Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – Yekeh Kolubah, a full grown adult and now Montserrado County District #10 lawmaker in the House of Representatives, says during Liberia’s close to two decades internecine arm conflict he was underage, conscripted as a rebel soldier, and given weapon against his will to fight the deadly war that claimed the lives of approximately 250,000 people.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday at Capitol Hill, Monrovia, Rep Yekeh said for being subjected to carrying arms to fight war, he wants the establishment of a war crimes court for Liberia, so that those who gave arms to him and others that were underage, to be held liable for mayhem committed during the war years.
On Christmas Eve in 1989, ragtag rebel forces loyal to jailed former Liberian president Charles Taylor shot their way into Liberia via Ivory Coast through Buutuo in Nimba County.
The Taylor forces, the erstwhile National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) for which Yekeh fought and rose to the rank of “General”, stand accused of committing hideous crimes against humanity, as well as recruiting child soldiers to perpetrate the rebel invasion which witnessed the capturing, torturing, disfiguring, and murdering of then President Samuel Doe, by ex-warlord and leader of the former Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), Prince Johnson, who is now senator of Nimba County.
Rep Yekeh said his continuous advocacy for the establishment of a war crimes court for Liberia is aimed at having his day in court to exonerate himself
“You know why I always want the war crimes court to come? Because I want us to go and exonerate ourselves.”
“People abused us – people brought war on us here, and we were forced, we were underage, they abused us, we were underage – so I want the war crimes court to come, so those people can be held liable,” he maintained.
He insists that there is a need for the establishment of a war crimes court “because those people that brought the war that made us to hold gun in this country – so that they can be held liable.”
Following an investigation that sought to unravel the causes and consequences of Liberia’s conflict, Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) collected more than 20,000 statements and released a 370-page report, recommending among other things that dozens of individuals who bear greater responsibility of the war that displaced millions of Liberians, left a quarter of a million dead, and countless more raped, disabled, and traumatized, should face further investigation and prosecution.
But since then, and in spite of recent mounting pressure and incessant calls coming both from the local and international fronts for the establishment of a tribunal to ensure justice is served for the perpetration of heinous crimes during the country’s bloody civil war, President George Manneh Weah is yet undecided over whether or not there should be any such thing as a war crimes court for Liberia.
Amid street protests in the capital Monrovia by several Liberians calling for the establishment of a war crimes court, the U.S. House of Representatives late last year, passed a resolution for the full implementation of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommendations, which in part call for the establishment of a special tribunal to try those bearing greater responsibility of the decade-plus civil war in the country.
Upon his return to the country from the maiden edition of the Paris Peace Forum in 2018, President Weah, responding to a reporter’s inquiry as to what was his position on the establishment of a war crimes court for Liberia, the Liberian leader laid the responsibility squarely at the feet of the citizens, stating that it is the prerogative of Liberians to decide whether they need the court as opposed to development or vice versa.
Weah said: “We have our liberty, we all have different minds, we’ve got different views and opinions; some people [are] calling for war crimes court, some people [are calling for peace. So I think what we need to do is that, we’ve got to find out what we need – if we need war crimes court now to develop our country or we need peace to develop the country – so that’s where all of us Liberians need to sit and talk about advancement.”
