Slain Liberian President Samuel Doe Home Filled with Filth, Feces, Grass

Zwedru – A dilapidated concrete mansion sits empty on the edge of Zwedru, the capital of Liberia’s Grand Gedeh County.

Report by Bettie K. Johnson-Mbayo, [email protected]

Its tall bars are unpainted; its window frames lack glass. Liberia is strewn with buildings abandoned in the course of its wars, but this one was never finished.

Wind pushes through broken windows. There are holes in the roof. Rainwater has collected in puddles on the ground marble staircase and throughout the house.

The mansion was planned for completion in the late ’91, after it was commissioned by Samuel Doe, the young army sergeant from Grand Gedeh who wrested power from William Tolbert in the 1980 coup.

He had planned his thirty-ninth birthday party at his new home–dinner in the blue room followed by dancing around the pool, lined with a mosaic of the Liberian flag.

But four months before the celebrations, Doe was captured and hacked to death–ear by ear, limb by limb–in a grisly show of violence orchestrated by the former rebel chief Prince Johnson, current Nimba county senator, and a former ally of the ex-President Charles Taylor, convicted on 11 counts of war crimes at The Hague last month.

Chupy Zonweay, 80, said after Doe’s death, the workers dropped their trowels and cement mixers.

They left their cans of paint open in the November sun. Years passed. Kids started to use the place as a playground and “bad” youth are now using the mansion as a refuge place.

Spiders spun webs between the fake stalactites commissioned by Doe’s interior designer. Expatriate aid workers turned up for picnics, watching the sun set from its balconies, said Zonweay.

Allegedly, the UN High Commission for Refugees even considered leasing it as office space but due to family squabble, the plan was nixed.

“When the UNHCR people came they wanted to use the building but the family started tussling and politics came in to play so they left it,” he said.

He recalled that the former Zwedru city mayor, Rita Karr contracted people to give some facelift to the mansion but now an unkempt lawn mars the property.

“I lived behind it,  now many  youth are in it smoking, even thieves live there, the current Government must come and see how they can transform the area because that place is beautiful and I hoping that the Government will look at that place to make it a museum to remember him, he is our past president, “ Zonweay said.

Mr. Zonweay disclosed that in recent days police raided drug users from the palace adding that those living nearby are afraid.

He added that the palace was also used as a hide-out for some of the rebels during the civil crises.  “The place is huge and during the rebel time it was also a hideout for some of the rebels because some areas when you entered you don’t come out till it’s open from inside.”

Mr. Zonweay said though the President is dead, his family should also contribute to keeping their father’s legacy alive.

“Though the  president died, but he has his people but maybe they don’t have money but why they can’t take care of it is what I don’ t know and whether they got money and don’t have  time is  what I don’t know  also, but they should try and keep their father legacy alive.”

He recalled the last time his wife came to the county was when her son Samuel Doe Jr. was contesting the 2014 senatorial election.

Grand Gedeh is only 185 miles from Monrovia, but the drive from the national capital takes 12 hours at best, longer if you’re counting on bush taxis with their worn tires and aging engines. Thick, wet forest frames the county. Giant palm fronds hang like umbrellas over five-foot termite mounds. Grand Gedeh is the last bastion of Liberia’s forest elephants and the home of thousands of striped duiker—short, shy, antelope-like creatures.