A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

and heart. 340 She became so traumatized, “she would just sit there and laugh all day.” 341 One woman
described how NPFL rebels killed a young boy, cut out his heart, and forced people to eat it. 342 At
times, the victims were still alive when their flesh was eaten. A woman said NPFL rebels had cut her
hand and drank her blood. 343 Another statement giver said she had seen a rebel commander chew
off someone’s thumb. 344 One man provided an explanation for the origins and reasons behind eating
human flesh:
The Liberian saying is that when you eat the heart of your enemy, their
power transcends to you. These people could extract the heart in a split
second, while the victim was still alive, better than surgeons, and eat it raw.
It has to be the Burkinabes who trained them to do it, because this was not
the Liberian way before the war. None of this ever happened before Charles
Taylor’s War of 1990. 345
The LPC was also responsible for the commission of severe abuses. Statements describe LPC atrocities,
including rape, 346 murder, 347 forced recruitment, 348 use of child soldiers, 349 use of drugs, 350 torture, 351
abductions of bush wives, 352 forced labor, 353 and looting. 354 As with other armed groups, the civilian
population became the battleground for the LPC. One former LPC combatant recounted:
The LPC said to kill anyone they found because they were paying a debt.
When I fought for LPC, the orders were to leave no one standing when we
captured a village, so we killed everyone in the village. 355
Protected persons include those not
taking a direct part in or those who
are no longer taking part in hostilities.
Art. 4(1), Protocol Additional to the
Geneva Conventions of 12 August
1949, and relating to the Protection of
Victims of Non-International Armed
Conflicts.
Statements bear out accounts of the LPC’s widespread
attacks on civilians, particularly in 1994 and in the southeast.
A student living in Harper in 1994 recounted how LPC
rebels attacked her school. They beat the teachers, poured
gasoline around the school, and threatened to burn it down
“from first grade progressing to ninth grade” if the teachers
refused to send the students outside. When the teachers let
the students out they “ran for their lives,” but LPC rebels
killed many people, including the principal. 356
Like other warring groups, the LPC reportedly perpetrated their attacks using multiple forms of
violence. One statement giver described how LPC rebels attacked him and his family in Zwedru in
1994:
161
Chapter Seven