TRC: War victims seek justice
2006-10-19 22:07
Palala - Richard Tokpah was once accused at a rebel checkpoint in this central Liberian town of a petty crime - touching a guerrilla commander's jacket.
Eight fighters immediately pounced on him and savagely pounded his legs with rifle butts leaving him handicapped for life.
He is just one of the victims of Liberia's barbaric series of civil conflicts now seeking justice as the truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) begins unearthing the country's dark past.
"I want justice to prevail here because I was not like this. Look at me," Tokpah, 38, pointing to his legs and almost in tears.
"In 2003, I was beaten by several fighters of Lurd, right in this town and they put me in this condition," he told truth commission officers.
He cannot stand balanced on both his feet anymore, is unable to work on his farm and shifts on one leg at a time to move.
'Let justice prevail'
Tokpah said the rebel commander who gave orders for the assault, which has painfully changed his life, Morris Kanneh, still lives in Palala and roams around freely while he is wasting away.
"I used to work hard, but today I have become a liability on my brother. Let justice prevail," Topkah, a former rice and cassava farmer, told TRC officers gathering testimony from victims of 24 years of civil conflicts.
His friend Soko Sumo, 36, angrily interrupts Richard's account of his ordeal, sitting outside his brother's house where he resides.
"We will not sit here and look at Morris (Kanneh) passing around not even regretting what he did to our friend.
"If nothing is done to bring him to book, we will take the law into our hands," warned Sumo.
Styled on South Africa's post-apartheid TRC, Liberia's panel is trying to probe the atrocities committed over nearly a quarter of century of successive civil unrest that ended in 2003.
It allows victims, perpetrators and witnesses to tell their stories in a bid to find ground for understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Officers embark on door-to-door campaigns
Rights bodies in the country are advocating the eventual creation of a war crimes tribunal, arguing that a truth commission alone cannot pacify Liberia.
"There should be a war crimes tribunal," said Dempster Brown, head of a coalition of Liberian rights bodies.
But in the face of reluctance of both victims and perpetrators to come forward and give testimonies, TRC officers in parts of the country have embarked on door-to-door campaigns to woo people out.
"The victims are reluctant to come because they believe that what happened to them will not be punished by law," said Aaron Blackie, TRC co-ordinator for Bong count. "And the perpetrators also are afraid to come because they believe that we are here to prosecute them."
"This is the reason we have decided to go to them ... with the intention of sensitising them on the importance of the programme. They need to know that the TRC was established to help reunite our country," he said.
- SAPA