(New York) - As United Nations (U.N.) Security Council members met yesterday to deliberate the situation in the Mano River Union of West Africa, Human Rights Watch called on them to take a comprehensive approach to ending the bloodshed and repression in Liberia.
"Security Council sanctions to end the arms-for-diamonds trade in West Africa contributed to the emerging peace in Sierra Leone," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division. "Now the Security Council needs to condemn human rights abuses by the Liberian government and the rebels, take steps to end Guinea's support for the Liberian rebels, and ensure that the Liberian conflict does not destabilize the fragile peace in Sierra Leone."
Human Rights Watch called on the Security Council to condemn abuses committed by all sides in the conflict in Liberia; to take steps to end Guinea's role in providing logistic assistance to the Liberian rebels; to strengthen the mandate of the U.N. Peace-Building Support Office in Liberia (UNOL) and increase its staffing and funding to enable the placement of human rights monitors to investigate abuses; and to request the Secretary-General to fill the vacant position of representative in Liberia, with a mandate to report to the Security Council and make recommendations to resolve the conflict.
In the nine-page letter to the Security Council, Human Rights Watch documented how, between April and June 2002, Liberian government forces committed scores of war crimes and other serious abuses against civilians in the northwest of the country. Fighting has raged in the country since the start of a rebel incursion in mid-2000.
Recent victims described to Human Rights Watch how members of the government army and pro-government militias executed numerous civilians, shot and beaten to death males of all ages for resisting conscription, carried out widespread rape of women and girls as young as twelve, subjected hundreds of civilians to forced labor, and restricted the movement of hundreds of civilians intending to flee as refugees into neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Another disturbing development is the renewed use of child combatants by members of the Liberian security forces. Children are once again being recruited to form part of the army and pro-government militias.
In the face of renewed rebel action, the government of Charles Taylor has become increasingly intolerant of dissent. Since the imposition of a state of emergency in February 2002, the government has steadily imprisoned, harassed, and beaten individuals that have been critical of its policies.
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern about the fate of five nurses from the Liberian humanitarian organization, Merci, who were abducted on June 20, 2002 from the Sinje camp area by the Liberian rebels. The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels have admitted holding the nurses in their northern stronghold of Voinjama. In addition, Human Rights Watch continues to receive credible reports of continued forced conscription of civilians, including children, by the LURD.
Victim and Witness Testimony of Human Rights Abuses by Liberian Government Soldiers
An elderly woman from a village near Masambalahun described how in late April 2002 she and some 150 other civilians hiding in the forest were indiscriminately fired on by Liberian government troops. After being forced to walk to nearby Bondowalahun, she describes how she witnessed the brutal killing of several civilians, including a young mother and her infant daughter:
When the soldiers - those under the command of CO Stanley - found us hiding in the bush we took off running in all directions. They saw we weren't rebels but fired on us anyway. As they rounded us up I saw many bodies scattered around - maybe fifteen or so. My brother was one of them. I wasn't able to have children, so my brother was the only person I had in my life. Then the soldiers made us walk to Bondowalahun. During the month we were there I saw them kill many people. After rounding up civilians from the bush they'd line them up and pick out four or five and kill them near the river. Sometimes we'd see their bodies when we went to fetch water. One day when I was down near the river I saw an officer named Chief Jalloh take a young woman who held her little daughter in her arms. He asked her, ‘which of you wants to die - you or your baby.' She pleaded with him, begging that she not have to make such a choice. Then he said, ‘you didn't answer my question, so I guess you're both going to die.' Then he took out a pistol and shot the baby in the head, and then his mother. Then he dumped their bodies into the river.
A forty-five-year-old woman, also held in Bondowalahun, described a similar killing of five civilians in early May 2002:
Oh Bondowalahun... the river was flowing with the bodies of those killed by the government troops. I was only held there for three days, but it was long enough to see many people killed. Every time they'd bring the villagers in from the bush it was... ‘you, you, you and you.' Then we'd hear the shots. It was very random. For example, after lining up about twenty civilians they marched into town, they picked a few to take ammunition and looted property to Lukasu and chose five to kill; two young seventeen or eighteen year old men, and older man and a young woman and her child. They marched all five of them off towards the river and a few minutes later we heard the ‘pop, pop' of the gun - five times. The next day when I went down to the river, I saw all five of them lying dead on the riverbank. While being marched to Vahun a few days later, I saw more bodies scattered along the path.
In May 2002, a fifty-five-year-old woman witnessed soldiers under the command of AFL commanders Zizimaza and Stanley, beat her thirty-year-old son to death. She described the incident, which happened in the town of Vahun:
My son H. was killed in front of my eyes. After capturing about thirty of us from the forest they marched us to their base in Vahun. After arriving they separated the men from the women, and told the five men to march directly into the training camp. In fact, one of them was a boy of about twelve. Meanwhile they told the women and children to go into some nearby houses about twenty meters away. I heard my son saying he didn't want the soldier life and when he reached the base, I saw the soldiers attack him. There were many other men in the same position so I don't know why they beat him so. I could hear them screaming, ‘what's wrong with you? You don't want to defend your land?' After an hour of being beaten and kicked, he started vomiting blood and then they stabbed him with knives. A few of them walked on his stomach. A few times I peeked out from where the women were being held, but one of the soldiers said, ‘do you want to die?' He died later that same day.
A twenty year old woman described how in late May 2002, her husband was executed in front of her as he tried to defend her from being sexually assaulted by AFL soldiers. Two of the same soldiers later raped her.
From February until May 2002 my husband and I had been trying to survive in the bushes around the town of Yandohun. It was difficult to find food but somehow we were managing. Then one day, the government troops surprised us and forced us to walk to their base in Vahun. About two days after we arrived, two soldiers came up to me and said that they wanted me. My husband tried to defend me, saying, ‘no, she's my woman, please leave us.' As they argued, one of the soldiers shot my husband in the chest. He fell down and then the same soldier shot him a second time in the back. Then those same two men who killed my husband dragged me into a house and raped me. At first I struggled with them but they said if I didn't agree they'd do the same thing to me that they did to my husband. After they were finished, but when I was still on the ground, one of them kicked me hard in my stomach and told me to get up and go.
A forty-five-year-old woman described how in early June soldiers in Vahun led away her daughters - aged fifteen and six - and one-year-old grandchild. The next day she found the mutilated body of the fifteen year old.
When I was led into Vahun by those soldiers I had all five of my children - when I fled a month later I only had two left. In May about twenty soldiers captured us from the forest around Yomatahun. We were forced to walk two days to get to their base in Vahun. After arriving they told us to find an abandoned house to stay in. The next morning two soldiers came to the door and pointed out my two daughters and little grandchild and told them to follow. They were mean and aggressive. I saw other soldiers going around and collecting more people from other nearby houses. I followed them for a while but they pointed their guns at me and said they'd shoot me if I followed them. Later the same day other civilians came to me and said they'd overheard the AFL soldiers talking about how they'd killed all those people they'd taken from the village. I was beside myself with grief. I just didn't want to believe it so the next day I crept out with someone who said they knew the way to where the bodies were. We walked about thirty minutes and in the grass behind a house on a hill I saw the body of my fifteen-year-old S. She was without a blouse and one of her breasts had been cut off. I also saw that her throat had been slashed. I lost control and couldn't bear to look for the other two. But a friend told me she'd seen their bodies in the same area. Shortly after this Vahun came under attack by dissidents, and I collected my other two children and fled.
A woman described how frequently soldiers sexually abused woman civilians being held in Vahun, and how she cared for her twelve-year-old cousin who was in June 2002 gang-raped by three soldiers:
Every time the soldiers brought in a new group of civilians from the bush they'd yell, ‘hey convoy is here, convoy is here, be prepared to do woman business.' Raping? That was the way they did business. It was an everyday affair; pregnant, suckling mother, or girl child - it didn't matter. They did it to me, to my friends and even to my little twelve-year-old cousin. I saw it happening. Three of them did it. One of them even put his hands over my elderly mothers eyes so she couldn't watch. After it was over we took the girl into the house and had her sit in warm water and salt. She bled for several days.
