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Liberia\u2019s president has signed an executive order establishing a war crimes court, the culmination of a decades-long effort to bring justice to victims of the country\u2019s two civil wars, which killed an estimated 250,000 people from 1989 to 2003.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers in Parliament \u2014 including some who are expected to face prosecution under the court \u2014 had passed a resolution calling for the move last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor peace and harmony to have a chance to prevail, justice and healing must perfect the groundwork,\u201d President Joseph Boakai said as he signed the order on Thursday, to the applause of lawmakers and ministers.<\/p>\n
Although some of those behind the violence have faced prosecution abroad<\/a>, no one has been held legally accountable within the country for the massacres, rape, torture and conscription of child soldiers that left deep scars on generations of people in Liberia, a West African nation founded 200 years ago by freed slaves from the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It was unclear on Friday how many cases might come before the court and when they might begin. Many of the perpetrators, and their victims, have since died.<\/p>\n Mr. Boakai\u2019s executive order also paved the way for an economics crimes court, which would cover the companies and individuals who funded the wars\u2019 various factions, but Parliament will first have to pass legislation to establish it.<\/p>\n After decades of impunity, many Liberians had given up any hope of justice.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody expected this would come,\u201d said Adama Dempster, a rights campaigner who, as a young student in school in northeastern Liberia, saw his friends being recruited as child soldiers. Like many Liberians, he also witnessed summary executions and other crimes almost daily. Now in his mid-40s, he has long campaigned for the creation of such a court.<\/p>\n Liberia\u2019s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Parliament established nearly two decades ago, in 2010 called for the establishment of a court<\/a> to try those responsible, and for reparations to be paid to the victims.<\/p>\n But neither the government of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf<\/a>, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led Liberia from 2006 to 2018, nor that of her successor, George Weah<\/a>, the soccer star turned president who was voted out of office late last year, acted on the commission\u2019s recommendations, citing a lack of resources and security.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Thursday, Mr. Boakai said the country needed to establish the truth about the violence and \u201cto justly apportion the blame and rewards wherever they may lie.\u201d<\/p>\n His executive order did not mention reparations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Liberia\u2019s first civil war started in 1989, when the warlord Charles G. Taylor led a rebellion to overthrow the military regime of President Samuel Doe, who was later mutilated and killed by fighters under another warlord, Prince Johnson. Now a powerful senator known by his initials, P.Y.J., Mr. Johnson videotaped himself drinking beer while ordering his forces to cut Mr. Doe\u2019s ears off<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the second civil war, from 1999 to 2003, two rebel groups tried to unseat Mr. Taylor, who by then had become president.<\/p>\n The court has taken so long to establish because key players in the war had government jobs, political power and economic influence, according to Tennen B. Dalieh Tehoungue, a Liberian scholar who focuses on justice, peace-building and reconciliation at Dublin City University in Ireland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey refused to endorse any measure or mechanism that had punitive actions in it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Mr. Johnson, now 71, was among those key players. But in the end, he and others involved in the civil wars signed the resolution calling for the court to be established.<\/p>\n Why they finally did so remains a mystery, although Ms. Tehoungue said she believed it to be a case of \u201cbig-man syndrome\u201d \u2014 even as they signed it, \u201cthey assumed criminal prosecution would never happen.\u201d<\/p>\n After signing the measure, Mr. Johnson told journalists in Monrovia, the capital, that \u201cwe are up for peace, and we do not want any trouble.\u201d He nonetheless justified his own actions in the civil war, saying: \u201cI am a brave soldier. I came to liberate my people.\u201d<\/p>\n Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, raped or lost their homes in the conflicts, which Human Rights Watch described as \u201ca human rights disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Taylor, the former warlord turned president who is now 76, once ran under the election slogan \u201cHe killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n