The Supernatural Aspects of the Liberian Civil War
*This essay was originally written in the Spring of 2014. Slight alterations have been made since then.*
_Fig05_Poro_Devils.jpg) |
| Image Credit: Beatty, Kenneth James, (Sir); Sierra Leone. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
The
Supernatural Aspects of the Liberian Civil War
On Christmas Eve, 1989, a group of
some 100 rebels entered Liberia with the goal of overthrowing active president
Samuel Doe. Throughout the 1990s
hundreds of thousands would die in the conflict. To those outside of Liberia who cared to pay
attention, what shocked the most was the young fighters dressed in protective
amulets and charms, disemboweling and eating the hearts of their victims
(Ellis, 2001). Soldiers filled the streets, some wearing nothing, others
wearing wedding dresses. How is an
outside observer to explain this type of warfare in the 20th century?
Certainly the Liberian Civil War was
a bloody conflict. Without a greater
historical context, the images seen from its battlefields in the cities and
villages of Liberia look nothing short of macabre chaos. Morten Bøås asked, “What kind of theoretical
framework may be utilized to deconstruct soldiers in wedding dresses or a rebel
leader who while claiming presidency and international recognition records on
videotape how he tortures the president he is seeking to replace?”(Bøås 1997). In order to explain what is seen as
abhorrent, effort must be made to look past the abhorrence. Rather than seeing the atrocities committed
as occurring in a vacuum, looking at the events of the Liberian Civil War with
their historical context and spiritual precedents in mind can help explain the
processes which made the behavior of the combatants logical. It was a 200 year chain of tensions which
would eventually result in the out hand violence of the 1990s. This paper will argue that the combination of
the traditional Poro societies, which regulated violence, and the modern
state’s desired monopoly on killing created the conditions in which strange
attire, cannibalism, and other seemingly bizarre aspects of warfare were
logical.
Sources of information for this examination are multidisciplinary. The primary source of information on the
spiritual history of Liberia and descriptions of religious elements are from
Stephen Ellis, the former director of the Africa Programme at the International
Crisis Group (Ellis, 2006). Kenneth
Cain, who served as the United Nations peacekeeping operations human rights
officer in Liberia, provides a detailed overview of the human rights violations
that took place during the Liberian Civil War.
Along with Ellis, contemporary and historical political and social
issues of Liberia are presented by Lansana Gberie, Morten Bøås, Quentin Outram,
and David Harris. Some non-scholarly
firsthand accounts of religious ritual and the combat of the civil war comes
from Joshua Blayhi, former priest of the Krahn tribe, who fought for the
ULIMO-J faction in the civil war with the nom
de guerre General Butt Naked. Since
the civil war he has converted to Christianity and is a practicing evangelical
minister.
Liberian History
Before the supernatural events of
the Liberian Civil War can be understood, they must be contextualized in
Liberia’s history. The republic of
Liberia was founded in 1847 by a conglomeration of repatriated African-American
slaves who had settled the coast of West Africa. Settlement began in the early 1800s, with
settlers remaining within several miles of the coast. The hinterland of what would become Liberia
was the home of 16 recognized ethnic groups.
Modern ethnographers have complicated these ethnic distinctions,
pointing to the mobility and in geographic intermixing of these ethnic groups
(Outram, 1997).
The early social regulation of the
Liberian hinterland tribes was done by the elders amongst the Poro and Sande
societies. Poro and Sande were the
initiatory societies of men and women respectively. Adulthood was not achieved until one became
initiated into their Poro society (Ellis, 2006). Commonly the Poro and Sande societies are
referred to as secret societies, but this is misleading because every adult was
initiated. The leaders of the Poro
society were often involved in more esoteric and exclusive secret societies,
such as the human leopard society. The
leopard society was composed primarily of senior members of a particular tribe. As will be discussed later, the leopard
society would engage in ritual human sacrifice to feed a fetish object, which
would provide protection to the community.
Ellis explains,
“Despite their
occasional lethal activities, leopard societies were regarded as socially
valuable. Their elite character implied
the possession both of great esoteric knowledge and of great power, including
the power of life and death, which could be used for the greater good of the
community in which they existed (Ellis, 2006).”
Although
it is important to not be blinded by illusions of the pre-contact ‘noble
savage’, it is generally regarded that the members of the leopard society were
able to create a workable social order during the pre-republican period. They actually had the effect of keeping war
in check enough to avoid the destabilization of society. Their ritual sacrifices served as a form of
policing, and elder members were given leeway in managing the economic affairs
of the community (Ellis, 2006).
Due to pressure from the other major
colonial powers of Africa, the Liberian Republican government expanded into the
hinterland and effectively colonized the tribal groups. From the very beginning the ruling Americo-Liberian
class of freed slaves created a de-facto segregation of the tribal peoples
(Bøås, 1997). Although the constitution
stated all persons of Negro descent were citizens of the republic, to be
eligible to vote a male had to be a landowner.
Tribal peoples were explicitly barred from possessing real estate in the
constitution because they belonged to tribes who possessed tribal land (Bøås,
1997). Having little education and even
less governing experience, the governing style of the repatriated
Americo-Liberians was based upon the plantation system they had lived under in
the United States. The minority Americo-Liberians
worked quickly to ensure their dominance in the affairs of the republic, and
violently put down any insurrection from the tribal groups (Bøås, 1997).
Liberian politics was dominated by
True Whig Party for 110 years. Their
rule was marked by incredible corruption.
There was little distinction between private and public funds, and it
was common practice to use all available resources, including public funds, to
ensure one’s own political survival (Bøås, 1997). Although corruption was a problem since the
beginning of the republic, the economy of Liberia remained incredibly small
until the investment of international corporations. In 1926 the rubber company Firestone set up a
massive plantation in what was to be the start of Liberia’s ‘open door
policy’. By buying off high ranking
government officials, foreign companies could extract what resources and profit
they wanted from the country without oversight or regulation (Outram, 1997). Tribal lands were taken, and the tribal
people were subjected to forced labor on the plantations. This became business as usual for the
Liberian upper class, and by the time reforms were attempted revolution was
already inevitable.
In early 1980 a group of 17 low
ranking officers overthrew the government, and Master Sergeant Samuel Doe took
power (Harris 1999). Samuel Doe was originally
well supported by the tribal constituency who celebrated the end of 158 years
of subservience to the Americo-Liberians.
However Doe quickly resorted to preemptive violence to secure his
political gains. Doe was of the Krahn
tribe, and he gave all top military posts to members of his tribe (Bøås,
1997). Bøås states, “Before Doe started
his policy of krahnification, most scholars agreed that Liberia was one of the
few African countries without any serious tribal hostility” (Bøås, 1997). General Butt Naked claims that Doe became an
initiated priest to the major god of the Krahn tribe, Nya-ghe-a-weh, and
ritually gave over the soul of the nation to the Krahn tribe (Blayhi,
2013). Butt Naked claims that he helped
Doe win the 1985 election by extracting white blood cells from suitable
individuals and distributed them in capsules at restaurants. Doing so allowed him to control the voting
habits of all who ate them (Blayhi, 2013).
Regardless of the means, after rigging the 1985 election and subsequently
putting down a coup by Quiwonkpa of the Gio tribe there arose a deep seated
ethnic hatred between the Krahn and Gio peoples (Outram, 1997). Doe’s violent rule and alienation of tribes
outside of the Krahn would soon have drastic consequences for him and the rest
of Liberia.
The Events of the
Liberian Civil War
The Liberian Civil War was to begin
under the leadership of a Liberian exile serving time in a Massachusetts
prison, Charles Taylor. Taylor
mysteriously escaped from prison and fled to Mexico, eventually ending up back
in Africa (Ellis, 2006). He became part
of a network of Liberian exiles and managed to gain the support of Libyan
Colonel Gadaffi, who was attempting to create a pan-African revolutionary force
(Ellis, 2006). Thus, the National
Patriotic Front of Liberia was founded.
After receiving training in Libya, in 1989 the NPFL was actively
preparing in Côte d’Ivoire for the invasion of Liberia through Gio and Mano
dominated Nimba County (Ellis, 2006).
Rumors of the coming invasion took on
spiritual significance. A series of
ritual murders were carried out with the perceived motive of ensuring wealth
and power during the predicted political upheaval (Ellis, 2006). The government took the rumors of spiritual
turmoil seriously enough to send an expert on occult affairs from the Interior
Ministry to Nimba county in order to investigate the rumors of witchcraft
(Ellis, 2006). The connection between
governmental power and the supernatural world would remain a theme throughout
the conflict as leaders sought both political and spiritual power.
On Christmas Eve, 1989, the NPFL invaded
Liberia and attacked government and army targets in Nimba County. Gios and Manos joined the NPFL out of
frustration with the brutal Doe regime, rapidly inflating the numbers of the
NPFL. In Nimba County the Liberian army
(AFL) quickly found themselves unsupported by the local populace. In Monrovia, the AFL began nightly abductions
and beheadings of Mano and Gio residents (Ellis, 2006). The NPFL freely armed Gio and Mano villagers,
implicitly encouraging indiscriminate killing of Krahn and Mandingo citizens. In turn, the Doe government armed the Krahn
and Mandingo and encouraged violence against the Gio and Mano (Ellis, 1995). The NFPL quickly advanced toward Monrovia,
growing in numbers and attacking any Krahn they came upon. By mid-1990, the city of Monrovia was divided,
with sections under control by Taylor’s NPFL, the AFL of the besieged Doe, and
Prince Johnson, who had broken away from the NPFL and formed the INPFL out of
the 300 or so Libyan trained commandoes who were loyal to him (Ellis, 1995). The English-speaking governments of West
Africa were supportive of a US intervention to halt the destabilizing war,
however in early August 1990 Iraq invaded oil-rich Kuwait, and American
military attention was directed elsewhere (Ellis, 2006). The government of Nigeria pressured regional
powers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to intervene,
and by August 24th a Nigerian dominant force of ECOMOG began landing
in Monrovia (Ellis, 2006).
September 9, 1990 Samuel Doe and
some AFL soldiers were meeting with an ECOMOG commander at an ECOMOG command
post. Doe and his AFL soldiers were
disarmed upon entering the compound.
Shortly into the meeting, Prince Johnson and the INPFL stormed the
compound and, in full view of ECOMOG soldiers, massacred the unarmed AFL and
abducted Samuel Doe (Ellis, 2006). A
Palestinian journalist happened to be at the compound of Prince Johnson, and
was given access to film the lengthy torture of Doe. The soldiers torturing Doe are seemingly
aware of the legends of invulnerability and magical power that surrounded
Doe. A Liberian writer is quoted,
“Samuel Doe was
widely credited with the power not only to be impervious to bullets, but also
of disappearing in the face of danger, including plane crashes. He had a coterie of juju men from all over
Africa, notably Togo. And some of the
rituals he was rumored to be practicing in order to maintain the potency of his
powers included drinking the blood and/or eating the fetuses of pregnant young
girls. Once in a while he himself would
boast publicly that no gun had yet been made that could kill him. And the people believed it (Ellis, 2006).”
In
the early hours of September 10th, the potency of Doe’s powers had
faded and as he blew on himself in what was perceived as an attempt to
disappear, Doe was executed by the INPFL.
However even after his death, Doe’s spiritual power was feared. His body was cremated to destroy any magical
objects he may have consumed, and the ashes were sent to Mecca (Ellis, 2006).
The fear of Samuel Doe, even after
death, shows the connection Liberians perceived between the political power of
this world and the spiritual power of the unseen spirit world. Power is invariably connected between both
realms. Samuel Doe, Prince Johnson,
Charles Taylor, and other warlords of the conflict gained legitimacy through
their use of spiritual techniques. When
Prince Johnson is filmed cutting off and eating the ears of the president he
seeks to replace, his actions are explained by the context which ritual
cannibalism has in Liberian spirituality (Bøås, 1997, Ellis, 2006). Although outsiders to the conflict
immediately see this type of behavior as a war crime, it also functions to
legitimize the spiritual superiority of Johnson over Doe. The death of Doe is a prime example of instances
of amulet use and cannibalism which will be discussed at length below.
The intervention of ECOMOG stopped
the NPFL from capturing Monrovia, and the civil war continued into another
year. Charles Taylor had control over
most of the country with the exception of Monrovia, giving him the ability to
export Liberian national resources to finance his military operations. In 1991 Krahn refugees in Sierra Leone formed
the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (ULIMO). Simultaneously Charles Taylor was arming
revolutionaries in Sierra Leone calling themselves the Revolutionary United
Front (RUF), and sending them to destabilize Sierra Leone in retaliation for
their support of ECOMOG (Ellis, 1995). Skirmishes
continued across Liberia between the NPFL of Greater Liberia, ECOMOG supporting
the remnants of Monrovian government, the LPC, ULIMO-J, and ULIMO-K forces for
the next 5 years. Eventually a ceasefire
was reached, and in 1997 rebel leader Charles Taylor was overwhelmingly elected
president of Liberia in what independent observers saw as fair and free
elections. Estimates range that between
150,000 and 250,000 people died during the Liberian Civil War of 1989—1997, and
over half of the population became refugees or internally displaced (Harris,
1999). The peace was not to last, and
the 2nd Liberian Civil War began in 1999 with uprising against
Charles Taylor. Tens of thousands more
Liberians would die until Taylor’s exile and the end of hostilities in 2003.
Masks, Amulets, and
Nakedness
The Liberian Civil War was fought by
fighters who were both professional soldiers and untrained civilians. Early on observers of the conflict, particularly
of the NPFL, noticed stark differences in the appearance of the soldiers and
irregulars. The Libyan-trained commandoes wore green combat fatigues. The Liberians who joined later are described
by a Cuttington University College administrator, who witnessed NPFL training
at the college, as,
“Many of the men
wore weddings gowns, wigs, dresses, commencement gowns from high schools, and
several forms of ‘voodoo’ regalia. All
rebels wore cotton strings around the wrist and around the neck and
shoulder. They all displayed black
tattoos on the arm, slightly below the shoulder. They believed that any person who wore these talismans
and tattoos, and strictly adhered to the laws of not eating pumpkin, having
sex, touching lime and taking a bath, could not be killed in battle by enemy
fire (Ellis, 2006).”
Without
any historical context the attire of the fighters seems like madness, but in
actuality the strange attire is the outgrowth of traditional Liberian beliefs.
Elaborate
masks are a jarringly out of place in modern national armed forces. However masks have a long history in the
religious rituals of hinterland Liberia.
By donning a mask one becomes a connection to the spirit world. The individual becomes unrecognizable and the
spirit is able to take visible form (Ellis, 2006). Ellis explains, “Many Liberians nowadays
continue to hold a residual belief that masks can serve as expressions of the
elusive nature of reality and as instruments of order, and that, behind the social
conventions which masks represent, there lurk deeper forces, invisible to the
naked eye (Ellis, 2006).” Liberians were
able to see these elements of spirituality behind the masks. To the public masks represent the interplay
of the physical and spiritual realms, and horrifying masks were directly
related to the chaotic and horrifying changes that were sweeping the country
being reflected from the spiritual realm.
To individual fighters, donning a mask ceremonially removed them from
responsibility for violent actions. Much
like how the elders of the Poro society became the Bush Devil when they wore
his mask and carried out human sacrifices, the fighters wearing masks became
agents of the spirit world when disguised.
Many fighters during the conflict wore
protective amulets on the battlefield. General
Butt Naked claims to have eaten 11 cowry shells which gave him an assortment of
powers from his deity after they were absorbed into his body (Blayhi, 2013). Powers granted by the shells included disappearance
and reappearance, contact with a supernatural knife, protection from bullets
and knives, hypnotization, and spreading fear (Blayhi, 2013). Samuel Doe was also said to have eaten
protective amulets as ways to increase his spiritual power (Ellis, 2006). As was seen with masks, amulets can also
serve as conduits of spiritual power. Even
though the weapons being used were modern, there was no reason why traditional
protective amulets would no longer work.
Training with protective amulets and ritual protective tattooing by religious
specialists from all over West Africa was actually a part of NPFL training
(Ellis, 2006).
Other fighters were strangely
overdressed for the occasion of war. Why
were wedding dresses being worn by male fighters on the battlefield? As a brief reminder and limit onto this
inquiry, it is important to point out that not all counterintuitive events of
the war can be explained away by the modernization of traditional religious
beliefs. The wearing of wedding dresses
is a form of social inversion, revolting against the years of Americo-Liberian
decadence during the republican era. Well
into the 20th century, the formal wear of the Southern plantation which
the Americo-Liberians left in the 1800s was the norm for all Monrovian social
affairs (Bøås, 1997; Ellis, 2006). When
the civil war reached Monrovia, the fashion shops were looted and the
disenfranchised hinterland Liberians claimed and inverted the status symbols
that had been used against them for over a century (Bøås, 1997).
Cannibalism
Striking to observers of the
Liberian Civil War were the instances of cannibalism occurring on large
scale. As early as 1994 surveys were
reporting that from 3 to 6 percent of fighters had engaged in cannibalism at
least once that far into the war (Cain, 1999).
Keeping in mind that the war would go on until 1997, 3 more years of
combat took place for that figure to increase.
The US State Department concluded that members of all factions of the
conflict were engaging in cannibalism, often eating specific body parts in
order to gain the victims strength (Cain, 1999).
Cannibalism in Liberia is traced
back to pre-republican times. It was
originally associated with secret societies whose members would become
possessed with the spirits of carnivorous animals, such as leopards and
crocodiles, and engage in ritual murder and cannibalism (Ellis, 2006). The Human Leopards had to regularly consume
the flesh of humans in order to keep their virile power (Ellis, 2006). The idea that consuming human flesh gives
power, and that flesh must be continued to be consumed in order to maintain
that power is a notion that can be seen from pre-republican times up into the
Doe administration. As was mentioned
above, Doe himself was said to regularly eat fetuses (Ellis, 2006).
The amount of cannibalism which ever
took place in Liberia is up for debate.
Anthropologists studying the area were often unclear whether the Poro, Sande,
or secret societies engaged in real or metaphorical cannibalism (Ellis,
2006). On one hand, during the
republican period eating flesh was often used as a metaphor for someone who
gained political power rapidly. On the
other, there seem to be substantiated reports that major republican politicians
engaged in acts of cannibalism to further their political careers (Ellis,
2006). Important for this examination is
the notion that Liberians were familiar enough with the concept that eating
human flesh could give the eater power that the metaphor of cannibalism become
a part of the standard political lexicon.
The association of power and
consumption creates a morally ambiguous situation when combined with the
spiritual idea that every animal has a soul. By very nature, a living being
must be killed in order for the eater to gain power (Ellis, 2006). Power and social order and integrally tied to
eating and destruction. During the
seclusion of the Poro initiation if a child broke the rules of the society they
were executed and their internal organs were eaten by the group. This was seen as sacrifice to order and a way
for the dead’s essence to be carried on in the survivors (Ellis, 2006). The moral ambiguity of power, combined with
lack of control of who was gaining that power, can easily describe how such
violent extremes were taken during the civil war.
Combining the historical
developments of the Liberian Civil War with the tradition of ritual cannibalism
explains its widespread use in the war.
Traditionally it was only the elders of the Poro and other secret
societies who sanctioned the cannibalism that took place. It happened controllably and
ritualistically. During the late
republican period, politicians began using cannibalism as a means to further
their political careers. Republican
government had created a new environment where economic gain could be made
outside the traditional economic regulation of the elders, but the belief in
power through cannibalism persisted. During
the civil war all regulation had stopped.
Warlords cannibalized for the same reasons and beliefs that their
politician predecessors did; quick access to power. Combatants shared the same beliefs, or emulated
their leaders. Thus, the traditionally
regulated ritual cannibalism escalated to the shocking levels seen during the
war.
Conclusion: Rethinking
the Liberian Civil War
Many aspects of the war do not fit
within easy categorical frameworks. In
1990 as refugees were fleeing Monrovia the NPFL set checkpoints to search for
Krahn. At God Bless You Gate the
fighters kept a monkey who was said to only touch Krahn. Anyone touched by the monkey was killed on
the spot (Ellis, 2006). Episodic
accounts such as these are more difficult to box into categories than the
magically protective and cannibalistic activity described above. However this does not mean that they are
chaotic and unexplainable. Important to
remember when analyzing the conflict is the interconnectedness between the
human and spirit world that Liberians see in all events.
What is the point of this type of
inquiry? It is easy to look at the
Liberian Civil War, and any conflict for that matter, from only a neoliberal,
western position which would dismiss the spiritual aspects of wars as
superstitious and primitive. The problem
with relying on the theoretical and moral lenses of outsider observers is that
it misses the real point of the conflict.
How could the solution to a conflict ever be found if no time is taken
to even try to understand the worldviews of the combatant parties? Solutions
require more than labeling the other as primitive and barbaric. It is true that, to a western mindset, the
occasional ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism of the Poro society is
morally wrong. In relation to hundreds
of thousands dead, 168,000 raped, the use of child soldiers as decoys to draw
out enemy fire, systematic torture, systematic looting, and widespread
uncontrolled cannibalism; does the control of the Poro society seem so barbaric
(Cain, 1999)? Modernization or, more
accurately, westernization does not happen to cultural blank slates. In the case of Liberia, the notions of the
spirit world and ritual violence of the Poro were merged into the exploitative
republican system. Cannibalism may have
its traditional roots in the Poro societies, but the warlordism and lack of accountability
for actions is of a closer relation to the Open Door policy of the Firestone
rubber company and Americo-Liberian republic.
The Liberian Civil War should not be
dismissed as barbaric chaos, but as an unfortunate response to the merging of
traditional cultural systems with western models of statehood and governance. The regulative violence of the Poro, human
sacrifice and consumption as means of accumulating power, combined with
cronyism, economic exploitation, and violent repression by the Americo-Liberian
republic can explain the warlordism and extreme violence of the Liberian Civil
War. With the added spiritual framework
of Liberian discourse, the result was a spectacle for western observers. However it was completely explainable and
logical given the political and spiritual history of Liberia. There is another side to look at however. The Poro societies of Liberia are seen by
Liberians as, “Bases for ‘pan-tribal brotherhood’ and as ‘mechanisms for
resolution of conflict’ (Harris, 1999).” Conflict is bound to break out in modernizing
countries around the globe, and it is the responsibility and best interest of
the already intervening western nations to understand the worldviews they are
imposing their own ways of business upon.
Traditional society can be looked upon as barbaric, or it can be
understood and recognized as a part of the dialogue necessary to develop modern
solutions.
Works
Cited:
Blayhi, J. (2013). The redemption of an african warlord,
the joshua blayhi story: A modern day conversion from saul to paul. Destiny
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Cain, K. L. (1999). The rape of dinah: Human rights, civil
warin liberia, and evil triumphant. Human Rights Quarterly, 21(2),
265-307.
Ellis, S. (2006). The mask of anarchy: The destruction of
liberia adn the religious dimension of an african civil war. (2nd ed.). New
York, NY: New York University Press.
Ellis, S. (2001). Mystical weapons: Some evidence from the
liberian war. Journal of Religion in Africa, 31(2), 222-236.
Ellis, S. (1995). Liberia 1989-1994 a study of ethnic and
spiritual violence. African Affairs, 94(375), 165-197.
Gberie, L. (2008). Truth and justice on trial in liberia. African
Affairs, 107(428), 455-465. doi: 10.1093/afraf/adn038
Harris, D. (1999). From 'warlord' to 'democratic' president:
how charles taylor won the 1997 liberian elections. The Journal of Modern
African Studies, 37(3), 431-455.
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