We must give account

Ex-rebel leader Senator Prince Y. Johnson, who has successively held his native Nimba County’s senatorial seat since 2005, says he and other warlords, including politicians must account for their past activities during the decade-long civil war here.

He believes when the time comes, they (key actors in the nearly 15 years civil war) will account that they “fought in defend to live [and] to survive” because at the time the regime that was supposed to provide protection and fight for the people seemed to “slaughter” them in cold blood.

“Whatever you do in the world, you must give account; you know life as a whole is a journey, and life being a journey, it goes along with a journal. So whatever you do you must give account of your life,” Senator Johnson told a local radio talk show, “Prime Morning Pride” hosted by Prime FM 105.5 on Wednesday, 17 February.

Supporters of the ex-rebel leader, who headed the erstwhile Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia or INPFL, a breakaway faction of now imprisoned ex-president Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, abducted sitting President Samuel Doe and eventually mutilated him in September 1990.

But PYJ argued the people have right to defend themselves where government can no longer provide protection, contending that the war is now over and people who even fought and were at each other’s throats are engaged in intermarriages, among others.

He says it has not reached the point yet where they are to give account about their “past activities during the war.” Senator Johnson vehemently kicks against war crimes court here, arguing that Liberians chose Truth and Reconciliation Commission or TRC over war crimes court during peace talks in Ghana, which he thinks equates to dismissal of the option to bring in such a court.

The issue of war crimes court has been dismissed long time by Liberians when they brought the TRC here that was enacted into law by the Legislature, he maintains and wonders why somebody would advocate for war crimes court.

He says the TRC required victims and perpetrators to testify and reconcile themselves, but accused the commission of being player and referee in the process in which he did not see victims. 

By Winston W. Parley-Edited by Jonathan Browne