A Story in Which Only the Happy Ending Is Unusual

The New York Times
April 2, 2006
Editorial Observer

By HELENE COOPER

A long time before Charles Taylor unleashed upon West Africa the tsunami of rape, murder and dismemberment for which he will soon be tried as a war criminal, the maniacs under his command kidnapped my oldest sister, Janice.

It happened on Nov. 3, 1990. My sister was living in the Monrovia suburb of Paynesville, Liberia, with her family and a handful of orphans and other refugees from the Liberian civil war. Charles Taylor's ragtag army had reached the edge of Monrovia and was preparing to lay siege to the capital. In the case of the Taylor forces, laying siege to the capital meant capturing, killing, raping and torturing those who got in the way.

Janice, 30, her husband, Yao, and their 1-year-old son, Logosou, got in the way. When the Taylor soldiers — wearing their "fighting attire" of wedding gowns, blond wigs and makeup — began lobbing rocket-propelled grenades and artillery fire into their house, Janice tried to shelter her son as she crouched next to a bathroom wall. Logosou had become so used to daily visits from soldiers of the various factions of the Liberian war that he usually didn't become scared. Instead, he had acquired the habit of automatically putting his hands up in the air whenever he saw soldiers. "See, Mama? Hands up."

But this was no typical extortion visit, and Janice crawled on top of him to try to shield him. Finally, after three hours of shelling, about 10 Taylor fighters stormed into the house, shooting wildly. "You all want to die?" they yelled. They accused Janice of harboring rival fighters in the house. She wasn't; the only people she was harboring were war orphans and refugees. The soldiers ordered everyone out into the yard. They shot and killed Kona, a 9-year-old orphan who had been injured during the siege. They shot and killed their informant, for wrongly telling them that Janice was harboring rival soldiers. They shot and killed another man, who just happened upon the group outside the house.

The Taylor fighters took everyone else in the house hostage and marched them 10 miles away to the military barracks in Schieffelin. As Janice walked under the blistering November sun, she held her son close, reciting the Hail Mary into his cheek. Wave upon wave of Taylor fighters passed her, heading to the front, their wigs bobbing through the trees and bushes surreally.

The group came upon a burning house. A female Taylor fighter walked up to Janice and admired Logosou. "Oh, what a fine baby!" she cooed. "I've killed two like him today."

At the barracks, the Taylor fighters locked Janice, her husband and Logosou in a cell with nine others. They took away three older men who had been staying at Janice's house and shot and killed them outside the cell. The next day, the fighters inexplicably let Janice and her family go. But they had to make their way, by foot, by hitchhiking and by begging, all the way through Taylor territory to the Ivory Coast border.

It took 15 days.

For me, it feels strange to be reliving that time again. It was so long ago — 15 years — and a lot has happened since. Janice, her husband and her son were luckier than so many other Liberians who were victimized by Charles Taylor and the soldiers under his command. Charles Taylor became president of Liberia and set off wars in neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

Those wars spawned a generation of child soldiers, many of them kidnapped from their families, drugged and turned into sadistic killers themselves.

Altogether, more then 500,000 — most of them civilians — were killed.

A few days ago, my cellphone rang just as I was leaving my apartment to head to work. It was Janice.

"I assume you wrote the editorial today," she said.

I didn't need to ask which one she meant. The headline was "The Least Surprising Jailbreak Ever" and it criticized Nigeria for letting Mr. Taylor escape just when he was finally about to be tried as a war criminal. "Hey, they found him!" I said.

"I know," she laughed. "But it was still a good editorial." From Janice, that's high praise, since she's a frequent critic of my musings about Liberia.

We chatted about this and that — she was in the car driving to Boston — and then I heard a deep voice in the background say something. I perked up. "Is Logosou with you?"

"No, Logosou's in school. It's 9:30 in the morning for God's sakes," she sniffed.

I smiled into the Brooklyn sunshine and hung up. My nephew, Logosou, was 16 years old, and exactly where he should be. And, finally, so too was Charles Taylor.

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company