BAILA, Bong County, Liberia—Sara sits under a palava hut, her face overwhelmed by sorrow. Now 58, she recalls through tears, the trauma and suffering she says that she and her family suffered here in 1994 at the direction of Saturday Tuah, an alleged commander with the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
By Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
Tuah, believed to be in his late 50s, was arrested in France in June and charged with crimes against humanity, including massive and systematic summary executions, massive and systematic torture or inhuman acts of enslavement, according to Civitas Maxima, one of two groups that documented his alleged crimes in Liberia. Prosecutors have not released specifics of his charges and have not responded to emails seeking confirmation. French judges have authorized his detention while prosecutors build their case, likely fearing that he will escape French jurisdiction.
Sara alleges that she and her family were among Tuah’s victims—her father was killed by NPFL soldiers, and she and female relatives were raped, she says. Sara is not her real name, which we are withholding because of her fears of retaliation. Sara is not one of the victims who will testify against Tuah in France.
“They grabbed us and carried us in the bush,” says Sara, describing the day she alleges she was raped by one of Tulah’s soldiers. “I wanted to lay down (rest), but he said, ‘No. I didn’t come for laying down business.’ What he wanted to do, he did it.”
Sara was also pleased to hear of Tuah’s arrest.
“If they carry him to court, it will be fine,” says Sara “Rambo (Tuah’s war name) was the head man, just like we get president and vice president. When the soldier did bad thing, they will say carry us to ‘Chief Rambo’. The man was the leader for the group. He was not advising them.”
Tuah was a feared NPFL commander, allegedly controlling Baila and neighboring towns, including Sokopa and Kpain in Nimba County. Investigators say they believe he commanded the group “Gama,” (a corruption of Gambia Forces) during the fall of Gbarnga to the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (Ulimo), in 1994. He held the postion of Lieutenant General, investigators say. Tuah fled Liberia for France at the close of the war. Tuah has lived there for close to a decade.
Baila, in north-central Bong County, was the former stronghold of Charles Taylor’s NPFL which led an uprising against the government of then President Samuel Doe in 1989 and plunged the country into 14 years of conflict. The towns in this area changed hands many times between the NPFL and Ulimo, according to residents. Taylor would go on to be elected president before he was driven out by rebels and convicted of war crimes committed in Sierra Leone.
Tuah is not named in Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commisison (TRC), report, a point that will likely figure in the defense’s case. But ex-TRC commissioners have often made the point that the TRC heard from 22,000 witnesses during its hearings, representing what they said is likely only a small fraction of all the crimes that took place during the 14 years of conflict.
Residents here detail seemingly unending horrors committed under orders from Tuah. They say some NPFL victims were then taken to the bridge that links Baila to Sokopa in Nimba and thrown into the St. John River. Sara says none of her relatives were drowned, but Tuah’s soldiers raped her, her mother, and a sister.
She alleges that one of the rebels assaulted her sister before raping her and his fighters ignored her pleas to spare her mother.
“I talked to the man that [raped me],” Sara says. “I said, ‘Please let me talk for my mother’. The other man that was standing by his side said no. ‘No mother business here. That’s my own woman.’ So, he carried my mother in the bush and have her too.”
Sara says their father had just been killed by Tuah’s soldiers in Sokopa and that they were hurriedly going to see his body when the rapes were committed. She says when the rebels finally released them, they brought their father’s remains to Baila for burial in fulfilment of traditional rites. Sara says because they feared Tuah, they could not openly protest.
Although Baila is not specifically mentioned in the final report of the TRC, one in four of the 93,322 violations recorded by the TRC during the country’s civil wars occured in Bong– the highest toll in any county.
Residents here say Tuah went by the war name “Rambo,” and forced them and captured enemy fighters to transport looted items for sale, including an oil palm processing mill, vehicle engines and copper wires, to Guinea through Nimba County.
Another resident, Bendu (not her real name to protect her from retaliatin), alleges that she and other women were fleeing Baila after NPFL forces had captured the town from Ulimo when they were grabbed by Tuah’s soldiers and raped. She was pleased to hear of his arrest in France.
“I feel fine because he made me to lose,” says Bendu, who wept during the interview. “They [Tuah’s soldiers] have us any way they felt.”
Bendu claims the attack has left her traumatized and that her children fear staying in the town. She says the rebels also brutally murdered her brother in the same way rebels tortured and killed President Doe whose 1990 murder was captured on video.
“If you look at how they killed Doe, that’s how they killed my brother,” she says. “They said he was a Mandingo man. Rambo…gave the command that [my brother was a] Mandingo man and they should kill him.”
Bendu has not forgiven Tuah for the alleged acts of his troops.
“Yes, because my brother didn’t do anything to him. They just killed him because of tribalism,” she says.
The NPFL was blamed for two out of every five crimes reported to the TRC, the largest number of any of the factions. Tuah is the second Liberian to be charged in France. Kunti Kamara, a former Ulimo commander, was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity, torture and aggravated acts of barbarism last November. The court sentenced him to life in prison. His appeal of the verdict will be held in March.
Alieu Kosiah, another former Ulimo commander, who lost his appeal against his 20-year sentence for crimes against humanity and war crimes in June, was the first Liberian warlord to face direct prosecution for war crimes during the wars. Earlier, criminal convictions of Ulimo’s Mohammed Jabbateh and NPFL’s Thomas Woewiyu in the United States were based on their failure to admit they had committed war crimes to US immigration services.
As with all previous cases, Tuah’s indictment followed a collaborative investigation by French authorities and justice advocates, Civitas Maxima and its Liberian partner, the Global Justice and Research Project. French authorities will conduct a further investigation into his alleged crimes before a date is announced for his trial.
Prince Paye, who says he was a first lieutenant in the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), at the time of the war, alleges that he had sought refuge in Baila where Tuah’s soldiers tortured him.
“They said I [was] a Doe soldier,” says Paye of Tuah’s rebels. “They naked me. He [Rambo] was among the torturers.”
Paye, 68, says he was about to be thrown into the river, but the town chief intervened. Unlike Sara and Bendu, Paye claims to hold no bitterness toward Tuah and other NPFL fighters.
“I forgave them,” says Paye.
FrontPage Africa/New Narratives found no supporters of Tuah in Baila and Sokopa, the main areas of his alleged crimes. Only after traveling to Kpain Town, in neighboring Nimba county, were there family members or supporters.
“I didn’t see Saturday Tuah doing bad,” says Nyah Gunanue, chief of Kpain Town. He named an alleged notorious NPFL commander – “Tamba” as perpetrator in this area, but praised Adolphus Dolo known as “General Peanut Butter,” another NPFL commander for driving Tamba out of the town.
But Gunanue says he has faith in the French justice system. Tuah “has to identify himself there [in France] whether he did bad, or he didn’t do bad. Maybe, his way of doing that will save him, or make him to go to jail,” he says.
Tuah is now the ninth alleged perpetrator from Liberia’s civil wars charged in Europe and US under the legal principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which holds that a crime against humanity knows no borders. For that reason alleged perpetrators living in countries with universal jurisdiction laws can be tried for crimes regardless of where they were committed.
The cases have brought a spotlight to the failures of Liberia’s justice system during and after the war. A key recommendation of Truth and Reconciliation Commission to create a war crimes court has been ignored by two administrations– that of Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and recently defeated George Weah. A war crimes court must be approved by a vote in the Legislature, but without the administration’s support, bills to establish a court have not made it to a vote.
Following last month’s election of Joseph Boakai as president and a big change in the makeup of the Legislature, war crimes court advocates say there is an opportunity to press the issue. Trials of Liberians charged in other countries have boosted support among the public for a court here.
“It will be fine for the war crimes court to come here, because when other people see it, they will be afraid to bring war,” says Sara.
This story is a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the US Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.