IPNEWS: It is now 43 years since Liberia’s 19th President William R. Tolbert was murdered in cold blood in the early hours of Saturday, April 12, 1980.
Prior to this regrettable murder, historians have argued that a series of complex events led to the coup of 1980. The first of which was the imbalance of power between the native population of Liberia and the Americo-Liberians.
The Americo-Liberians were descended from African American (and a minority of Afro-Caribbean) settlers, some of whom were freed slaves and their descendants who emigrated to Liberia with assistance from the American Colonization Society (ACS). The Americo-Liberian settlers did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered and following Liberian Declaration of Independence in 1847, they held an elite position over society while native tribes lived within poorly developed rural communities.
Over time, the two communities did start to integrate and intermingled but in the decades prior to the coup, Americo-Liberians still controlled much of Liberia’s political institutions (despite making up a smaller percentage of the total ethnic population) and were reluctant to cede power to the natives.
A majority of Liberian presidents were of Americo-Liberian descent and belonged to the True Whig Party (TWP). While opposition parties were never banned, the TWP effectively governed the country as a one-party state. Although Liberia saw a period of economic prosperity in the 1960s and rapid development, there was still disparity between the Americo-Liberians and the natives.
After coming to power in 1971, William Tolbert sought to address imbalances and introduce liberal reforms including recognizing opposition groups. However, Tolbert was also accused of using nepotism and corruption to retain power which fueled opposition to the government. Tolbert’s administration also introduced unpopular agricultural reforms which were opposed by many sections of Liberian society and led to riots in 1979. Following the riots and the Maryland ritual killings, Tolbert called for the imprisonment of opposition leaders.
In the early hours of April 12, 1980, 17 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and soldiers of the AFL led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe launched a violent coup d’état. All of the conspirators were indigenous Liberians, while Tolbert belonged to Americo-Liberians. The group entered the Executive Mansion (presidential palace) and killed Tolbert, whose body was dumped into a mass grave together with 27 other victims of the coup. It is reported that Harrison Pennoh was the person that killed Tolbert. Later, a crowd of angry Liberians gathered to shout insults and throw rocks at the bodies.
‘Nut Parade’ and Executions
It was this prevailing state of affairs in pre-coup Liberia that influenced editors of a major African magazine then being published in the United Kingdom to come up with a very insightful cover story titled`: ‘Tubman’s Chickens Come Home to Roost.’ The well written narrative encapsulated the features of the ever-enduring rule of the Americo-Liberian class, and highlighted the prolonged and muscular presidency of the country’s leader, William V. S. Tubman, who had the good fortune of peaceably dying in office, as opposed to his ill-fated Vice President, William R. Tolbert Jr.–an otherwise well-intentioned Baptist minister and relatively liberal leader who ended up paying for the ‘sins’ of his forbears.
Notwithstanding the assassination of the President and the events that followed, the coup was hailed nationwide. For weeks and even months on end, throngs of Liberians in various parts of the country jubilated, sang and danced, waving palm fronds and describing and treating the coup makers as heroes and liberators. Most of the people interviewed while celebrating the coup made it clear that the day was like Independence Day for the country–the declaration of July 26, 1847, notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, while the carnival-like atmospherics spawned by the overthrow went on endlessly on the streets, equally appalling happenings beyond the killing of a leader (never mind his many imperfections) were taking place. A few days after the coup, many former regime officials (including top ranking cabinet ministers in the TWP government), who had been rounded up and detained, were given the ‘nut parade’–a degrading political punishment in which the victims are paraded in the streets virtually naked. When questioned why this was, some of the coup sympathizers retorted that they were simply imitating the cruel treatment perfected by elements of past TWP administrations against their political opponents.
What many did not notice at the time was that the parade was a prelude to an even worse fate awaiting the now cowed ex-government officials who were already being tried at a hastily organized military tribunal at the Barclay Training Center (BTC). (The new leaders cared less that all those on trial were civilians, and not enemy combatants captured in a wartime situation).
The executions of the 13 hapless erstwhile officials took place barely ten days after the coup. (So much for transparent trial). Earlier that day (April 22) the young military leader (Master Sergeant Doe) had held his first press conference at the Executive Mansion, where he was repeatedly pilloried by foreign reporters attending the media event to provide justification for the killing of an ageing civilian President instead of arresting him. Doe simply repeated that President Tolbert had been shot because he “resisted arrest.”
Minutes after Doe’s press conference, and while we were streaming out of the Mansion, the then civilian Information Minister, Gabriel Nimley, almost as an afterthought, called back the foreign and local media representatives and announced that those media personnel wishing to witness a pending execution at the BTC were welcome to do so at that moment.
No one among us had the slightest hunch that he was referring to the detained ex-government officials. Many thought it had to do with common criminals caught in the looting spree that characterized the immediate aftermath of the coup. Because of this, some reporters, including a few colleagues with whom I had gone to cover Doe’s press conference, turned down the invitation and simply went about other activities. Not for me. Ever the curious, I decided to go see what the heck Minister Nimley was referring to. And lo and behold, the unforgettable event turned out to be the pointblank shooting by an enthusiastic firing squad (including a female sharpshooter) of 13 former government officials tied to electric poles lining the beachfront.
As the shooters released volleys at their targets, the crowd that had gathered at the grisly event vigorously applauded and sang. I recall a female BBC reporter (Ann Bolsover) standing by me at the scene asking why the civilian spectators were happy and cheering at such a gory sight. Even for me, who was aware of the depth of anger bordering on hatred that the ‘masses’ nursed for the overthrown government, I couldn’t quite come out with a ready answer for her. The public spectacle became so unbearable for me that I literally fled the scene—walking briskly along the BBC correspondent who was at the same time rushing to the Liberian Telecommunications Corporation’s facilities on Lynch Street (Mobile phones were light years away by then) to send her dispatch on the dramatic executions.
As if to reflect the spine-chilling nature of the executions, even the weather that day suddenly turned dreary. It took quite some time for most residents of Monrovia to know about the executions, as there had been no prior public announcement or notice to the effect. Except for a few relatives of the former officials who had gone to see them on a routine visit only to be subsequently caught up in the rather bizarre situation, most other family members only came to know about what had befallen their fathers, brothers and uncles by way of word of mouth as the shocking news gradually spread in the city.
By the end of April, most of the cabinet members of the Tolbert administration had been put on trial in a kangaroo court and sentenced to death. Thirteen of them were publicly executed by firing squad on 22 April at a beach near the Barclay Training Center in Monrovia. The executed were:
Frank E. Tolbert — brother of President Tolbert and President pro tempore of the Senate; Richard A. Henries — Speaker of the House of Representatives;
E. Reginald Townsend — National Chairman of the True Whig Party;
P. Clarence Parker II — Chairman of the National Investment Council and Treasurer of the True Whig Party and (James A. A. Pierre — Chief Justice of the Supreme Court).
Others include Joseph J. Chesson Sr. — Minister of Justice, Cecil Dennis — Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cyril Bright — former Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs, John W. Sherman — Assistant Minister of Commerce and Trade
James T. Phillips — former Minister of Finance, former Minister of Agriculture
David Franklin Neal — former Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs, Charles T. O. King — Deputy Minister for Agriculture, and Frank J. Stewart Sr. — Director of the Budget.
The executions were described by Larry C. Price as a “nightmarish scenario” in which the executed men were “murdered in front of screaming crowds of jubilant indigenous Liberian citizens.” Cecil Dennis was the last man to be shot and was reported to have defiantly stared his killers down whilst uttering a prayer before his execution.
Only four members of the Tolbert administration survived the coup and its aftermath; among them was the Minister of Finance and future President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,[9] the Vice President Bennie Dee Warner[10] and agricultural minister Florence Chenoweth.[11] Chenoweth was able to escape to neighboring Sierra Leone before making her way to the United States while Warner was out of the country at the time of the coup. Warner unsuccessfully tried setting up a government in exile before Doe offered him clemency and permission to return to Liberia in 1984.[12] Sirleaf was initially detained but subsequently offered a position in Doe’s government which she initially accepted, but later fled the country for the US after she publicly criticized Doe’s policies. Both Sirleaf and Chenoweth later returned to Liberian politics after Doe’s death.
Following the coup, Doe assumed the rank of General and established the People’s Redemption Council (PRC), composed of himself and 14 other low-ranking off
