"And the bomb blasted and two persons died there again."

A woman preparing to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia. This picture, and many others from TRC hearings, can be accessed here. (Scroll down and open up the “Public Hearing Slideshow” PowerPoint presentation.)

I just learned that you can access transcripts online from the TRC public hearings in each Liberian county.

I’ve been reading some of the testimony from the Lofa County hearings. Below is an excerpt from the testimony of a Liberian man from Vahun, a district in the western part of Lofa. I like this excerpt because it shows the challenges for civilians who were just trying to survive during the war, and the disregard for civilian safety shown by many parties to the fighting.

So one day the Senegalese ECOMOG soldiers went to the market to go buy their foods and vegetables. When some of them left from the car the NPFL rebels got on the ECOMOG them car and say they want to disarm the Senegalese ECOMOG them but the Senegalese were insisting not give their arms to the rebels so they took some of the Senegalese them and carried to them their owner bases by the plane field. So they and the ECOMOG started firing at one another so for us we just pack our markets and went in the village we were there for two days when we came back to the town they told us that some Senegalese soldiers were killed and some cars came from Monrovia for the bodies. Before we could go in the village one Sylvester Stallon just naked himself and they started fighting the ECOMOG and they fire for the whole day and that how we left the town and we in the bush for two days they killed some ECOMOG soldiers. It did not still long when ULIMO came they say we should move from the bush. While we were in group coming from the bush we saw the Duduboye came and started shooting and dropping bomb they taught we were soldiers people and enough o people died then when then the next day we were going to go bury the people that died as a result for bombing then people were going to go buried these people touched a bomb and the bomb blasted and two persons died there again.

After the witness told his story, the TRC commissioners asked him questions. I thought the responses below (and the witness’ “last word”) were especially interesting.

Commissioner: Which group was controlling the ULC?
Primary Witness: ULC was a logging company around Vahun they cutting logs carrying it to Gbarnga. That NPFL was controlling it.
Commissioner: What was the name of the manager?
Primary Witness: Sockie, he was a Lebanese
Commissioner: Were there any other economic activities in the area?
Primary Witness: No only logging.
Primary Witness: Last word: I want to appeal to the government for good road and communications. There is no communication coverage there. That is our major problem in Vahun.