Hearing the Cries for Liberty

From China’s vast prison world to the dank cells of Latin America and steamy compounds of Africa, the voices of political protest are muzzled but not forgotten.

Wang Dan, a leader of China’s Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989, remains behind bars, his latest appeal contemptuously rejected early this month. In Peru, Human Rights Watch reports, hundreds of peasants pass through so-called “faceless courts” on dubious charges of terrorism. The rights group notes that this situation marks an improvement in Peruvian justice.

Nowhere has justice been more skewed than Nigeria, whose once vibrant and robust free press has become a casualty of Gen. Sani Abacha’s corrupt and illegal regime. During its three years in power, numerous journalists have been jailed and publications silenced. The military dictatorship has nailed the door shut on democratic debate.

After the Sunday Magazine, an important Lagos journal, published a story on an alleged coup against Abacha in 1995, the military government tried Christine Anyanwu, the publisher and editor, before a secret military tribunal and sentenced her to 15 years in prison. The magazine ceased publication. Anyanwu is isolated, reportedly suffering from malaria and malnutrition, and denied visits from her children, friends and lawyer.

Anyanwu is not the only journalist to be jailed in the West African country. Ben Charles Obi of Weekend Classique, George Mbah of Tell magazine and Kunie Ajibade of the News were among 40 Nigerians convicted and imprisoned by the same tribunal after the reported coup attempt.

Such is Abacha’s approach to governance. He is a heavy-handed autocrat whose primary instinct is suppression. Nigeria’s rightful president, Moshood Abiola, who was winning the 1993 election when the military annulled the process, has been imprisoned along with thousands of other Nigerians, both ordinary and influential. Their only crime has been supporting democracy.

Steps similar to the international sanctions that helped to prod South Africa to democracy were contemplated last year by the United States, some European powers, South Africa and other African nations when the Abacha regime hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa, a prominent writer and environmentalist, along with eight of his backers. But no broad international pressure materialized. Abacha got away with murder.

These examples of justice denied should be noted by Americans. With few exceptions we have been spared these particular abuses of democratic ideals. But like the human rights activists abroad who chronicle such matters, we should keep watch.