Prince Yormie Johnson, a former rebel leader, has returned to Liberia from nearly 12 years of exile in Nigeria to carve out a new career for himself in civilian politics.
The former army officer, who tortured to death former president Samuel Doe, recording the gory process on video tape, began by warning Liberia’s transitional government against setting up a war crimes tribunal.
Johnson, who now claims to be a born-again Christian, said this would simply unleash more violence in the country, which is slowly recovering from a 14-year civil war.
“If I tell you that I do not want a war crimes court, you may think that I am hiding something,” Johnson began.
But he added: “If the politicians push for a war crimes tribunal, then they will not be set free from this, because they will set the ball rolling for violence.”
Johnson, who returned to Monrovia at the weekend, said he had come home to launch a new political career for himself as elected senator for Nimba county, the area of north central Liberia where he was born.
“My people have asked me to contest for the senatorial position of my county [Nimba] during the upcoming elections,” said Johnson, flanked by some of his kinsmen and supporters.
“You see the people speak. Who am I to say no?” Johnson said. “The voice of the people is, in my opinion, the voice of God.”
Johnson formerly headed the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, a breakaway group of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia.
His faction was set up in 1990 during the early stages of the civil war. It established a stronghold around the port of Monrovia and defended the port to allow a West African peacekeeping force to land in August that year.
Johnson’s troops developed an early reputation for discipline, perhaps because Johnson himself was known personally to execute looters in his ranks with his pearl-handled revolver.
Although Johnson is seeking to launch a new career in politics, he warned that Liberia’s former warlords should not run for the presidency in elections scheduled for October 2005.
“If any warlord is president, for example, his rivals will harbour fear, thinking that he may [seek] revenge, so for me, no warlord should be president,” he said.
“It is not in the best interest of the nation for any warlord to think of being president,” Johnson said, although he did not dispute the constitutional right of individuals to stand for elected office if they chose to.
Johnson is best known as the man who captured former president Doe in August 1990 and supervised his torture and execution, recording the entire process on video tape.
The film shows Johnson swigging beer as he watches Doe’s ears being hacked off.
According to Johnson, Liberia’s politicians were as guilty as the fighters who carried weapons for the crimes committed during the country’s brutal civil war.
“When Samuel Doe was in power, constitutionally and elected they [the politicians] wanted him out militarily. They [the politicians] supported everything!” Johnson said.
But Johnson said he personally was no longer a man of violence and had refused invitations to renew his involvement in the civil war.
“I tell you what. I am a changed man and a servant of the most higher God. When I was in Liberia, I preached peace and everything about my faction was peace. We ushered in Ecomog [the West African peacekeeping force] at the time to bring peace. We disarmed,” Johnson said.
“When I was in Nigeria, there was war all over Liberia, if I wanted to join in the war, I would have done that. I was in some instances offered money to joined in the war but I refused,” Johnson said.
“Deep in me is peace and this is the message that I brought,” he added.
However, reaction in Monrovia to Johnson’s return has been mixed.
Some worry that he could upset the country’s new-found peace.
“A man like Johnson is a potential danger. He still demands respect and has a large number of followers and it is possible that he may cause some problems since there are some of his guys still around,” said Mamie Johnson, a petty trader in Monrovia.
Others believe that it is better that Johnson and those like him are in the country where their activities can be monitored and it will hopefully be harder for them to mount a fresh insurrection.
“I think for a man like Johnson to be out [of the country], it is dangerous,” said Peter Boikai, a political science student at the University of Monrovia. “I think he should be in so that we all can keep an eye on him.”
It is now the turn of Charles Taylor, the warlord who forced out Johnson, to live in exile in Nigeria.
Elected president in 1997, Taylor was forced to quit power and flee the country in August last year as rebel forces advanced into Monrovia. His departure cleared the way for the signing of a peace deal a week later. — Irin