“Restoring Hope
and Seeking Justice for Victims and Survivors of the Liberian Civil War”
Mr. Peterson Sonyah, Executive Director, and members of the
Board and leadership of LIMASA, survivors and families of victims, Dr. Jallah
Barbu Executive Director of the Office for the Establishment of the War and
Economic Crimes Court in Liberia, Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe, eminent
Statesman, representatives of
Government, members of the diplomatic community, civil society partners,
traditional and religious leaders, members of the press, distinguished guests,
ladies and gentlemen:
It is a profound honor to stand before you today not only to
celebrate seventeen years of LIMASA’s existence, but to bow in respect before
seventeen years of courage.
Seventeen years of survivors refusing to let memory die.
Seventeen years of families carrying invisible wounds while still choosing
dignity. Seventeen years of turning tears into testimony, grief into advocacy,
and pain into a national call for truth, healing, and justice.
Today is a celebration, but it is also a sacred moment of
remembrance. We remember mothers and fathers who never came home. We remember
children who waited at doorsteps for voices they would never hear again. We
remember communities where laughter was silenced, homes were burned, families
were scattered, and the soil of our beloved Liberia absorbed the blood of
innocent people. We remember names known to us, and names known only to God.
We also acknowledge a painful truth: for many survivors, the
war did not truly end when the guns fell silent. It continued in the nightmares
of the night, in the scars on the body, in empty chairs at family tables, the
stools around the fire hearth, in children raised without parents, in widows
and widowers who carried grief without recognition, and in survivors who have
had to prove over and over again that their suffering matters. Their pain is
not a footnote in our history. It is part of the soul and conscience of this
nation.
I invite us to observe a moment of silence for all who lost
their lives during Liberia’s civil conflict, and for every survivor who has
since passed away while waiting for justice.
“Restoring Hope and Seeking Justice for Victims and
Survivors of the Liberian Civil War”
Our theme calls us to restore hope. But hope is not a
slogan. Hope is the hand that lifts a survivor from loneliness. Hope is a
clinic that treats an old wound with compassion. Hope is a counsellor who
listens without judgment. Hope is a school fee paid for the child of a victim.
Hope is a widow hearing, at last, that her loss is seen. Hope is a nation
saying to its wounded citizens: you are not forgotten, you are not alone, and
what happened to you matters.
Restoring hope requires practical commitments: accessible
health care; trauma-informed counseling; livelihood and education
opportunities; support for widows, orphans, persons living with war-related
disabilities, and elderly survivors; dignified memorials; preservation of
testimony; and reparations that recognize both individual and community harm.
Hope also grows when young Liberians learn an honest history
of the conflict not to inherit hatred, but to reject violence, resist
manipulation, and protect peace. Memory must become a teacher. The stories of
survivors must help form a generation that values the rule of law, respects
human dignity, and never again permits political differences to become a
license for cruelty.
Justice and reconciliation are not enemies. In fact,
reconciliation without justice can feel like another burden placed on the backs
of victims. We cannot ask survivors to forgive while refusing to hear them. We
cannot ask families to move on while the truth remains buried. Justice, pursued
fairly and lawfully, is not revenge. It is society’s way of saying that a human
life has value, that suffering has meaning, and that no person, however
powerful, is beyond accountability.
Liberia now has an important opportunity to move from
promises to implementation. The Office for the Establishment of the War and
Economic Crimes Court, led by our erudite Professor Dr. Barbu and partners, has
prepared two key pieces of legislation, and the national conversation has
gained momentum. We herewith call on the National Legislature to enact the law
creating the War and Economic Crimes Court and the National Anti-Corruption
Court of Liberia to fulfill the commitment to fight impunity and injustice in
Liberia. We believe transparent, timely,
and inclusive legislative action, followed by credible institutions with
independence, resources, safeguards, and the professional capacity to deliver
justice, is essential.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, a court alone
cannot complete Liberia’s healing. Healing requires more than judgments and
documents. It requires survivors to feel safe enough to speak, communities to
mourn with dignity, children to learn the truth without inheriting hatred, and
institutions to prove that the suffering of ordinary Liberians will never again
be ignored. Survivors must be consulted meaningfully at every stage. Their
safety, privacy, informed consent, and well-being must guide the process.
Justice done without survivors is justice only half done.
A National Call to Action
On this 17th anniversary, I respectfully urge us to embrace
these commitments:
1. Listen to
survivors. Establish regular, accessible consultations in every affected county
and ensure that women, youth, persons with disabilities, rural communities, and
families of victims are represented.
2. Deliver
reparations and care. Create a properly funded, transparent program that
includes medical services, psychosocial support, education, livelihoods, and
community rehabilitation.
3. Preserve
truth and memory. Protect massacre sites, support dignified memorials, document
survivor testimony ethically, and strengthen peace and human rights education.
4. Build a
culture of non-recurrence. Reform institutions, confront corruption and
impunity, strengthen civic education, and teach our children that power must
always be accountable to law.
To the Government and the National Legislature: history has
placed a solemn responsibility before you. Let survivor-centered justice become
a national priority supported by law, budget, and measurable action.
Prioritize enacting legislation to create the War and
Economic Crimes Court and the National Anti-Corruption Court.
Provide adequate and timely funding to the Office for the
establishment of the War and Economic Crimes Court to support its mandate.
To our international partners: stand with Liberia for the
long term with technical assistance, resources, witness protection, trauma
care, and respect for Liberian ownership.
To civil society and the media: continue to document
responsibly, challenge misinformation, and amplify survivor voices without
exploiting their pain.
To every citizen: reject revenge but never confuse
forgiveness with forgetting or peace with silence.
To the leadership and members of LIMASA: your seventeen-year
journey is a testimony written not with ink, but with courage. You have carried
memories that would break many hearts, yet you have stood up again and again.
You have comforted one another when the nation was slow to listen. You have kept the voices of the dead alive. You have reminded Liberia that survivors are not symbols of weakness; survivors are witnesses, teachers, guardians of memory, and builders of peace.
As you enter a new chapter, may LIMASA continue to
strengthen survivor networks across the counties, deepen partnerships, uphold
ethical documentation, support healing, and serve as a bridge between
communities and institutions.
May your work remain nonpartisan, inclusive, transparent,
and anchored in the dignity of every survivor.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, Liberia’s future will
not be secured by forgetting its past. A nation does not heal by covering its
wounds; it heals by cleaning them, treating them, and refusing to let them
become infected by silence.
We cannot return the loved ones who were taken. We cannot
rebuild every childhood stolen by war. But we can honour the dead by protecting
the living. We can stand with survivors not only in words, but in action. We
can repair what can be repaired and build institutions that prevent such
suffering from ever happening again.
Let this anniversary be more than a date on the calendar.
Let it be a turning point. Let it be the day we renew our covenant with every
victim and every survivor: we will remember you; we will listen to you; we will
stand beside you; we will seek the truth; we will pursue justice; and together,
with God’s help, we will restore hope.
May God comfort every bereaved family, strengthen every
survivor whose wounds are seen and unseen, guide our leaders toward courage and
conscience, and bless the Republic of Liberia with peace rooted in truth and
justice.
Long live LIMASA. Long live justice. Long live peace. And
long live the Republic of Liberia.
Thank you
