Liberia: ‘Amnesty Not for Crimes Against Humanity’

As calls for the establishment of a War and Economic Crimes Court (WECC) reverberates across the country, former warlords, who stand to face the brunt of charges, claim that they were granted amnesty as a precondition to the cessation of hostilities under the Accra Peace Agreement. 

Responding to these claims at a press conference yesterday, Cllr. Dempster Brown, Chairperson of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR), believes that the former warlords are grossly mistaken. 

Cllr. Brown argued that the assertions made by some warlords that they were granted amnesty during the presidency of late Mose Blah, after the departure of former President Charles Taylor, could not stand, especially in the interest of those who committed genocide and crimes against humanity. 

Supporting his argument, Cllr. Brown said in 2000, then Secretary General of the United Nations said he recognized that “[while] recognizing that amnesty is an accepted legal concept and a gesture of peace and reconciliation at the end of a civil war or an internal armed conflict, the United Nations has consistently maintained the position that amnesty cannot be granted in respect of international crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity or other serious violation of international humanitarian law,” Brown said. “Liberia is signatory to those conventions and we will respect their letters to the fullest. We will ensure that justice is done to the victims of the civil war so that we can turn a new page in our country.”

Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commision (TRC) Report contains numerous accounts of atrocities committed during the Liberia civil war. And with the announcement of the push to establish the War and Economic Crimes Court in Liberia, individual accounts are once again emerging, lending more reasons to why it is ever imperative for the court to come. Victims of the country’s atrocious civil war seem ever prepared to tell their stories nearly two and a half decades since the crises ended.

In addition to countering the former warlords’ claims to amnesty, Cllr. Dempster Brown, used the opportunity to point accusing fingers at those he claims murdered his mother in the 1990s.

Brown, at a press conference in Monrovia on Thursday, March 7, accused former Grand Gedeh County Representative, George Boley, leader of the now defunct Liberia Peace Council (LPC), of killing his mother during the civil war in Liberia. Boley was a rebel leader who founded and led the predominantly Krahn LPC during the war.

“My mother was murdered by George Boley's LPC. Today I don’t know where she was buried. I can’t locate her grave,” Brown claimed.

The civil war officially ended in 2003, with an estimated 250,000 people killed by various armed factions during the 14-year fratricidal conflict.

Brown’s accusation against Boley comes after some of the major rebel leaders threatened to instigate violence in the wake of increasing momentum toward the establishment of the War and Economic Crimes Court in Liberia to investigate and hold accountable perpetrators of war crimes.

The INCHR Chairman, at the press conference, expressed his commission’s support for the establishment of the war and economic crimes court — vowing to mobilize Liberians to arrest any rebel leaders that would attempt to disrupt the process. 

“Those who are threatening our lives and that of the Liberian people are making a very big mistake. Because one morning you will hear that we have picked them up and taken them before the International Criminal Court for prosecution,” Brown said, warning warlords against making threatening statements against Liberians.

“We will not allow any more lawlessness in this country. I will not sit down here to allow them to kill armless people anymore,” the INCHR chair noted.

Reiterating his commission’s decision to support the establishment of the court, Cllr. Brown noted that, in the absence of justice for the victims and perpetrators, the country will not prosper.

In 2010, Boley was detained in the US over reported immigration charges. The former leader of the Liberian Peace Council (LPC) who committed human rights abuses during the Liberian civil war in the 1990s was deported to Liberia in March 2012, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who investigated the human rights allegation and won the former warlord’s removal from the United States.

In the 2017 national election, Boley was elected to the House of Representatives but was defeated in the 2023 legislative elections.