Liberia: Ex-rebel leader Prince Johnson threatens to go after war crimes court advocates; vows toresist arrest in an uncontrollable and ungovernable fashion
Of recent, both locally and internationally, call has heightened for the establishment of a war crimes court for Liberia, to bring to justice those suspected of perpetrating heinous crimes during the country’s war years.
Liberia went up into flames for over a decade, resulting to the wanton destruction of lives and properties, including the death of approximately 250,000 people and the displacement of thousands others, when a bloody civil war engulfed the country on Christmas Eve in 1989, after rebel forces under the command of jailed former Liberian president Charles Taylor shot their way into the country through Buutuo, in Nimba County.
Prince Johnson, who was initially part of Taylor forces, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), later broke away from that brutal ragtag army and founded his Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), who like it’s parent-group, stand accused of murdering thousands of Liberians, including former president Samuel Doe, who was captured by Johnson’s forces, tortured, mutilated and murdered.
‘Johnson issues threats’
“Those who talking, talking, it’s good you’re talking so we can know you – so the day trouble comes here, which we don’t pray for, your home, there will be a visitation there,” referring to advocates of war crimes court for Liberia, former rebel leader Johnson said in an audio recording Punch FM/TV online service has acquired. |
Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia
The Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) was a rebel group that participated in the First Liberian Civil War under the leadership of Prince Johnson.[1] It was a breakaway faction of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
The INPFL was formed by Prince Johnson after a leadership dispute with NPFL leader Charles Taylor over his authority as self-proclaimed head of the National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government (NPRAG), an alternative government that was based in the Bong County town of Gbarnga.
Initially estimated at less than 500 troops, the INPFL was a significant force in the early stages of the war. It controlled a number of strategic points within the capital city of Monrovia and facilitated the deployment of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) cease-fire monitoring group forces, known as ECOMOG.
It was the INPFL which captured and murdered President Samuel Doe in September 1990.[2]
The faction disintegrated in the wake of internal wrangling over its level of co-operation with the interim government, ECOMOG and the NPFL. Through 1991, its role in the conflict substantially declined and the faction formally disbanded in late 1992. |
Infamously credited with the capturing, torturing, disfiguring and murdering of ex-president Doe, Johnson, who is also accused of taking several Liberians including renowned Liberian musicians Robert Toe and Tecumsey Roberts, to their early graves during the brutal Liberian civil war, in a rather defiant tone of voice said: “if you were to come and arrest me, I will fight you.”
Johnson explains that the basis of his resistance against war crimes charges is due to what he called Liberians’ negligence in failing to have prosecuted former presidents Charles Taylor and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who he said committed the same crime that is being alleged that he committed.
Following an investigation that sought to unravel the causes and consequences of Liberia’s conflict, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) collected more than 20,000 statements and released a 370-page report, in which Sirleaf is among 50 people the Commission recommends should not be allowed to hold public office, a recommendation the former leader flouted while in power.
In her testimony when she appeared before the TRC, Sirleaf admitted that during the early years of the war she supplied Taylor with food and financial assistance in the tune of some US$10,000, stating at the time that she wanted to see an end to the tyrannical regime of slain former president Samuel Doe, adding that she did so unwittingly.
But according to the TRC, Sirleaf didn’t go far enough, by showing remorse for her role in the war, with the TRC indicating that by not apologizing or showing more remorse, Sirleaf denied both her own responsibility and undermined the TRC process.
The TRC report also recommends that dozens of individuals who bear greater responsibility of the war should face further investigation and prosecution, but since then, in spite of recommendations from the TRC final report presented to former president Sirleaf, not a single Liberian has been prosecuted for alleged atrocities committed during the war days.
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