Truth helps Liberia recover

Controversial Truth Commission report helps many deal with trauma of civil war.

Glenna GordonJuly 16, 2009 05:55Updated May 30, 2010 12:00

After Liberia's 14-year civil war, people searched for missing relatives with the help of posters like this one from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Now the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is helping Liberians come to terms with the war's longlasting trauma. (Glenna Gordon/GlobalPost)

MONROVIA, Liberia — Gladys Arthur doesn’t care about Charles Taylor or Ellen Johnson Sirleaf or any of the other warlords and politicians who are named for wrongdoing in Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report.

The commission sought to understand both the causes and the consequences of Liberia’s chaotic 14-year civil war. They collected testimony of nearly 20,000 Liberians, including victims like Arthur and perpetrators like Prince Johnson, head of one of the rebel groups and one of the individuals listed as the single most notorious war criminals.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is publicly sanctioned in the report and it recommends she not be allowed to hold office for another 30 years. Charles Taylor, who is now on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity committed in neighboring Sierra Leone, is condemned and further prosecution is recommended.

But for Arthur, the only name that matters is on page 334 of the report, number 90 (she knows this off the top of her head) on the list of “most notorious perpetrators” recommended for further prosecution.

“M-A-N-G-O M-E-N-L-O-R,” said Arthur, 31, spelling out each letter decisively in her soft-spoken drawl. “Mango Menlor. That’s his name. That’s the man who killed my mother.”

Menlor killed her mother. And he also raped her, forced her to live with him as his wife, separated her twin brothers and gave away her baby sister to another commander.

Arthur was only 12 at the time. After several months, one of Menlor’s other wives helped Arthur escape by opening a side window when no one was looking after Menlor threatened to kill the young girl one time too many.

During the war, nearly a million Liberians were displaced, more than a quarter million died, and three-fourths of the country’s women were raped or sexually assaulted. In a country of only 3 million people, virtually everyone suffered.

For years, said Arthur, she felt shame and anger. But in 2007, a pastor at her church in a Monrovia suburb asked her what was wrong. She didn’t answer at first, but after weeks of quiet prodding, Arthur told her story. Then she told it again.

And now she’s telling it again and again.

Some of her friends and relatives who knew about her past judged her as part of an all-too-common blame the victim mentality. But, when her pastor didn’t, she felt better. He encouraged her to testify at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and while she was nervous about doing so, she agreed.