AN OVERVIEW
The fact that the Liberian civil war started on December 24, 1989 (Christmas eve) tells you that the joke was not funny as it turned happiness into seriousness.
There were those who called the revolution the “popular people’s uprising” and considered the actors as ‘freedom fighters ‘ while there were others who termed it as REBELLION and the gun carrier REBEL. That largely depended on who you talk to, because later you had Monrovia-Liberia and Greater-Liberia….same nation with two schools of thought or differences in opinions about the ‘other side’s.
WHY USE BUUTUO
BUUTUO is the headquarters of Buu-Yao District (5) in Nimba County located at the northeastern belt with the Ivory Coast. You know Nimba has a polarized crossing point with Cote d’Ivoire but the recognized ports of entry are BUUTUO and Loguatuo. So why use BUUTUO as a launching pad for the “Tayloric” revolution, or better still, why enter BUUTUO to attack the Doe-regime when the Town Leapard is in Monrovia??
Oh I see. It’s either because former president William Tolbert built a guest house there to sleep whenever he visited or because of the meaty soup of the HBO Bowl, over which the civil war started.
WHY not grab a copy of this book and read through Amazon?
I had wanted to become a writer following my graduation from the St. Mary’s High school in Sanniquellie in December 1989, and serving as a reporter throughout the war with great pen pushers both in Greater Liberia and later Monrovia put me in a better position to scrabble these words.
Hey, during the crisis, most of the people fled the country; others died or were killed; some of you reading this were not born then; however, a good number of us including Matthew Gono, Floyd Tomah Sr, Joey Kenned , Gus Jaeploe, Isaac Redd, Joe Wollie ,Seingbeh Johnson, Aaron Koillie, Maxine Bleetian, and a host of others (dead and alive).
Now, before the crisis, Liberians used to watch war movies and heard the romours of war, but after the BUUTUO litmus test, the lived and fought war.
Finally, the book, written then when men were boys in terms of sophistication, is just a beginning. By the Grace of God, my next book titled: THE AMERICA I THOUGHT, will be coming up later this year. So watch out!!