Most Americans and the world witnessed a few months back the arrest of four so-called news media people in Liberia. The picture was painted to the world that this oppressive dictatorial government has arrested four newsmen and held them captive and that only after international pressure, they were released. They stated that all they wanted to do was to film what was going on in Liberia. This is the thing furthest from the truth.

As the truth begins to unfold, we see the hand of America and England directly involved in trying to paint an ugly picture of the Liberian leadership and what is taking place inside of the country. They are doing this once again, in order to justify the imposing of sanctions on this West African nation that is struggling for balance after a seven-year devastating civil war. If the American and British media would have told the whole story, people would have seen the plan that was about to be perpetrated against President Charles Taylor and the people of Liberia. Time and space will not allow us to give the full details, but with enough being said; I will try to make it simple.

Of the four journalists, one journalist, Timothy Lambon, who was born in Zimbabwe when it was called Rhodesia, now claims to have dual citizenship with Britain and South Africa. He was found to be a helper of Ian Smith. Ian Smith fought against the Robert Mugabe liberation forces and was known to torture and kill many of these freedom fighters. When in 1980, the freedom fighters succeeded in liberating Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), he then moved to South Africa. While living in South Africa, Smith worked with the apartheid regime doing the same work he had done in Zimbabwe, torturing and killing the strugglers against the oppressive apartheid regime.

What happened in Liberia is that in the hotel room of the four journalist was found a script on which they were to base their report. This script said such ridiculous things as Charles Taylor had a fleet of Rolls Royces; he wanted to be the godfather of West Africa; he earned upwards to $300 million a year in diamonds, etc. The story was distorted at best, however, if they could have gotten footage and interviews to make the story believable, this would have been played in America and England. This would have set the stage for people to condemn the leadership of Liberia and its people as well as impose unjust sanctions.

There are several examples of unjust sanctions being placed on other countries as well. This scenario has been demonstrated before with the Sudan. Unjust sanctions have been imposed on the Sudan because America favored John Garang�not because they loved him, but because he held a key to the newly found oil fields of the Sudan. Therefore, the Sudanese government had to be condemned as an oppressive, extremist, Islamic government that was killing and enslaving poor Christians in the south. Another example is with Libya in which they were accused of the Pan Am bombing and afterwards sanctions were imposed. This caused the Libyan people to suffer and to lose over $30 billion over the period of these sanctions. Now that the trail is unraveling and it looks as though Libya will be cleared of the charges, this was all another attempt to create an atmosphere to justify the sanctions. Now we are hearing talk of sanctions against Zimbabwe.

This same kind of propaganda is being used today against Liberia and Zimbabwe. Therefore, the whole story must be told in order that the Africans living abroad can recognize the design and scheme against African leaders and governments that do not play ball with the west or refuse to become boys for America, England and other nations in Europe.

(Akbar Muhammad is the International Representative of the Nation of Islam and is based in Accra, Ghana.)