Thursday, January 24, 2008

Eat Your Heart Out, Boys

Milton Blahyi, a former feared rebel commander in Liberia's brutal civil war, has admitted to taking part in human sacrifices as part of traditional ceremonies intended to ensure victory in battle. He said the sacrifices "included the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for us to eat." According to the BBC story, there had been numerous rumours of human sacrifices during the 1979-93 conflict but this is the first time anyone has admitted publicly to the practice.

37-year-old Blahyi is better known in Liberia as "General Butt Naked" because he went into combat with no clothes on, to scare the enemy. Blahyi said he had first become exposed to killings in 1982 when, at the age of 11, he was ordained "the traditional priest of my tribe." When a rebellion broke out against President Samuel Doe, he had to go to war on behalf of the president, as they were from the same Krahn ethnic group. He fought against the militia of Charles Taylor, currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague.

As the traditional priest, he says he persuaded the "hesitant" political leaders of his faction to make a human sacrifice before going into battle. "They asked me to do it in secret; but some of the sacrifices are supposed to be as a ceremony; so my boys and I made some of the sacrifices in the open." He said he thought that confessing to what he had done and asking for forgiveness could help heal the country's wounds.

Blahyi stopped fighting in 1996, saying God appeared to him as he was charging naked into battle and told him he was doing Satan's work. While asking for forgiveness, Blahyi says he's ready for whatever the authorities decide to do to him. "I could be electrocuted, I could be hanged," he said. "But I think forgiveness and reconciliation is the right way to go." He also urged other former fighters to confess their doings because "wherever they go there is a stigma on them."

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