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At TRC Former Chief Justice Opens Up, Accused TWP of Mass Killings
Aug 7, 2008
by Global News Network / Contributor
Cllr. Chea Cheapoo
Former Chief Justice, Chea Cheapoo has disclosed that apart from mass graves established during the Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe regimes, there were two additional mass graves around the Gurley street grave yard and the land that serves as the premise of the Monrovia Central Prison.
Mr. Cheapoo told the Truth and Reconciliation Public Hearing yesterday that the True Whig Party (TWP) which was the ruling party then, carried out the execution of 48 indigenous chiefs in Sass Town and were buried in a mass grave in the yard that now hosts the prison compound while the 300 persons killed during the “Tolbert-Rice Civil Disobedience” were buried in a mass grave around the Gurley Street Grave Yard.
He thrilled the audience when he said that the history which all Liberians seek to rewrite can and will only be complete when Liberians begin to speak of what happened to those who advocated for change and those considered as illiterates.
“They are only concerned with the 13 persons who were put on the poles, maybe because they were from the elite cycle, but they too killed indigenous citizens and it must be recorded, if history must be exhausted,” the former Chief Justice revealed.
The witness who had several contrasts in his testimony blamed most of Liberia’s problems dating back to 2003, a period which is being reviewed by the TRC, on foreigners who he called the “white people”. “CIA gave Doe and his men the map to enter the Executive Mansion to get ammunitions.
There is a submarine under the Mansion but I will not talk about that. They have a map,” he stressed.
He said that two groups staged that 1980 coup which led to the killing of the former President, William R. Tolbert and it was also recorded in history that the late Mrs. Victoria Tolbert saw a white man kill her husband.
He said that because of the coup, Mr. and Mrs. Tolbert were in a single room and when the soldiers came, President Tolbert chose to flee through an exit door but as he opened the door with Mrs. Victoria Tolbert looking at his back, she said that she saw a “white man shoot her husband.”
Cheapoo said that Doe and Gen. Jarboe who were brave soldiers at the time only enjoyed the fame of perpetrating as Tolbert’s killers or undertakers of the coup but it was an international conspiracy.
He said, “The ‘white people’ are spoiling our land because they took part in the Sass Town War also. If they want to challenge their involvement in Liberia’s problem, I will go deeper and speak of my experience with them as Chief Justice of Liberia because I had some of them working with me and they were not good. They came as spies on government.”
Cheapoo who said that he had no regrets through the period of being in the hierarchy of the Samuel K. Doe government that executed the killing of the 13 men which included his foster father, Joseph Chesson was hectic and that he was not part of those who executed the orders.
He said that he could not have ordered his father released because it would have meant treason because the government was afraid to keep those men around owing to the perception that they were powerful and had international connections to remove Doe and his men who were considered as the “country boys.”
He said that orders to put the 13 persons on firing squad were already enforced before he drafted the decree 88 A, a law that seek to put to death all those involved in committing atrocities such as corruptions, killings, repressions, thefts, etc but according to him, said the law has been misinterpreted to the interest of the government of the day.
“Violence was too much during the Tolbert and Doe regimes even though Tolbert was a good man unlike Doe who was a dictator. I took part in all revolutionary affairs when I served government at key positions and I did not kill anybody but I had no mercy for wrong doers,” the former Chief Justice bragged.
He said that it was due to his stance in government when he was chief justice that led to his resignation and subsequent impeachment by former President Doe.
Cheapoo told the commissioners that he jailed Harper Bailey for initiating one Musu Stubblefield to bribe him with US,000 when he was chief justice and former President Doe drove to the prison compound and set Mr. Bailey free.
“That was an interference with my job and a separate branch of government which was criminal in nature, so I resigned.”
“I had a conference with the Senate and after few days I heard that though I have resigned, I was impeached by the President. I went to court and the late Esther Parker was to serve as my witness but unfortunately she was killed under the ‘Double Bridge’ linking the Freeway to Gardnersville.
The government said that it was investigating her death and nothing ever came out of it but that was how the case ended,” Cheapoo revealed further.
For the April 14 incident, Cheapoo said it is a recorded history that it was actually 300 persons that were killed out of a peaceful parade conducted by the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) to ensure that government does the right thing adding, “I told them to stage the march. I do not regret it. If such should happen again, I will tell them to do it again. A drastic disease needs not to take easy treatment.”
The 66 year-old Cheapoo who has a biological father from River Gee and a mother from Grand Gedeh said that he wants to be at peace with his kinsmen and deeply expressed that the TRC should do everything within its power to probe their land differences.
Cheapoo who spoke at a point in time with deep hatred for the people of River Gee for being ungrateful for all his efforts towards them including the redeeming of the deed for a land he purchased from his own money, said that if the people of Kiteabo in River Gee cannot allow them find a place in their hearts to reconcile, he is prepared to give them the deed but they should refund every cent he paid.
“Let them bring my money because I bought the land in 1976 and I will give them the deed. They are all country people who do not want change.
I do not want to be part of them anymore. I don’t want to be bothered with them. If they pay my money, I will not be bothered with the Kiteabo people,” Cheapoo contradicted his appeal.
However, in his appeal, he called on the commission to get involved in reconciling his tribesmen noting, “I do not want to leave this problem to my children. My intention to give them the deed was not bad but they made me to reverse it. I can’t continue to live like this. I want peace. I want to be remembered by my people. I am their son. I want to be remembered as a star.”
Meanwhile, the former Chief Justice’s recommendation to the TRC was that it sets the pace for the abolishment of corruption in government by initiating a better retirement scheme and help government find means to beef up civil servants’ salaries because as he put it, “there will be no conflict or uprising against government because everyone will be able to live on par and co-exist.”
Cllr. Chea Cheapoo |
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About the Author:
Global News Network, Inc. (GNN), a local Liberian news agency, and is managed by a Liberian Journalist J. Cholo Brooks. Mr. Brooks served the BBC African Service as its Monrovia Correspondent for over a decade, he is a Senior Staff writer for The Liberian Times (www.theliberiantimes.com). He has been a member of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) since 1972. He is also one of the Contact Persons for the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US based Rights Organization. GNN Contact: Phone: +2316461010/+2315885625
Global News Network may be contacted at jcholobrooks@theliberiantimes..
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