AFRICAN PANORAMA
WATCHING THROUGH THE BIRDS' EYES
THE WOEWIYU TESTIMONY TO THE LIBERIAN TRC THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
Government Officials present, members of the Clergy, Chiefs, Elders, Fellow Liberians,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Thank you for providing me the opportunity to make my contribution to this National Reconciliation forum. Let me at the outset thank and give praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for His many blessings and undying love for the Liberian nation and leaders. I am indeed grateful to Him for His countless blessings.
You have asked me to make a presentation on the “contemporary history of the conflict, (1979-2003) under the theme: Understanding the Conflict through its principal events and Actors”.
APOLOGY
Before my testimony, I must register my deepest regrets and apology to the Liberian people for the loss of innocent lives, destruction, cruelty, lawlessness and the heinous crimes committed by individual Liberians and foreigners alike during what is now known as the most engulfing internecine war in recent memory.
Indeed, the madness generated by the 14-year long conflict in our country is regrettable as it unfolds the darkest page in our contemporary history. This madness, it must be born in mind, was played out by various actors - Liberians and foreigners for their selfish/narrow interests.
Liberation and regional peace were ostensibly the watchwords of these unscrupulous actors. Yet, without diminishing the horrors of the war and the enormous loss of lives, I have to say that I owe no apologies for my involvement in what was initially a legitimate uprising against a brutal dictatorship. In other words, I strongly felt it was necessary to rid our country of the evil of dictatorship and reconstitute democracy. I rightly felt so as a Christian believing that God the Almighty sometimes authorizes His people to wage just wars against evil for the common good. The Holy Bible says so. So does the Holy Koran. Yes, as a Christian I firmly believed then that a just military uprising against the Doe dictatorship with righteous commitments would eventually yield the common good of our nation.
It bears repeating to say our initiative to wage a bush war - however the unforeseeable consequences - was an honest attempt to rid our nation a brutal dictator and replace it with a democratic leader. The problem is, the initiative was transformed into anarchy for greed and power.
As I speak to you now, my heart goes down for an innocent group of Fanti people (Ghanaian immigrants) in Grand Bassa County who, as the uprising turned into anarchy, were rounded up by the NPFL forces and put in what amounted to a concentration camp called “Flamingo Camp”, a logging village in Nimba County . By the time I came to know of the camp, some heinous acts including rape and murder had been committed there.
However, with my ardent urging Mr. Taylor saw to it that the camp was broken up. Some of the victims fled to Ghana while others returned to Buchanan. I deeply apologize to these outstanding Ghanaian immigrants in Liberia. My heart also goes out to the ethnic Krahns of Grand Gedeh County who may have suffered as a result of a statement attributed to me during the war. Immediately following my break up with Taylor, NPFL radio maliciously aired an utterance in my voice saying: “a good Khran man is a dead Khran man”.
The truth is, the utterance was a distorted version of a sentence in which I told Enoch Dokolea that Taylor was fooling himself if he thought he could buy the Khran people with any amount of money. In actual fact, I said to Dokolea: "Didn’t Taylor say the only good Khran man was a dead Khran man, and that the only good Doe was a dead Doe?"
At one point, Taylor was bankrolling Roosevelt Johnson and his ULIMO-J against Alhaji Kromah’s ULIMO-K. Some outstanding personalities in the Khran community at the time were actually flocking to Gbarnga and collecting large sums of money under the guise of peace building. Thank God, some Khrans had heard the statement from Taylor directly before it was attributed to me. In any case, I must register my sincerest
apology to the Khran People who in fact are cousins to my Bassa ethnic group. ;
Key Contributors to the Cause of the Liberian People
As I humbly stand here before the world, I must express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to a number of personalities and countries for having readily come to our aid as we struggled to get out of our self-inflicted predicament. I humbly join His Grace Archbishop Desmond Tutu in saying “ we too must remember those
who helped us in our time of need”.
My deepest gratitude goes to the United States of America for its parental relationship with our country from birth to date. Personally, the United States has provided me a lifelong opportunity to transform as a child born on a roasted banana leaf to a well educated man of a fairly American middle class lifestyle.
My 40 years of continuous stay and pursuits of studies in the greatest democracy in the World has taught me something that some people inside and outside the United States do not readily realize and understand. I am referring to the distinction between the American People on the one hand and the American Government on
the other hand. The American People are the kindest and most compassionate human beings on God’s green earth.
The Government on the other hand is a machine made of systems. The People and the Government are not always in full agreement over every issue, especially foreign Policy. The US Government works on the basis of input and output. The relationship of the United States to Liberia has always been like that of an elephant and a mosquito.
Ever since its founding as a nation-state, Liberia has not been able to put into place a functional system of government that is comparable with that of the United States. As you can see from the mascots or symbols of the two major American political parties, one party is represented by a “donkey” reflecting humility and tenacity while the other depicts an “Elephant” symbolizing ultimate strength.
Ambassador Herman Cohen, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, once told me that I should picture the American Government as a gigantic Elephant. To get this giant animal to look your way, he said, requires an enormous effort and fortitude. Since then, I have always pictured the United States Government as such a great beast, which is kind but can be ruthless.
Following the death of President William V.S. Tubman, a mastermind of a 27 –year long benevolent dictatorship and a dedicated stooge of the US Government, the Tolbert Administration ushered in what was apparently a progressive agenda for economic development and democracy in Liberia. Unfortunately, the Tolbert initiative
was interpreted in Washington as an affront to the elephant.
Amidst a raging cold war, the elephant could not stomach the progressive posturing of a Liberian president with captivating slogans like “self-reliance", "Get rid of American PL480 Rice”. Barely nine years later, President Tolbert’s disemboweled body was soon found on the grounds of the Executive Mansion at dawn.
The memorable event of April 12, 1980 marks the beginning of the vicious cycle of violence that has come to characterize the contemporary Liberian political scene. Interestingly, such undemocratic undertaking has always enjoyed the implicit support of the US Government. And the removal of the tyrannical, barbaric Doe regime was no exception. The only difference was that it culminated into a full blown internecine war of very tragic proportions.
A very few American citizens are aware of the fact that their government recruited, armed and financed a band of illiterate non-commissioned officers of the Liberian Army to violently overthrow a constituted civilian administration; and that their government allowed this group of untutored young people to sit at the helm of political power in Liberia, a country some times described as a microcosmic American state in Africa.
Our recent history is replete with appalling instances of the misrule of this imposed regime. Its brutalities and the untold sufferings of the Liberian masses soon became common knowledge around the world.
By the mid 1980s, every peaceful attempt aimed at bringing around the regime to reason had failed. Yet efforts on the part of Liberians in the United States to bring the brutalities to the attention of the US Government had been apparently fruitless.
By the time the Elephant was prodded to change course in Liberia, the astounding damage to human dignity in the country had been irreparably done. When the Elephant finally turned to Liberia and saw what the Doe regime did with its generous giving, it only had to issue an order to remove (by any means necessary) the monster they had created.
Amidst what turned out to be an embarrassment, the elephant spurred exiled politicians to remove the regime by their own volition. The elephant wanted ill-armed civilians to remove a regime that had at its command an American-trained army with a stockpile of sophisticated American weapons. The undertaking was like taking hot melted steel from a blazing furnace with bare hands.
Before the war, the elephant actually gave tacit support to a dozens or so coup plotters who failed to overthrow the regime. Hence, when Charles Taylor broke free the famous maximum security jail, he mobilized a group of civilians and led another attempt to remove the dictator. He succeeded.
The machine soon resumed relations with Liberia when all was done and well. Yet, it was business as usual. No changes were effected. But why? The answer is simple. It is simply because we are not aware of the fact that you get what you put in this giant machine. We want democracy, don’t we? We must design it by ourselves and urge the American Government to support us. If we leave it up to the machine, it will tell us we need a new army with more sophisticated weapons. That is what is going on now in spite of the devastating impact of a 14-year long anarchy. ;
I should also thank President Blaise Compaore and his late comrade Thomas Sankara of the Republic of Bokina Faso for having granted me once-in a life- time audience back in 1987. The purpose of that meeting was for me to bring to their attention the dire situation we Liberians found ourselves in at that time. As President of the Union of Liberian Association in the Americas at that time, I spoke with authority assuring them that this was not a military adventure. I told them that neither Charles Taylor nor I had any military experience.
I told them that our campaign to put Pressure on General Doe had two phases. One was a possible civilian uprising which included the use of military tactics and strategies with which we would be able to defeat his brutal army; and that the second phase was the mobilization of political stake holders of our nation, most of whom had fled into exile. I assured them that the former phase would be headed by Charles Taylor while an internationally known lady called Ellen Johnson Sirleaf would be in charge of the latter phase.
The Bokinabe leaders made it clear to us that under no condition would they support a situation that would evolve into another military junta. Hence, President Compaore initially refused to provide any weapons for the uprising in Liberia . He rather preferred providing a refuge for his fellow Africans who were oppressed by a ruthless military dictator in their own country.
Other countries including America, Nigeria, Senegal and Britain did the same for Liberians who were driven out of their country by Doe. Those who out of sheer ignorance have persistently condemned President Blaise Compaore should ask themselves the following questions:
1. If President Blaise Compaore had armed the NPFL rebel forces consisting of the first 12 men led by Prince Johnson to invade Liberia, how come these men did not have a single weapon when they crossed the St. John River at Butuo on the night of December 23, 1989?
2. Do people think that the story of the two single barrels hunting raffles seized from two hunters in the historic morning of December 24, 1989 by Prince Johnson and company and used to capture the AFL- Butuo garrison and its massive cache of weapons is a cover up story?
I must also with all my heart thank President Muammar Kaddafi of the Arab Republic of Libya for his foresight on Africa liberation. Not only did this true pan-Africanist support the liberation of Liberia from the despotic regime of Samuel Doe by providing necessary training to Liberians who were willing to sacrifice their lives to fight, but the Libyan leader had always committed his life and the resources of his nation to the Liberian people's struggle for democracy and social justice.
My fellow compatriots, we Africans rarely remember or acknowledge the fact that immediately following African independence the former colonial masters embarked on a systematic process of imposing military regimes on the former colonies for continuous control. Remember the Congo crisis that brought Monbutu to power and snuffed life out of Lumumba? Militarization of politics was part of the neo colonialist scheme hatched on the African continent.
For a while, Liberia, the oldest so called independent nation in Africa, posed no threat to America because its slave descendant elites identified themselves as Americans in Africa, and consistently pledged their allegiance to mother America .
It was the late President William R. Tolbert who dared steered clear this de facto neo-colonialist relationship between the United States of America and Liberia. His utterance that “ Liberia was a true member of the non-alignment movement of the comity of nations” was more pronounced in the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and its allies.
Tolbert's somewhat defiant move spelled belligerence and disloyalty to the Western Masters. Consequently, he was violently replaced in 1980 by a military regime comprising of semi-literate soldiers, a bulk of whom could barely pronounce the names of the deadliest weapons their American trainers placed in their hands.
I speak of President Kaddafi with due respect and admiration confining myself to my personal experience regarding his philosophy of African liberation: that every people must be prepared to free themselves from the shackles of oppression.
Essentially, it is Kaddafi's view that each man is an army for himself. All he needs is the requisite training in the use of the weaponry, tactics and strategies which the Military Empires use to dominate the African Continent.
The Libyan leader has a point. It seems that the Western powers have had a neo-colonialist objective to militarize Africa . For example, the American Soldiers of Fortune, the British------, the French Foreign Legion, all provide the same type of training against perceived enemies in the Third World.
While I am not at liberty to divulge details of the training in Libya , it must be noted that President Kaddafi was never ever committed to Charles Taylor or anyone of us to start a war in our country at the expense of the Libyan People. My answers to a few questions will clarify the point.
1. If President Kaddafi was committed to Charles Taylor and the NPFL, how come the 250 men who were under the command of Dr. Boimah Fahnbulleh were being trained while the war was raging in Liberia? The fact is, Fahnbulleh band was another group of free men who also wanted to rid Liberia of the Doe dictatorship. The story goes that Fahnbulleh promised the Libyan leader that he would not complicate the Liberian situation by starting counter insurgency against what was already in progress.
Fahnbulleh had no intention of keeping his promise, unfortunately. In June of 1990, he moved his band to Freetown , Sierra Leone to launch a counter insurgency against the NPFL. Fahnbulleh and his men first went to Ghana after their training and were later transferred to Freetown . The late Cooper Teah was the Commanding General of the Fahnbulleh group.
Relying on this massive force, Dr. Fahnbulleh became over confident and cocky. He was the only Liberian political personality who refused to sign the joint communiqué signed by all the political Leaders present in Sierra Leone. By their signatures, the leaders endorsed a proposal by the US Government that “the NPFL should form an Interim Government to replace the Doe Regime”. As I will detail later, ECOWAS high jacked the proposal in its misguided and lopsided intervention in the Liberian conflict.
2. The training that the NPFL men were part of in Libya consisted of various groups from Sierra Leone, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia (not members of the NPFL), Bokina Faso, Cameroon, etc. What do you make of that in terms of President Kaddafi’s motive? Training Ghanaians, Bokinabes, Cameroonians - nationalities of countries with which his country had cordial relations - was remarkable.
3. Could people not even imagine that if President Kaddafi with the enormous military capacity of his country had initially armed the NPFL to invade Liberia the war would have been over before it got started?
For the purpose of this testimony, I would like to authoritatively make this declaration. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia did not receive any weapons (i.e. pistol or raffle) from President Kaddafi when they launched the uprising in 1989.
Salute to the Honorable Gallant Men
I also want to take this opportunity to salute and thank those gallant men who voluntarily participated in the initial uprising at the perils of their lives. Their audacious effort was aimed at ridding our nation of a despotic regime in order to secure a just Liberia where Liberians would move freely.
I must also take this opportunity to salute other gallant Liberian men and women who subsequently waged genuine counter uprising to ensure that the cause for which our nation has lost thousands of it precious citizens did not get lost by the emergence of another dictatorship. Sekou Damateh and Thomas Nimley, Kudos!
Condemnation
I must also use this opportunity to condemn in the strongest terms those men and women who used the shadow of this legitimate uprising of the people to commit mass murders and destroy our scarce infrastructure. I was mortified when I read the testimony of a so-called former war lord who said that his faction’s involvement in the civil war was motivated by greed. That he and his comrades had been fighting for the Government of Sierra Leone as mercenaries. That apparently, they were paid with weapons to launch a counter offensive in Liberia.
The truth of the statement is that these fighters took over the diamond region of Liberia. In the fight over diamonds, the band metamorphosed into two groups. The second group moved into Lofa and connected its new empire to the Republic of Guinea where they had natural ethnic affinities. Liberia has jurisdiction to punish or forgive those who committed crimes under the guise of fighting a liberation war.
Pre-war Conditions
In 1980, a band of semi-literate, non-commissioned officers of the Liberian military sneaked into the Executive Mansion and assassinated President William Tolbert, our country's 18th president. The band, which comprised of indigenous Liberians (as opposed to settler Liberians), dubbed itself “The People’s Redemption” (PRC). No sooner had the PRC assumed the mantle of power than it tied 13 officials of the Tolbert administration to poles and publicly shot them to death on a beach-front. The former senior civil servants had been convicted on charges of rampant corruption following a mock trial by a military tribunal of inexperienced military men. Of course, none of the convicted men had been given the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law.
Many Liberians applauded this unprecedented change of command, because it suddenly ended 133-year settler oppression. Many Liberians also relished the open secret that Uncle Sam had a hidden hand in the plot to bring Tolbert down. Little did they realize that the Uncle Sam's supposed hidden hand in this unsavory event was not to bring democracy and prosperity to Liberia .
Yet I cannot blame Liberians for having failed to preventing this tragedy because they were caught up between the euphoria of the situation and their vulnerability to the ruthlessness of their new found liberators.
It is the so-called International Community and the US Government that must be blamed for the 1980 carnage. With its Embassy in Monrovia, the United States could have arrested the tragic event. US Embassy officials were actually spectators of this tragic event which they could have averted. Not a single protest voice of the international community was raised.
During the administration of President Tolbert, there was a burgeoning movement for democracy and social justice in Liberia. Liberians were agitating for civil liberties, participatory democracy and multipartyism. By the mid 1970s, student activists for democracy had been in full bloom at the University of Liberia. In the United States, the Liberian Community was very vocal through protest marches and sit-ins at the Liberian Embassy in Washington and the Liberian consulate in New York. Indeed, Liberians had been making progress in the struggle for participatory democracy. The violent event in 1980 was thus an icing on the Liberian political cake. It provided unfortunate opportunity for our former slave masters to eventually put Liberia under a military regime as was the pervasive case in post-colonial Africa.
The United States Government, followed by the international community, unreservedly recognized the military regime in Monrovia. For the first time in the 133-year history Liberia, the United States Aid to Liberia amounted to five hundred million dollars, a bulk of which was in military hardware - although Liberia was not at war with any of her neighbors. This figure was more than all the combined aids Liberia had received from the US in little over a century. One needn't be a rocket scientist to have been able to discern the signals from the United States that “Liberia should have gone military a long time ago".
Professor Gus Liebenow was indeed right when he wrote that, with the advent of the PRC government, Liberia had regressed from what he called “Evolution of Privilege” (Americo Liberian Oligarchy) to “Revolution of Privilege” (Revolution of a band of uneducated military men) In more metaphorical terms, Liberians went from the frying pan to the fire.
A Regime of Tyranny Ensues
By 1983, Master sergeant Samuel Doe had tightened his grip on power. He had soon become General Doe. Dangerously paranoid, the General had summarily executed some disgruntled fellow coup makers and chased others into exile. He had then banned political activities in the country. Manning the suppressive machine was a death squad that had been carrying out secret killings of civilian dissidents.
In 1984, General Doe ordered armed men to invade the University of Liberia. The drunkard, drugged soldiers raped female students en masse, killed and buried students in mass graves. The following year, he ordered the invasion of Nimba County, where soldiers massacred ethnic Gios and Manos.
The Doe regime also tortured and arbitrarily detained prominent opposition leaders. Ellen Sirleaf, a political activist of some national and international renown, was arrested, tortured and violated for having criticized the regime in the United States.
As president of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas, I in 1984 invited Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to serve as keynote speaker at the organization's annual convention in Philadelphia. In a fiery speech, Madam Sirleaf criticized the Doe regime telling the Liberian audience: “our country is currently being run by fools and idiots”. When Sirleaf later returned home, she was arrested, detained, tortured and violated.
In an effort to secure Sirleaf's release, ULAA under my leadership petitioned General Doe through Mr. Seward Boones, his Consul General in New York . A few days later, I got a message from Mr. Boones saying “ If you call yourself a man, you should go to Monrovia so you and the Chief can measure pricks”.
Besides Sirleaf, Dr. Amos Sawyer, a University Professor and a well known politician, was placed under an extended house arrest in Monrovia. In addition to the brutal clampdown on civil leaders, General Doe had the constitution amended with only two noticeable changes. One was the age limit which was reduced from 36 to 32 which he claimed was his age. Another was the term of office which went from four to six years. Following the 1985 General elections in which he changed his lifestyle from a military dictator to a pin-stripe suited tyrant, opposition figures and activists were driven into exile.
Fruitless Efforts to Civilize Doe
Faced with this brutal regime in Monrovia, Liberians everywhere did everything humanly possible to draw world attention to their plight. No effort was spared in calling for the intervention of the United States Government which, in spite of the misrule, continued to give the junta massive military and financial support. However, by the mid eighties persistent agitation and the mobilization of public opinion by the Liberians in the United States and elsewhere had begun to yield gradual and progressive response from Washington. At long last, the US Government had terminated direct aid to the brutal regime.
Meanwhile, every peaceful effort aimed at bringing General Doe to reason and adopt acceptable human rights practices in the country fell on deaf ears. At one point, Doe announced that what would take him out of the Liberian Mansion was the same weapon that took him there.
Thus, it became apparent that the only language Doe understood was the language of violence. Between 1981 and 1989 several foiled attempts masterminded by some disgruntled and estranged members of the PRC were made to overthrow him.
The Stolen 1985 Elections
Some of us had this vague belief that the 1985 General Elections would have seen General Doe out of the Executive Mansion. To our chagrin, Doe decided to change his age and dress from a military uniform to a pin stripe suit. Although he lost the elections, Doe made sure he was declared a winner. You may remember Elections Commission Chairman Harmon's declaration that Doe was democratically elected.
The Justification for the 1989 Civil Uprising
We must roundly condemn the excesses, destruction of life and property and immeasurable suffering of the Liberian masses that the 1989 civil uprising has caused our nation. However, the primary objective of the uprising launched by the NPFL was to rid Liberia of a brutal military dictatorship. Indeed, the affront to the brutal regime of Samuel Doe was necessary, however the tragic outcome. The Liberian people had no other alternative but to rise up and rid themselves of this evil burden.
The Military Aspect of the Uprising
The military aspect of the popular uprising of the Liberian People against the tyrannical regime of President Samuel Doe which commenced on December 24, 1989 started with 12 men of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia led by Prince Johnson, the commander. None of the 12 was armed. The only weapon they had was commando training. As I have already mentioned, their real fighting weapons came from the AFL Contingent at the boarder of Butuo, Nimba County .
From my recollection, the fighting between Government forces and the NPFL had lasted for more than two months before any weapon was obtained from an external source. It is true to say Nimba County was fully under NPFL before external supplies of weapons were obtained. In fact, Prince Johnson had broke away from the group long before the first consignment of external supplies were obtained. His leaving the group actually necessitated the need to obtain supplies outside because he carried with him a large portion of the captured weapons from the Government forces ( AFL).
The US Government did not waste any time to bring the Liberian Government and the NPFL to the table. In February, the initial talks took place in Washington. They did not materialize because both parties could not reach a compromise.
Meeting of the Political Stake Holders
As I said earlier in this statement, the uprising had two phases: the political phase and the military phase. Please forgive me if I am not accurate on the specific dates of these occurrences that I am narrating in this testimony. What is important are the occurrences.
By March or so, the NPFL turned to the Political stake holders to hear their plans for a coalition government should the Doe Government fall under the weight of the Uprising. Madam Ellen Sirleaf, who was responsible for the political aspect, was asked to assemble political stake holders. The meeting took place at Taylor Major’s house in Virginia, USA . The meeting started with a heated argument because some of those present did not know the purpose of the meeting. Some thought the NPFL had sent me to beg the then ACDL fellows for support to the NPFL cause. Dr. Sawyer was one of the most vocal anti NPFL speakers at the initial stage of the meeting. His understanding was that I had come to beg for political support for the uprising. I realized that Dr. Sawyer and his ACDL friends had no clue about the political plans that was a component of the Uprising.
At this point that Madam Sirleaf intervened. She apologized and narrated the history of the uprising. She told the group, which included Dr. Tipoteh who had traveled from Europe to attend the meeting, that it was true that she had taken the responsibility to organize the political side of the uprising so that the stake holders would come up with a formula for the replacement of the Doe Regime with an acceptable political coalition government.
However, she continued, it was the secrecy associated with the more than two years of planning and execution of the uprising that kept her from assembling the political stake holders. Sawyer and others accepted this explanation and the meeting ended in an understanding that the stake holders would work cautiously to formulate a plan.
Leaving that meeting, I was baffled and disappointed because Charles Taylor had predicted all of this. He said - that the politicians would never ever agree to do a damn thing even if their lives depended on it. Anyhow, he let me live my illusion of a political coalition among Liberian politicians as he was afraid I would pull the platform from under him. Clearly if Madam Sirleaf had wanted to keep her end of the bargain (with more than two months since the uprising started in December) she could have worked with her fellow politicians for an acceptable formula.
Leaving the meeting at Taylor Major’s house, I rode with Madam Sirleaf who had in fact driven me to the meeting from my Washington Hotel. She suggested that we stop at a friend’s house as the friend had been longing to meet me in person. I agreed. We stopped at Mr. Chris Maxwell’s house. To my surprise, Mr.Taylor Major and Counselor Simpson, who had attended the meeting in Virginia, were already there.
After a brief exchange of pleasantry, Madam Sirleaf went straight to the heart of the reason why we had taken this detour. She said they had a plan which she wanted to put before me. She said, even though I was not in Liberia in 1985, with my blessing and hard work in the United States to bring about the election, the Liberian Action Party (LAP) won the election fair and square. Ellen said their plan was that the NPFL must give the government to LAP should the Doe Government fall under the weight of the uprising.
I was extremely irritated. I asked her as to why she did not bring that up at the meeting with the other stake holders. She said it did not matter, and that the others would accept that formula. I told them that I wanted no part of such a formula because it would lead to more confusion. After we parted, I left for Europe. To my surprise, she made a quick trip to Charles Taylor at the fighting front behind me and told him that their plan was the plan; and that I supported it. I have narrated this very story in my writings in the past, and I am sure it created a sore spot for Madam Sirleaf who is now the President of our nation. I have no intention of putting her on the spot.
However, as we try to find the root causes of our national calamities so that we can reconcile. In my view, this story of Madame Sirleaf duplicity is one of the root causes of the derailment of what started as a people’s uprising but resulted into a full blown civil war taking thousands of innocent lives. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if the Liberian politicians had taken a concerted and united approach for political outcome of the uprising, the International Community especially the United States would have supported such a formula. Instead, politicians like Madam Sirleaf kept a close - fist - hidden agenda with the determination that her political party should be the sole beneficiary of the uprising regardless how many people would perish. Sirleaf indeed cold-heartily hatched a self-conceited machinations which led to the gross delay of cessation of hostilities.
US Government effort to Mediate the Dispute in Sierra Leone
Hostilities continued between Government Forces and the NPFL, without any negotiations, until the United States Government made another effort to mediate the dispute in Sierra Leone. In June of 1990, a meeting was called at the US Embassy in Freetown. Following the failure of that meeting which ended in an impasse, the United States Government floated the suggestion that the NPFL should form an interim government, assuring that President Doe would give way for the government to be installed. My immediate reaction to the proposal as Chief Negotiator and Spokesman for the NPFL was the fact that the NPFL was only one of the power elements of the uprising; and therefore, we did not have the authority to make such a decision without the knowledge and consent of the political stake holders .
By 1990, I had been out of Liberia for more than 20 years and my knowledge of the Liberian political landscape was based on what we had been fed by the exiled politicians whose woes were all attributed to Samuel Doe and his disaffection for politicians. I also felt that people like Ellen Sirleaf had made so much personal sacrifices and that it would be unpatriotic for the uprising to usher in another junta, be it civilian or military. I also made a promise to keep to the American Government, African Leaders like Muammar Kaddafi and Blaise Compaore that the uprising would usher in a government based on the taste of the political stake holders.
I therefore asked the US Embassy to facilitate a meeting with the political leaders who were present in Sierra Leone so that the proposal could be put before them with the hope of getting their approval. Such meeting was held and an agreement was signed by the political leaders. They approved the American plan by which the NPFL would form an interim government and call for elections in a very short time. The only restriction imbedded in the American proposal was that Charles Taylor would not chair or lead such interim government.
Dr. Sawyer and Madam Sirleaf sent their commitments to the agreement in a letter. The only political personality in Sierra Leone who did not sign the agreement was Boimah Fahnbulleh who had just arrived there with his army of 250 men which I mentioned earlier. The Fahnbulleh story is for another time and place, but suffice it to, cockiness was the undoing of Fahnbulleh’s ambition for a counter insurgency. His Army was dismantled so fast, that he still might be figuring out today as to what really happened.
While my delegation was happily returning to base to present the proposal to Mr. Taylor and the NPFL leadership, we received a message that the ECOWAS Ministers would be meeting in Sierra Leone in a few days; and that the NPFL and the Government of Liberia were invited for a discussion on the Liberian matter. The meeting was scheduled for sometime in July. In spite of the signatures of political stake holders to the agreement, Charles Taylor expressed reservations about the agreement.
Some sycophants in the organization told him that this was a death trap for him simply because he was being denied the seat of the Presidency coming directly from the bush. One good thing was that he had a counter proposal. His proposal was that he would serve as leader of the interim government but would not run in the general election. Even though disappointed, I was hopeful we would find a way to end the carnage. Taylor also suggested that we should first hear what the ECOWAS leaders had to say before we made a final decision on the proposal.
At this point, I felt that I was losing it. The so-called political stake holders who had spurred on this bloodbath with the lamentation of the evils of the Doe Regime were no where to be found. They were living in the comfort of the United States working for the United Nations, World Bank and Western institutions.
By June of 1990, Prince Johnson had not surfaced even though internal clashes were taking place between his forces and the main body of the NPFL
The deadly intervention into the Liberian Conflict
In July of 1990, we returned to Freetown for the ECOWAS meeting. Their proposal was not one of mediation of the the dispute. They announced that ECOWAS authorities had approved of a plan to intervene and enforce peace militarily. By now there was no real government delegation. Most of those representing the government were not in contact with President Doe because they did not return to Liberian to confer with the President from the previous conference.
I tried fruitlessly to let the Ministers know that we had just reached what we considered a plausible formula for peace. I laid the proposal and the agreement by the Liberian political stake holders before the ECOWAS Foreign Ministers. Our official position to the intervention by the Regional Group was that they should join the conflict resolution process from where we were, work towards a seize fire between the Government and the NPFL , install the interim government and they could come in to assist with security and peace keeping . The Foreign Ministers were clear that their intention for calling us to the meeting was not to negotiate with us but to inform us as to what had been decided by the Authorities of ECOWAS; that is to intervene and stop the carnage and enforce peace. To my utter surprise the Foreign Minister of the Gambia who chaired the meeting was very boastful in saying that the NPFL should be aware that it was not the only party fighting against the Liberian Government. It was the first time I heard Prince Johnson mentioned as a faction with whom they apparently could do business with. I told them that Prince Johnson was not a separate faction, that he was estranged from the group due to some internal conflict. The Ministers responded that this was not their understanding.
My delegation returned to Liberia. Taylor and I agreed that I should go and meet with Madam Sirleaf and brief her on the fact that the ECOWAS Leaders which mostly comprised of the of five of the military dictators in the region were bent on compounding the Liberian problem by intervening with force. Taylor suggested that Madam Sirleaf should join us in Buchanan which was under his control - with no fighting near - so that we could hold an all-Liberian Conference with the Chiefs, Elders and come up with an interim government. I admit, we did not think that the ECOWAS would do such an unthinkable thing as invading a country by force in the name of peace enforcement. They were clear that Doe was no longer a factor.
I believe it was sometime in late June that I met with Madam Sirleaf. Following a lengthy discussion of the situation, she agreed to the meeting in Buchanan. She named all of the personalities she wanted present. First and foremost was Dr. Baron Tarr who would be coming in from Lesotho, Dr. Togar Mckintosh Gaywea and Dr. Clinton both of whom would be coming in, leaving their posts in the United Nations in Ethiopia. We planned to meet in the Ivory Coast, either rent a plane or travel by road to Buchanan. I left her in Washington and went ahead to the Ivory Coast where I met Drs. Clinton and Gaywea. It was my first time meeting Clinton but I knew Gaywea. Dr. Tarr was on his way for all I knew. We waited for close to the appointed date of her arrival. But she called to say that there was a change of plan. She explained that the ECOWAS Leaders wanted the meeting in Banju. The question was how could ECOWAS want a meeting in Banju and not invite the NPFL. We tried to convince her to come and let us go and meet with Charles Taylor and the Leaders of the NPFL to discuss the change. She flatly refused and stop communicating with us. Dr. Clinton went back to Ethiopia and Togar continue mission inside the NPFL. He had quit his job with the UN at her request to come and take over the political aspects of the NPFL and he was not turning back.
I was not shock later that the request that carry a meeting of Liberians to Banju for the expressed purpose of forming an interim government came from Madam Sirleaf. After I left her in Washington to go ahead and wait for her in the Ivory coast, she held a meeting at the home of Ethebird Cooper and a petition was sign by some parties there representing political stake holders including our own NPFL representative, Randall Cooper indicating that the NPFL agreed to the meeting to be held in Banju. Randall explanation was that Madam Sirleaf fooled him in signing the paper. He knew her to be such a high person in the organization that he did not think she could mislead him. She told him that Taylor and I approved the change and we were all going to the Gambia .
In early august 22 persons including Prince Johnson went to the Gambia to form an interim government. I took upon myself to fly into the Gambia to admonish the fellows forming a government to the exclusion of the NPFL which controls 95 percent of the country would only prolong the conflict.
Upon arrival at the airport that morning, I was detained by Captain Yaya Jammie the current president of the Gambia. He said I did not have an invitation to attend the conference that was in session. This instruction came directly from the ECOWAS authority . They knew that if I had reached the meeting cite, I would have stopped the formation of the government by 22 people who had no authority to do so. Even though President Doe was still alive and in the Mansion, The five military dictators, Jerry Rawlings, Ibrahim Babangida, Dawuda Jawara, Lasana Conte and Momo need some semblance of Liberian authority to enter the conflict by force. From nine in the morning when I arrived in the Gambia , I stayed at the Airport Until six PM and was taken to a Motel on the other side of town until the election of Sawyer was over. I tried leaving the Gambia that very day and that was not possible either because Yaya held on to my passport.
A few days after the Sawyer government was formed ECOMOG the ECOWAS peace enforcement forces blasted their way into Monrovia . They approached the Port of Monrovia which was partially under Prince Johnson blasting from war ships, disregarding the lives of innocent civilians in the Bushrod Island area. Tens of Liberians were killed or wounded from the ECOMOG days of basting their way in.
While ECOMOG was blasting from the sea with long range weapon never before seen in Liberia, Prince Johnson and his forces were blasting from his base in Caldwell with weapons ferried to him by ECOMOG to help with their invasion. True to their words they had elevated Prince Johnson to a full fledge warring faction against the NPFL. I must postulate here that without ECOWAS and its invasion motive and desire, Prince Johnson would have remain a disgruntled breakaway member of the NPFL with whom Peace could have been made.
The point I am establishing here is the fact that the so called Peace Makers entered the conflict with the combined armed forces of Nigeria , Ghana , Guinea and Sierra Leone . To support their military schemes, they created their first warring faction, Prince Johnson and his notorious INPFL.
General Babangida was very clear establishing the motive prior to the secret meeting of the five Generals to conclude their plan to intervene in the Liberian conflict primarily to defeat the uprising of a rag tag civilian army against a fellow military dictator. After all, General Doe was his personal prodigy. He said in a public statement that “it is a bad precedent for the civilian to attack the army and try to over throw it. It could become a trend in the sub-region”, he concluded hence, when ECOMOG secured parts of Monrovia as a beach head, they realized that they had violated all international standard of peace-making. The so-called ECOWAS initiative did not have any international blessing, not the OAU, not the United Nations. They were not in the country with the knowledge and consent of the two parties to the dispute, President Doe and the NPFL.
They needed a Liberian authority to grant them some status of force agreement to be in Liberia. How it came about is not known and that is not important in my testimony. Apparently, it was clear that without Madam Sirleaf and her NPFL, any government formed would not achieve peace. Between the boys in Monrovia and the Madam it seems to been agreed upon that any interim government headed by the Madam would be inevitably accepted by the NPFL no matter how reluctantly. This how Madam Sirleaf concocted the meeting at the Cooper’s house in Virginia while we were waiting for her in the Ivory Cost. It appears that the 22 boys from Monrovia to Banju on the strength of her petition to the ECOWAS dictators, were not prepared to give her the government on a platter. We heard that she actually attended the meeting but ran out before the vote was taken to elect someone which became her friend Dr. Amos Sawyer.
While the so called authorities of ECOWAS comprising of the five dictators were parading Dr. Sawyer in the sub-region as the new President of Liberia even though President Doe was still firmly dwelling in the Liberian Mansion, the Dictators concocted the plan to get rid of President Doe so that Sawyer could be put in the Mansion to give the semblance that ECOMOG was taking instruction from a Liberian Authority.
The Assassination of President Doe by ECOMOG
Meanwhile, ECOMOG was engaged in full combat with the NPFL - fighting to take the Robert International Airport - while Prince Johnson, fully armed by ECOMOG, was engaged in combat with the NPFL from Johnsonville towards Kakata and Harbel. Meanwhile, President Doe sat in the Mansion - hoping and praying that the so called International Community would see the violation of the sovereignty of his country and restrain the five ECOWAS Dictators. I am sure he spent sleepless days and nights wondering how his Godfather Babangida could treat him this way.
The Sawyer Presidency was becoming an embarrassment to the ECOWAS authority. He had been in a holding pattern - between Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia for well over a month following his triumphant election by 22 Liberians in the Gambia. A plan was hatched by ECOMOG with the approval of the ECOWAS Leadership to get rid of Doe in order to make room for the new President of Liberia. The ECOMOG Force Commander invited Doe to visit the his base at the Port of Monrovia to inspect the peace-keeping force. As the story goes, President Doe actually complained to General Quinoo that, “how could you come to my country and not come to see me at the Mansion?” The Ghanaian General politely gave Doe some 'kaka me' excuse, but insisted that the president should visit the base and review the force. Little did Doe remember the saying, “you live by the sword you die by the sword”. He did not even realize his previous statement, “ the gun that brought me in this mansion is the only thing that will take me out “ was about to materialize.
Upon entering the port, the president and his convoy comprising of a hand full of his men were disarmed by the ECOMOG Forces as a rule of the base. He entered General Quinoo's office. While he and the General were purportedly having conversation, noise broke out in front of the office. Shootings were heard. Quinoo then asked the President to remain calm in his office while he went out to resolve the problem. According to Prince Johnson as he narrated the story to me and others in his Nigerian Home, he (Johnson) ran up the stairs and met General Quinoo on the 2nd flight of stairs. And that Quinoo told him that Doe was in his (Quinoo's) office. When Prince ran into the office, he didn't see Doe because the president was hiding under the desk. Prince then ran down the stairs looking for General Quinoo to tell him that Doe had disappeared. Quinoo screamed at Prince, ordering him to go back and look either under the desk or in his closet. Prince rushed back and found President Doe curled up in a fetus position under the desk. He pulled the president who was now begging him from under the desk. Doe reminded him of their mutual agreement that Taylor was the enemy. In the presence of more than two thousand ECOMOG troops, Prince Johnson and his men put the President of Liberia in the trunk of a car and took him to his base where he was slaughtered. The rest is history.
This was the act committed by a 5-country army that had come to Liberia for peacekeeping. Had Taylor agreed with me to announce that the war was over since the president who was the object of the uprising had been killed by the peace enforcer, the world would have realized the real motive of the five West African dictators. They would not have insisted that all forces surrender to ECOMOG and bow down to Sawyer. Maybe it was not worth saying because the world could see what these dictators were up to.
After the murder of Doe, General Babangida pretended to be very upset with the embarrassing behavior of General Arnold Quinoo. The Ghanaian Commander of ECOMOG was swiftly replaced by a Nigerian General by the name of Dogonyaro. General Dogonyaro's first statement was, "I will drive the damn rebels back to the Ivory Coast where they came". Dogonyaro brought in a fleet of Russian-made MIG jet bombers from the Nigerian and Ghanaian Air Forces. The Ghanaian and Nigerian Navies brought in fleets of war ships. Major General Dogonyaro ordered indiscriminate bombing. His logic was if anyone remains in the 95% area of the country under the NPFL, they deserve to be blown away.
Some people thought that General Quinoo did something against the will of the ECOWAS leadership. I must say, That Quinoo effectively accomplished his leg of the mission, thereby stepping down for the next phase of the ECOWAS agenda in Liberia.
I had met Quino the first time in Banju when the ECOWAS leadership finally allowed me to participate in their meeting. He gave me a hand written note to be delivered to Charles Taylor whom he said was a personal friend. They had met when Taylor was jailed in Ghana for an extended time. The note informed Taylor not to be afraid of cooperating with the ECOWAS leadership, and that in time, Taylor would see.
Following Doe’s death, the remnants of the AFL were made by ECOMOG to pledge allegiance to President Sawyer as his National Army. They were accordingly armed by ECOMOG and sent to the war front to fight against the NPFL. No soon had they begun to speak a different language than Sawyer's trust began to whither anyway. Hence, the AFL became another armed faction created by ECOMOG. The AFL fighting faction was given a territory to capture from the NPFL. It was at this point that Sawyer saw the need to create a force he could trust. From his MOJA ranks and file, he formed an armed faction called Black Berets. The Black Berets were interestingly armed by ECOMOG to protect Sawyer and do sporadic attacks on the NPFL.
According to the United Nations, it was the Black Berets that committed the Carter Camp Massacre in the Habel area. At this point, ECOMOG had already created three distinct fighting factions to help them defeat the NPFL. Meanwhile, the air and sea bombardments continued ruthlessly. In spite of the three Liberian armed factions coupled with about six thousand ECOMOG Forces, Dogonyaro still had trouble justifying why there were so many body bags going back to Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea. Sierra Leone made her own contribution to to the Liberian conflicts by training camps and arming AFL escapees and training them along with other Liberian mercenaries fighting for its government and also creating the ULIMO armed faction. With abundant supplies from ECOMOG through Sierra Leone, these armed factions launched an offensive from the Western diamond belt.
As I said before, ULIMO split into two factions one of which captured Lofa County. Both ULIMO factions were armed by ECOMOG through Guinea. What shocked the ECOWAS dictators was the fact that these five armed factions were getting nearer to their ultimate goal which was to defeat the NPFL. Instead of pursuing the ECOMOG objectives, each of these armed faction put forth a political agenda. The West African dictators soon realized that defeating the NPFL was not an attainable goal. They then decided that prolonging the war was much more a profitable goal than stopping it. They were plundering their countries' coffers in the name peacekeeping in Liberia. None of their citizens had the right to question them since they were restoring peace to their Liberian brothers and sisters. For example, Rawlings and Kojo Chikata were taking millions of dollars from the Ghanaian Treasury without any accountability while Nigerians were doing the same thing. Midway during the war, Nigeria claimed it had spent two billion dollars in Liberia. The most important premium reaped by the five dictators was the fact that they used the war to demonstrate to their citizens that rebellion was not the way to go. Lansana Conte would probably not had lasted that long in office were it not for the war in Liberia.
As there were enormous benefits in prolonging the Liberian civil war, more armed factions such as the LPC and others were created. The initial five dictators were now convinced other members of ECWAS to find a way out.
Meanwhile, ECOMOG continued to drop bombs indiscriminately around the country. Most of these bombs did not explode. I saw with my own eyes when the jets would drop cluster bombs in the bushes 99% of which did not explode. When this country opens up and people return to their subsistence farming or even logging, they will be confronted with these unexploded weapons of destruction.
Nigeria claims to have spent billions of dollars in Liberia, even though it was their jet bombers that destroyed the bridges on the Liberian highways. One stark example is the Bassa Highway for which they hardly spent a dime.
Conclusion
I have outlined this lengthy history of the conflict to demonstrate that not necessarily the intransigence of people like Charles Taylor or the warring factions that caused a simple popular uprising to the worst human tragedy on the Continent of Africa for many centuries past. In my estimate, had the uprising ended in June of 1990 in accordance with the plan propounded by the United States, I believe the lost of lives would not have exceeded 10,000.
While we must be critical of ourselves for this human tragedy, we must also be very critical of the contribution of the military dictators at that time for their selfish reasons in extending the war. We should have never allowed this kind of selfish machination by dictators to exacerbate a simple conflict into a internecine war.
In my chronological delineation of the events, I have specifically identified Ellen Sirleaf as the political personality who was the mastermind of the uprising. However, for selfish political gain, she callously manipulated the bloody conflict with the aim of being the sole beneficiary.
In the light of what I have outlined in this paper, Dr. Sawyer and those who supposedly elected him must also bear some blame for knowingly infusing a selfish power formula into a bloody war. A supposed political science scholar, Professor Amos Sawyer should have known that the ECOWAS Military Dictators were using him for their own political ends.
Recommendations
1. The Constitution of the Republic of Liberia was designed by the original framers for minority rule. Before the next Presidential and General Elections, the constitution should be amended to provide for majority rule. The minority rule provision of the current constitution is embedded in the powers of the Executive Branch headed by the President. We too must take notes of progressive countries of the world so that we can follow suit. For instance, the constitution of the United States since its proclamation some 220 years old has been amended 27 times. Liberia is almost 160 years old, but its constitution has been amended once with the only substantive change being the age requirement of the President - which was reduced from 36 to32.
2. To reduce poverty in our country, we must use our natural resources as a leverage. The very substantial amount of stocks in all the investments in our nation must be set aside for Liberian investors. Since government cannot pay taxes to itself, it must do everything to have tax payers buy stocks in all investment projects involving natural resources. For companies such as Firestone, LAC, etc, a portion of their stocks should be sold to Liberians so that some of the profits earned could benefit the masses. If Liberians for some reason are not able to buy the stocks, they should be bought by their government and auctioned to the citizens through some kind of government fair.
3. The Ministry of Internal Affairs should be converted to a Homeland-like security Ministry to oversee all security agencies in the country. Since the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not oversee, supervise or regulate the Western style secret societies such as the Masons, the UBF, etc, the government should leave the traditional societies to the natives alone. The Ministry of Internal Affairs currently uses its authorities to politically manipulate and control the traditional people and their organizations. True freedom cannot be achieved if government openly discriminates, manipulates, and meddles in the affairs of one group of people while it respects the right to privacy in associations.
4. To reduce the illiteracy gap, the country must return to the Tubman’s plan for the operation of schools and poro and sandy societies. During that period when school was in session, Tubman did not permit the operation of the poro or sandy bushes. During vacations, sandy and poro bushes could operate. Given the immensity of blood bound diseases in the world today, bodily mutilation of any form should be forbidden by law.
5. Given the damage caused by the ECOMOG in Liberia, there are hidden dangers lurking in our environment. These dangers may sooner or later wreak more disasters on the Liberian People. Liberia should ask the OAU and the United Nation to conduct an environmental survey to check for these hidden weapons of mass destruction to avoid future catastrophe. The acts of the peace keepers who murdered the president of a sovereign nation and indiscriminately killed thousands of innocent civilians are worth investigating.
THE WOEWIYU TESTIMONY TO THE LIBERIAN TRC THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN.
THE WOEWIYU TESTIMONY TO THE LIBERIAN TRC THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN.
