Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008) Movie Script
[Liberia, a West African country of
3 million people, was founded in 1847]
[by freed American slaves.
Their descendants formed]
[an elite class which dominated indigenous
ethnic groups for more than a century.]
[Rising tensions finally erupted
into civil war in 1989.]
[From then on, Liberians suffered a
prolonged period of violence.]
[At times, fighting was concentrated
in the countryside. Other times,]
[the conflict raged
through the capitol, Monrovia.]
[By 2002, over 200,000 people had died.
One in three people had been displaced.]
[There was no end in sight.]
[Then, ordinary women
did the unimaginable.]
[FORK FILMS PRESENTS]
[A FILM BY ABIGAIL DISNEY
and GINI RETICKER]
[CO-PRODUCER: JOHANNA HAMILTON]
[AFRICA
LIBERIA]
[MUSIC COMPOSED BY: BLAKE LEYH
VOCALS BY ANGELIQUE KIDJO]
[CHEAP GUNS $25]
[DIRECTOR OF CINEMATOGRAPHY:
KIRSTEN JOHNSON]
[EDITOR: KATE TAVERNA
and MEG RETICKER]
[NOW NOW WE WANT PEACE, WE WANT PEACE,
WE ARE TIRED, PEACE]
[PRODUCED BY: ABIGAIL E. DISNEY]
[DIRECTED BY: GINI RETICKER]
[PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL]
I am 5 months pregnant,
my son is 3, and my daughter is 2.
So under reams of bullets
we leave the house,
and we walk for like
7 hours to my parents house.
And it was hell on earth.
My 3 year-old is sitting down,
sweat pouring off his body,
and he says to me,
"Mama, I wish just for
a piece of donut this morning,
I am so hungry."
I'm sitting there and thinking,
where am I going to get
a piece of donut
for this 3-year old?
[LEYMAN CIBOWITZ - Social Worker]
And the anger built up again,
a pain was there, and I said to him,
Nuku, I don't have a
piece of donut to give you.
He said, "I know, but I just
wish for a piece of donut."
Liberia had been at war for so long
that my children had been hungry
and afraid their entire lives.
Some say the war was about
the gap between the rich and the poor.
Some also say that the war
was about the hatred
between the different ethnic groups.
[BE WERES OF THE BAD DOG AT NIGHT]
Others say the war was to
control natural resources.
Power, money, ethnicity, greed.
But there's nothing in my mind
that should make people do
what they did to
the children of Liberia.
The war started on
Christmas eve in 1989.
That was when Taylor started
his bloody rise to power.
We have an opportunity
starting from zero
to reconstruct the
minds of our people.
[The New York Times]
[Horrific genius]
[A Master Plan Drawn in Blood]
Taylor had the small boys unit,
young kids from like 9 to 15.
["...would force boys
to kill their parents..."]
A lot of them were
children who were on drugs.
They gave them drugs,
they fed them drugs.
Nobody can be war against me,
I'm war itself.
["In 1997... he terrorized
Liberians into electing him president."]
[The Tyrant We're Too Willing
to Live With]
[has done millions of dollars' worth
of business with al Qaeda and Hezbollah]
[...a key figure in Sierra Leone's
blood diamond trade."]
["...rebels supported by Taylor...
... were hacking off
the hands and feet of civilians..."]
["...systematically pocketed
the wealth of his country."]
He had absolute power and
total control over the finances
of the country.
That was bad,
it was miserable.
People, they couldn't even
afford a cup of rice.
Taylor had his private army which
was called the Anti-Terrorist Unit.
We lived in fear.
It was always like you go
to bed and pray that you have
something different the next day.
You know,
that the shooting will stop,
that the killing will stop,
that the hunger will stop,
saying, "God please!"
I had a dream.
And it was like a crazy dream,
that someone was actually
telling me to get the women
of the church together
to pray for peace.
[ST. PETER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH
MONROVIA, JUNE 2002]
This is completely
a terrible life to live.
We are tired.
We are tired!!
But then as I said, the dream
it was like more ideas kept coming.
[inaudible]
We feel it's now time
to rise up and speak.
But we don't want to do this alone.
We want to invite the other
Christian churches to come
and let's put
our voices together.
And we started the
Christian Women's Peace Initiative.
You are asking, "Who are
you to be our savior?"
Ordinary mothers,
grandmothers, aunts, sisters.
For us, this is
just the beginning.
I was moved!
Then I raised my hand,
and I was recognized.
And then I walked out
before the church
and then I said,
"Praise the Lord."
and then everybody said, "Amen."
So then I said, "I have a
surprise for this congregation.
And I said, "I'm the only
Muslim in this church."
I was moved, and I'm impressed
by the Christian Women's Initiative.
Then everybody was
just there "Oh, hallelujah!"
They praised the Lord,
they were so happy that I was there.
God is up. We're all
serving the same God.
This is not only for
the Christian women.
I want to promise you all today
that I'm going to move it
forward with the Muslim women.
I knew my Muslim sisters
and then I knew who to contact.
I wanted it to be an initiative
that was going to continue.
When I sold the idea to them,
they were more than excited.
And then they said,
"Let's go for it!"
At first it was somehow difficult.
When we started, some Christians said,
being a follower of Christ
and going to work along
with the Muslim means
they were diluting their faith.
But the message that we took on was,
"Can a bullet pick and choose?"
"Does the bullet
know Christian from Muslim?"
[WHILE THE WOMEN ORGANIZE FOR PEACE,
TAYLOR'S ENEMIES MOBILIZE FOR WAR.]
[WARLORDS DENIED A ROLE IN TAYLOR'S
GOVERNMENT'S VOW TO OVERTHROW HIM]
We want Taylor out!
[THEY UNITE AS LURD
(LIBERIANS UNITED FOR
RECONCILIATION AND DEMOCRACY)]
I'll escort you guys to Monrovia.
We want Monrovia in 30 days.
Taylor does not listen
to any peace, any negotiation,
except the barrel of the gun.
[SEKOU CONNEH
National Chairman, LURD]
This is why we are in the bush.
The warlords would give
these boys guns and send them off.
They just told them to take
whatever they wanted along the way.
That's how all
the fighters survived.
So people in the
countryside were terrorized.
These boys would go to your home
and they rape you
in front of your children,
they could rape you
in front of your husband,
and they just do anything
because they had guns.
Joe!
These warlords don't
come to save anybody.
They come for their
own selfish greed.
They have their own agenda,
and most of them in
Africa is to get rich, to get power.
Absolute power.
And absolute power brings wealth.
[BY MARCH 2003, LURD CONTROLS
THE MAJORITY OF THE COUNTRYSIDE.]
[MONROVIA, LIBERIA]
It's like the entire
country poured down
into Monrovia to seek
refuge during the crisis.
There were camps
where they had to go.
Life there was really terrible.
People died there every day,
especially children.
I don't think
I've ever seen people live
in such abject poverty
as I saw in the camps.
We went looking for
some of the women
who had come,
to see how they were faring,
and we met this group of people.
We just broke down and cried,
because it hurt
that there was no
outlet for the Liberians.
I met this woman
in one displaced camp,
and she said this day,
the rebel attack the village
she, her children,
and husband were living in.
And when they got there,
they arrested her husband,
told him to lie down
flat on the ground.
He lie down.
Then her daughter,
by then was twelve,
have just started to menstruate.
They grab her and told her say,
"Spread the lapa on the ground."
And she said she saw this fighter
took out a long knife,
and told her, say "Woman, stand up.
Sing, clap, and dance."
And she started to sing,
clapping and dancing.
And told her, "Look straight at me.
You turn your face,
I will kill your husband.
First, turn around."
She said when she turn around,
she saw these huge three guys.
One stripped himself
to rape her daughter in her presence.
She was in the middle,
the husband so,
and the daughter so.
Both of their head to the sun.
And they told her,
"Look on your right."
She look.
Gradually, cutting
her husband's neck, gradually.
They said, "Sing!"
So she said when her
husband's blood flashed on her,
she went off.
She didn't know where she was.
Up to the day we
met her she was still
singing the song
they asked her to sing.
And clapping and dancing.
And from the rape,
her daughter got pregnant.
These women had seen
the worst of the wars,
something that I had not seen.
But they still had
that vibrance for life.
And just being able to help them,
to sit and hold their hands,
and to hug their kids,
and looking at people
who had lost everything,
and still having hope,
I think that was where I got
baptized into the women's movement.
Taylor told those
in the displaced camps
to go back to where
their mother borne them.
Because by staying in the camps,
it was giving his
government a negative image.
And it was showing that
he was not in control.
But yet there were fighting
still going on in these areas
where the people came from,
and so the people refused to go.
And he threatened that
he was going to get them
out of the camps by force.
I'm here because the
One that created me
to launch this revolution,
and I'll tell you,
if God did not want me,
I'm not here because
I wanted to be here.
Because the only person
that could have protected me
over the past five to six years
is Jehovah God Almighty!
Taylor went to church.
And the leadership of LURD
went to the mosque.
Taylor could pray
the devil out of hell.
And we said if this
man is so religious,
we need to get to that thing
that he holds firmly to.
So if the women
started pressurizing
the pastors and the bishops,
the pastors and the bishops
would pressurize the leaders.
And if the women from the mosque
started taking to their Imams,
they would pressurize
the warlords also.
We organized and had a meeting
immediately after our Friday prayer.
We encourage the
fighter to come home,
to lay the gun
and come, to make peace.
We were constantly engaging
the imams in dialogues, for them
to see reasons why we were
getting involved in this process.
We told them that today,
today we are breaking the silence.
April 1, 2003.
I'm sitting in my house, leg up.
Actually, I had a bit of malaria.
And then I get this
call from Asatu.
She said, "The war is closing in.
The war is getting worse
and worse everyday."
We needed to do
something more forceful,
more dramatic.
For us, relation is
not a barrier for us.
We decided to take a protest.
When we decided that
this is something to do,
someone said, "Oh,
but then let's call Janet."
She was working with Radio Veritas,
which is the
Catholic-owned radio station.
Once I do the recording,
it becomes the first
lead story on the news.
We are ready.
And everyone's gonna hear that.
Are you sick and tired of war?
Come join in a peace festival and
rally organized by women of Liberia...
It was like, "Listen out to
what we want to do next."
This Saturday at [INAUDIBLE] airfield...
We went back to the Bible.
We saw what Esther
did for her people,
that she went in
sackclothes and ashes,
saying, "I mean it."
Liberian women that
love to do their hair
and put on jewelries and make-up,
were not allowed to do
any of those things.
We wore plain white clothes
with the hair tied.
We wore the white saying to
people we were out for peace.
We are determined,
and nobody gonna deter us.
We're gonna find a strategic point,
where Taylor's gonna encounter us
and give us some attention.
And this is how we decided
to sit at the fish market everyday.
Thousands of women,
including IDPs,
internally displaced persons, went.
It was the first time in
our history in Liberia
where Muslim women
and Christian women
were coming together.
And we had a big
banner that said,
"The women of Liberia
want peace now."
Charles Taylor said,
"Those who think, they can come out
in the street to embarass themselves,
come out! I'm waiting for you.
I said nobody,
N-O-B-O-D-Y, nobody,
will get into the street
to embarass my administration."
We were not afraid.
My mother was like,
They will beat you people,
they will kill you."
And we said,
"Well, if I should get killed,
just remember me,
that I was fighting for peace."
By the time President Taylor
was about to go to work,
we were over 2,500 women
under the blazing hot sun.
We were lined up
with our placards
that we wanted peace
and no more war.
This is how this song came about,
"We want peace, no more war."
Our children are dying,
we want peace.
We are tired suffering,
we want peace.
We are tired running,
we want peace.
And then Taylor's convoy came,
and we were all there,
singing, shouting.
President Taylor's
convoy slowed down.
He didn't stop, he went on.
We were there over a week,
and still the president didn't
see reason to talk to us.
Every morning we went there,
we got to know one another.
We started to empathize
with one another.
We were so desperate for peace,
we were going to have a sex strike.
And we said to the women,
One way or the other
you have a power as a woman,
and that power is
deny the man your sex.
And tell him the reason
you're going to deny him.
Look, if you have any
power to put stop to the war,
you go and do it.
Men were the perpetrators of violence,
so either by commission or omission,
you were guilty.
Some of them who went against it
came back and confessed and said,
"Let me tell you,
you know I had no control,
this happened."
We said, "Then pick up from there."
And their husbands were
equally praying with them,
because for them,
the end of the war meant
a good beginning of
enjoyment for us.
I got information that the
war had come as far as Po River,
and we didn't want that
to reach to the city.
I will use 107's
to empty Monrovia.
All the civilians will leave.
Just firebomb Monrovia.
All the civilians will leave.
Then we enter.
Asatu was quote unquote our spy,
because she could give us information
about what was about to happen.
She called me while we
were at the program and said,
"You need to hurriedly get
these women back to the camp,
because we have a security situation."
The rebels had attacked the camp.
The rebels would come and attack,
and the government
troops would go in there
to say they are
safe-guarding the people,
and they would equally attack,
and commit the same atrocities
that the rebel had
committed on these people.
[ESCALATING WAR
THREATENS TO IGNITE THE REGION.]
[THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY'S CALL
FOR PEACE TALKS EMBOLDENS THE WOMEN.]
[TAYLOR AND THE REBELS REFUSE
TO COME TO THE PEACE TABLE.]
We decided to present
a position statement
to the government of Liberia,
informing them to see reason
to come to the peace
table with the warring faction.
And we said, "Right now,
we are demanding,
we are not appealing."
[WOMEN OF LIBERIA - POSITION
STATEMENT ON THE LIBERIAN CRISIS]
Women in this peace work,
didn't want to be seen as politicians
so let's not talk about politics.
Let's not talk about
the practices of the government
because we could
be prosecuted for it.
Let's just stick to the word "peace."
[THE WOMEN OF LIBERIA SAY PEACE
IS OUR GOAL, PEACE IS WHAT MATTERS]
[PEACE IS WHAT WE NEED]
We went to Parliament,
presented our statement,
and said we will continue
to sit in the sun and rain
until we heard from the president.
And when we got in the street,
Leymah was at the front
so she wasn't looking at the back.
Everywhere we pass,
it was a group of
women joining the group.
Plus twenty. Plus fifty.
At that point in time we didn't
care whether we had jobs or not,
whether we had food or not,
because if we never had
peace you wouldn't have job.
Your children wouldn't
have gone to school,
my husband wouldn't work.
And so anybody who
thought that way too,
would see reason to sit there.
Taylor could no longer ignore us.
Finally, he decided to meet with us.
[WORDS CAN BE MORE HARMFUL THAN BULLETS]
[APRIL 23, 2003]
Some of the women,
they was really afraid to
go to the mansion
and to see Taylor.
[ETTY WEAH
Market Woman]
People were just
edgy and edgy and edgy
and people were feeling faint.
And then we realized that
it was fear of the unknown.
Even when he's smiling with
you you have to be very careful,
you know, because he
could be smiling with you
and the next minute
ordering you killed.
Going to meet Taylor that day
was the moment that I've lived for.
When Leymah got on
stage to read the statement,
we were like holding
hands and praying,
as if to say,
"Jesus give her the strength."
I said, "We rebuke any evil force
that would make her weak."
Ms. Leymah Gbowee,
Coordinator of the
Women's Peace Building Network.
We ask the honorable
Pro Tem of the Senate,
being a woman, and being
in line with our cause,
to kindly present this
statement to his Excellency,
Dr. Charles Taylor
with this message:
that the women of Liberia,
including the IDPs,
we are tired of war.
We are tired of running.
We are tired of begging
for bulgar wheat.
We are tired of our
children being raped.
We are now taking this stand,
to secure the future of our children.
Because we believe,
as custodians of society,
tomorrow our children will ask us,
"Mama, what was your
role during the crisis?"
Kindly convey this to the
president of Liberia. Thank you.
Taylor and his people could see
that popular support was on our side.
For the first time,
he agreed to our demands
that he would go
to the peace talks.
Now we had to get the rebels
to promise that they would also go.
[FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE]
So two days later, we sent
Asatu and Sugars to Sierra Leone
because we heard that the
rebels were meeting there.
We'd arranged for women
to be sitting in Sierra Leone,
so that the rest of West Africa,
the rest of the
international community,
would know that
we were serious about peace.
And the morning that they
were going to meet the rebels,
it was amazing.
When these rebels were
about to leave their hotel,
you had women, Liberian
and Sierra Leonian women,
lining the routes,
calling for peace.
Even one of LURD
was my former schoolmate.
And then he was like,
"What are you doing here?
Don't say anything to me."
Then I said, "You have not
seen me for some time here.
Are you not happy to see me?"
I kept reminding him,
"Your mothers have come
this far to talk to you,
your sisters have come this far.
If you don't go,
don't you know these people
will die in Monrovia?
And don't you think you
will be guilty that you are
also responsible for their death?"
Some of them were
saying things like,
"You all have come to
represent Mr. Taylor," you know,
And it was like, "Listen,
many of these women have
come from areas where you are,
and they're talking about
your human rights abuses as well,
it's not just Mr. Taylor's
human rights abuses."
[Joe Gbalah
Security General, LURD]
The rebels finally
promised the women
that they would go to
Ghana to the peace talks.
Our basic expectation in
Accra is to engage the peace talks
with clean hearts.
And we expect it will be successful,
and he will relinquish power.
He will relinquish power.
We knew we had to
keep the pressure up,
so we began to raise money
to send a few women to Ghana
to mobilize refugee
women living there.
We got students, taxi drivers,
women's organizations who just came
and gave 500, 200,
1000 Liberian dollars.
On a daily basis,
people came and said,
"This is something
that we should contribute to."
[ACCRA, GHANA]
The president, Dr. Charles Taylor
is arriving here at Kotoka airport,
then upon arrival by the
vice-president of Ghana...
Good morning and welcome
to another edition
of Network Africa from the BBC...
[ACCRA, GHANA
JUNE 4, 2003.]
Peace talks are due to begin today
in Ghana between the warring factions
in Liberia.
There's been pressure on both
sides to end the war which has
destabilized much of West Africa.
It'll be the first time the
Liberian president Charles Taylor
has talks with the rebel
movements which are now
trying to oust him.
The women living in
the refugee camp
joined our delegation
when we got to Ghana.
We are their conscience,
sitting out here.
We are calling to their
conscience to do the right thing.
And the right thing now is
to give the Liberian women
and their children the peace
that they so desperately need.
Peace talks on Liberia
get under way in the Ghanian
capital later this morning.
The talks are arranged by
the regional grouping ECOWAS
are expected to
go on for 2 weeks.
Several African leaders are
expected at the opening ceremony...
The people of Liberia have
suffered for too much and for too long.
[THABO MBEKI
President of South Africa]
And there is no particular reason
why that conflict should continue
for another day, none.
If we allow this opportunity
to go, if we miss this opportunity,
we may never have it again.
People were listening to the radio
as the talks were going on in there.
And then I think it
was by 2... 3 o'clock,
Focus on Africa, BBC.
And then it was like a
breaking-news alert that Liberian
president Charles Taylor
had been indicted for war crimes
in Sierra Leone.
[SEKOU CONNEH
National Chairman, LURD]
A bombshell hits the
Liberian peace talks.
President Taylor is indicted
by Sierra Leone's war crimes court.
A war crimes tribunal in
Sierra Leone accused him
of being responsible
for crimes against humanity.
Some people believe
that President Taylor is the problem.
If President Taylor
removes himself,
fellow Liberians,
would that bring peace?
If so, I will remove myself.
The word that came out of the
conference room was that
there was talk between
the Ghanian government
and the international community
for him to be arrested
there and then in Ghana.
[TAYLOR FLEES TO LIBERIA
A WANTED MAN.
HIS DELEGATION REMAINS BEHIND
TO NEGOTIATE LIBERIA'S FATE.]
Instead of being flown off
to jail as the war crimes
tribunal had hoped,
Charles Taylor has flown home.
Ghanian ministers insist they
never officially heard the request
to arrest him.
I don't think anybody's going
to take me from here to any court.
I haven't done anything
to the Liberian people,
and I don't think
anybody's going to do that.
So if anybody's coming in
here with a hostile intention,
they better come in fighting,
because I fight when I have to fight.
So when does it begin,
will you... wait?
The battle gonna begin today.
I'm gonna pass the order now.
[FULL SCALE WAR BREAKS OUT IN MONROVIA
WHILE TALKS CONTINUE IN GHANA.]
The boys got on the rampage.
They were all in the streets
with their arms and things.
They said if they arrest Taylor,
there will be no more Liberia.
They said they were going
to go from house to house,
and kill everybody
and burn everything.
No food, nothing.
We were just indoor.
If I were to leave this country,
I see disaster.
I see trouble.
I see murder,
mayhem, I see rape,
I see total destruction.
Taylor had announced that
if you don't feel secure
you can go to the football field.
People felt insecure
dealing with the rebels.
They preferred dealing
with the devil they already knew.
And so a lot of people walked
with their loads on their head
all the way to the football field.
[FEARING LURD, THOUSANDS SEEK
REFUGE IN THE STADIUM.]
Our major concern right now
is we lack a safe drinking water.
From last night to now we have
not had any drinking water
in this place.
For now we have
over 6,700 and more,
and we're expecting more to come.
[IN GHANA,
PEACE TALKS CONTINUE.]
We were in Accra,
really, really worried
for the family members
that we've left back.
My son was calling me
and telling me,
"They just dug a mass grave.
We put in like a hundred persons.
We gotta go, they're
digging another one."
We're getting like,
play-by-play, you know.
And somebody called and said,
"It's not just easy here.
We can't get out of the houses.
We are in closed door."
And there's no way to
get out to find food.
How will my young baby eat?
We took the opinion
of the women with all seriousness.
I found an ally in them.
We on the mediation side,
we felt the women
were doing a good thing,
trying to make their
men see reason.
We had to continuously
strategize what to do.
because the men,
they felt the more persons
you kill the stronger you are,
and the more people
look up, you know,
listen to you on
the peace table.
We'd been talking behind
the scenes to the various warlords
to negotiate, you know,
"Ok, so yes,
this is your position.
What will you
be comfortable with?"
So that when you went
to talk to the other side,
you could then be able
to negotiate with the other side.
The women kept going
from one delegate to the other,
from one hotel to the other,
trying to influence these delegates.
And the belligerents have
really come to the point
they have just but captured the
whole of the government of Liberia.
So, during the peace talks,
really they were talking
about power, about position,
about a job, and the
control of the resources.
Because that was what it
was all about at the end of the day.
It was about jobs.
"I want to be the
Minister of Justice."
"I want to be the Minister
of Finance. So I can steal."
So are we supposed to
pay you for killing us?
And then one of the LURD
members had come to me and said,
"Well, we're going to kill
the people in Monrovia,
and then we'll go back there,
and we'll bring women with us,
and we will
replenish the population."
That was the foolishness
he said to me.
He became Deputy
Minister of Defense.
The women had said
they didn't want any warlord
to occupy any position of authority
in the transitional government.
If you are going
to form a government
that is going to
exclude the warring factions,
that is not acceptable.
You are not seeking peace.
You are seeking more and
more and more problem in the nation.
[INAUDIBLE]
Ok, but it's important that I [INAUDIBLE]
And it splits [INAUDIBLE] forces in two...
They go up into their bedrooms,
and they're calling Monrovia
and giving instructions.
Fire in the hole!
Go back! Go back!!
We were still going at the
fish market during the war.
While the peace
talk was taking place,
We were still at
the fish market every morning,
and we were still
fasting and praying.
There were missiles,
there were shooting,
there were stray bullets.
And then we continued.
Every day I would see a truck full
with young boys going to fight.
But at the end of the
day when they are coming back
the truck is like empty.
Wounded people are inside.
My son was always with me.
I always used to
talk to him that
"I don't want you to leave
the house to go and go out."
Because if having to go out,
he would be influenced by his
friends to go out and to go and fight.
I killed three enemy yesterday.
To see my friends' young
boys going out there
and they are
coming back wounded,
I would always cry and pray
that the war
should come to an end.
My men will be encouraged
to fight to the last.
We will never
desert the city.
We will fight street to street,
house to house,
and we'll defeat them.
It was just bad.
Because you didn't
know who was who,
because they were all
dressing the same old way.
They would leave the front
and come to the civilian
because they wanted to loot,
because they wanted to rape.
They would leave the front,
and come to your house.
And pull you out,
and take everything off you,
take your shoes from your foot.
We mobilized ourselves and
went to the American embassy.
We went picketing.
[AFTER SIX WEEKS,
THE PEACE TALKS ARE GOING NOWHERE.]
These warlords,
who slept in bushes before
and who had never
known good lives,
some of them were
living their dream life
at the peace talks.
It was almost like
they were on vacation.
We were getting nowhere.
And we were really
reaching the end of the road.
What can we do,
really, to get these people
to sign this peace agreement?
They were still
jockeying for more and more.
We have women that
grew up from all over-
Women [INAUDIBLE] women
of Liberia who [INAUDIBLE] -
Mass action of peace.
As I got angrier
and more bitter,
I realized that there was no
way I could do the work that I did.
No new ideas were coming
because I wasn't thinking anymore.
Is this the last chance for Liberia?
We think it is.
[JULY 21, 2003]
Don't die yet.
There was a news
flash again on Liberia,
and a missile had landed inside
the American embassy compound.
where many displaced
Liberians were staying.
I just thought of
my own children.
And I was just raging inside.
So I told sugars,
"Today is showdown.
Send for more women."
So I told the women,
"Sit at the door,
and loop arms,
one arm within the other."
And the next thing we heard
on the overhead speaker was,
"Oh my God.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
the peace hall has been seized
by General Leymah
and her troops."
They really came
and locked us in,
that nobody will come out
until that peace
agreement was signed.
Even if it means
staying there for days.
And then the security guards came.
"Who is the
leader of this group?"
"I stood up and said,
"Here am I."
And they said,
"You are obstructing justice."
And that word,
obstructing justice,
was almost like when you took gas
and just pour it on an open flame.
I just went wild.
I said, "Obstructing justice?"
They said, "Yes, and we're
going to arrest you."
I said, "Ok, I'm going to
make it very, very easy
for you to arrest me."
I took off my hair tie.
It's a curse in Africa to see
the naked body of your mother.
And they were looking at me.
I said, "I'm going to strip naked."
Especially if
she does it deliberately.
Leymah had started
stripping when I came out.
She really was saying,
"Look, you guys, you do this,
or this is what we're going to do."
I will listen to you,
but these people,
these people have come here,
ECOWAS gave them big beds.
When they came
they were all pale.
No eating in the bush.
Now they are wearing
fine Ghanian-milled textiles.
And they are
passing around, telling us,
We will kill your people.
When we go back we will procreate."
They won't come outdoors.
Today they will feel the
hunger our people are feeling there.
[INAUDIBLE] General.
One of the warlords came to the door
and tried to jump over the women.
and the women push him back,
and he went back
as if he was about to
kick their backs.
Please... please... I beg you...
And General Abubakar
said to him, "Hey, I dare you, try it."
He said, "Go back in
there and sit down."
"They can't do this!"
He said, "I said go and sit down.
If you were a real man,
you wouldn't be killing your people.
But because you are not a real man,
that's why they will
treat you like boys.
Go back, and I dare
anyone leave this hall
until we've
negotiated with these women."
I am going to have my meetings,
and then I'm going to meet
you in the evening at 6 o'clock.
After that, then we get our
heads together to see...
Complaining that negotiators
were making little progress,
Liberian women staged a sit-in,
blocking delegates from leaving
the conference hall.
They've been there,
they've been prolonging,
in our opinion, this thing,
in their quest for power,
in their quest for this whole
thing of authority in Liberia.
And we're going to
keep them in that room,
without water, without food,
so they at least feel
what the ordinary people in Liberia
are feeling at this
particular point in time.
So we went, accompanied by
the Ghanian ambassador,
accompanied by other people,
and for 30 minutes,
it was just like tears and tears.
Finally he said, "You have
to let your women out of there."
We said no.
We were not leaving, because then
you would have to take all of us,
and there were almost 200 of us.
But ironically,
the very security that were
arresting me a few minutes earlier
were the same security
that came and said,
"You have to send some
women to the window
because some of the delegates are
jumping out of the window."
So we told some of the
women "Go and stand there."
And then we said, "General,
if we remove these women,
we give these guys two weeks,
or we will do it again.
Here's what we want:
one, the peace talk has to move on.
All of them will
attend sessions regularly.
They have to pass by us
and don't ever insult us
because we are not crazy.
So we were just saying to them,
"This peace talk has
to be a real peace talk,
not a circus."
Afterwards, the mood
of the entire peace talk
changed from gay and happy
to more sober and more serious.
What we've done here today
is to send out a signal to the world
that we, the Liberian
women in Ghana, at this conference,
we are fed up with the war,
and we are doing
this to tell the world
we are tired of fighting
the killing of our people.
We can do it again if we want to.
And next time,
we will be more than 1000.
There are over 25,000 women
at the Buduburam refugee camp.
There are over 10,000
Liberian women living in Accra.
We can do it,
and we will do it again.
[THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
THREATENS TO CUT OFF FUNDING
UNLESS A BREAKTHROUGH IS REACHED.]
[TWO WEEKS LATER, THE TERMS OF THE
AGREEMENT ARE ANNOUNCED:]
[TAYLOR WILL BE
EXILED TO NIGERIA.]
[A UN PEACE-KEEPING FORCE
WILL ENTER MONROVIA.]
[A TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENWILL LEAD TO DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS.]
[MANY WARLORDS RECEIVE POSITIONS
IN THE TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT.]
[AUGUST 4, 2003
INTERNATIONAL PEACEKEEPING TROOPS]
[ARRIVE IN LIBERIA.]
[AUGUST 11, 2003
TAYLOR LEAVES FOR EXILE IN NIGERIA.]
I leave you with
these parting words.
God-willing, I will be back.
We decided to come
home in our t-shirts.
And it was like, hugs
from people that we didn't know.
They were like saying to me,
"Well, how did you manage?"
I said, "With this t-shirt,
I'm very powerful."
By the time we enter our community,
the children would start singing,
"We want peace, no more war,"
"We want peace, no more war,"
until we just had
this train of children
following us all of the time.
That was the moment for us.
[LIBERIA WILL RISE AGAIN!]
Now what? What do we do?
Do we just go back home and
sit and dance and celebrate?
It was like all of us
just turned to that answer, no,
we have to be involved.
We wanted to show members
of the transitional government
and the rest of the world
that we were carefully watching
the implementation of
the peace agreement.
Peace is a process.
It's not an event.
When the guns are put down,
we have to continue
to build the peace.
We have to accept our
combatants into our midst.
We cannot hold
it against them.
Sometimes I'm the opposite
side to forgive these guys.
But again I say to myself,
"How can we move on
if we do not forgive?"
But really I tell you no lie,
with the stories from the women,
I find it hard.
I was angry
with the perpetrators.
These ex-child soldiers.
But when I started
working with them,
I realized that
a lot of them were as
much victim as we were.
[DECEMBER 2003
UN MILITARY FORCES (UNMIL)
[BEGIN DISARMAMENT.]
[EXCOMBATANTS REPORT TO
SCHEIFFLIN ARMY BASE TO]
[SURRENDER WEAPONS FOR CASH.]
We had tried to get very involved
in the disarmament.
What we had tried
to tell them was that
Liberia has had
more than one disarmament,
which means that we have some idea
about what works,
and what doesn't work.
But we were constantly
told that they were the experts.
By 2pm, you have
over 3000 fighters
standing here with
different kinds of weapons,
and smoking weed,
and doing all
kinds of drugs and alcohol,
and no one is doing anything.
I said, "Sugars, mark my word,
we're headed for chaos today."
Then the whole thing just erupted.
The UN didn't know what to do.
Fortunately for them,
the women were there.
The next morning,
we issue a statement
and listed all of the things
that the UN had done wrongly.
We put statements on the radio
in all of the local vernacular
calling for calm
among the fighters,
that the women were doing
everything in their will and power
to ensure that
they got their benefits
and that the process went
the way they anticipated.
In 3 or 4 days we were able
to calm the situation down.
They were there
during the day of disarmament
to command us to go and
give the weapons, ya'll know.
Crying on us.
So we listened to them.
Other people were saying,
"Gentlemen, do not
give our arms to the people.
Gentlemen, do not give
the arms, do not give the arms."
The ol' ma's were saying,
"No, our children,
we beg you."
We did one-to-one talk
with some of the fighters.
And even some of the
rebels disarmed to us.
I believe in their words,
so I tell God, "Thank you
for every one of us today."
We appreciate them a lot,
and we're still there for them.
They are our mothers.
[LIBERIA]
[LET'S RECONCILE AND LIVE TOGETHER
IN PEACE AND UNITY]
The men have been out there,
they've made all the mistakes.
They've brought war, they've
brought poverty, suffering, everything.
And so women were determined
this time to make a difference.
[REGISTER TO VOTE]
We believed that until
we had elected democracy,
Liberia would not
know true peace.
We decided to keep working
and go into the field
until that day came.
We all got involved
one way or the other.
We campaigned till we
campaigned in the night.
We campaigned till we forgot
that we could even be raped.
[JANUARY 17, 2006
LIBERIA IS THE FIRST COUNTRY
IN AFRICA TO ELECA WOMAN AS PRESIDENT.
I want to hear now, gratefully acknowledge
the powerful voice of women
from all walks of life
whose votes brought us to victory.
They defended me,
they worked with me,
they prayed for me.
It is the women who labored
and advocated for peace
throughout our region.
There's no way that the
history of Madam Sirleaf
can be written without the
history of the women's peace work.
It was the cake,
and then her election was the icing.
After two and a half years,
we officially ended
the mass action campaign
and left the field.
[PEACE FOREVER]
But Liberians knew
that if things ever
got bad again,
we would be back.
[ST. PETER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH
MONROVIA]
[MOTHER'S DAY, 2007]
If we had not had different women
from different walks of life
banding together,
we may not have been
able to solve the problem.
It was so beautiful.
It was the first of its kind,
to see Muslim women and
Christian women working together.
Really the women of
Liberia, I must admit,
I'm proud of them. We stood.
What we did was to
make Liberians bold, to step out.
We stepped out first
and did the unimaginable.
3 million people, was founded in 1847]
[by freed American slaves.
Their descendants formed]
[an elite class which dominated indigenous
ethnic groups for more than a century.]
[Rising tensions finally erupted
into civil war in 1989.]
[From then on, Liberians suffered a
prolonged period of violence.]
[At times, fighting was concentrated
in the countryside. Other times,]
[the conflict raged
through the capitol, Monrovia.]
[By 2002, over 200,000 people had died.
One in three people had been displaced.]
[There was no end in sight.]
[Then, ordinary women
did the unimaginable.]
[FORK FILMS PRESENTS]
[A FILM BY ABIGAIL DISNEY
and GINI RETICKER]
[CO-PRODUCER: JOHANNA HAMILTON]
[AFRICA
LIBERIA]
[MUSIC COMPOSED BY: BLAKE LEYH
VOCALS BY ANGELIQUE KIDJO]
[CHEAP GUNS $25]
[DIRECTOR OF CINEMATOGRAPHY:
KIRSTEN JOHNSON]
[EDITOR: KATE TAVERNA
and MEG RETICKER]
[NOW NOW WE WANT PEACE, WE WANT PEACE,
WE ARE TIRED, PEACE]
[PRODUCED BY: ABIGAIL E. DISNEY]
[DIRECTED BY: GINI RETICKER]
[PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL]
I am 5 months pregnant,
my son is 3, and my daughter is 2.
So under reams of bullets
we leave the house,
and we walk for like
7 hours to my parents house.
And it was hell on earth.
My 3 year-old is sitting down,
sweat pouring off his body,
and he says to me,
"Mama, I wish just for
a piece of donut this morning,
I am so hungry."
I'm sitting there and thinking,
where am I going to get
a piece of donut
for this 3-year old?
[LEYMAN CIBOWITZ - Social Worker]
And the anger built up again,
a pain was there, and I said to him,
Nuku, I don't have a
piece of donut to give you.
He said, "I know, but I just
wish for a piece of donut."
Liberia had been at war for so long
that my children had been hungry
and afraid their entire lives.
Some say the war was about
the gap between the rich and the poor.
Some also say that the war
was about the hatred
between the different ethnic groups.
[BE WERES OF THE BAD DOG AT NIGHT]
Others say the war was to
control natural resources.
Power, money, ethnicity, greed.
But there's nothing in my mind
that should make people do
what they did to
the children of Liberia.
The war started on
Christmas eve in 1989.
That was when Taylor started
his bloody rise to power.
We have an opportunity
starting from zero
to reconstruct the
minds of our people.
[The New York Times]
[Horrific genius]
[A Master Plan Drawn in Blood]
Taylor had the small boys unit,
young kids from like 9 to 15.
["...would force boys
to kill their parents..."]
A lot of them were
children who were on drugs.
They gave them drugs,
they fed them drugs.
Nobody can be war against me,
I'm war itself.
["In 1997... he terrorized
Liberians into electing him president."]
[The Tyrant We're Too Willing
to Live With]
[has done millions of dollars' worth
of business with al Qaeda and Hezbollah]
[...a key figure in Sierra Leone's
blood diamond trade."]
["...rebels supported by Taylor...
... were hacking off
the hands and feet of civilians..."]
["...systematically pocketed
the wealth of his country."]
He had absolute power and
total control over the finances
of the country.
That was bad,
it was miserable.
People, they couldn't even
afford a cup of rice.
Taylor had his private army which
was called the Anti-Terrorist Unit.
We lived in fear.
It was always like you go
to bed and pray that you have
something different the next day.
You know,
that the shooting will stop,
that the killing will stop,
that the hunger will stop,
saying, "God please!"
I had a dream.
And it was like a crazy dream,
that someone was actually
telling me to get the women
of the church together
to pray for peace.
[ST. PETER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH
MONROVIA, JUNE 2002]
This is completely
a terrible life to live.
We are tired.
We are tired!!
But then as I said, the dream
it was like more ideas kept coming.
[inaudible]
We feel it's now time
to rise up and speak.
But we don't want to do this alone.
We want to invite the other
Christian churches to come
and let's put
our voices together.
And we started the
Christian Women's Peace Initiative.
You are asking, "Who are
you to be our savior?"
Ordinary mothers,
grandmothers, aunts, sisters.
For us, this is
just the beginning.
I was moved!
Then I raised my hand,
and I was recognized.
And then I walked out
before the church
and then I said,
"Praise the Lord."
and then everybody said, "Amen."
So then I said, "I have a
surprise for this congregation.
And I said, "I'm the only
Muslim in this church."
I was moved, and I'm impressed
by the Christian Women's Initiative.
Then everybody was
just there "Oh, hallelujah!"
They praised the Lord,
they were so happy that I was there.
God is up. We're all
serving the same God.
This is not only for
the Christian women.
I want to promise you all today
that I'm going to move it
forward with the Muslim women.
I knew my Muslim sisters
and then I knew who to contact.
I wanted it to be an initiative
that was going to continue.
When I sold the idea to them,
they were more than excited.
And then they said,
"Let's go for it!"
At first it was somehow difficult.
When we started, some Christians said,
being a follower of Christ
and going to work along
with the Muslim means
they were diluting their faith.
But the message that we took on was,
"Can a bullet pick and choose?"
"Does the bullet
know Christian from Muslim?"
[WHILE THE WOMEN ORGANIZE FOR PEACE,
TAYLOR'S ENEMIES MOBILIZE FOR WAR.]
[WARLORDS DENIED A ROLE IN TAYLOR'S
GOVERNMENT'S VOW TO OVERTHROW HIM]
We want Taylor out!
[THEY UNITE AS LURD
(LIBERIANS UNITED FOR
RECONCILIATION AND DEMOCRACY)]
I'll escort you guys to Monrovia.
We want Monrovia in 30 days.
Taylor does not listen
to any peace, any negotiation,
except the barrel of the gun.
[SEKOU CONNEH
National Chairman, LURD]
This is why we are in the bush.
The warlords would give
these boys guns and send them off.
They just told them to take
whatever they wanted along the way.
That's how all
the fighters survived.
So people in the
countryside were terrorized.
These boys would go to your home
and they rape you
in front of your children,
they could rape you
in front of your husband,
and they just do anything
because they had guns.
Joe!
These warlords don't
come to save anybody.
They come for their
own selfish greed.
They have their own agenda,
and most of them in
Africa is to get rich, to get power.
Absolute power.
And absolute power brings wealth.
[BY MARCH 2003, LURD CONTROLS
THE MAJORITY OF THE COUNTRYSIDE.]
[MONROVIA, LIBERIA]
It's like the entire
country poured down
into Monrovia to seek
refuge during the crisis.
There were camps
where they had to go.
Life there was really terrible.
People died there every day,
especially children.
I don't think
I've ever seen people live
in such abject poverty
as I saw in the camps.
We went looking for
some of the women
who had come,
to see how they were faring,
and we met this group of people.
We just broke down and cried,
because it hurt
that there was no
outlet for the Liberians.
I met this woman
in one displaced camp,
and she said this day,
the rebel attack the village
she, her children,
and husband were living in.
And when they got there,
they arrested her husband,
told him to lie down
flat on the ground.
He lie down.
Then her daughter,
by then was twelve,
have just started to menstruate.
They grab her and told her say,
"Spread the lapa on the ground."
And she said she saw this fighter
took out a long knife,
and told her, say "Woman, stand up.
Sing, clap, and dance."
And she started to sing,
clapping and dancing.
And told her, "Look straight at me.
You turn your face,
I will kill your husband.
First, turn around."
She said when she turn around,
she saw these huge three guys.
One stripped himself
to rape her daughter in her presence.
She was in the middle,
the husband so,
and the daughter so.
Both of their head to the sun.
And they told her,
"Look on your right."
She look.
Gradually, cutting
her husband's neck, gradually.
They said, "Sing!"
So she said when her
husband's blood flashed on her,
she went off.
She didn't know where she was.
Up to the day we
met her she was still
singing the song
they asked her to sing.
And clapping and dancing.
And from the rape,
her daughter got pregnant.
These women had seen
the worst of the wars,
something that I had not seen.
But they still had
that vibrance for life.
And just being able to help them,
to sit and hold their hands,
and to hug their kids,
and looking at people
who had lost everything,
and still having hope,
I think that was where I got
baptized into the women's movement.
Taylor told those
in the displaced camps
to go back to where
their mother borne them.
Because by staying in the camps,
it was giving his
government a negative image.
And it was showing that
he was not in control.
But yet there were fighting
still going on in these areas
where the people came from,
and so the people refused to go.
And he threatened that
he was going to get them
out of the camps by force.
I'm here because the
One that created me
to launch this revolution,
and I'll tell you,
if God did not want me,
I'm not here because
I wanted to be here.
Because the only person
that could have protected me
over the past five to six years
is Jehovah God Almighty!
Taylor went to church.
And the leadership of LURD
went to the mosque.
Taylor could pray
the devil out of hell.
And we said if this
man is so religious,
we need to get to that thing
that he holds firmly to.
So if the women
started pressurizing
the pastors and the bishops,
the pastors and the bishops
would pressurize the leaders.
And if the women from the mosque
started taking to their Imams,
they would pressurize
the warlords also.
We organized and had a meeting
immediately after our Friday prayer.
We encourage the
fighter to come home,
to lay the gun
and come, to make peace.
We were constantly engaging
the imams in dialogues, for them
to see reasons why we were
getting involved in this process.
We told them that today,
today we are breaking the silence.
April 1, 2003.
I'm sitting in my house, leg up.
Actually, I had a bit of malaria.
And then I get this
call from Asatu.
She said, "The war is closing in.
The war is getting worse
and worse everyday."
We needed to do
something more forceful,
more dramatic.
For us, relation is
not a barrier for us.
We decided to take a protest.
When we decided that
this is something to do,
someone said, "Oh,
but then let's call Janet."
She was working with Radio Veritas,
which is the
Catholic-owned radio station.
Once I do the recording,
it becomes the first
lead story on the news.
We are ready.
And everyone's gonna hear that.
Are you sick and tired of war?
Come join in a peace festival and
rally organized by women of Liberia...
It was like, "Listen out to
what we want to do next."
This Saturday at [INAUDIBLE] airfield...
We went back to the Bible.
We saw what Esther
did for her people,
that she went in
sackclothes and ashes,
saying, "I mean it."
Liberian women that
love to do their hair
and put on jewelries and make-up,
were not allowed to do
any of those things.
We wore plain white clothes
with the hair tied.
We wore the white saying to
people we were out for peace.
We are determined,
and nobody gonna deter us.
We're gonna find a strategic point,
where Taylor's gonna encounter us
and give us some attention.
And this is how we decided
to sit at the fish market everyday.
Thousands of women,
including IDPs,
internally displaced persons, went.
It was the first time in
our history in Liberia
where Muslim women
and Christian women
were coming together.
And we had a big
banner that said,
"The women of Liberia
want peace now."
Charles Taylor said,
"Those who think, they can come out
in the street to embarass themselves,
come out! I'm waiting for you.
I said nobody,
N-O-B-O-D-Y, nobody,
will get into the street
to embarass my administration."
We were not afraid.
My mother was like,
They will beat you people,
they will kill you."
And we said,
"Well, if I should get killed,
just remember me,
that I was fighting for peace."
By the time President Taylor
was about to go to work,
we were over 2,500 women
under the blazing hot sun.
We were lined up
with our placards
that we wanted peace
and no more war.
This is how this song came about,
"We want peace, no more war."
Our children are dying,
we want peace.
We are tired suffering,
we want peace.
We are tired running,
we want peace.
And then Taylor's convoy came,
and we were all there,
singing, shouting.
President Taylor's
convoy slowed down.
He didn't stop, he went on.
We were there over a week,
and still the president didn't
see reason to talk to us.
Every morning we went there,
we got to know one another.
We started to empathize
with one another.
We were so desperate for peace,
we were going to have a sex strike.
And we said to the women,
One way or the other
you have a power as a woman,
and that power is
deny the man your sex.
And tell him the reason
you're going to deny him.
Look, if you have any
power to put stop to the war,
you go and do it.
Men were the perpetrators of violence,
so either by commission or omission,
you were guilty.
Some of them who went against it
came back and confessed and said,
"Let me tell you,
you know I had no control,
this happened."
We said, "Then pick up from there."
And their husbands were
equally praying with them,
because for them,
the end of the war meant
a good beginning of
enjoyment for us.
I got information that the
war had come as far as Po River,
and we didn't want that
to reach to the city.
I will use 107's
to empty Monrovia.
All the civilians will leave.
Just firebomb Monrovia.
All the civilians will leave.
Then we enter.
Asatu was quote unquote our spy,
because she could give us information
about what was about to happen.
She called me while we
were at the program and said,
"You need to hurriedly get
these women back to the camp,
because we have a security situation."
The rebels had attacked the camp.
The rebels would come and attack,
and the government
troops would go in there
to say they are
safe-guarding the people,
and they would equally attack,
and commit the same atrocities
that the rebel had
committed on these people.
[ESCALATING WAR
THREATENS TO IGNITE THE REGION.]
[THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY'S CALL
FOR PEACE TALKS EMBOLDENS THE WOMEN.]
[TAYLOR AND THE REBELS REFUSE
TO COME TO THE PEACE TABLE.]
We decided to present
a position statement
to the government of Liberia,
informing them to see reason
to come to the peace
table with the warring faction.
And we said, "Right now,
we are demanding,
we are not appealing."
[WOMEN OF LIBERIA - POSITION
STATEMENT ON THE LIBERIAN CRISIS]
Women in this peace work,
didn't want to be seen as politicians
so let's not talk about politics.
Let's not talk about
the practices of the government
because we could
be prosecuted for it.
Let's just stick to the word "peace."
[THE WOMEN OF LIBERIA SAY PEACE
IS OUR GOAL, PEACE IS WHAT MATTERS]
[PEACE IS WHAT WE NEED]
We went to Parliament,
presented our statement,
and said we will continue
to sit in the sun and rain
until we heard from the president.
And when we got in the street,
Leymah was at the front
so she wasn't looking at the back.
Everywhere we pass,
it was a group of
women joining the group.
Plus twenty. Plus fifty.
At that point in time we didn't
care whether we had jobs or not,
whether we had food or not,
because if we never had
peace you wouldn't have job.
Your children wouldn't
have gone to school,
my husband wouldn't work.
And so anybody who
thought that way too,
would see reason to sit there.
Taylor could no longer ignore us.
Finally, he decided to meet with us.
[WORDS CAN BE MORE HARMFUL THAN BULLETS]
[APRIL 23, 2003]
Some of the women,
they was really afraid to
go to the mansion
and to see Taylor.
[ETTY WEAH
Market Woman]
People were just
edgy and edgy and edgy
and people were feeling faint.
And then we realized that
it was fear of the unknown.
Even when he's smiling with
you you have to be very careful,
you know, because he
could be smiling with you
and the next minute
ordering you killed.
Going to meet Taylor that day
was the moment that I've lived for.
When Leymah got on
stage to read the statement,
we were like holding
hands and praying,
as if to say,
"Jesus give her the strength."
I said, "We rebuke any evil force
that would make her weak."
Ms. Leymah Gbowee,
Coordinator of the
Women's Peace Building Network.
We ask the honorable
Pro Tem of the Senate,
being a woman, and being
in line with our cause,
to kindly present this
statement to his Excellency,
Dr. Charles Taylor
with this message:
that the women of Liberia,
including the IDPs,
we are tired of war.
We are tired of running.
We are tired of begging
for bulgar wheat.
We are tired of our
children being raped.
We are now taking this stand,
to secure the future of our children.
Because we believe,
as custodians of society,
tomorrow our children will ask us,
"Mama, what was your
role during the crisis?"
Kindly convey this to the
president of Liberia. Thank you.
Taylor and his people could see
that popular support was on our side.
For the first time,
he agreed to our demands
that he would go
to the peace talks.
Now we had to get the rebels
to promise that they would also go.
[FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE]
So two days later, we sent
Asatu and Sugars to Sierra Leone
because we heard that the
rebels were meeting there.
We'd arranged for women
to be sitting in Sierra Leone,
so that the rest of West Africa,
the rest of the
international community,
would know that
we were serious about peace.
And the morning that they
were going to meet the rebels,
it was amazing.
When these rebels were
about to leave their hotel,
you had women, Liberian
and Sierra Leonian women,
lining the routes,
calling for peace.
Even one of LURD
was my former schoolmate.
And then he was like,
"What are you doing here?
Don't say anything to me."
Then I said, "You have not
seen me for some time here.
Are you not happy to see me?"
I kept reminding him,
"Your mothers have come
this far to talk to you,
your sisters have come this far.
If you don't go,
don't you know these people
will die in Monrovia?
And don't you think you
will be guilty that you are
also responsible for their death?"
Some of them were
saying things like,
"You all have come to
represent Mr. Taylor," you know,
And it was like, "Listen,
many of these women have
come from areas where you are,
and they're talking about
your human rights abuses as well,
it's not just Mr. Taylor's
human rights abuses."
[Joe Gbalah
Security General, LURD]
The rebels finally
promised the women
that they would go to
Ghana to the peace talks.
Our basic expectation in
Accra is to engage the peace talks
with clean hearts.
And we expect it will be successful,
and he will relinquish power.
He will relinquish power.
We knew we had to
keep the pressure up,
so we began to raise money
to send a few women to Ghana
to mobilize refugee
women living there.
We got students, taxi drivers,
women's organizations who just came
and gave 500, 200,
1000 Liberian dollars.
On a daily basis,
people came and said,
"This is something
that we should contribute to."
[ACCRA, GHANA]
The president, Dr. Charles Taylor
is arriving here at Kotoka airport,
then upon arrival by the
vice-president of Ghana...
Good morning and welcome
to another edition
of Network Africa from the BBC...
[ACCRA, GHANA
JUNE 4, 2003.]
Peace talks are due to begin today
in Ghana between the warring factions
in Liberia.
There's been pressure on both
sides to end the war which has
destabilized much of West Africa.
It'll be the first time the
Liberian president Charles Taylor
has talks with the rebel
movements which are now
trying to oust him.
The women living in
the refugee camp
joined our delegation
when we got to Ghana.
We are their conscience,
sitting out here.
We are calling to their
conscience to do the right thing.
And the right thing now is
to give the Liberian women
and their children the peace
that they so desperately need.
Peace talks on Liberia
get under way in the Ghanian
capital later this morning.
The talks are arranged by
the regional grouping ECOWAS
are expected to
go on for 2 weeks.
Several African leaders are
expected at the opening ceremony...
The people of Liberia have
suffered for too much and for too long.
[THABO MBEKI
President of South Africa]
And there is no particular reason
why that conflict should continue
for another day, none.
If we allow this opportunity
to go, if we miss this opportunity,
we may never have it again.
People were listening to the radio
as the talks were going on in there.
And then I think it
was by 2... 3 o'clock,
Focus on Africa, BBC.
And then it was like a
breaking-news alert that Liberian
president Charles Taylor
had been indicted for war crimes
in Sierra Leone.
[SEKOU CONNEH
National Chairman, LURD]
A bombshell hits the
Liberian peace talks.
President Taylor is indicted
by Sierra Leone's war crimes court.
A war crimes tribunal in
Sierra Leone accused him
of being responsible
for crimes against humanity.
Some people believe
that President Taylor is the problem.
If President Taylor
removes himself,
fellow Liberians,
would that bring peace?
If so, I will remove myself.
The word that came out of the
conference room was that
there was talk between
the Ghanian government
and the international community
for him to be arrested
there and then in Ghana.
[TAYLOR FLEES TO LIBERIA
A WANTED MAN.
HIS DELEGATION REMAINS BEHIND
TO NEGOTIATE LIBERIA'S FATE.]
Instead of being flown off
to jail as the war crimes
tribunal had hoped,
Charles Taylor has flown home.
Ghanian ministers insist they
never officially heard the request
to arrest him.
I don't think anybody's going
to take me from here to any court.
I haven't done anything
to the Liberian people,
and I don't think
anybody's going to do that.
So if anybody's coming in
here with a hostile intention,
they better come in fighting,
because I fight when I have to fight.
So when does it begin,
will you... wait?
The battle gonna begin today.
I'm gonna pass the order now.
[FULL SCALE WAR BREAKS OUT IN MONROVIA
WHILE TALKS CONTINUE IN GHANA.]
The boys got on the rampage.
They were all in the streets
with their arms and things.
They said if they arrest Taylor,
there will be no more Liberia.
They said they were going
to go from house to house,
and kill everybody
and burn everything.
No food, nothing.
We were just indoor.
If I were to leave this country,
I see disaster.
I see trouble.
I see murder,
mayhem, I see rape,
I see total destruction.
Taylor had announced that
if you don't feel secure
you can go to the football field.
People felt insecure
dealing with the rebels.
They preferred dealing
with the devil they already knew.
And so a lot of people walked
with their loads on their head
all the way to the football field.
[FEARING LURD, THOUSANDS SEEK
REFUGE IN THE STADIUM.]
Our major concern right now
is we lack a safe drinking water.
From last night to now we have
not had any drinking water
in this place.
For now we have
over 6,700 and more,
and we're expecting more to come.
[IN GHANA,
PEACE TALKS CONTINUE.]
We were in Accra,
really, really worried
for the family members
that we've left back.
My son was calling me
and telling me,
"They just dug a mass grave.
We put in like a hundred persons.
We gotta go, they're
digging another one."
We're getting like,
play-by-play, you know.
And somebody called and said,
"It's not just easy here.
We can't get out of the houses.
We are in closed door."
And there's no way to
get out to find food.
How will my young baby eat?
We took the opinion
of the women with all seriousness.
I found an ally in them.
We on the mediation side,
we felt the women
were doing a good thing,
trying to make their
men see reason.
We had to continuously
strategize what to do.
because the men,
they felt the more persons
you kill the stronger you are,
and the more people
look up, you know,
listen to you on
the peace table.
We'd been talking behind
the scenes to the various warlords
to negotiate, you know,
"Ok, so yes,
this is your position.
What will you
be comfortable with?"
So that when you went
to talk to the other side,
you could then be able
to negotiate with the other side.
The women kept going
from one delegate to the other,
from one hotel to the other,
trying to influence these delegates.
And the belligerents have
really come to the point
they have just but captured the
whole of the government of Liberia.
So, during the peace talks,
really they were talking
about power, about position,
about a job, and the
control of the resources.
Because that was what it
was all about at the end of the day.
It was about jobs.
"I want to be the
Minister of Justice."
"I want to be the Minister
of Finance. So I can steal."
So are we supposed to
pay you for killing us?
And then one of the LURD
members had come to me and said,
"Well, we're going to kill
the people in Monrovia,
and then we'll go back there,
and we'll bring women with us,
and we will
replenish the population."
That was the foolishness
he said to me.
He became Deputy
Minister of Defense.
The women had said
they didn't want any warlord
to occupy any position of authority
in the transitional government.
If you are going
to form a government
that is going to
exclude the warring factions,
that is not acceptable.
You are not seeking peace.
You are seeking more and
more and more problem in the nation.
[INAUDIBLE]
Ok, but it's important that I [INAUDIBLE]
And it splits [INAUDIBLE] forces in two...
They go up into their bedrooms,
and they're calling Monrovia
and giving instructions.
Fire in the hole!
Go back! Go back!!
We were still going at the
fish market during the war.
While the peace
talk was taking place,
We were still at
the fish market every morning,
and we were still
fasting and praying.
There were missiles,
there were shooting,
there were stray bullets.
And then we continued.
Every day I would see a truck full
with young boys going to fight.
But at the end of the
day when they are coming back
the truck is like empty.
Wounded people are inside.
My son was always with me.
I always used to
talk to him that
"I don't want you to leave
the house to go and go out."
Because if having to go out,
he would be influenced by his
friends to go out and to go and fight.
I killed three enemy yesterday.
To see my friends' young
boys going out there
and they are
coming back wounded,
I would always cry and pray
that the war
should come to an end.
My men will be encouraged
to fight to the last.
We will never
desert the city.
We will fight street to street,
house to house,
and we'll defeat them.
It was just bad.
Because you didn't
know who was who,
because they were all
dressing the same old way.
They would leave the front
and come to the civilian
because they wanted to loot,
because they wanted to rape.
They would leave the front,
and come to your house.
And pull you out,
and take everything off you,
take your shoes from your foot.
We mobilized ourselves and
went to the American embassy.
We went picketing.
[AFTER SIX WEEKS,
THE PEACE TALKS ARE GOING NOWHERE.]
These warlords,
who slept in bushes before
and who had never
known good lives,
some of them were
living their dream life
at the peace talks.
It was almost like
they were on vacation.
We were getting nowhere.
And we were really
reaching the end of the road.
What can we do,
really, to get these people
to sign this peace agreement?
They were still
jockeying for more and more.
We have women that
grew up from all over-
Women [INAUDIBLE] women
of Liberia who [INAUDIBLE] -
Mass action of peace.
As I got angrier
and more bitter,
I realized that there was no
way I could do the work that I did.
No new ideas were coming
because I wasn't thinking anymore.
Is this the last chance for Liberia?
We think it is.
[JULY 21, 2003]
Don't die yet.
There was a news
flash again on Liberia,
and a missile had landed inside
the American embassy compound.
where many displaced
Liberians were staying.
I just thought of
my own children.
And I was just raging inside.
So I told sugars,
"Today is showdown.
Send for more women."
So I told the women,
"Sit at the door,
and loop arms,
one arm within the other."
And the next thing we heard
on the overhead speaker was,
"Oh my God.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
the peace hall has been seized
by General Leymah
and her troops."
They really came
and locked us in,
that nobody will come out
until that peace
agreement was signed.
Even if it means
staying there for days.
And then the security guards came.
"Who is the
leader of this group?"
"I stood up and said,
"Here am I."
And they said,
"You are obstructing justice."
And that word,
obstructing justice,
was almost like when you took gas
and just pour it on an open flame.
I just went wild.
I said, "Obstructing justice?"
They said, "Yes, and we're
going to arrest you."
I said, "Ok, I'm going to
make it very, very easy
for you to arrest me."
I took off my hair tie.
It's a curse in Africa to see
the naked body of your mother.
And they were looking at me.
I said, "I'm going to strip naked."
Especially if
she does it deliberately.
Leymah had started
stripping when I came out.
She really was saying,
"Look, you guys, you do this,
or this is what we're going to do."
I will listen to you,
but these people,
these people have come here,
ECOWAS gave them big beds.
When they came
they were all pale.
No eating in the bush.
Now they are wearing
fine Ghanian-milled textiles.
And they are
passing around, telling us,
We will kill your people.
When we go back we will procreate."
They won't come outdoors.
Today they will feel the
hunger our people are feeling there.
[INAUDIBLE] General.
One of the warlords came to the door
and tried to jump over the women.
and the women push him back,
and he went back
as if he was about to
kick their backs.
Please... please... I beg you...
And General Abubakar
said to him, "Hey, I dare you, try it."
He said, "Go back in
there and sit down."
"They can't do this!"
He said, "I said go and sit down.
If you were a real man,
you wouldn't be killing your people.
But because you are not a real man,
that's why they will
treat you like boys.
Go back, and I dare
anyone leave this hall
until we've
negotiated with these women."
I am going to have my meetings,
and then I'm going to meet
you in the evening at 6 o'clock.
After that, then we get our
heads together to see...
Complaining that negotiators
were making little progress,
Liberian women staged a sit-in,
blocking delegates from leaving
the conference hall.
They've been there,
they've been prolonging,
in our opinion, this thing,
in their quest for power,
in their quest for this whole
thing of authority in Liberia.
And we're going to
keep them in that room,
without water, without food,
so they at least feel
what the ordinary people in Liberia
are feeling at this
particular point in time.
So we went, accompanied by
the Ghanian ambassador,
accompanied by other people,
and for 30 minutes,
it was just like tears and tears.
Finally he said, "You have
to let your women out of there."
We said no.
We were not leaving, because then
you would have to take all of us,
and there were almost 200 of us.
But ironically,
the very security that were
arresting me a few minutes earlier
were the same security
that came and said,
"You have to send some
women to the window
because some of the delegates are
jumping out of the window."
So we told some of the
women "Go and stand there."
And then we said, "General,
if we remove these women,
we give these guys two weeks,
or we will do it again.
Here's what we want:
one, the peace talk has to move on.
All of them will
attend sessions regularly.
They have to pass by us
and don't ever insult us
because we are not crazy.
So we were just saying to them,
"This peace talk has
to be a real peace talk,
not a circus."
Afterwards, the mood
of the entire peace talk
changed from gay and happy
to more sober and more serious.
What we've done here today
is to send out a signal to the world
that we, the Liberian
women in Ghana, at this conference,
we are fed up with the war,
and we are doing
this to tell the world
we are tired of fighting
the killing of our people.
We can do it again if we want to.
And next time,
we will be more than 1000.
There are over 25,000 women
at the Buduburam refugee camp.
There are over 10,000
Liberian women living in Accra.
We can do it,
and we will do it again.
[THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
THREATENS TO CUT OFF FUNDING
UNLESS A BREAKTHROUGH IS REACHED.]
[TWO WEEKS LATER, THE TERMS OF THE
AGREEMENT ARE ANNOUNCED:]
[TAYLOR WILL BE
EXILED TO NIGERIA.]
[A UN PEACE-KEEPING FORCE
WILL ENTER MONROVIA.]
[A TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENWILL LEAD TO DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS.]
[MANY WARLORDS RECEIVE POSITIONS
IN THE TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT.]
[AUGUST 4, 2003
INTERNATIONAL PEACEKEEPING TROOPS]
[ARRIVE IN LIBERIA.]
[AUGUST 11, 2003
TAYLOR LEAVES FOR EXILE IN NIGERIA.]
I leave you with
these parting words.
God-willing, I will be back.
We decided to come
home in our t-shirts.
And it was like, hugs
from people that we didn't know.
They were like saying to me,
"Well, how did you manage?"
I said, "With this t-shirt,
I'm very powerful."
By the time we enter our community,
the children would start singing,
"We want peace, no more war,"
"We want peace, no more war,"
until we just had
this train of children
following us all of the time.
That was the moment for us.
[LIBERIA WILL RISE AGAIN!]
Now what? What do we do?
Do we just go back home and
sit and dance and celebrate?
It was like all of us
just turned to that answer, no,
we have to be involved.
We wanted to show members
of the transitional government
and the rest of the world
that we were carefully watching
the implementation of
the peace agreement.
Peace is a process.
It's not an event.
When the guns are put down,
we have to continue
to build the peace.
We have to accept our
combatants into our midst.
We cannot hold
it against them.
Sometimes I'm the opposite
side to forgive these guys.
But again I say to myself,
"How can we move on
if we do not forgive?"
But really I tell you no lie,
with the stories from the women,
I find it hard.
I was angry
with the perpetrators.
These ex-child soldiers.
But when I started
working with them,
I realized that
a lot of them were as
much victim as we were.
[DECEMBER 2003
UN MILITARY FORCES (UNMIL)
[BEGIN DISARMAMENT.]
[EXCOMBATANTS REPORT TO
SCHEIFFLIN ARMY BASE TO]
[SURRENDER WEAPONS FOR CASH.]
We had tried to get very involved
in the disarmament.
What we had tried
to tell them was that
Liberia has had
more than one disarmament,
which means that we have some idea
about what works,
and what doesn't work.
But we were constantly
told that they were the experts.
By 2pm, you have
over 3000 fighters
standing here with
different kinds of weapons,
and smoking weed,
and doing all
kinds of drugs and alcohol,
and no one is doing anything.
I said, "Sugars, mark my word,
we're headed for chaos today."
Then the whole thing just erupted.
The UN didn't know what to do.
Fortunately for them,
the women were there.
The next morning,
we issue a statement
and listed all of the things
that the UN had done wrongly.
We put statements on the radio
in all of the local vernacular
calling for calm
among the fighters,
that the women were doing
everything in their will and power
to ensure that
they got their benefits
and that the process went
the way they anticipated.
In 3 or 4 days we were able
to calm the situation down.
They were there
during the day of disarmament
to command us to go and
give the weapons, ya'll know.
Crying on us.
So we listened to them.
Other people were saying,
"Gentlemen, do not
give our arms to the people.
Gentlemen, do not give
the arms, do not give the arms."
The ol' ma's were saying,
"No, our children,
we beg you."
We did one-to-one talk
with some of the fighters.
And even some of the
rebels disarmed to us.
I believe in their words,
so I tell God, "Thank you
for every one of us today."
We appreciate them a lot,
and we're still there for them.
They are our mothers.
[LIBERIA]
[LET'S RECONCILE AND LIVE TOGETHER
IN PEACE AND UNITY]
The men have been out there,
they've made all the mistakes.
They've brought war, they've
brought poverty, suffering, everything.
And so women were determined
this time to make a difference.
[REGISTER TO VOTE]
We believed that until
we had elected democracy,
Liberia would not
know true peace.
We decided to keep working
and go into the field
until that day came.
We all got involved
one way or the other.
We campaigned till we
campaigned in the night.
We campaigned till we forgot
that we could even be raped.
[JANUARY 17, 2006
LIBERIA IS THE FIRST COUNTRY
IN AFRICA TO ELECA WOMAN AS PRESIDENT.
I want to hear now, gratefully acknowledge
the powerful voice of women
from all walks of life
whose votes brought us to victory.
They defended me,
they worked with me,
they prayed for me.
It is the women who labored
and advocated for peace
throughout our region.
There's no way that the
history of Madam Sirleaf
can be written without the
history of the women's peace work.
It was the cake,
and then her election was the icing.
After two and a half years,
we officially ended
the mass action campaign
and left the field.
[PEACE FOREVER]
But Liberians knew
that if things ever
got bad again,
we would be back.
[ST. PETER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH
MONROVIA]
[MOTHER'S DAY, 2007]
If we had not had different women
from different walks of life
banding together,
we may not have been
able to solve the problem.
It was so beautiful.
It was the first of its kind,
to see Muslim women and
Christian women working together.
Really the women of
Liberia, I must admit,
I'm proud of them. We stood.
What we did was to
make Liberians bold, to step out.
We stepped out first
and did the unimaginable.