To Dennis and All:
Let Abdulaye Dukule tell us how many of his family members
(immediate & distant), childhood friends, children etc. were raped, given
drugs and deadly weapons at age 7 years or so and turned into killing
machines, made to rape their own mothers, sisters, brothers, made to
flogged their fathers, made to watch the opening of their pregnant mothers
stomach, made to watch the raping of their mothers, sisters, aunts etc., made
to watch the beheading of their fathers, made to watch the sodomizing of their
fathers, older brothers, uncles in their presence, made to burn down
their villages, in the name of promoting their political masters. Let Abdulaye
Dukule tell us how many of his daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, nephews
cousins, brothers, uncles, etc., are now being constrained to engage in
disgraceful acts such as prostitution, robbery or black money scams just to
make a living in Liberia today. We have to be careful how people justify their
actions especially when it has brought about more than 250, 000 deaths and the
destruction of the nation.
People like Dukule who are making this justification will never
know how it is to have your entire family killed, a love one still missing, see
dogs eat the remains of a love one, or watch your 9 years old daughter
gang raped in your presence. They will never know or feel what it is for
children to watch their father sodomized by fighters in their presence because
they wanted to destroy his manhood. Dukule brought his daughters to the States
as babies and because he is not from Liberia originally therefore, none of his
siblings or relatives lived in Liberia to have been victims of the carnage. What
has happen to Liberia is not a matter to be trivialized. The arrogance and
lack of sympathy for victims by those that directed and implemented the
suffering makes it harder for people to move on. It is easier to heal when the
one who has hunted you can express remorse and amplify this gesture of remorse
by good deeds. I will leave you guys with just a couple of the stories
that have hunted me to this day whenever the issue of victims of the war is
raised.
1. At the Public hearings of the TRC in Gbarpolu County, a slender
woman in her 40s weighing about 1.30 lbs. testified that when NPFL fighters
entered the town, some how they were told that the lady and husband had some
money. The lady and her husband were obviously hard working farmers, they had a
saw mill, a large farm and a son who was finishing high school and his
parents were saving to send him to Monrovia for college. The fighters grabbed
the women and husband, tabae (to tie both arms in a duck like form behind the
back until both elbows are touching each other so that the chest is protruding
outward. In this position, if one should just apply a little pressure on the
chest with any sharp instrument, the chest will burse open) them, and
started beating them up asking them to bring their money. The woman said she
did not know where the money was and the man said he did not have any money
either. The fighters continued the torture of these poor people.
The lady testified that after a while when they still could
not say where the money was, one fighter exclaimed to his colleagues,
"your leave them, I know how they will tell us where they are hiding the
money". The fighters then proceeded to take the woman to a tree. They
tied her upside down in the tree butt naked. They spread her legs apart, got
hot kanyon pepper, grinded it and used a spoon to shove the pepper into her
private part. When she blocked out, they put her down, wasted water on her,
revived her and started asking her questions again. When she still could not
say where the money was, they put her back up the tree again and began the
pepper punishment all over. She blocked out for the second time and for the
second time, they put her down, revived her, continued the interrogation and
when she still could not say where the money was, they put her back up the tree
and resumed shoving the pepper into her private part. As the previous two
times, she blocked out. They took her down from the tree and revived her again.
But by this time, the husband who was being beaten and made to watch the
torture of his wife, finally told the fighters where he had hidden the family
money and other valuables. When the fighters were approaching the
town, the husband took all the money and other values they had in the house,
put them in a pig foot barrel and went to his farm, dug a hole and buried the
barrel there. He never told his wife because he felt that if he had done so,
she would have told the fighters under pressure to save their lives. The
woman told the TRC that her husband's only dream was to have his son sent to
Monrovia to attend colleague when the war was over thus, he was hiding the
money for that purpose. The fighters went on the farm and took the entire
pig foot barrel but luckily, spared the lives of the woman and husband.
Unfortunately, the fighters forcible recruited the couple college bound
son as a fighter. The story ends on a sad note because the boy about 19 years
old at the time went with the fighters and never retuned home. He is still
missing.
2. I headed the women's project on the TRC and during Statement
taking, we realized that initially most of the statements from women were
coming from urban women. The women in the villages were shy to participate
heavily in the process. Their husbands and partners were also preventing them
from coming to testify to the TRC. To encourage more traditional women to
participate in the process, I wrote several projects targeting indigenous
women. One of such project was a three day workshop with the "Zoes"
in all 15 counties. We co-implemented this project with the traditional women
association headed by one of the Chief Zoes, Mama Torma. The even was held at
the traditional village in Dudu Town on Bomi High way. For one week I was in
Dudu town everyday organizing with the women for the workshop. We had
transported at least 72 Zoes from the 15 Counties for the project. They stayed
at the village for 3 days for the workshop. During those days, these
traditional women leaders, healers, head of their communities and the voice of
traditional women began telling their stories. Because they were speaking in
the various vernaculars, we had interpreters. One of the women, very beautiful
and stately, stood up to share her story. She was one of the Zoes from out of
town. She estimated her age in 2007 during the workshop to have been about 81
years old. She narrated that when NPFL fighters entered their town, they
captured her and kept her in her house with them. She estimated their ages to
have been between 17-23 years of age. She said they told her "Oldma, we
will not kill you because we need you to care for us". She became their
cook, was washing their clothes and they were raping her and gang
raping her repeatedly several times a night, all four of them for months
until the place change hands to another fighting force. It was particularly
heart breaking when she beat her chest and exclaimed looking up into the sky
that what hurts her the most was that all of the boys were the ages of some of
her grand children. She said the 17 year old fighter was the most brutal and
would rape her several times in one night. Sometimes they would beat her while
gang raping her. All the while this grandmother was telling her story, I
had my head bow down the whole time, I could not look her in the eyes. I felt
so humiliated as a woman, I was hurt. Finally at the end of the workday
when we had our entertainment period, I pulled her aside and hugged her tightly
and cried on her shoulders like a baby, I just could not imagine her pain and
humiliation. But, I could not help noticing that these women carried
themselves with such dignity and grace in the face of what they had suffered.
Today, their scar is still raw due to acute poverty and the rejection some
of them are facing form their communities. At least if their livelihood had
improved, it would assist them heal a little. But their state of poverty
and to see their perpetrators become the lords of the land and the rich ones,
must be so painful for these people.
3. During the Public hearings in Grand Gedeh County, a young girl
in her early 20s came to testify. You could tell that she came from a middle
class traditional Grand Gedean family. Her father was a local pastor. She was
the only girl of three boys. She and her brothers were gifted students and in
classes ahead of their ages. They went to private schools. She would have
graduated from high school at age 17 had it not been for the war. She was
articulate when she addressed the hearings and conducted herself with such
grace as well. The girl testified that when the NPFL fighters entered
Zwedrew, they came to their house and demanded that everybody come outside.
They came outside and the torture began. She said the fighters told her father
that they were going to take her away to be their wife. Her father started
pleading with them to spare his virgin daughter. She was only 16. Finally
one of the fighters said to the father "You love your daughter so much, if
you want us to leave her alone than give your life for her to show how much you
love her" The father started pleading now for his life as well. The
fighters insisted that was the only bargain they could reach with him, that he
much give his life to save his daughter from rape. Finally when the father
realized that the fighters were serious, he agreed to their proposal. He was
going to give his life for his daughter's pride. However, he asked them to
grant him one request. He wanted to be killed behind his church. The fighters
agreed to the father's request and took the entire family behind the church
where they beheaded the father and forced the mother and her children to watch.
Unfortunately, after the murder of the father, the fighters grabbed the young
girl and gang raped her at the same spot. The girl said when they were raping her,
they said to her " your father was a stupid man to die for woman
business". When the young girl testified, she blamed herself for her
father's murder and cried bitterly stating that it was because of her that her
good father was killed. She could not forgive herself. Unfortunately, the
tragedy of this family did not end with the killing of the father and raping of
the daughter. They also raped the mother and took away the two sons as
fighters. This once promising Liberian family was now destroyed.
4. When Ali Syllah came to the TRC Diaspora Hearings in Minnesota
to testify on behalf of his family that had suffer so much during the war,
Commissioners and perhaps the audience were not prepared for what he would say.
But as Ali, a very bright an articulate young man did his family proud when he
passionately narrated how their father and two brothers were killed by the
INPFL fighters in Monrovia and the difficulty he encountered while trying
to get the rest of his siblings out of Liberia and into Sierra Leone. Ali spoke
about how they were hunted down in Monrovia to be killed by fighters simply
because they are Mandingoes. The hearing officer had to call for recess
because Commissioners were crying and members of the audience were also crying
. There was not a dry eye in the auditorium of Hamlin University that day where
the hearings was held. I remembered walking over to Commissioner Oumu
Syllah and hugged her for a long time tightly not wanting to let go as if
wanting her pain to disappear. All commissioners had experienced the war and
have our own stories of pain but, hearing the story of grave suffering of a
colleague by a family member was so vivid and compelling.. After her brother's
testimony that day, I began to look at Commissioner Oumu Syllah in a new light.
I have always loved Oumu but all of a sudden , I realized how much stronger she
was and how gracious she is to remain the kind of decent person that she is in
the face of such adversity. I have asked myself several times, how will I
react if someone killed my father the way Oumu lost her father so foolishly,
simply because they are Mandingoes and her father was prosperous after all of
his hard work.
5. When LPC fighters captured Maryland, they took a prominent
woman who was an active member of the community, stripped her butt naked
and carried her on the beach. They lay her on the sand, spread her legs apart
and shoved sand in her vagina while the entire public was watching. She blocked
out. some locals later when to her rescue after the fighters left. The fighters
some of whom were from her community told her that "they were not going to
kill her but when they were done with her, she would kill herself". We got
this story when I headed the Women's town hall meeting and workshops in Harper,
Maryland County in trying to encourage women to come to the TRC. When we were
there working in 2007, this particular woman was not coming out in the public
and if she had to go to the market, she either went early in the morning when
people were not really up and about or she went late in the evening when people
were leaving the market ground. She told me that she
was "ashamed" to come to the TRC, therefore, I went to her house
and met with her. Her story was so public, it was the talk of the town.
Most of the time when people like Dukule give these kinds of
excuses for the violence, it is because they are beneficiaries of the violence
as in the case of Dukule, or they bare some responsibility for orchestrating
the violence, or that they implemented the violence, and it would be
easier for them to move on with their new lives if they are not reminded about
their handiwork or if the rest of mankind just ignore that such
violence ever existed or in the case of Dukule's argument, the violence was a
necessary end to get rid of another evil. People can believe what they want,
but they can not make people like us believe what they want. That is the power
we have.
I was awarded the "Liberian Woman of Courage" Award from
the USA Embassy in Monrovia in 2008 in the category of the State Department's
International Women of Courage Award as a result of work done with women during
my years as a journalist working with women in the war and while serving
on the TRC. I was the first journalist on the scene of the Carter Camp massacre
and the Lutheran Church massacre. I have seen and experience a lot therefore,
these people can not fool me. I hope more could be done to help grass root
women address the issue of poverty and the injustice they have suffered.
Massa Washington
