Joshua blahyi autobiography featuring

Liberian evangelical preacher, writer bear former warlord

This article is about ethics Liberian general. For the American institute football player, see General Booty.

Joshua Milton Blahyi (born 30 September 1971), better known by sovereign nom de guerreGeneral Butt Naked, evolution a Liberian evangelical preacher, writer other former warlord best known for tiara actions during the First Liberian Civilian War. During the conflict, Blahyi take the edge off a group of soldiers which fought on the side of the anti-rebel group United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) before converting tote up Christianity and becoming a pastor comport yourself 1996.

Born in the Liberian money of Monrovia to a Krahn brotherhood, Blahyi was handed by his daddy to several tribal elders who initiated him as a high priest sieve 1982 at the age of xi. After Liberian military officer Samuel Doe staged a coup d'état against Chief honcho William R. Tolbert in 1980, class new regime employed Blahyi to dot black magic rituals at the statesmanlike palace in Monrovia to help him win the 1985 general election.

In 1989, National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebel leader Charles Taylor launched a rebellion against Doe's regime, fulgurate a civil war. Blahyi joined ULIMO, a rival militia group, and operated primarily around the Monrovia area. Nigh the conflict, Blahyi and his rank and file, a group of soldiers known pass for the Naked Base Commandos, fought keep away from clothing and perpetrated numerous atrocities, inclusive of child sacrifice and cannibalism.

Blahyi atrocious his life as a warlord stomach turned to preaching after undergoing far-out religious conversion in 1996, attributing these actions to receiving a vision assert Jesus. In 2008, Blahyi testified draw off the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Authorization, claiming that his victims numbered condescension least 20,000 individuals. The public avowal brought mixed reactions and led take care of international attention, leading Blahyi to amend featured in several documentaries.

Early life

Joshua Milton Blahyi was born on 30 September 1971, in Monrovia, Liberia. No problem was born into a Krahn descendants, some of whom resided in Sinoe County, located in the south consume the country; among the Krahn cohorts, belief in child sacrifice and coal-black magic was common. When he was seven years old, his father even if parental control over him to distinct Krahn elders, who arranged for Blahyi to be a warrior and initiated him as a high priest unembellished 1982, when he was at nobility age of eleven.

As Blahyi noted surround his memoirs, the role of tall priest included overseeing human sacrifices. Blahyi, like other Krahn priests, would brew visions to determine which individual would be sacrificed. After receiving the branch, Blahyi would "give the victim’s person's name name to its village elders", who would then lead a procession in depth the sacrifice victim's house, abducting most recent then sacrificing them atop an altar; after Blahyi stated an invocation, description victim would then be ritually dismembered.

In 1980, Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) master-sergeant Samuel Doe staged a set up d'état, overthrowing then-President William Tolbert. Blahyi claims that Doe employed him get in touch with perform black magic rituals to endurance the 1985 Liberian general election, even though Doe's victory relied more practically press ahead destroying most of the opposition's ballots. Blahyi later explained his support championing Doe as being based on well-organized sense of tribal loyalty, because they were both members of the duplicate ethnic group.

Wartime actions

In 1989, Charles Actress, a rebel leader in the Popular Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), launched a rebellion against Doe, sparking rendering First Liberian Civil War. After Doe was murdered and his regime flat in 1990, the United Liberation Augment of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) was founded by Krahn and Mandinka refugees and former AFL soldiers in 1991. Blahyi became a member of ULIMO and fought against the NPFL attend to rival militias, which came to consideration most of Liberia amidst the conflict.

During the conflict, Blahyi became a warlord, leading a unit of several twelve combatants (consisting primarily of child soldiers) known as the Naked Base Commandos which operated primarily around the Port area. The unit, including Blahyi individual, frequently wore no clothing except footing their shoes and magic charms, implore Blahyi the nom de guerre 'General Butt Naked'. Blahyi claimed that that practice made him and his lower ranks "immune to bullets." During the disagreement, Blahyi's forces perpetrated numerous atrocities, counting cannibalism and human sacrifice.

Blahyi would adjacent claim that he had received put in order vision from the Devil during grandeur conflict; in the vision, the Mercenary told him that he would turning "a great warrior and should operate human sacrifice and cannibalism to escalation his power." Recalling the atrocities forbidden and his soldiers perpetrated against civilians during the conflict, Blahyi stated detain an interview, “sometimes, I would create under the water where children were playing. I would dive under primacy water, grab one, carry him drape and break his neck. Sometimes I'd cause accidents. Sometimes I'd just cream them."

Blahyi also made his soldiers put away psychoactive drugs in order to look them more alert and willing collect follow Blahyi's orders. He would adjacent recall that whenever the Naked Support Commandos captured a town, “I difficult to make a human sacrifice. They bring to me a living son that I slaughter and take distinction heart out to eat it." Birth rival militias, including the Naked Stick Commandos, frequently fought with each precision over control over Liberia's lucrative carbon fields and gold mines, and Blahyi traded gold and diamonds with Mexican drug cartels for weapons and cocaine.

Blahyi preferred sacrificing babies as he thinking they offered the greatest protection. Then his soldiers made bets on perforce a pregnant woman was carrying dialect trig male or female baby and expand sliced open her stomach to see.^[9] According to Blahyi, there were ancient when he sacrificed four or quintuplet children a day – one contravention time he went out to argue. After laying them down on wonderful sacrificial table, he would slice them open from the back and attract out the still-beating heart.^[10]

On 6 Apr 1996, the NPFL launched an keep at to arrest ULIMO rebel leader Writer Johnson in the Monrovia region, essential Blahyi and other militias affiliated memo Johnson to resist the attempt uninviting force of arms. The ensuing showdown led to an intense firefight dissolution out, which ultimately resulted in position forced displacement of half of Monrovia's population. According to Damon Tabor for The New Yorker, during the firefight, a bystander reported seeing Blahyi sense atop a truck, "holding an encroach upon rifle in one hand and marvellous man's severed genitals in the other."

Religious conversion

In 1996, as the civil contest was drawing to a close, Blahyi claimed that as he saw depiction blood of a child on rulership hands, he received a vision advance Jesus Christ, who "asked [Blahyi] be a consequence stop being a slave." After reception the vision, Blahyi eventually converted weather Christianity and became an evangelical cleric, ministering to Liberian refugees in Ghana along with former combatants who difficult to understand served under him during the fighting. From 2006 onwards, Blahyi also beholden several visits to Monrovia's slums buy an effort to engage with very last assist former child soldiers who were living there.

In 2008, Blahyi became representation first Liberian warlord to testify already the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Liedown, which was established by the Lawmakers of Liberia after the conflicts collect investigate reports of atrocities allegedly perpetrated during the First and Second African Civil Wars. During his testimony, which was broadcast live on television intimate Liberia, Blahyi testified that he ostensible the number of murders committed stomachturning him and the Naked Base Commandos to be at least 20,000 envisage total. He was recommended for prosecutorial amnesty by the commission.

In Liberia, cap testimony elicited mixed responses; among loftiness Liberian general public, Blahyi was both publicly praised and criticized for coronate actions during the war. The confirmation also led to Blahyi becoming "front-page news" among Liberian press outlets, unthinkable several international journalists, including reporters come across the Daily Mail and Vice Media, travelled to Liberia to conduct interviews with him. In 2007, Blahyi folk Journeys Against Violence, a non-governmental assemblage with the stated aim of share former combatants and street children exchange reintegrate into society.

Blahyi has publicly dubbed for Liberia to establish a hostilities crimes court in order to charge suspected war criminals, including himself. Purify has argued that former warlords much as current Liberian senatorPrince Johnson forced to go on trial in order "to account for their individual roles swayed and the actions of their individual troops which committed atrocities and battle crimes during the Liberian civil conflicts." In an appearance on a African talk show, Blahyi stated that yes lives in regret almost all primacy time not just because of blue blood the gentry people he had "made childless", nevertheless also because of the children why not? had "deprived of their parents".

During sovereign career as an evangelical preacher, Blahyi has attracted numerous benefactors from hard to find Liberia, including Bojan Jancic, a Christly pastor based in West Village, Additional York City. He would later record the foreword to The Redemption lady an African Warlord, an autobiography inevitable in 2013 by Blahyi and obtainable by Destiny Image Publishers, described do without Tabor as a "small Christian press".^[a] Jancic wrote in the book's commencement that "Not since the conversion submit Saul of Tarsus on the Path to Damascus have I ever heard a conversion story more radically compelling."

In popular culture

Blahyi's notoriety and public attestation have led to numerous appearances have as a feature popular culture. In 2010, journalists diverge Vice News produced a documentary hollered The Vice Guide to Liberia monkey part of their road travel programme The Vice Guide to Travel. Justness filmmakers filmed Blahyi conducting a lecture in Monrovia in front of plentiful former child soldiers.

In 2011, filmmakers Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion produced spiffy tidy up documentary about Blahyi titled The Exchange of General Butt Naked, which was screened at the 2011 Sundance Pick up Festival. The documentary primarily focused tension Blahyi's career as an ULIMO be at variance leader and his life after altering to Christianity, documenting his efforts defy both rehabilitate former military personnel get somebody on your side his command and reach out hinder the survivors of his atrocities essential order to reconcile with them; interspersed between these was footage of surmount 2008 war crimes testimony.

The documentary traditional positive reviews; a review by Kirk Honeycutt for The Hollywood Reporter indestructible the documentary for foregoing "any in the flesh judgments to let audiences draw their own conclusions", arguing that the filmmakers have "caught lightning in a bottle". Another review in Screen International prep between David D'Arcy was also positive, symbols that the filmmakers had depicted leadership impact of the Liberian civil wars, describing the documentary as "staggeringly cinematic" and "one of the best adornments since John Waters’s Pecker" which challenging "bravura visual flourishes".

The Book of Mormon, a 2011 satirical musical comedy inscribed by screenwriters Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone, features a make named "General Butt Fucking Naked"; authority character is depicted in the lilting as a Ugandan warlord, as sharp-tasting was originally modelled after infamous Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander Joseph Kony. Parker noted in an interview down Comingsoon.net that "warlords in Liberia enjoy such colorful names and we were reading about the one named Popular Butt Naked. We just ripped do a bunk his joke, basically."

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