By Kemo Cham
The ongoing economic crisis Sierra Leone is battling may have a biblical connotation, according to a Christian pressure group.
The International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ), a global movement of Christians who identify with Israel in its protracted conflict with its Arab neighbors, claims that Sierra Leone’s under development is the result of a decision four decades ago to ditch Israel in favour of the Arabs.
ICEJ’s representative in the country, Reverend Francis Williams, told Politico that the status quo would remain so until the country repented, sought forgiveness and restored diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
“Like humans, countries have soul. And the soul of Sierra Leone is under a curse…It’s like when they curse a person in a family, if they do not undo the sin committed, you will not be delivered,” he said in an interview.
Sierra Leone broke up ties with Israel in 1973 under circumstances the ICEJ believes amounted to betrayal of the Jewish state. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) had asked its member states to do so in response to that year’s Arab-Israeli war. Sierra Leone was one of the first three countries to sign the document by the OAU binding its members to uphold its position, says Reverend Williams, noting that that move provoked a divine curse.
Prior to 1973, Israel’s over two decades of diplomatic ties with Sierra Leone earned the latter huge infrastructural development, notably the parliament building, the Bank of Sierra Leone building, and the Sierra Leone Postal Services building. There are several other landmark structures across Sierra Leone built with Israeli money and expertise, said Williams.
Spiritual mapping
According to the ICEJ country representative, the group embarked on a “spiritual mapping” in 2012 to diagnose the problems faced by Sierra Leone – a state of underdevelopment and poverty characterised by a history of disasters, including a swam of vultures falling from the sky under a windstorm in 1985 and the 1991-2002 civil war.
Williams says the 2014 Ebola Epidemic was also another manifestation of the curse.
Quoting verses from the Bible, he said they discovered the explanation to all these incidents in the holy book which forbids nations from rejecting the People of Israel.
The investigation also found out that when the Israelis were issued a 72-hour ultimatum to leave Sierra Leone, a senior Rabi collected some soil which he took along with him to Israel, Williams explained, citing eyewitnesses present at the time.
When Sierra Leone broke ties with Israel, the country was under Siaka Stevens’ All Peoples Congress (APC). Williams says since it’s an APC government that betrayed Israel, it only made sense that an APC government must seek penitence, adding: “there is no better time for this than now, given the current economic crisis”.
“We believe in recitation. We believe that as long as I hurt you I should go back to you to seek for forgiveness,” he said.
Apparently the ICEJ is not alone in thinking that Sierra Leone’s woes are linked to its past or that the solution is only through divine intervention.
A group affiliated with the umbrella Christian Council of Sierra Leone (CCSL) concluded a 28-day fasting period with a prayer session late last month. According to Apostle Victor Luke, that was meant to seek God’s intervention to heal the Church and bring its followers together so that they can convince government to seek divine intervention.
CCSL is not officially a part of the ICEJ’s campaign. But when asked by a TV host on state broadcaster SLBC, Reverend Luke said they were in support of the idea of seeking forgiveness for past wrongs which have come to haunt the country.
“Our conscience has been stricken by God. There is a burden upon us. We all cannot sit until things get worst and run away from the country,” he said on the We Yus programme last month.
Fruitful outcome
Relations between Israel and Africa have been warming up recently. And Williams wants the Sierra Leone government to take advantage of the window of opportunity.
Last July Benjamin Netanyahu made the first visit by an Israeli Prime Minister to Africa in 30 years. That visit saw expression of warm remarks from leaders of the countries he visited – Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda.
In Uganda Netanyahu held meeting with seven East African leaders whose countries were not visited. According to the Jerusalem Post, one of Israel’s most authoritative news outlets, the Jewish state is planning a similar summit for West Africa.
Last month the Israeli PM also met with a cross section of African leaders on the fringes of the just concluded UN General Assembly, among them was President Ernest Bai Koroma.
Back in Freetown, Information Minister Mohamed Bangura spoke of the fruitful outcome of the discussions in New York as well as Sierra Leone’s commitment to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Most of the countries Israel still doesn’t have diplomatic relations with in the world are majority-Muslim countries, notably Mali, Chad, Niger, Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti and Comoros. And this is due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Israel’s relations with Apartheid South Africa were also a major factor in the OAU’s position on the Arab/Israeli conflict. Alongside Libya and Algeria, South Africa has been known to prove to be major obstacle to Israel’s effort to reclaim its observer status at the AU.
Meanwhile, Palestine maintains its observer status at the AU and it has used it to drum up diplomatic support from African countries in their dispute with Israel.
Other reports have indicated that the OAU’s position may have been influenced by a threat from oil-producing Arab countries to impose oil embargo on countries maintaining relations with Israel after the infamous Six-day Israeli-Arab war.
Reverend Williams though insists that the call for re-establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel is hardly about religion. He cites examples Senegal – 95 percent Muslim – which restored diplomatic relations with Israel in 1994, and Guinea – over 85 percent Muslim – which in August reportedly signed an agreement in France to re-establish ties with the Jewish state.
In fact Guinea is thought to be the first African country to sever ties with Israel in response to a previous war with the Arabs in 1968.
Israel also has diplomatic ties with Gambia, over 95 percent Muslim, which was declared an Islamic state last December.
Nigeria re-established relations with Israel in 1992 under a Muslim head of state, Ibrahim Babangida. In 2014 former President Goodluck Jonathan took it to another level with his historic pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Egypt itself signed a peace deal with Israel as far back as the 1980s and that saw some African countries, including Ethiopia, re-establishing ties.
“If Egypt, which was the reason for the OAU’s decision in 1973, has re-established ties with Israel, why are we still not doing same,” asks Reverend Williams.
Although he rates cooperation between the two countries as high, Government spokesman Agibu Jalloh lays the blame for lack of cooperation at diplomat level on the Israelis. He said over the years Israel had not manifested interest in Sierra Leone.
“As of right now, as a country we are exploiting the possibility of doing business with Israel. In terms of politics, that has not been tabled yet,” he told Politico.
And with regards tendering an apology, he said: “That consideration has not been tabled by our foreign minister. I cannot say yes or no, but it doesn’t feel like Sierra Leone feels that way.”
Photo: Reverend Francis Williams
Copyright © Politico 2016
