nation of Liberia.
Mr. King has ignored the constitution of Liberia, the elected Congress of Liberia, the administrative departments of Liberia, and the courts of Liberia in order to assert that the entire Government of Liberia is the alter ego of its president, Charles Taylor. Having made this stretch of fantasy, he now goes on to assert that a mining concession negotiated by an American attorney who represents the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, along with the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Finance of the nation of Liberia, is, in fact, a contract with Charles Taylor, and that by this logic Charles Taylor now owns ten percent of Freedom Gold.
Having established this in his mind, Mr. King then projects his fantasy to assert that profits from Freedom Gold are now flowing into Charles Taylor' s alleged nefarious activities, even to the extent of supplying funding for diamond smuggling out of Sierra Leone for the purpose of enriching the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
There is one essential flaw in this whole scenario. None of it is true.
The Government of Liberia does not own any stock in Freedom Gold nor does it have any profit interests in Freedom Gold at the present moment. Freedom Gold is an exploratory company engaged in digging holes in the ground for the purpose of discovering commercial grade ore. It has no cash flow, and, therefore, there are no profits to its shareholders and none to anyone else. According to its mining concession, Freedom Gold will make available to the Government of Liberia sometime in 2004 to 2006 shares which will be illiquid until such time as the company is taken public. No cash flow is forecast for the company until at least the year 2004 or beyond.
Consequently, there is no money to the Liberian government, no money to Charles Taylor, no money for diamonds, or any corollary diamond interests.in fact, nothing except the fantasy of your writer.
I personally have never visited Liberia. I have never met President Charles Taylor. I have absolutely no knowledge of the activities in Liberia during the bitter civil war which toppled the ruthless dictator, Master Sergeant Doe. I have no first-hand knowledge of the revolutionary activity in Sierra Leone.
All I do know is that for the past three years, Freedom Gold has hired 130 Liberians, has placed in country as its chief geologist Dr. Alexei Sokolov, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, and Joseph Mathews, a graduate of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. We are in touch with citizens, government officials, many Christian pastors, and others inside and outside the country. During that time, Freedom Gold has assisted the people of Liberia to gain a better life. It has found freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and what appears to be a judiciary dedicated to the rule of law.
It is clear that the Clinton State Department urged upon the United Nations sanctions against Liberia which will only serve to deepen the poverty and misery of the people. The Washington Post has now joined in the fray of those who wish to topple the duly-elected government of the nation. I have yet to hear any proposal from the United Nations, from the State Department or your paper as to what should be done with Liberia if the government falls and civil war resumes.
I recall only too vividly the thrust of the United States State Department under the Clinton administration and the call of the editorial pages of the Washington Post to bring about the downfall of President Mobutu of Zaire.
His fall brought in a Marxist butcher, Laurent Kabila, as President, and the resulting civil war which has left an estimated two million people dead. I believe right-thinking people in this nation need to ask your editorial writers whether they envision another blood bath in a Christian nation in Africa which was founded by President James Monroe as a haven for freed American slaves, and whose first president was a Baptist pastor from Norfolk, Virginia.
Sincerely,
Pat Robertson