Opinion ID: 4563581
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jabateh and the Liberian Civil War

Text: Civil war brought brutal violence to Liberia. In 1989, Charles Taylor’s rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), invaded Liberia to overthrow Liberia’s president, Samuel Doe. The violence fractured not only Liberia but the rebels themselves. NPFL soon split into two factions: the NPFL led by Taylor, and the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) led by Prince Johnson.1 In 1990, Johnson captured and executed President Doe, triggering even more violence.2 New rebel factions entered the fray to oppose the NPFL, including the United Liberation Movement of Liberia (ULIMO), founded by ethnic Mandingos and Krahns, groups targeted by the NPFL.3 Tensions within ULIMO eventually swelled, causing a split along ethno-religious lines into new warring factions. Islamic Mandingo fighters followed Alhaji Kromah, a member of former President Doe’s cabinet, to form ULIMO-K (for 1 Luca Renda, Ending Civil Wars: The Case of Liberia, 23-Fall Fletcher F. World Aff. 59, 61 (1999). 2 Id. 3 Id. at 62 & n.11. 4 Kromah), while Christian Krahn fighters joined Roosevelt Johnson to form ULIMO-J (for Johnson).4 One of Kromah’s ULIMO commanders was Mohammed Jabateh, who fought under the nom de guerre “General Jungle Jabbah” or “Jungle Jabbah.”5 During the height of the civil war, from 1992 through 1995, Jabateh led ULIMO’s Zebra Battalion at the frontlines of the conflict in Western Liberia. Under Jabateh’s command, fighters brutalized prisoners of war and civilians alike. Their crimes were breathtaking in their scope and cruelty, including murder, rape, torture, ritual cannibalism, and human enslavement. We recount only some of the atrocities told at trial to the extent relevant to the issues raised on appeal.
Jabateh and fighters acting under his direction routinely tortured and murdered their adversaries, real or assumed. Operating from a territory dubbed “Zero Guard Post,”6 Jabateh’s militia arrested and then executed anyone suspected of “reconnaissance.” (App. at 677.) Their bodies were then simply “throw[n] . . . into the river.” (App. at 678.) Others were less fortunate, suffering torture before death. A favorite practice of Jabateh’s troops involved “tabay,” binding a prisoner’s arms behind the back tight enough to constrict breathing. In one instance, Jabateh ordered a child soldier to 4 Id. 5 Three witnesses at trial identified Jabateh in the courtroom as the ULIMO Commander known as Jungle Jabbah. 6 A less than subtle reference, as “[z]ero means [‘]to get rid of you[’] in the Liberian language.” (App. at 675.) 5 place tires around two prisoners’ necks, douse the tires in gasoline, and set them on fire. As the prisoners screamed in agony, Jabateh’s fighters shot them, then left their bodies to burn to ashes. In another instance, Janghai Barclay testified that she fled her home to escape fighting between ULIMO and NPFL, only to endure capture by Jabateh’s men. When Jabateh arrived to inspect the prisoners, Ms. Barclay watched Jabateh declare a captured young man a spy and order him executed. Jabateh’s soldiers tied the man to a tree and slit his throat. Jabateh then told his soldiers that they could “take” the women for themselves and “[w]hen they refuse you can kill them.” (App. at 1040.) The soldiers then raped Ms. Barclay, who was eight months pregnant, causing her to suffer a miscarriage. Or take Hawa Gonoie. She recounted that she was just thirteen when Jabateh and his fighters came to her village. After Jabateh’s forces captured her family, she witnessed Jabateh give the order to kill a suspected spy, remove his heart, and feed the organ to Jabateh and his fighters. Conscription into ULIMO-K awaited the men, while Jabateh ordered his soldiers to “have” the women. (App. at 408.) Jabateh “assigned” Ms. Gonoie to an adult soldier who raped her for the next month and a half. (App. at 412.)
The violence rolled on. After ULIMO split along tribal lines, Jabateh and his ULIMO-K fighters targeted, tortured, and killed members of the Krahn tribe. Around this time, ULIMO-K troops attacked a village where Martha Togba lived with her sister Tina. During the attack, troops targeted Tina because she was the girlfriend of a ULIMO-J commander. 6 Jabateh dragged a pregnant Tina from her home by her hair, bleeding from a gunshot wound and half naked, into the street. Jabateh beat and stabbed Tina while he interrogated her about her boyfriend’s location. When Tina insisted that she did not know, Jabateh inserted his gun into Tina’s vagina and fired, killing her. Jabateh then ordered a child soldier to guard Tina’s body as it lay in the street to ensure that no one moved her until her body rotted.
Jabateh quelled opposition with bone-chilling cruelty. When residents of one town complained to the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (“ECOMOG”) after ULIMO-K killed and beat several villagers and looted their homes, Jabateh and his troops returned to mete out punishment. Soldiers gathered the townspeople and pressed them into slavery. For little more than sport, Jabateh ordered several villagers, including the village chief, executed, and their hearts cut out. Grim acts of cannibalism followed. The record goes on and on, but we will not. It is enough to say without exaggeration that the atrocities documented at trial, and found by a jury, paint a portrait of a madman.