Sunday, November 28, 2010

Liberia's civil war - child soldiers, ritual sacrifices and warlords

article describes graphic crimes and rituals

Face to face with General Butt Naked - 'the most evil man in the world' By Edna Fernandes 28th November 2010
....The initiation is complete and the priest is now one of the most powerful leaders in West Africa. The priest is 11 years old.

As prophesied, the boy priest grew up to become one of Liberia's most notorious warlords: General Butt Naked.

He and his boy soldiers would charge into battle naked apart from boots and machine guns.

The initiation sacrifice that he carried out aged 11 was the first life he took out of the 20,000 deaths for which he now claims responsibility.

His rivals dispute the number of deaths as impossible to prove.

Yet what is indisputable is that during Liberia's 14 years of civil war, the man became known as one of the most inhumane and ruthless guerrilla leaders in Africa's history.

After the former General Butt Naked confessed his past to Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2008, one internet blogger asked: 'Is this the most evil man who ever lived?'

His crimes included child sacrifice, cannibalism, the exploitation of child soldiers and trading blood diamonds for guns and cocaine, which he fed to boy soldiers as young as nine.

Yet today he says he is a reformed man. In July 1996, the warlord had 'an epiphany'.

Having spent 14 years holding nightly conversations with the devil, he had a blinding vision of Christ who told him to end the killings and convert. This was a Damascene conversion like no other: the former tribal priest and warlord is now known as Pastor Joshua Milton Blahyi.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333465/Liberias-General-Butt-Naked-The-evil-man-world.html

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