Truth-seeking: Historic Liberia Hearings in St. Paul Reveal Horrors

Vereata Giddings, one of around 30,000 Liberians living in Minnesota. “Going back to that memory is tough, like it’s happening all over again.” Photo: Paul Schmelzer

BY ANNA PRATT, MINNESOTA INDEPENDENT
June 21, 2008
Describing the events that unfolded in July 1990 still brings tears to the eyes of Liberian native Jane Allison Samukai. After civil war broke out in her homeland, rebel soldiers attacked her home. Those who didn’t heed the soldiers’ demands were shot. “I witnessed my neighbor’s killing and torture,” Samukai said, wiping her eyes. “People were taken away in the night… I knew they were going to kill me.”

Confronting a difficult past: the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission in St. Paul By Emily K. Bright, TC Daily Planet Witnesses at the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation hearing in St. Paul June 9-14 varied widely in their experiences and perspectives. The daughter of the Vice President under Samuel Doe in the 1980s wanted her murdered father to be remembered as a public servant willing to give his life for his country. The economic advisor under three presidents flew in from Philadelphia to give his inside perspective on what would be best for his country. A young nurse tearfully recounted finding the soldier who kidnapped and raped her during Taylor’s rebellion later promoted to a government security position.

Historic meeting of the Liberian Truth & Reconcilation concludes
by Staff, African News Journal Over the weekend, Saturday, June 13, marked the conclusion of the six-day meeting of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceedings held both live at Sundlin Music Hall on the Hamline University campus in St. Paul or via the live web-cast at www.trcofliberia.org. A full days of proceedings was planned most of those days with witnesses testimony and other events throughout.
After she’d been tied up and raped at gunpoint, another soldier told her attacker that he had done enough. She lay helplessly on the ground. “I could no longer fight,” she told an audience that had gathered for the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings at St. Paul’s Hamline University last week.

Eventually, Samukai, who was covered with cuts and bruises, made her way back to the schoolhouse where her family and others had sought shelter. For days, she lived in fear. “I thought about suicide…I couldn’t face anyone,” she said with a pained expression on her face. In spite of everything, Samukai, who now lives in New Jersey and works with troubled youth, pressed on. Now, she says she wants to pay tribute to those who endured what she did by “being a voice for the voiceless.”

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