MONROVIA (AFP) — Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) held its first public hearings Tuesday, in an attempt to shed light on crimes committed during 14 years of brutal civil war which ended in 2003.
The commission, sitting in the capital Monrovia, is based on the South African blueprint which catalogued crimes committed during the apartheid era.
Opening the public hearing, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appealed to all her compatriots called before the TRC to appear, and to give "honest" accounts of their actions.
"This procedure is not only about healing and reconciliation, it also about justice," Sirleaf said. "I call on all Liberians to be honest and sincere during the process. All those who suffered ... can share their grief," she added.
By coincidence or not, the first witness to be heard accused one of the president's aides of rape.
David Sarweh, a 22-year old student, accused Liberia's most popular singer -- who sang the campaign song for Sirleaf's own election campaign in 2005 -- 'Sunday Deer Boy' (real name Michael David) of the gang-rape of his sister.
"It was on December 1995. Michael David was the commander of the group that came to my village. They were all fighting for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)," the movement led by Charles Taylor, Sarweh told the tribunal.
"They went into the bush, to search for us. We were hiding in the bush.
"They asked me to call my sister for them, which I did. They took her away, there were 25 of them.
"They raped her, she could not survive the pain. She died three weeks later," he told the 10-strong commission panel, comprising lawyers and religious dignitaries.
Asked if 'Sunday Deer Boy' had participated in the rape, Sarweh simply replied: "Yes, he was the first."
That case was backed up by two others against David. "He beat my father to death," said witness Paul Flomo. "He even raped my daughter in my presence," said another, Emmanuel Johnny.
During these testimonies Sirleaf hung her head, before quickly leaving the chamber. The singer was not in court.
Around 300 people, including several ministers and diplomats, crammed into the chamber for Tuesday's initial hearings. More followed proceedings on live TV and state radio.
The public hearings are expected to last until the end of July, a spokesman for the commission said.
Statements from victims are heard first, before the accounts of the accused, ahead of final meetings between the two sides.
Under the terms of its remit, the commission will then submit a detailed report to the government which will then decide whether to pursue any official charges.
The commission was created after the peace accord of 2003 with the idea of compiling an account of all human rights abuses during the successive civil wars which plagued the English-speaking West African country between 1989 and 2003.
It is also charged with looking at the years 1979-89, from the bloody coup d'etat which brought Samuel Doe to power in 1980 and the subsequent crimes which marked his regime until it was overthrown in a Christmas 1989 rebellion by Charles Taylor.
Separately in the Netherlands Tuesday, Taylor, a former warlord and ex-president of Liberia, went before a war crimes tribunal in the Hague, accused of crimes against humanity in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
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