"General Butt Naked" Seeks Forgiveness for Mass Murders

By Pamela Mortimer

Joshua Milton Blahyi, aka General Butt Naked, is credited with being one of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders. A weekend report revealed that Blahyi, who now lives in Ghana, has returned to Liberia seeking "truth and reconciliation" and taking responsibility for the thousands of people he has murdered. Blahyi derived his whimsical pseudonym from the fact that his platoon always charged into battle naked, hoping to terrify their enemies.

Before the commander led his fighters into battle, wearing only a pair of lace-up boots, Blahyi said he made a human sacrifice to the devil. The sacrifice generally included "the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart which was divided into pieces for us to eat," he told The Associated Press.

Between the time he made a pact with the devil, circa 1980, and 1996 when he stopped fighting, Blahyi claims "more than 20,000 people fell victim (to me and my men). They were killed."

By any standards the civil war, which killed an estimated 250,000 people, was utterly barbaric. The war was characterized by the eating of human hearts and soldiers who played soccer matches using human skulls.

Unlike Blahyi, other commanders have refused to ask forgiveness, believing that a special Liberian commission carries no weight. Despite this fact, Blahyi continues to urge other former assassins to come forward as the country struggles to recover from past horrors and move forward.

"I could be electrocuted. I could be hanged. I could be given any other punishment," said Blahyi, 37. "But I think forgiveness and reconciliation is the right way to go.

"I have been looking for an opportunity to tell the true story about my life — and every time I tell people my story, I feel relieved."

Many feel that Blahyi's confession is proof that Liberia’s commission on wartime atrocities is not adequate to deal with the likes of these assassins. The organization was modeled on a post-apartheid South African commission and has been taking testimony from victims as well as former rebels to create a full accounting of the wartime carnage. However, the truth commission has no authority and cannot charge killers with any crime.

"If you have an individual admitting that he and his group killed over 20,000 people, certainly there should be a mechanism put in place for such people to face justice," said Mulbah Morlue, director of the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court in Liberia.

Still, there is another faction that praises Blahyi’s confession.

"You can't have true reconciliation without knowing the truth," said Johnny Lamine, a Monrovia resident. "Blahyi's story is alarming, but...let's know who did what in Liberia during the war."

In an interview, Blahyi, who claims to be a born again Christian, said, "Some people see me and congratulate me. Others see me and say I should not be walking down the streets of Monrovia posing proud. But I continue to tell such people I am not proud, I am ashamed."