Twenty-four years ago, in commemoration of
President Dr. Samuel Kanyon Doe, Sr. and His People
The Story must be told!
On September 22, 1990, I wrote this in my dairy:
In June 1990, CNN started broadcasting in Liberia – both on television and radio. However, it appeared like most of the international community was in support of Taylor to remove Doe. Meanwhile, the BBC correspondents, Robin White and Elizabeth Blunt were only reporting from areas controlled by Taylor’s NPFL rebels and Prince Johnson’s INPFL rebels. President Doe was now being described as a dictator who had been deserted my most of his supporters and military and besieged at the Executive Mansion.
To make matter worst for Doe and his supporters, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Tom Woewiyou and other supporters of Taylor were very constant on the Capitol Hill in Washington DC spreading propaganda about the progress that their rebels were making towards overthrowing Doe’s government.
Accordingly, by July when the rebels entered Monrovia, most of the army and security forces, especially those from Nimba, Bassa and Bong Counties had deserted the government and joined the rebels and began to fight against the Government. The war had become Krahn-Mandingo vs. Liberia. At every rebel check point, as people were trying to escape the war, Krahn and Mandingo people were concealing their actual identities. Those that befriended the Krahn and Mandingo people in the past quickly disassociated themselves from them. Every day as we watched news and called home for information, we were repeatedly told about the number of relatives and friends that were being killed.
Throughout the summer of 1990 we were held hostage by the civil crisis in Liberia. The most difficult part was knowing that there was a very high probability that somebody who you knew was going to die every day – and there was a possibility that that person was either your brother or sister, or friend or at the least your kinsman.
I moved to Philadelphia to be with Dennis. In fact Dennis, being the oldest among us from Tuzon at that time, invited every one of us to move with him in Norristown, near Philadelphia. Cheayee was receiving calls from strange Liberians that were very frustrating, disturbing and dehumanizing. Some people would call and say, “Is this Cheayee Doe? Did you hear that Taylor’s rebels had killed your brother and they had his head with pepper soup last night?” At that time between June and early September, there was no direct line to call Liberia. Everything had been shot down by both Taylor’s and prince Johnson’s forces. So it was impossible to dispute any information from Liberia. For Doe, he was killed many, many time times before he was finally butchered by Prince Johnson and tribesmen on September 9.
In Norristown we sat by television everyday to listen to news. It appeared to me at the time that the CNN newscaster, Lynn Vaughn was purposely assigned to report negative news about President Doe and his tribesmen – because since the rebels entered Monrovia in June, most of the Liberian military forces that were not Krahns or Mandingos deserted to and joined rebels of their choice to fight against the government. Those that stayed with the armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) were either Krahns who stayed to defend their own lives, or those who believed it was their constitutional duties to defend their country.
In the middle of all that Kema returned to Liberia to bring her children that had started their refugee life in the Ivory Coast to the United States. At the ages of ten and nine, Doe Gwein Slanger and Christian Jones Slanger joined those that were fleeing from Liberia to the Ivory Coast for as refugees.
In July When Doe realized that the Liberian people, especially the Krahns that were entrapped in Monrovia with no food, were immensely suffering, he proposed to meet with the rebels and also promised to step down at the end of his term in January. The rebels refused to compromise with Doe. Taylor, through his BBC interview, said that Samuel Doe was bad leader and that he was not going to accept any proposal from him (Doe). Taylor said, “The only good Doe is the dead Doe.”
With the rebels now controlling ninety-nine percent of Monrovia and the only defenders of President Doe were just the Krahns and handful of non-Krahns who were loyalists to him, it was unthinkable that he would survive for more than a week. There was absolutely no food for the Krahn people to eat. Men, children and women were dying from hunger and cholera disease every day. Without food to eat for months, the President Doe and his forces were still holding on to the Executive Mansion. President Doe held on to the presidential palace until September 9 when he made that fatal mistake and decided to pay a visit to the so-called West African peace keepers – the ECOMOG at the Freeport of Monrovia.
As the war was being fought in Liberia, the Krahn people in the United States, especially on the east coast, were meeting to find means to help their people that are stranded in the city of Monrovia. Under the leadership Joseph Geebro and Samuel D. Tarley the Krahn people residing the United States collected some money to send food to the Krahn people in Monrovia. When there was an all Liberian Peace Conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Mr. Geebro and Mr. Tarley traveled to Sierra Leone to participate in the conference and reached to Monrovia to meet our people for the first time since President Doe was killed.
Although you were brutally murdered trying to defend Liberia for the betterment for all Liberians, rest assured that your dreams will live on. Todayit is undoubtedly clear that since your untimely departure, Liberia has not made any progress. There is still no electricity, no running water; no roads to the southeastern part of Liberia; and no sewer system in Monrovia. In fact, the state house (Executive Mansion) has been abandoned for almost 10 years now because your spirit is still too strong for others to reside there. We will remember you at all times and keep the fire burning. REST IN PERFECT PEACE!
By Tiah J D Slangan
