In response to the comments on who cut up Samuel Doe, I found this graphic story, but also Johnson’s take on the current regime and history - interesting but gory
| "Gosh, I'm sorry we slaughtered him like a goat..." |
In 1990, as his drunken henchmen stripped, tortured and cut off the ears of former Liberian President Samuel K Doe, leaving him to bleed to death, Prince Yormie Johnson made a home movie of the slaughter. Today the former warlord, now a preacher in Nigeria, says he regrets Doe’s death. Festus Eriye reports from Lagos
’I must be very frank, I regret it. I thought that the death of Doe would bring peace. But the death of Doe never brought peace. I thought that after Doe there would be a democratic administration that would provide good governance. But the government we have in Liberia is the worst in our history.’ The fatal torture of former Liberian President Samuel K Doe has been well documented. His killers — a gang of thugs led by notorious warlord Prince Yormie Johnson who, together with Charles Taylor, rose up against Doe in 1989 — captured the ghastly affair on video, edited the results, gave it a soundtrack and distributed copies among themselves. In Johnson’s home movie, he is seated behind a massive desk, with a garland of grenades around his neck. He is drinking a can of beer and a young woman fans him with a cloth, occasionally dabbing his temple.
| Sounds like a music vid, doesn't it? |
Opposite the desk, in a room crowded with drunk, shouting rebels, Samuel K Doe sits on the floor. He is naked, except for his underpants. His hands are manacled behind his back. Two rebels are shown holding him upright. Flesh hangs off his face. His legs are bleeding. An interrogation of sorts is taking place. Johnson threatens to kill Doe if he won’t talk. "I want information, I want information," he shouts. All Doe can do is plead for his life. Suddenly, Johnson pounds the table: "That man won’t talk, bring me his ear!" The camera jerks around to focus on a screaming Doe, who is held down as a rebel carves off his left ear. Johnson hits the desk again, and barks out the order: "Now the other ear, the right ear. . ." The torture and interrogation continues. Johnson demands to know where he has stashed the money that he stole from the Liberian people. The video abruptly ends. Doe bled to death later that night.
| Prince figured he could use that money himself — more booze, babes, guns and ammo... |
Almost 13 years later, I am seated opposite Johnson, now an ordained preacher in Nigeria. He has, in a sense, my ears as well, as he professes a profound regret for his role in Doe’s murder.
| Doesn't stop Doe from being dead, does it? But it's not so much the fact that he's dead — shuffling off this mortal coil was well-deserved — but the manner of his departure... |
The date was September 9, 1990. Doe, who had been trapped for weeks in his official residence, the Executive Mansion, in Monrovia, made a rare trip to the outside world to meet with the commander of the regional United Nations intervention force. He was shot and wounded before being abducted by the rebels, as the peacekeeping troops stood by.
| It's an old tradition, y'see... |
"If I knew it would be like this, I would have preferred Doe to be there, than to remove Doe violently and put a monster in his place."
| "But I was drunk at the time. I didn't know what I was doing..." |
Johnson is 44 now and, apart from fleshing out a bit, doesn’t appear to have aged much since the violent coup that installed Taylor — also a former warlord indicted by the UN for war crimes, and a president whose rule has once again subjected the country to an orgy of bloodletting and violence. Clad in white kaftan and red traditional cap, Johnson is sitting in the sparsely furnished living room of his one-storey exile home, in the affluent Lagos suburb of Ikoyi. The cream-coloured house with peeling paint has been his home for 11 years. It is surrounded by expansive lawns and tropical fruit trees — under which some of his six children play.
| Sounds like he found at least some of that money Doe stole. Or grabbed some for himself... |
The absence of security is unusual for this security-conscious neighbourhood. Behind the high walls, the house looks like a poorer cousin to some of the neighbouring mansions. Previously it was used as a guest house for Liberia’s top government officials. Now Johnson is full of praise for Doe, in the past his sworn enemy. "During Doe’s administration, the international community did not stage embargoes against Doe," Johnson says. "It was not like this [with the world demanding Taylor’s resignation]. Samuel Doe upheld international relations to the letter. He made friends with his neighbours, but this administration has been accused by Sierra-Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. So where do we stand? No country is an island — you need to interact with your neighbours. If you, the president, are accused of fomenting trouble in the various countries bordering your country, the citizens of your country are going to be given tough times in those countries."
| That's the diffo between Doe and Taylor — "very bad" versus "much worse." |
The enmity between Johnson and Taylor, once allies against Doe, runs deep. Johnson was one of Taylor’s most trusted commanders in the days when they operated under the banner of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Taylor’s ambitions, however, led to an irreparable breach in their relationship in February 1990, and Johnson formed the breakaway Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, which at one stage controlled central Monrovia. He even declared himself president — a stance which did not please Taylor, who would refer to his former ally as "the late Prince Yormie Johnson" in his propaganda radio broadcasts. After Doe’s death, the Economic Community of West African States felt that Johnson’s continued presence in Monrovia was an impediment to peace in the country. So he was shipped into exile in Nigeria.
| If I'd been in charge, I'da had him bumped off — he's a psychopath. Luckily for all concerned except me and most of the Liberians and probably the souls of his congregation, I'm not in charge... |
The recent peace deal that emerged from Ghana calls for Taylor to step down and make room for an interim administration within 30 days. Dismayingly, Taylor was unmoved, and on Friday said he would step down only after a US-led peacekeeping force was deployed in the country. To Johnson, this is a case of Liberian history repeating itself - with potentially dire consequences. "This whole issue of ’step down - I will not step down; step down - I will not step down’ is a playback of 1990," he says. "Taylor is telling the rebels that he was elected, therefore he cannot be told to step down. Taylor did tell Doe to step down. Doe was elected. Taylor demanded that he must step down, and because Doe refused, he prosecuted the war. So the rebels too are telling him to step down, what’s big about it? The cup he gave Doe to drink is the cup he is drinking from."
| What'd you do with the ears, Prince? Still got 'em? |
Worse, he adds, is the fact that Taylor is the only African president ever to have been indicted for war crimes: "And because of that indictment, no country can ever do business with a Liberia with Taylor as its head. So do we keep Taylor and the people of Liberia suffer? Do we keep Taylor for Liberia to be internationally isolated?"
| I can't think of a lot of states that have sliced the ears from incumbent presidents, either... |
Johnson is especially passionate when it comes to Taylor’s plunder of Liberia’s resources. He claims that Taylor used to refer to the country as his "pepper bush" — a honey pot in local parlance. "The logo of the National Patriotic Party of Charles Taylor is a map of Liberia," he explains. "Across the map is a branch, and sitting on the branch is a bird. So Liberia has become Taylor’s pepper bush, and he is the only bird sitting on that branch, singing songs in the morning. How do you say a whole nation is your pepper bush? Taylor is very wicked. In the whole of Liberia there is not one street light, no water, no good roads, no electricity, nothing. People are suffering. You are a journalist — you heard just a few days ago that Taylor has $1.7-billion in a Swiss bank account that has been frozen. If one man has $1.7-billion in one bank, while his people are living in abject poverty, what do you call that man? He is extremely wicked."
| Not the first time that's been mentioned on these pages, is it? |
Johnson, who once ran with the "chief of devils", is now an ordained preacher. When I address him as Reverend Johnson, he quickly corrects me: "It is Evangelist Johnson, actually. An evangelist doesn’t have a particular church."
| So no congregation, either... |
After pastoral training, he was ordained at the Christ Deliverance Ministry, a Pentecostal church in Lagos. Before that he was a regular at the popular Synagogue Church of All Nations. It was at this church, two years ago, that Johnson staged a dramatic reconciliation with Doe’s widow, Nancy B Doe and her son, Samuel K Doe jnr. God has changed the former warlord in many ways. Sources say he used to have a very wild lifestyle . When he arrived in Nigeria, he did so with eight women in tow. Most of the women fell pregnant and later left him, taking their children with them. Today, he lives with one wife. Johnson insists all this is history. "God has been working to transform me," he asserts. "As I sit here talking to you, those days when I used to go to Bar Beach to booze and womanise, and I had so many beautiful girls, I don’t see them any more. God has removed that. I don’t drink no more, I don’t womanise. Though I am not saying I am perfect."
| Guess he still has the ears... |
When I ask him if he is keen to return to Liberia, he turns to the Bible for an answer. "Moses killed the Egyptian and fled into Medina for 40 years. When God was ready for him, He sent him back to Egypt to redeem his people. So 11 years is nothing compared with that time of Moses. It is not even long to me. Those 11 years have been very good. They have been 11 years during which God has been using me."
| Yep. A regular Moses, waiting to lead his people out of the House of Bondage... |
However, in 2001, Johnson did file an application to run for president in the Liberian elections. "If the Liberian people tell me they would need me to be president, so be it," he now says. "I have immense contributions to make to Liberia. You don’t have to wait until people ask you to make contributions."
The whole place is a nuthouse, and we would do well to stay clear |