Ex-rebel leader claims 20,000 killings# Former Liberian fighter appears before nation's reconciliation commission
By Jonathan Paye-Layleh
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Article Launched: 01/22/2008 02:59:34 AM PST
MONROVIA, Liberia -- One of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked for charging into battle wearing only boots, has returned to confess his role in terrorizing the nation, saying he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.
Joshua Milton Blahyi, who now lives in Ghana, returned last week to face his homeland's truth and reconciliation commission, this time wearing a suit and tie.
His nom de guerre is derived from his platoon's practice of charging naked into battle, a technique meant to terrify the enemy.
Other former warlords, though, have refused to ask forgiveness, dismissing a commission many in Liberia see as powerless.
Blahyi is urging other former killers to come forward as the country founded by freed American slaves in 1847 struggles to recover from past horrors.
"I could be electrocuted. I could be hanged. I could be given any other punishment," Blahyi, 37, said in a weekend interview after his truth commission appearance last week. "But I think forgiveness and reconciliation is the right way to go.
"I have been looking for an opportunity to tell the true story about my life -- and every time I tell people my story, I feel relieved."
The civil war, which killed an estimated 250,000 people in this nation of 3 million, was characterized by the eating of human hearts and soccer matches played with human skulls.
Drugged fighters waltzed into battle wearing women's wigs, flowing gowns and carrying dainty purses
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stolen from civilians.
Before he led his fighters into battle, wearing only a pair of lace-up boots, Blahyi said he made a human sacrifice to the devil.
The sacrifice was typically "the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for us to eat," he said Saturday. He appeared before the commission Jan. 15 and put a figure to his killing spree for the first time.
"More than 20,000 people fell victim (to me and my men). They were killed," said Blahyi, who dated the beginning of his murders to 1982, when he was ordained as a ritual priest responsible for making human sacrifices before battle.
He said that when he later led his fighters against the insurgency launched by Charles Taylor, he commanded them to embrace this tradition.
Some say Blahyi's confession is proof Liberia needs a war crimes court, not a commission.
The commission, modeled on the one in post-apartheid South Africa, has been taking testimony from victims and former rebels for two years, urging a full accounting of wartime atrocities. Although the commission can't charge killers with a crime, it can recommend charges be brought.
Source:
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_8043171?nclick_check=1
Topic: Liberian Ex-rebel leader: I ate the heart of an slaughtered innocent child (Read 691 times)