Horrors of Liberian wars revisited

MONROVIA, Liberia

When former warlord Sekou Conneh testified before Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, artist Wilson Fallah grew enraged.

Mr. Fallah, 19, a former child soldier, had earlier traded his AK-47 for paintbrushes and canvas to record scenes of life in postwar Liberia.

But when Mr. Conneh, who led the rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), said that he and his former fighters were “liberators,” Mr. Fallah put down his brush and rushed to the Centennial Pavilion in Monrovia, where the commission holds hearings.

“I came to make him tell the truth,” Mr. Fallah said. “When he comes face to face, he can’t lie.”

Mr. Fallah was one of hundreds of angry protesters who tried to mob the hearing on a scorching day last summer and get their hands on Mr. Conneh. The former warlord made a quick escape out the back door, while U.N. peacekeepers held back the crowd with large plastic shields.

The anger reflects pain that continues to surface more than five years after fighting ended.

Liberia, founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves, suffered back-to-back civil wars in the 14 years from 1989 to 2003.

Mr. Conneh’s LURD was instrumental in forcing former President Charles Taylor into exile, which marked the end of the second civil war and led to national elections in 2005.

Former World Bank official Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was chosen as Africa’s first female president.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was also established in 2005, is set to disband later this year. It is a public, voluntary hearing that encourages war-affected Liberians and officials who played major roles in the conflict to give testimonies of their experiences.

Hearings have been held both in Liberia and the United States, home to 39,030 documented Liberians, according to the 2000 U.S. census and thousands more illegal-immigrant Liberians.

Although aiming to bring healing and closure, some question whether the TRC process is doing more harm than good. The commission has no power to prosecute.

Mr. Fallah pulled back the sleeve of his brown, tattered T-shirt to show a 3-inch-long scar slashed into the base of his bicep. It was a knife wound.

Who did it?

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