A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

Because of that speech, our neighbors brought his [rebel] friends to our house.
When they got there, they asked all of us to come outside to them. When we
came out of the house, they asked for our mother O. and we said they were
gone on the farm. Then my sister, S.B., along with my grandmother, K., and
my uncle, they all died on the spot. My sister S. and I were raped, beaten by
them and they tied us on the tree. They went away, but before going, they
told us that they will be back, and then they left us. 445
The first Liberian civil war was both violent and tragic. Some commentators regard it as one of
Africa’s bloodiest civil wars. 446 In addition to killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing
more than one million, the war rendered countless civilians victims of other egregious human rights
abuses. Numerous actors, ranging from combatants who committed violations, leaders who condoned,
facilitated or ordered the atrocities, and onlookers who failed to intervene, bear responsibility for this
suffering. One statement giver’s opinion about Charles Taylor is illustrative of the destruction and
pain these actors perpetrated on Liberia. To this statement giver:
[Taylor] was a man of greed to whom nothing mattered other than his
flamboyant lifestyle. His destruction of Liberia’s youth…has put a curse on
Liberia, and I wish I could scratch out that part of the country’s history. 447
169
Chapter Seven