April 1, 2008
Students record statements for Liberian Truth Commission
Gerald Coleman of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission describes the process and goals of the commission. (Photo by Jeff Watts)
Patricia Minikon remembers crawling on the ground to avoid stray bullets in her native Liberia.
Now the School of International Service graduate student is working to take statements from Liberians who, like her, are members of the diaspora. Around 20 AU students, including some from Washington College of Law (WCL) trained earlier this year as statement takers for the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Commissioner Gerald Coleman spoke at AU about the commission’s work last week, and heard about the students’ experiences as volunteers. They were trained at the initiative of SIS professor Susan Shepler, an Africa specialist with a focus on child soldiers.
Almost 30 years of coups and civil wars left at least 200,000 dead in the West African nation. “Human beings were treated like garbage. They died in terrible ways you cannot imagine,” Coleman said.
Many youths were forced to become child soldiers. Coleman told of a neighbor boy, who used to play with his son. The father sent him out to the store, and he never returned. “To this day, we don’t know what happened,” he said.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to investigate the root causes of the conflict that took so many lives, and to establish an accurate record of human rights abuses. One goal, after the record is collected, is to prosecute documented rights abusers.
The commission is modeled on those conducted in South Africa, Argentina, Chile, and many countries that have been plagued by violence and human rights abuses. But this effort is novel in trying to reach out as well to the many Liberians who fled the country and settled abroad.
But it’s a challenge. Many people, the volunteers are finding, may be loathe to reopen old wounds, or feel their own experiences have less legitimacy because they weren’t as horrific as those who couldn’t escape. Encouraging people to talk about things so personal and painful is a sensitive and time-consuming effort, said WCL student volunteer Adrienne Garcia.
Janelle Nodhturft, a graduate student at SIS, has taken the statement of one man so far. He had incidents he wanted to document, she said, but also stressed that his experience wasn’t really very bad in comparison to others. “He felt his family had been really lucky. His children were all alive,” she said.
Minnikon, too, was lucky. Her family wasn’t killed. She got out of the country at 14 and made a good life in the United States.
She became an immigration lawyer whose decision to earn a master’s degree from SIS was inspired by the refugees she has represented. They brought her stories from so many places, that in time, she says, “I started wondering, ‘What’s happening in these countries?’”
Now, she has a chance to work with her community. She spent her New Year’s Eve at a church with a large Liberian population in Alexandria, Va., speaking to the parishioners and trying to convince them to share their experiences for the record. For her, working to engage the Liberian community has been a personal crusade.
The SIS and WCL students work on the project with lawyers from the firm of Akin Gump, who have taken it on as a pro bono project.
