Much horrific evidence has come before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, writes SUSAN McKAY
AS IT enters a final month of hearings, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) last week finally heard the testimony of president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, when she made a surprise appearance at the TRC’s headquarters in the capital city of Monrovia. Ms Sirleaf denied allegations made by other witnesses that she had been a member of former president Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, but admitted supporting Taylor when he rebelled against his predecessor, Charles Doe, in 1989.
“If there is anything that I need to apologise for to this nation it is . . . for being fooled by Mr Taylor into giving any kind of support to him,” she told the TRC. “I feel it in my conscience. I feel it every day.” Taylor, who became president in 1997 and was exiled in 2003, is currently on trial at the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.
The TRC, which began its hearings two years ago, is headed by lawyer Jerome Verdier. It was set up as part of the peace agreement signed in 2003 as Liberia emerged from 14 horrific years of civil war, “to promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation”. This is a daunting task with a very short time frame, considering the TRC estimates that up to 300,000 Liberians had been slaughtered; hundreds of thousands of women raped; and the terror the warring factions instilled in the people was such that much of the country was depopulated as everyone fled to Monrovia or Liberia’s west African neighbours, Guinea, the Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone. The country is full of mass graves and abandoned villages.
“Our responsibility is to investigate the past, unravel the root causes of the conflict, document human rights violations from 1979 to 2003, identify victims and perpetrators, and make recommendations which will advance the cause of reconciliation,” says Verdier. These recommendations can include amnesties, reparations, prosecutions and institutional reform. It will be up to Liberia’s Human Rights Commission to ensure the recommendations are enacted by the legislature and the president.
With about 200 staff, the commission has collected some 200,000 statements from all over Liberia, a country of bombed roads, many of which become impassable during the seven-month rainy season. Most of the statements were from victims, though a few were from contrite perpetrators, one of whom lay on the ground saying, “I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry . . . from the depth of my heart.” Public hearings were held.
“We took samples of typical cases that resonate with an entire community,” Verdier says. “Then we had thematic hearings including one for women and children.” He shakes his head when I ask him what sort of abuses they have heard about. “Every sort of abuse,” he says. “Rape, sexual abuses, deprivation, torture, child recruitment, forced marriage, amputation, arson, looting, murders, massacres – and a lot more.” The headline of one of the TRC’s press releases gives a sense of what “a lot more” means: “More revelations on Mahel massacre – babies heads smashed, pregnant women disembowelled.”
The day before I meet Verdier, the lead story in the Daily Observer is headlined: “Senator Johnson accuses TRC – threatens ‘massive resistance.’” The former rebel commander, Prince Johnson, claimed the TRC was about to attempt to indict him and another senator, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including massacres. Johnson accused the TRC of “witchhunting” and warned that it was “treading a dangerous path that will lead to chaos”. He would resist, he claimed, “and there will be massive resistance across the country”.
I ask Verdier if this worries him. He shrugs. “We have a mandate and a duty,” he says. “There is no witchhunt. Our findings are based on empirical evidence. We have witnesses and even audio/visual records. These atrocities were committed openly. People remember the aggressors. Johnson is a notorious faction leader.” Johnson has admitted killing former president Charles Doe. One witness to the TRC claimed Johnson had shown him Doe’s skull on a platter.
“I was scared and Johnson asked, are you scared?” the witness, an ambassador designate to the UN, told the commission. The TRC called about 50 former warlords. All denied murders. “I am a clean man with no blood stains on my hand,” one of them told the commission.
The days of reckoning have started. Taylor’s trial at the Hague is expected to end in June. His son, Chucky, was last month jailed in the US for 97 years on multiple counts of torture carried out by the elite paramilitary unit he headed during his father’s bloody reign. The Daily Observer quoted a Liberian human rights group which said the fall of Chucky Taylor “should remind other power holders who preferred to dance on the rights and corpses of others that they would have to give account of their bloody deeds no matter how long it took”.
Verdier admits that the past two years have been tough. “The emotional and psychological toll on the commissioners has been heavy,” he says. “We’ve supported each other and we have relied on our families. But we are strong and we are doing this out of conviction. We are determined to ensure that war does not engulf our country again. Doing this was less traumatic than living here during the war.” He was 12 in 1979 when the police opened fire on demonstrators protesting about the price of rice, and the army was called in.
The TRC has just published the first volume of its findings. It identifies poverty, greed, corruption and limited access to education as among the causes of the conflict. It finds all factions committed war crimes and all targeted women for dehumanising violence. It recommends amnesty for children but a break with the “culture of impunity” for adults.
The final report will be published in June. “We expect disagreement,” says Verdier. “But the TRC will definitely help to bring stability. We have a generation born in conflict who don’t understand why they are victims, why their parents were killed. The TRC will give a clear understanding of how, when and why, and who were the key players. We have come a long way from conflict – we must continue this way.”