Atoning for 20,000 crimes
Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 10:32 am
The Penitant Warlord: Atoning for 20,000 War Crimes
For years, Joshua Milton Blahyi, better known as General Butt Naked, was one of Liberia's most feared warlords. Then he became a pastor. Today he visits the families of his victims to seek forgiveness for his sins.
(...)
The record of the hearing, in which he is confronted with his earlier statements, is kept on file in Liberia's national archive.
"'I recruited children who were nine or 10 years old.' Is this correct?"
"Yes."
"'I planted violence into them. I explained to them that killing people was a game.' Is this correct?"
"Correct."
"'When I shot and wounded an enemy, I would rip open his back and eat his live heart.' Is this correct?"
"Let me be more precise…I also laid down the body and had my child soldiers cut the person to pieces, so that they wouldn't have any feelings for people."
"Are you the same Joshua Milton Blahyi they now call Blahyi the Evangelist?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why did you decide, in light of this … past, to come to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?"
"For my faith. I was told that I should tell the truth, and the truth will set me free."
(...)
Is it possible that a war criminal can become a man of God? Or is he a fraud? That's the accusation: that he puts on the mask of a preacher every Sunday, but that beneath the mask he remains a murderer.
(...)
In Liberia, stability was chosen over justice, because if everyone in the country who has killed someone were charged with murder, it would probably turn into another Somalia. Nevertheless, Blahyi is convinced that there will eventually be a special tribunal for Liberia.
"Would you be prepared to spend the rest of your life in prison?"
"I would accept it willingly, as well as the death penalty. Even if I could run away, I would not run away. My Lord Jesus says: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."
"How do you atone for your sins?"
"I visit the people I have hurt, the victims of my crimes. I try to help them."
"You ask for forgiveness?"
"Yes. That's the most difficult moment. I couldn't feel anything in the past. Now I feel their pain."
"What are you afraid of?"
"That I will meet the Lord tomorrow, and he will say: 'You have wasted the opportunity that I have given you.'"