In 1989, National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebel leader Charles Taylor launched a rebellion against Doe's regime, sparking a civil war. Blahyi joined ULIMO, a rival militia group, and operated primarily around the Monrovia area. During the conflict, Blahyi and his men, a group of soldiers known as the Naked Base Commandos, fought without clothing and perpetrated numerous atrocities, including child sacrifice and cannibalism.
Blahyi abandoned his life as a warlord and turned to preaching after undergoing a religious conversion in 1996, attributing these actions to receiving a vision of Jesus. In 2008, Blahyi testified at the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, claiming that his victims numbered at least 20,000 individuals. The public testimony brought mixed reactions and led to international attention, leading Blahyi to be featured in several documentaries.
Early life
Blahyi fought on the side of Samuel Doe (pictured) during the First Liberian Civil War.
Joshua Milton Blahyi was born on 30 September 1971, in Monrovia, Liberia. He was born into a Krahn family, some of whom resided in Sinoe County, located in the south of the country; among the Krahn people, belief in child sacrifice and black magic was common.[1] When he was seven years old, his father granted parental control over him to several Krahn elders, who arranged for Blahyi to be a warrior and initiated him as a high priest in 1982, when he was at the age of eleven.[1][2]
As Blahyi noted in his memoirs, the role of high priest included overseeing human sacrifices. Blahyi, like other Krahn priests, would use visions to determine which individual would be sacrificed. After receiving the vision, Blahyi would "give the victim’s last name to its village elders", who would then lead a procession to the sacrifice victim's house, abducting and then sacrificing them atop an altar; after Blahyi stated an invocation, the victim would then be ritually dismembered.[1]
In 1980, Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) master-sergeant Samuel Doe staged a coup d'état, overthrowing then-President William Tolbert.[3] Blahyi claims that Doe employed him to perform black magic rituals to influence the 1985 Liberian general election, although Doe's victory relied more practically on destroying most of the opposition's ballots.[4] Blahyi later explained his support for Doe as being based on a sense of tribal loyalty, as they were both members of the same ethnic group.[2]
During the conflict, Blahyi became a warlord, leading a unit of several dozen combatants (consisting primarily of child soldiers) known as the Naked Base Commandos which operated primarily around the Monrovia area. The unit, including Blahyi himself, frequently wore no clothing except for their shoes and magic charms, earning Blahyi the nom de guerre 'General Butt Naked'. Blahyi claimed that this practice made him and his soldiers "immune to bullets." During the conflict, Blahyi's forces perpetrated numerous atrocities, including cannibalism and human sacrifice.[6][7]
Blahyi would later claim that he had received a vision from the Devil during the conflict; in the vision, the Devil told him that he would become "a great warrior and should practice human sacrifice and cannibalism to increase his power."[8] Recalling the atrocities he and his soldiers perpetrated against civilians during the conflict, Blahyi stated in an interview, “sometimes, I would enter under the water where children were playing. I would dive under the water, grab one, carry him under and break his neck. Sometimes I'd cause accidents. Sometimes I'd just slaughter them."[8]
Blahyi also made his soldiers consume psychoactive drugs in order to make them more alert and willing to follow Blahyi's orders. He would later recall that whenever the Naked Base Commandos captured a town, “I had to make a human sacrifice. They bring to me a living child that I slaughter and take the heart out to eat it." The rival militias, including the Naked Base Commandos, frequently fought with each other over control over Liberia's lucrative diamond fields and gold mines, and Blahyi traded gold and diamonds with Mexican drug cartels for weapons and cocaine.[4][8]
Blahyi preferred sacrificing babies as he thought they offered the greatest protection. Occasionally his soldiers made bets on whether a pregnant woman was carrying a male or female baby and then sliced open her stomach to see.[9] According to Blahyi, there were times when he sacrificed four or five children a day – one each time he went out to fight. After laying them down on a sacrificial table, he would slice them open from the back and pull out the still-beating heart.[10]
On 6 April 1996, the NPFL launched an operation to arrest ULIMO rebel leader Roosevelt Johnson in the Monrovia region, leading Blahyi and other militias affiliated with Johnson to resist the attempt by force of arms. The ensuing confrontation led to an intense firefight breaking out, which ultimately resulted in the forced displacement of half of Monrovia's population. According to Damon Tabor of The New Yorker, during the firefight, a bystander reported seeing Blahyi standing atop a truck, "holding an assault rifle in one hand and a man's severed genitals in the other."[4]
Religious conversion
In 1996, as the civil war was drawing to a close, Blahyi claimed that as he saw the blood of a child on his hands, he received a vision of Jesus Christ, who "asked [Blahyi] to stop being a slave." After receiving the vision, Blahyi eventually converted to Christianity and became an evangelical preacher, ministering to Liberian refugees in Ghana along with former combatants who had served under him during the conflict. From 2006 onwards, Blahyi also made several visits to Monrovia's slums in an effort to engage with and assist former child soldiers who were living there.[6]
In 2008, Blahyi became the first Liberian warlord to testify before the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established by the Legislature of Liberia after the conflicts to investigate reports of atrocities allegedly perpetrated during the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars.[1] During his testimony, which was broadcast live on television in Liberia, Blahyi testified that he believed the number of murders committed by him and the Naked Base Commandos to be at least 20,000 in total. He was recommended for prosecutorial amnesty by the commission.[8][11]
In Liberia, his testimony elicited mixed responses; among the Liberian general public, Blahyi was both publicly praised and criticized for his actions during the war.[7] The testimony also led to Blahyi becoming "front-page news" among Liberian press outlets, and several international journalists, including reporters from the Daily Mail and Vice Media, travelled to Liberia to conduct interviews with him.[4] In 2007, Blahyi established Journeys Against Violence, a non-governmental organization with the stated aim of helping former combatants and street children to reintegrate into society.[12]
Blahyi has publicly called for Liberia to establish a war crimes court in order to prosecute suspected war criminals, including himself.[13] He has argued that former warlords such as current Liberian senatorPrince Johnson should go on trial in order "to account for their individual roles played and the actions of their respective troops which committed atrocities and war crimes during the Liberian civil conflicts." In an appearance on a Liberian talk show, Blahyi stated that he lives in regret almost all the time not just because of the people he had "made childless", but also because of the children he had "deprived of their parents".[14]
During his career as an evangelical preacher, Blahyi has attracted numerous benefactors from outside Liberia, including Bojan Jancic, a Christian pastor based in West Village, New York City. He would later write the foreword to The Redemption of an African Warlord, an autobiography written in 2013 by Blahyi and published by Destiny Image Publishers, described by Tabor as a "small Christian press".[a] Jancic wrote in the book's foreword that "Not since the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus have I ever heard a conversion story more radically compelling."[4]
In popular culture
Blahyi's notoriety and public testimony have led to numerous appearances in popular culture. In 2010, journalists from Vice News produced a documentary called The Vice Guide to Liberia as part of their road travel series The Vice Guide to Travel. The filmmakers filmed Blahyi conducting a sermon in Monrovia in front of numerous former child soldiers.[15]
In 2011, filmmakers Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion produced a documentary about Blahyi titled The Redemption of General Butt Naked, which was screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.[16] The documentary primarily focused on Blahyi's career as an ULIMO rebel leader and his life after converting to Christianity, documenting his efforts to both rehabilitate former military personnel under his command and reach out to the survivors of his atrocities in order to reconcile with them; interspersed between these was footage of his 2008 war crimes testimony.[17]
The documentary received positive reviews; a review by Kirk Honeycutt for The Hollywood Reporter praised the documentary for foregoing "any personal judgments to let audiences draw their own conclusions", arguing that the filmmakers have "caught lightning in a bottle".[18] Another review in Screen International by David D'Arcy was also positive, noting that the filmmakers had depicted the impact of the Liberian civil wars, describing the documentary as "staggeringly cinematic" and "one of the best titles since John Waters’s Pecker" which had "bravura visual flourishes".[19]
The Book of Mormon, a 2011 satirical musical comedy written by screenwriters Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone, features a character named "General Butt Fucking Naked"; the character is depicted in the musical as a Ugandan warlord, as he was originally modelled after infamous Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander Joseph Kony.[20][21][22] Parker noted in an interview with Comingsoon.net that "warlords in Liberia have such colorful names and we were reading about the one named General Butt Naked. We just ripped off his joke, basically."[23][24]
Liberia is a country in West Africa founded by free people of color from the United States. The emigration of African Americans, both freeborn and recently emancipated, was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The mortality rate of these settlers was the highest among settlements reported with modern recordkeeping. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived (39.8%).
The Politics of Liberia takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic modeled on the government of the United States, whereby the president is the head of state and head of government; unlike the United States, however, Liberia is a unitary state as opposed to a federation and has a pluriform multi-party system rather than the two-party system that characterizes US politics. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the legislature.
Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor is a Liberian former politician and convicted war criminal who served as the 22nd president of Liberia from 2 August 1997 until his resignation on 11 August 2003 as a result of the Second Liberian Civil War and growing international pressure.
Samuel Kanyon Doe was a Liberian politician and military officer who served as the 21st President of Liberia from 1986 to 1990. He ruled Liberia as Chairman of the People's Redemption Council (PRC) from 1980 to 1986 and then as president from 1986 to 1990.
The Krahn are an ethnic group of Liberia and Ivory Coast. This group belongs to the Kru language family and its people are sometimes referred to as the Wee, Guéré, Sapo, or Wobe. It is likely that Western contact with the Kru language is the primary reason for the development of these different names.
Prince Yormie Johnson was a Liberian warlord and politician, who served as a senator for Nimba County from 2006 to 2024. Once a rebel leader, Johnson played a prominent role in the First Liberian Civil War.
The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) was a rebel group in Liberia that was active from 1999 until the resignation of Charles Taylor ended the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. While the group formally dissolved after the war, the interpersonal linkages of the civil war era remain a key force in internal Liberian politics.
The First Liberian Civil War was the first of two civil wars within the West African nation of Liberia which lasted between 1989 and 1997. President Samuel Doe's regime of totalitarianism and widespread corruption led to calls for withdrawal of the support of the United States, by the late 1980s. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast to overthrow Doe in December 1989 and gained control over most of the country within a year. Doe was captured and executed by the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), a splinter faction of the NPFL led by Prince Johnson, in September 1990. The NPFL and INPFL fought each other for control of the capital city, Monrovia and against the Armed Forces of Liberia and pro-Doe United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy. Peace negotiations and foreign involvement led to a ceasefire in 1995 but fighting continued until a peace agreement between the main factions occurred in August 1996. Taylor was elected President of Liberia following the 1997 Liberian general election and entered office in August of the same year.
The Second Liberian Civil War was a civil war in the West African nation of Liberia that lasted from 1999 to 2003.
The United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) was a pro-government militia that participated in the First Liberian Civil War (1989–1996).
The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) was a Liberian rebel group that initiated and participated in the First Liberian Civil War from 24 December 1989 – 2 August 1997. The NPFL emerged out of rising ethnic tensions and civil unrest due to the Liberian government that was characterized by totalitarianism, corruption, and favoritism towards ethnic Krahns. The NPFL invaded Liberia through Ivory Coast’s border with Nimba County in Liberia under the direction of Charles Taylor, a former Liberian politician and guerrilla leader who served as the 22nd president of Liberia from 2 August 1997 until his resignation on 11 August 2003.
David Roosevelt Johnson was a Liberian military officer and warlord who led the ULIMO rebel group during the First Liberian Civil War. He was not a member of the Krahn ethnic group that he fought for; however, his wife was of that ethnic group.
Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, also known as Tom Woewiyu or Thomas Smith, was the former leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), with Charles Taylor.
The Monrovia clashes in 1998 were the result of Liberian President Charles Taylor's attempts to violently eliminate one of his last domestic political opponents, Roosevelt Johnson, a former warlord. At the time, Johnson still lived with a small loyal militia in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. After some minor armed altercations, almost all of Johnson's followers were finally killed by Taylor's security forces during a major firefight in September 1998, though Johnson himself managed to flee into the United States embassy. After one last attempt by Taylor's paramilitaries to kill him there, causing a major diplomatic incident, Johnson was evacuated to Ghana. Although the clashes were effectively a political victory for Taylor as he had removed Johnson from Liberia, the mass killings of ethnic Krahn after the clashes contributed to the outbreak of the Second Liberian Civil War which saw the president being toppled.
Mohammed Jabbateh, also known by his nom de guerre Jungle Jabbah, is a Liberian war criminal and former United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) and ULIMO-K commander who was convicted in the United States of lying to immigration authorities about his role in the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1997) when he sought asylum in the late 1990s. He was arrested in April 2016. On October 18, 2017, Jabbateh was tried and convicted in Philadelphia of two counts of fraud in immigration documents and two counts of perjury stemming from false statements he made when filing for asylum and permanent residence. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison the following April, the statutory maximum allowed. Jabbateh was the first person convicted of crimes stemming from war-related activities during the First Liberian Civil War. He lost his appeal in September 2020.
The Monrovia Church massacre, also referred to as the St. Peter's Lutheran Church massacre, was the worst single atrocity of the First Liberian Civil War. Approximately 600 people were killed at the church, on 14th Street, in the Sinkor district of Monrovia on 29 July 1990. The massacre was carried out by approximately 30 government soldiers loyal to President Samuel Doe. The perpetrators were of Doe's Krahn tribe while most of the victims were from the Gio and Mano tribes, which were in support of the rebels.
Events in the year 2013 in Liberia.
Kunti Kamara, a.k.a. Kunti Kumara, Kunti K., Colonel Kamara, CO Kamara or Co Kamara, whose real name may be Awaliho Soumaworo, is a former Liberian rebel militia commander who participated in the First Liberian Civil War as a leader in the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO).
Civitas Maxima is a non-governmental organisation that documents mass crimes, such as crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, and pursues justice on behalf of the victims, particularly in West Africa.
The Liberia national transitional government was a provisional government, or rather the name given to three successive governments, in Liberia formed in the midst of the First Liberian Civil War. The LNTG was product of the July 25, 1993, Cotonou Peace Accord, whereby the Interim Government of National Unity disbanded. The respective LNTG-I, LNTG-II and LNTG-III governments were differentiated by being led by three different chairpersons. Initially supposed to last for six months to allow for disarmament of warring factions and preparations of national elections, the LNTG timeline lasted until mid-1997. Various of the warring factions had direct participation in the LNTG and civilian elements were gradually sidelined. Through participation in the provisional governance of LNTG the different warlords could gain access to state resources, even in situations when armed hostilities continued. The LNTG period ended with the 1997 Liberian general election whereby Charles Taylor was elected President of Liberia.
References
Notes
↑ Tabor notes that Blayhi had published five books as of 2016.[4]
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