Thousands of people gathered in northern Liberia on Saturday for the funeral of warlord-turned-politician Prince Johnson – a notorious face of the country's brutal civil wars, and who died without facing trial. A Liberian rights activist tells RFI it was "painful" to see Johnson commemorated as a hero.
Prince Yormie Johnson was a key figure in Liberia's two civil wars between 1989 and 2003, which claimed around 250,000 lives and resulted in massacres, mutilation, rape and the widespread use of child soldiers.
He became infamous in 1990 after appearing in a video sipping beer while watching his fighters slowly mutilate and torture then president Samuel Doe to death.
Although a 2009 government report highlighted atrocities committed by Johnson in the civil wars and urged he be tried in court, he was never prosecuted.
He went on to become an evangelical preacher and a highly influential senator – acting as power broker in the last three presidential elections.
He died on 28 November in the capital Monrovia aged 72.
Saturday's burial marked the end of a five-day state funeral which saw Prince Johnson's body displayed outside parliament in Monrovia before being transported to his home county of Nimba, where he'd served as a popular senator.
President Joseph Boakai and former president George Weah were among those attending.
Some of the crowd from Nimba wore traditional attire and daubed their faces with red and white chalk. Others wrapped their heads and carried sticks in the shape of guns – which they said symbolised Johnson's warrior-like nature and depicted his role defending Nimba during the civil war.
Johnson's immediate family wore white, while another group of supporters – all dressed in black with red hats – beat drums, clapped, danced and sang.
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Ongong impunity
Johnson figured top of Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission's list of "notorious perpetrators" during the civil wars. His crimes, the commission said, included killing, extortion, massacre, destruction of property, forced recruitment, assault, abduction, torture, forced labour and rape.
He never faced trial.
"It’s painful – the jubilation I’m seeing, the celebration I’m seeing, of a murderer, a war criminal," human rights activist Maxson Kpakio told RFI.
Kpakio, founder of the Liberia Justice Forum, has been active in calling for a special war and economic crimes court for Liberia "so that those that bear the huge responsibility for the war can be punished".
In May, Liberia's President Joseph Boakai signed an order to create a war crimes court. But it's clear to Kpakio that there is ongoing impunity for Liberia's former military leaders.
"Seeing [Johnson] not being punished but being celebrated and remembered as a hero is painful to all those that lost family members, killed through his initiative or by himself."
Kpakio regretted they could no longer ask Johnson: "Why did you do this to Liberia?".
The former warlord was a long-standing and vocal opponent of the creation of a war crimes court – claiming that such a move could destabilise the country.
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'Nothing criminal'
After another warlord Charles Taylor, Liberia's future president who was later convicted of crimes against humanity, Johnson broke away and was forced into exile in Nigeria in 1992, where he stayed for 12 years.
He returned to Liberia in 2004 with a message of peace and reconciliation, becoming a preacher in an evangelical church.
In an interview with RFI in 2009 he denied he had taken part in massacres during the civil wars.
But two years later, while running for president, the father of 12 justified his role in the war.
"I have done nothing criminal... I fought to defend my country, my people who were led to the slaughterhouse, as if they were chickens and goats, by the Doe regime," Johnson told AFP news agency.
(with newswires)
