Samuel Doe ruled peacefully from his capital, Monrovia, for five whole rainy seasons. He went round in his Para uniform with his pistol on his belt like a hundred percent rebel. But one day he thought about Thomas Quionkpa and he frowned, suddenly he felt uncomfortable in his Para uniform. Don’t forget Samuel Doe did his military coup with Thomas Quionkpa and Thomas Quionkpa was still alive. Even a chicken-thief will tell you: if you pull off a big robbery with someone, you will never truly enjoy the spoils until the other person is dead. After five years in power, the fact that Thomas Quionkpa was still alive was still an evil influence on the morale, the words and the actions of General Samuel Doe.
To sort things out, Samuel Doe came up with a foolproof stratagem. (‘Stratagem’ means ‘a trick designed to deceive an enemy’, according to my Petit Robert.) It was simple when you thought about it. Doe used the democratic stratagem. Democracy, the voice of the people, the sovereign will of the people. All that shit …
One Saturday morning, Samuel Doe decreed a carnival and summoned all the field officers in the Liberian army, and all the ministers in his administration and the heads of all the cantons in the republic and all the religious leaders. In front of this areopagus (an ‘areopagus’ is a meeting with lots of clever people), he made a speech.
‘I took power by force of arms, because in this country there was too much injustice. Now that everyone in the country is equal and justice has been restored, the military should no longer rule. The military will hand over to a civilian government, to the sovereign people. I hereby solemnly renounce my military rank, my military uniform, my pistol. I hereby become a civilian.’
He took off his pistol, his Para’s uniform, his red beret, his shirt with all his medals, his trousers, his shoes and his socks. He stripped down to his underpants. Then he clicked his fingers and an orderly appeared. The orderly brought him a three-piece suit, a shirt, a tie, socks, shoes and a trilby hat. And, to the applause of everyone present, he dressed as a civilian, just like an ordinary ouya-ouya on a street corner.
After that, things moved fast. In three weeks, Samuel Doe had a constitution made to measure. He spent two months travelling to every district in Liberia explaining how good everything was. Then one Sunday morning, the constitution was adopted with 99.9% of the electorate. Only 99.9%, because 100% would look suspicious. It would look ouya-ouya.
Now that it had a new constitution, the country needed a civilian president. For six weeks Samuel Doe travelled to every district explaining how he’d become a civilian in word and deed. And on a different Sunday morning, in the presence of international observers, he was elected with 99.9% of the vote. Only 99.9%, because 100% would look ouya-ouya; it would set tongues wagging, (‘tongues wagging’ means people spreading malicious gossip.)
There he was, a top-notch, committed, respectable and respected president. His first concrete act as president was to relieve the malefactor Thomas Quionkpa of his duties, like a lowlife (‘relieve of duty’ means ‘to remove from office, to strip an officer of his rank’). Relieve him of his duties, like a blackguard plotting a military coup. But that’s when things went sour because Thomas Quionkpa wasn’t going to let Doe walk all over him. No way!
With a bunch of other officers, Gio officers like himself, Thomas Quionkpa went off and plotted a real military coup. It was a narrow escape, a close call, the military coup almost succeeded. It was a narrow escape, a close call, Samuel Doe was almost assassinated. Well, after that, Samuel Doe got really angry because now he had the evidence he’d been looking for for a long time. He had Thomas Quionkpa horribly tortured and then he had him shot. His praetorian guard spread out across the city and assassinated almost all the Gio officers in the Republic of Liberia. And all their wives and all their children.
Now Samuel Doe was happy and triumphant, the one leader, surrounded only by officers from his own tribe, Krahn officers. The Republic of Liberia became a Krahn state, a hundred percent Krahn state. It didn’t last long. Because luckily about thirty Gio officers escaped the assassins that were sent to assassinate them and fled to Côte d’Ivoire where they went begging to the dictator Houphouët-Boigny. Houphouët-Boigny was sympathetic and consoled them and sent them off to the dictator of Libya, Mister Qaddafi, who has lots of camps for training terrorists. For two whole years, Qaddafi trained the thirty Gio officers in arms drill and terrorism, and then he sent them back to Côte d’Ivoire, where the highly trained officers hid out in the villages on the border between Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia. They were very inconspicuous right up to the fateful day (‘fateful’ means ‘destined to happen’) 24 December 1989, Christmas Eve 1989. On Christmas Eve 1989, they waited until all the border guards at Boutoro (a border town) were dead drunk, a hundred percent drunk, then attacked them. They quickly overran the Boutoro border post, massacred the border guards and took all their guns. Now that the border guards were dead, the officers pretended to be the border guards and got on the phone and called army headquarters in Monrovia. They told headquarters that the border guards had fought off an attack and requested reinforcements. The army dispatched reinforcements. The reinforcements walked straight into an ambush, they were all massacred, all killed, all emasculated, and all their weapons were seized. The Gio officers, the rebels, had weapons, lots of weapons. That’s why people say, why the historians say, that tribal wars arrived in Liberia on Christmas Eve 1989. The tribal wars started on 24 December 1989, exactly ten years to the day before the military coup in Côte d’Ivoire, the country next door. After 24 December 1989, Samuel Doe’s problems would just proliferate until the day he died (‘proliferate’ means ‘grow or multiply’). Proliferate until the day he was hacked to death. We’ll get to that part later. I haven’t got time at the moment. Gnamokodé!
Strangers were not welcome at ULIMO. That’s the way it is with tribal wars. As soon as we arrived, we told the ULIMO people a story we’d made up all about Samuel Doe and his patriotism and his generosity. About all the good things he’d done for everyone in Liberia. About his sacrifice for his country. Etc. They listened to the story carefully, religiously, for a long time. After that, they asked us to hand over our guns. We handed over our guns with confidence. One of them brought out a Qur’an and a Bible and some grigris and made us swear on the holy books and the grigris. We solemnly swore that we were not thieves, that not a single one of us was a thief. Because ULIMO had more than enough thieves, they didn’t need any more, they had them up to here. And then they banged us up in prison. Krik-krak.
The food in the prisons at ULIMO was very disgusting and there was very, very little of it. Yacouba was the first to complain about the terrible conditions. He shouted, ‘I am a grigriman, a grigriman, I can make powerful grigris to protect people from whistling bullets.’ But they didn’t hear him. So he shouted even louder, ‘Get me out of here. Otherwise I’ll put a curse on you. I’ll curse you all.’ So then they came and got him and Yacouba said he wasn’t going anywhere without me and asked if I could go with him.
They sent us to the headquarters of General Baclay—Onika Baclay Doe. Baclay was a woman. (You’d think it would be the feminine Générale but according to my Larousse, Générale is only used for a general’s wife and never for a general who is a woman herself.) Anyway, they introduced us to General Onika Baclay Doe. General Baclay was happy to see Yacouba. She already had an animist grigriman but she didn’t have a Muslim grigriman. Because of certain things that happened, she was starting to have doubts about the knowledge and the skill of her animist grigriman. With Yacouba, she had two grigrimen and that was so much the better.
I was sent off to the child-soldiers. They showed me my kalash. There were five of us to a gun and the one they showed me was newer than the one I had at the NPFL.
Child-soldiers were well looked after at ULIMO. You got lots to eat and you could even make money—dollars even—working as a bodyguard for the gold panners. I wanted to save some of my money, I didn’t want to piss away everything I earned on drugs, like
the other child-soldiers. With my savings, I bought gold and I kept the gold in one of the grigris that I wore. I wanted something to give my aunt when I finally got to meet her. Faforo!
General Baclay was weird, but she was a good woman and in her own way she was very fair: she shot men and women just the same, she shot thieves and it didn’t matter if they stole a needle or a cow. A thief is a thief, and she shot every one of them. She was impartial.
General Baclay’s capital, Sanniquellie, was a den of thieves. It was like every single thief in the Republic of Liberia had turned up at Sanniquellie. The child-soldiers knew all about it, because sometimes they got really stoned and crashed out and when they’d wake up they’d be naked, completely naked. The thieves took everything, even their underwear. They’d wake up lying naked next to their kalashes.
Any thieves that were caught red-handed during the week are arrested and chained up in prison. (‘Red-handed’ means they committed the crime right before the very eyes of the people who saw them committing it.) They might be hungry because of the laws of nature, but it was just too bad because in Baclay’s jail the prisoners didn’t get any food.
On Saturday mornings at about nine o’clock all the defendants are taken to the marketplace in chains and the whole population turns out. The trial takes place right there in front of everyone. The way it works is the defendant is asked if he is a thief, yes or no? If he says yes, he’s condemned to death. If he says no, he is confounded by witnesses and then condemned to death anyway (‘confound’ means to silence someone by proving they committed the crime). So it’s kif-kif, same difference. The accused are always condemned to death. And the guilty are taken to the place of execution straight away.
They’re brought steaming rice with palm butter sauce and big hunks of meat and they pounce on it like wild beasts because they’re so hungry, and it’s so completely totally delicious that it makes some of the people watching wish they could swap places with the convicts. The convicts eat and eat for a long time. They eat till they’re full, till they’re stuffed. Then they say goodbye to their friends. It doesn’t matter if the condemned man is Catholic or not, the chaplain goes round and gives everyone the last rites. Then they’re tied to wooden stakes and they’re blindfolded. Some of them cry like spoiled brats, but not too many of them cry. Most of them, the majority, lick their lips and burst out laughing. They laugh really loud on account of how they’re so happy because of all the good food. Then they’re shot dead, to the applause of the lively, cheerful crowd.
And in spite of everything, yes in spite of everything, some of the people watching are surprised to discover that, while they were clapping, thieves relieved them of their wallets because there are so many thieves in Sanniquellie that executing a bunch of them won’t serve as a lesson to the rest. Faforo!
* * *
Onika was Samuel Doe’s twin sister from an origin and kinship point of view. At the time of the indigenous military coup against the Afro-Americans she was a working girl. (For a girl, if you’re working, it means you’re a prostitute.) Back then she was called Onika Dokui. But as soon as her brother’s military coup succeeded, he made her a sergeant in the Liberian army and she changed her name and started calling herself Baclay. Baclay because it sounded more Black Nigger Afro-American and, whatever people say, being Afro-American in Liberia gives you a certain amount of prestige. It’s a lot better than being an indigene, being a Black Nigger African Native.
Back from Lomé after the CDEAO heads of state summit, Samuel Doe made Sergeant Baclay a lieutenant and posted her to his security staff. After the Gio military coup, Samuel Doe made her commander of the Presidential Guard. After Samuel Doe’s death, after Samuel Doe was hacked to pieces, Baclay promoted herself to general and chief of Sanniquellie. So you can see that the general was a cunning woman who didn’t let the sauce at the bottom of the kanari be licked up by ouya-ouya men. Walahé!
General Onika was a small woman, lively as a nanny-goat whose kid has been taken from her. With her general’s stripes and her AK-47, she ran the whole show. She went everywhere in her four-by-four crammed with bodyguards armed to the teeth. The whole administration was a Baclay family thing. She left the day-to-day running of things to her son. Her son’s name was Johnny Baclay Doe. He was a colonel and he commanded the most experienced regiment. The son had married three wives and all three wives were commanders in charge of the three most important subdivisions: finance, prisons and child-soldiers.
The wife in charge of the finances was called Sita. She was a Malinké, or a Mandingo in Afro-American pidgin. She collected the fees the gold panners had to pay every three months. She was Muslim, but she wasn’t humanitarian at all. She thought that the gold panners who worked without permits were robbing the ground and every Saturday morning they were condemned to death. And then shot dead. And she’d stand there laughing.
Monita was the name of the commander in charge of the prisons. She was a Protestant and a humanitarian with a heart of gold. She gave food to the prisoners, even though they weren’t allowed to eat. To prisoners who had only a couple of hours to live, she gave all the food they wanted. Allah is aware of acts like this and he rewards them in paradise.
The wife responsible for the child-soldiers was called Rita Baclay. Rita Baclay loved me like it’s not allowed. She called me Yacouba’s boy and the grigriman’s son had everything he wanted and could do whatever he liked. Sometimes, mainly when Colonel Baclay was away, she’d bring me to her hut, and coddle me with little meals (‘coddle’ is when you love someone and look after them). I’d eat my fill and while I was eating she’d be saying stuff like ‘Little Birahima, you’re so handsome, so beautiful. Do you know you’re beautiful? Do you know you’re handsome?’ And after I finished eating, she always asked me to take off my clothes. And I would. She would stroke my bangala gently, gently, and I’d get a hard-on like a donkey.
‘If Colonel Baclay saw us, he wouldn’t be happy.’
‘Don’t be afraid, he’s not here.’
She would kiss my bangala over and over and then she’d swallow it, like a snake swallowing a rat. She used my bangala like a little toothpick.
I left her house whistling, proud and happy. Gnamokodé!
Sanniquellie was a huge border town where they mined gold and diamonds. Even with all the tribal wars, foreign traders would venture as far as Sanniquellie lured by the cheap gold. Everyone in Sanniquellie was under General Baclay’s orders. General Baclay had the power of life and death over everyone in Sanniquellie and she used it. And abused it.
Sanniquellie was made up of four districts. There was the native district and the district where the foreigners lived and between the two districts was the market. The market was only open on Saturdays after they executed thieves. At the other end of Sanniquellie, at the foot of a hill, was the refugee district and, on top of the hill, the military base where we lived. The military base had human skulls on stakes all round the boundary. In tribal wars that’s really important. Far away, past the hills, out on the savannah were the river and the mines. The military base was guarded by child-soldiers. The mines and the river where the ore was washed were an unholy mess. I’m not going to describe them because I’m a street kid and I can do what I like, I don’t give a fuck about anyone. But I will tell you about the bossman partners, who were really in charge of the money and all and everything.
The bossman partners are real chiefs and true masters. They live where they work and their living quarters are like fortresses guarded by child-soldiers armed to the teeth and permanently drugged up. Full of drugs from head to toe. Wherever there’s child-soldiers, there’s skulls on stakes. The bossman partners are rich. All the gold panners are accountable to one of the bossman partners.
When a gold panner starts out, he’s usually got nothing except his underpants. The bossman is the one who pays for everything, for the hoes and the basket and the food. The bossman even pays the monthly charge, half an American dollar, for exploiting the land
.
When the gold panner makes a find (that means if he’s lucky enough to find a nugget of gold), he pays the bossman everything he owes. It doesn’t happen too often because usually by the time the gold panner finds something valuable he’s already up to his neck in debt to the bossman. That means he’s always and permanently at the disposal of the bossman partner. A lot of the bossmen partners are Lebanese and it’s easy to see why people are always murdering them. It’s a good thing that lots of them get horribly murdered, because they’re vampires. (‘Vampire’ means ‘a person, such as an extortionist, who preys upon others’, according to the Petit Robert.)
You should see what happens when a gold panner finds a nugget. It’s worth the trip. There’s this big hullabaloo, and the gold panner shouts for the child-soldiers to come and protect him, and the child-soldiers who are fucked up on drugs come running and surround the gold panner and take him to his bossman partner. Then the bossman partner calculates how much the gold panner owes, pays the taxes, pays the child-soldiers doing the protecting, and whatever is left over—if there’s anything left over—goes to the gold panner. Now the gold panner is depressed on account of now he has to have a bodyguard until he’s spent all his money, and obviously the bodyguard is one of the drugged-up child-soldiers. Walahé! A child-soldier needs drugs and hash doesn’t grow on trees, it’s expensive.
One night bandits armed to the teeth arrived in Sanniquellie. They used the darkness to sneak between the huts like thieves. They went to the sector where the bossman partners lived. They laid siege to two of the bossman partners’ huts. It was easy, the child-soldiers were fucked up on drugs and so were the grown-up soldiers. The thieves took the bossman partners by surprise while they were sleeping. At machine-gun point they demanded that the bossman partners hand over the keys to their safes. The bossman partners handed over the keys. The thieves helped themselves, generously helped themselves. Just as they were leaving, they tried to kidnap the bossman partners but one of the bossman partners resisted and that’s when all hell broke loose. One of the child-soldiers woke up and started shooting. That’s all child-soldiers do, they just shoot and shoot. And that set off the riot. There was lots of furious gunfire and consequences: bodies, lots of dead bodies. Walahé! Five child-soldiers and three real soldiers got massacred. The safes were empty, empty from top to bottom, and the thieves fled with two of the bossman partners as hostages. You should have seen it! It was a terrible sight. There were corpses everywhere, soldiers and child-soldiers dead, safes empty and two bossmen missing. The dead child-soldiers weren’t my friends, I didn’t even know them, that’s why I’m not doing a funeral oration for them. I’m not obliged to. Gnamokodé!
Allah is Not Obliged Page 9