Monrovia – A memorial for the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Massacre over the weekend was expected to be solemn, and the graphic, mournful narratives of survivors could only deepen the grief of congregants of the horrible event that turned the church into a slaughterhouse.
An estimated 600 people, including women and children (babies as well) were killed in what remains the single-most heinous atrocity committed during the Liberia civil war (1989 -2003).
Christianity sits at the foundation of Liberia, including its government, and army, too. Liberia’s Declaration of Independence was signed in a church, and Monrovia was first called Christopolis or “the city of Christ”. But not even this history or even a gigantic cross that hangs over its altar from the attic of the church with the
bevy of its mosaicked windows could deter the bloodthirsty soldiers.
The memorial on Sunday honored those who died that day and, the organizers say, all of those who lost their lives to during the course of the civil war. It was meant to remind the public about the plight of several survivors of the killings, who still suffer from wounds they sustained, and to reemphasize the need for a Liberian war crimes court.
The event was held by the Alliance for Transitional Justice – Liberia, a conglomeration of 13 civil society organizations and faith-based organizations. It was held under the theme: “Igniting National Consciousness – Restoring Dignity of War Survivors…” The aim of the group is to establish an endowment fund for needy survivals and rally the government and general public to bring war crimes perpetrators to book.
In attendance were Bishop Jensen Seyenkulo of the Lutheran Church of Liberia, Bishop Samuel J. Quire, Jr. of the United Methodist Church, Archbishop Isaac S. Winker of the Isaac Winker Global Ministries and Bishop Wolo Belleh of the Bethel World Outreach International. Acting United States Ambassador Sam Watson also graced the occasion.
Since the massacre, the Lutheran Church has always had a memorial but this year’s involved more stakeholders.
‘Rebel Cross’
As the war heated up, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC) set up several camp for displaced people. Bobby Wolo Kingsley, who survived the bloodbath, told the memorial that more than 6,000 people found refuge in the church-school compound.
After an attack on the United Nations headquarters (now Lonestar Cell MTN) in Congo Town by the army, where many civilians found refuge, the church was the only hope them. During the heat of the civil war, many of the Gio and Mano tribes fled into the church, escaping the purge by the Krahn-dominated Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) under the command of late President Samuel K. Doe. Some families, witnesses have said, were uncertain the church could not be sanctuary after what happened at the UN headquarters, but many did not expect that the soldiers’ onslaught would go as far as a church.
The soldiers, Kingsley narrated, bulldozed the church’s door and shot indiscriminately at the unarmed civilians. There was a lot of wailing and panting, he said, and then after some time, no one moved. There was silence in the church.
Some people, Kingsley further narrated, were trapped in the windows trying to escape. Those ones were hacked to death together with the wounded who were lay in agony.
Prior to the day of the massacre, Kingsley who had fled the UN compound killings said he and other people watched soldiers cut off the genitals of a man who had left the Lutheran compound to get food. The soldiers, he said, threatened to kill them.
“They (soldiers) came to the gate and told us that we were all rebels, not displaced people,” Kingsley recalled. “One of the men ripped a Red Cross flag at the gate [of the compound] and said ‘This is not Red Cross, but Rebel Cross.”
Another survivor, Marcus Quoigboah, who lost four members of his family said the soldiers convinced a woman to tell them where the men were hiding. When the soldiers first entered the church premises, he narrated, they stormed the classrooms in the other building but did not find any man, only women and children.
“The woman…out of fear pointed towards the church and then I heard her streaming,” Quoigboah, who is now the head of the Lutheran Church Survivors Association, said. He said the soldiers began shooting and killing women and children, even babies.
Quoigboah managed to survive by hiding beneath the dead bodies, a story shared by many survivors of the massacre. Quoigboah could have died had it not been a good soldier who advised him to pretend that he was dead. He lost four members of his family.
Eight survivors attended the memorial, some displaying scars they still carry. The program sheet of the memorial featured the ailing Rufus Kartee, the 54-year-old survivor who is still suffering from the injuries he sustained.
The survivors cried bitterly when the wreaths were being laid at the spot where victims of the massacres were buried.
The congregation sang: “I am weak but you are mighty. Hold me with your powerful hand. Bread of Heaven…feed me now and forever more.”
War crimes Court
Despite its infamy, no one has been held accountable for the massacre. In February this year, a U.S.-based human rights group Coalition for Justice and Accountability (CJA) filed a lawsuit against an ex-commander of the defunct Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SATU), Moses Thomas. However, the case is a civil suit and so Thomas will only pay the four Liberians (names withheld) on whose behalf it has been filed and could be deported to Liberia.
Survivor Peterson Sonyah told the memorial that those who masterminded the massacre and other perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity should be brought to book. He lost seven members of his family, including his father.
“We should put stop to the culture of impunity,” he said in reference to the failure of Liberia to set up a court despite being recommended by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). “We are calling on the International Community to allow justice to come to Liberia,” he added.
As the survivors told their story, an elderly woman, Dorothy Pratt, in dressed in white disrupted the service protesting the idea of a Liberian war crimes court.
“We are supposed to promote restorative justice, not retributive justice,” she could be heard saying as clergymen tried in vain to shut her up. “We are all guilty of what happened during the war…,” she added, drawing indistinct chattering from the congregation. She was thrown out of the church.
Archbishop Winker appeared to have agreed with the estranged elder. He called on survivors to let go their bitterness and be willing to forgive.
However, Bishop Quire called on authority to end impunity and make sure perpetrators of any crimes are brought to book. “The other time a journalist died and they said ‘the perpetrators will be brought to book’ but we have not seen anyone being brought to book,” the Methodist Bishop lamented.
The Alliance for Transitional Justice that organized the memorial plan to create an endowment fund for injured and ailing survivors of massacres nationwide, erection of memorials and the setting up of a war crimes court and other recommendations of the TRC.
“…It is saddening…, unreligious and unconstitutional that we as religious community and state, will refuse to provide decent and dignified memorial site for these precious lives brutally killed by uniformed armed soldiers,” said the group’s national chairperson, Jeremiah Swen.
“We can strive to provide welfare to survivors, memorialization and dignity to the deceased, but without justice those interventions are meaningless,” Swen noted.
Story by James Harding Giahyue, FPA Contributor
