By PV staff writers.
An incident reported in one of the Freetown newspapers, the Global Times, has led to intense tongue-wagging and comuputer keyboard clacking among Sierra Leoneans living abroad especially those in North America and Europe.
According to the Global Times, former president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (photo), the man who handed over the reins of government in 2007 to current president Ernest Koroma, was recently denied a visa to enter the United States by the US embasy in Freetown, through their consular officer. The paper went on to say the embassy did not give any reason for the denial. Kabbah’s wife, Isata, is however a frequent visitor to the US.
Some Sierra Leoneans in the various internet fora and listservs are angry that a former Sierra Leonean head of state is being denied a visa by an American embassy official; an incident, if true, they consider an affront to the dignity of the position of former head of state of Sierra Leone. One Sierra Leonean even called for the immediate deportation of the embassy official concerned as "persona non grata."
Other Sierra Leoneans are less outraged and more cautious, arguing that the United States has the right to refuse a visa to anybody just as Sierra Leone has the same right. One Sierra Leonean has even gone further to speculate that the US is in the process of investigating Kabbah, who, while in office, had a close relationship with the embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
A retired Sierra Leonean diplomat however says the whole incident might just be a very unfortunate mistake or snafu that is likely to be resolved soon.
Meanwhile another contributor to the discussion has this to say:
"From what I have heard, the problem is that President Kabbah applied for the visa through the Consular section in Freetown. If he had applied to the U.S. State Department through the Sierra Leone Foreign Ministry he would have gotten it without any problem."
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