Monrovia, Aug. 7 -- Coleman's statement, posted to his personal Facebook page, reads less like a routine institutional update and more like a man answering a question nobody asked him directly, because everybody has been asking it indirectly for weeks. "Criminal organizations thrive where fear, silence, and institutional weakness prevail. They will not prevail in Liberia again," he wrote. "The Liberia National Police will not be intimidated, distracted, or deterred from enforcing the law."

By Rodney D. Sieh, rodney.sieh@frontpageafricaonline.com

He was explicit about where his loyalties sit, in language built to preempt exactly the kind of insinuation that has followed him for weeks: "Our commitment is not to personalities, political in...