Abdulai Mansaray: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 August 2025:
As controversial and debatable as it sounds, hate and revenge have become the palm oil with which politics is eaten today. Revenge politics has now become trendy. What makes is scary is how this has become the modus operandi for most worldly known democracies. (Photo above: Palestinian lives ruined with impunity).
Take Donald Trump’s America, which used to be the yardstick by which the credentials of most democracies were measured. Today, its democracy lies in ruins as we see its foundations demolished with perfect impunity and acceptance.
Even the courts that have overall constitutionally “ordained” authority are being shredded to pieces in today’s Trump world. But as America loses the moral and political right to preach democracy to even political dictators, the fear of the disintegration of democracy has never been more alarming.
Trump’s second coming has been largely characterised by “revenge politics”. We see him mounting attacks and lawsuits against anyone and everyone that even gave him a bad look while out of office. Whether they have merit or not, defies logic.
As part of Trump’s dismantling process of democracy, he “has ordered the State Department to overlook International Human Rights abuses” (the intercept-(08,08,2025) In the officially called Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, it states that the State Department was told to cut out from its human rights reports information on election integrity, corruption, and the expulsion of refugees.
The United States uses the Country Reports, the annual documents that are required by law in its Judicial, Legislative and Executive Branches of government “as a resource for shaping policy and guiding decisions, informing diplomatic engagements, and determining the allocation of foreign aid and security sector assistance” (the intercept).
According to information, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (DRL), the reports will no longer “call out governments for abuses like restrictions on free and fair elections, significant corruption, or serious harassment of domestic or human rights organisations”.
This means that the reports will turn a blind eye to the forcible expulsion of refugees or asylum seekers to countries where they may face torture, persecution, or other forms of human rights abuses. It also means that even countries with notoriously horrific human rights abuse records will get a clean bill of health from the DRL and make them suitable as refugee recipients.
One of the overriding factors for this sudden change is Trump’s need to execute his policy of mass deportation, which was a signature campaign mantra and raison d’etre for returning to the White House.
So, where do refugees come from?
Refugees are the creation of natural disasters such as famine and floods, but over 90% of those are the products of wars, uprisings, political tensions, interregna etc. Ironically, over 90% of those wars are generated by America and its allies as provocateurs, interventionists, “peacekeepers”, regime changers and “protectors and high priests of democracy”.
With the exception of human traffickers who have found a niche market in human suffering and have economic migrants as willing but unavoidable customers, the majority of displaced, persecuted, asylum seekers and refugees are the direct concoctions of the foreign policies of America and its allies.
Check out the number of asylum seekers and refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, Lebanon, etc and look for the common denominator for the causality.
Faced with unprecedented numbers of asylum and refugee seekers, Trump rightfully needs to address this problem. But should his local problem be solved by shredding the very human rights and protection from human rights abuses, that the United Nations had declared as sacrosanct and at the expense of humanity?
Under the Human Rights Act, asylum seekers, refugees and people in general cannot be sent back to where they have fled persecution, torture and other human right abuses. Third state persons and those without identifications such as passports, cannot be deported without proofs of identity.
The US has revoked the memo on “non-refoulment”, (derived from a French word for “return”), which forbids sending people to places where they are at risk of harm. Therefore, the new directive for the DRL means that asylum seekers, refugees, illegal immigrants etc could now be sent to such third countries in spite of their human rights abuse records. In effect, the US will be engaged in human rights laundering, just like money laundering.
With the US frantically negotiating, leveraging and using diplomatic arm twisting to get countries to accept non-citizens to their countries, is the US creating a global gulag? Since Trump came to power in January 2025, more than 8,100 people have been sent to 3rd world countries, and among the 13 countries with such arrangement, 12 of them have been cited for significant human rights abuses.
What does this mean for democracy and democratic institutions worldwide?
In Oumar Farouk Sesay’s article “The rise of the imperial Presidency and its fallout in Sierra Leone”, (Sierraleonetelegraph.com /0708/25), he reminds us that as “America unravels its own democratic fabric, it sends a dangerous message to fledgling democracies: that democracy is expendable when inconvenient and that power is the only prize worth preserving”. Oumar finds such a message “disturbingly potent, and that Sierra Leone now has willing listeners to it.
Recently, Miles Taylor, former Department of Homeland Security turned whistleblower in Trump’s first administration said he’s surprised by the “breakneck pace” at which democracy is being dismantled in the name of revenge. Taylor stated that what worries him most is “what Trump hasn’t done yet”. Even though the founders of American democracy warned about the dangers of revenge, America is now living it. That is what makes Trump’s revenge spree against his “foes” “a process of punishment”.
Revenge politics and the fear of revenge
In many countries and especially on the African continent, there is growing feeling of “learned helplessness”. This is coming from the by-products of political apathy. The political atmosphere around the world these days is gripped by anxieties around revenge politics. The fear of being a victim of revenge is fast becoming normal.
In Brazil, former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro was charged and placed under house arrest on August 4, for violation of judicial measures ahead of his trial. In Sierra Leone, former president Ernest B. Koroma, was charged with treason and other offences in connection with an attempted coup. Last month, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in the Trump administration released a catalogue of documents that she said “implicate Obama and members of his administration for “Treasonous” behaviour (a crime punishable by death in the US.) during the 2016 election.
The practice of “going after” former leaders of states is not a new concept. Accountability is a significant pillar of democracy and people should be held accountable for their actions or inactions. However, and sadly so, irrespective of the merits of individual cases, irrespective of genuine and clear reasons for seeking accountability, most of these cases are wildly regarded or described as witch hunts.
Globally, they are now widely seen as REVENGE POLITICS. This practice is now perfected by the Trump administration, as trust between politicians and the electorate becomes the first causality of this growing trend. Those who engage in “revenge politics” have shown little or no compunction to attack and dismantle democracy, their respective constitutions and the rule of law, in their attempts to accomplish their petty- minded agendas.
In Sierra Leone today, there is an atmosphere of desperation wafting its way along the political corridors and the landscape. It is three years away from 2028 elections but already, there is a feeling of desperation and anxiety noticeably evident. Recently, the whip of the opposition APC party Honourable Abdul Karim Koroma issued a strong warning, that “Sierra Leone’s peace depends on avoiding the controversies that marred the 2023 elections.”
He was reported as saying that “The fabric of the nation not going into war after 2028 is pinned on the 2028 election” (Sierraloaded-04/08/25). In the recent opening of parliament, the nation witnessed a section in the well of parliament spontaneously break into a song traditionally reserved for anywhere else but the seat of government.
The First Lady Fatima Bio was singled out for breaking centuries old customs and protocols. Even the attire of some people for such an occasion left a lot to be desired. Some of the behaviours on show were downright kindergarten and left you wondering whether there is need for adult supervision.
Is there a sense of learned helplessness and hopelessness, wrapped in a shroud of desperation in our country? Is there a fear of revenge politics that is subconsciously fermenting within our political psyches?
Where leadership flaws persist, it is easier to be cynical than work hard on building relationships that can have more positive outcomes. It is an open secret though, that the SLPP would be hopeful and desperate to win the champions league trophy for a straight third time, just like the opposition APC would be desperate to win back the coveted trophy.
We cannot deny that there is a sense of desperation to win in both camps. As meaningful citizens, the hope and prayers are that such manifested desperation and anxiety are not driven by the desires for revenge. We hope that such desperation is not borne out of the wedlock of apathy and learned helplessness.
By the way, if you can find any quote where Donald Trump used the word “Democracy”, since 20/01/25, you’re a winner. Ping me. Don’t forget to turn the light off when you leave the room.
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