Ti-mour Massacre Casualties: “Tarbayed” & Drowned To Death * • Govt. Urges Calm; Promises Rigorous Probe Action
The cycle of bloody land feud in the country is widening nationally and notoriously by the day, with what is now known as the Timour Town massacre topping all post-war cruelties on the record, as Zeze Evans Ballah reports.
With the toll still rising, at least 15 are now confirmed dead in the wake of Timour Town massacre which took place this week at the border of Margibi and Grand Bassa Counties.
The dead, most of them chopped, tarbayed [Liberian wartime parlance for limbs tied behind the back for execution] and thrown in the Farmington River, were part of 36 young Liberians reportedly recruited from Monrovia by former Custom Director Charles Bennie to brush his farm at the border of Grand Bassa and Margibi Counties.
Investigation conducted by this paper discovered that the men were hired by Bennie and taken to the area to clear the land that has been in dispute between Bennie and Margibi County Senator Roland Kaine.
Charles Bennie is a former spokesman of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) while Kaine is said to be a commando of the former National Patriotic Front of Charles Taylor.
The two rebel factions not only battled each other for nearly four years for control of political power, they also commonly left behind huge trails of mayhem and death amongst innocent civilians.
According to investigation, the two men have been claiming ownership to the farmland, even though other sources claim that Bennie was awarded the right to ownership after Zoes and Elders in the area investigated the dispute.
Other sources say after Bennie won the case against Kaine, he hired the services of 36 people from some slum communities of Monrovia , including Slipway, Claratown and West Point to work on his farm.
It was while Bennie's contractors were working that the armed men encircled and attacked them.
The incident occurred in Timour Town , Nyunewien Clan, Grand Bassa County close to Harmon's Farm.
It can be recalled that the senatorial post occupied by Kaine was also contested by Charles Bennie during the 2005 presidential and legislative elections.
Residents in the area said since the political feud of 2005, the two men have been in endless fuss with each other.
The Liberia National Police (LNP) disclosed it had discovered 15 bodies from the Farmington River in connection with the Timour Town attacks on those who were brushing the farmland.
Additional twenty-one persons who were part of the 36 Bennie-recruited persons are yet unaccounted for.
Villagers in the area speculate that more persons, who were drowned to death in the aftermath of the attacks, are still beneath the surface of Farmington River .
Two men who survived the seeming massacre have been telling horrific accounts of the attack by individuals yet unidentified by state security.
One of the survivors told newsmen in Monrovia that while they were brushing on the disputed farmland, some of their colleagues went to a village to fetch water and cook cassava and other food items.
It was on their way, he said, that they met a group of men coming from an opposite direction who abruptly jumped on them, firing and using cutlasses and machetes.
Some of the attackers, the survivor said, were dressed in warlike outfits, with some carrying green leaves on their heads, reminiscing war days in Liberia .
One villager said the attackers fired at the victims, after which the bodies were tied on heavy objects, including rocks, mortar, and sticks and dumped in the Farmington River apparently to conceal their devilish act.
Another survival of the attack, Moko Gibson, told newsmen that after brushing for about two hours, he and a few of his colleagues decided to go in the town to cook some cassava. It was on their way, he said, that they met their attackers who asked them if their (attackers') leader was kidnapped by Bennie's men.
He said while they were trying to respond to the questions, one of the attackers told his men to chop them up.
He noted that it was at this point that he managed to escape into the bush.
Some of those killed in the attack include Lakie Les, Fredrick Somah, Ansu Lanford (allis Kalokalo), Adolphus Kennedy (allias Wee-Wee) and Amel Johnson.
Others are Mohammed Fofana, John Boley, Matu Chea, Victor Weah and Emmanuel Johnson; all hired from the Slip-Way Community in Monrovia.
The Liberia National Police have made 16 arrests and are undergoing investigation at the Kakata Police Station.
A Police source said amongst those arrested is A.Y. Kollie who is believed to be the ring leader of the attackers.
Police Director, Munnah Sieh said that divers had so far recovered some bodies from Farmington River near the farm about 55km (35 miles) south-east of the capital, Monrovia.
One of those who escaped, Jerry B. Jrutoe, said the shooting started on Saturday morning after they had been working for three hours.
"We just saw suppressive gunfire from all directions," he told the BBC.
Jrutoe said that he escaped injury because he had just left the group to get food for his colleagues.
"I saw the men shooting with three AK-47 rifles and three single-barrel shotguns."
The attackers then used workers' machetes to "finish some of the wounded," he said. Senator Roland Kaine has denied any knowledge of the attack.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice has ordered the arrest of Senator Roland Kaine suspected to be the mastermind of the killings.
A Capitol Building source told Public Agenda that the Justice Ministry officially requested the Senate to temporarily freeze the immunity of Kaine and have him surrendered to aid the investigation process.
The Senate leadership, the source said, met hurriedly and consented to forward Senator Kaine who was yesterday taken to the Liberia National Police Headquarters where he is being investigated.
Other sources say Charles Bennie was also spotted at Police headquarters early afternoon hours yesterday.
Justice Minister Philip Z. Banks has assured the Liberian public that justice would prevail and prevail harshly against those behind the massacre.
Speaking at the Slipway Townhall late yesterday afternoon, Minister Banks vowed that no stone would remain unturned in the investigation process and warned human rights advocates to keep their distance in the process because the state would pursue the harshest penalty possible against culprits of the massacre.
“It does not matter whether those people [the culprits] are small men or a big men, the government will prosecute them,” he said.
In a related development, hundreds of demonstrators yesterday marched in the streets of Monrovia calling on the Government to give justice to those killed.
The demonstrators, mostly from the slump of Slipway, said they were giving the government two days to deal with the killers or they would take the law into their hands.
Land disputes are obviously taking the place of ethnically-driven conflicts which left over 200,000 Liberians dead, properties destroyed and the Liberian state collapsed for 14 long years.
With ripples of land disputes bellowing in Lofa and Nimba counties, another chaotic scene stared in the face of the nation when two communities in Maryland County got embroiled in an internecine fray that left a number of persons dead and wounded.
