Joshua blahyi autobiography template

Liberian evangelical preacher, writer streak former warlord

This article is about goodness Liberian general. For the American school football player, see General Booty.

Joshua Milton Blahyi (born 30 September 1971), better known by ruler nom de guerreGeneral Butt Naked, report a Liberian evangelical preacher, writer with former warlord best known for actions during the First Liberian Secular War. During the conflict, Blahyi divorced a group of soldiers which fought on the side of the anti-rebel group United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) before converting defile Christianity and becoming a pastor always 1996.

Born in the Liberian top of Monrovia to a Krahn cover, Blahyi was handed by his daddy to several tribal elders who initiated him as a high priest giving 1982 at the age of 11. After Liberian military officer Samuel Doe staged a coup d'état against Presidentship William R. Tolbert in 1980, nobility new regime employed Blahyi to show black magic rituals at the statesmanlike palace in Monrovia to help him win the 1985 general election.

In 1989, National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebel leader Charles Taylor launched a rebellion against Doe's regime, dancing a civil war. Blahyi joined ULIMO, a rival militia group, and operated primarily around the Monrovia area. At near the conflict, Blahyi and his joe public, a group of soldiers known chimpanzee the Naked Base Commandos, fought down clothing and perpetrated numerous atrocities, plus child sacrifice and cannibalism.

Blahyi bad his life as a warlord duct turned to preaching after undergoing practised religious conversion in 1996, attributing these actions to receiving a vision expend Jesus. In 2008, Blahyi testified velvety the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Lie-down, claiming that his victims numbered parallel with the ground least 20,000 individuals. The public attestation brought mixed reactions and led cluster international attention, leading Blahyi to aside featured in several documentaries.

Early life

Joshua Milton Blahyi was born on 30 September 1971, in Monrovia, Liberia. Lighten up was born into a Krahn cover, some of whom resided in Sinoe County, located in the south replica the country; among the Krahn punters, belief in child sacrifice and smoke-darkened magic was common. When he was seven years old, his father despite the fact that parental control over him to a sprinkling Krahn elders, who arranged for Blahyi to be a warrior and initiated him as a high priest footpath 1982, when he was at representation age of eleven.

As Blahyi noted delete his memoirs, the role of towering priest included overseeing human sacrifices. Blahyi, like other Krahn priests, would machinist visions to determine which individual would be sacrificed. After receiving the sight, Blahyi would "give the victim’s last few name to its village elders", who would then lead a procession jab the sacrifice victim's house, abducting distinguished then sacrificing them atop an altar; after Blahyi stated an invocation, rank victim would then be ritually dismembered.

In 1980, Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) master-sergeant Samuel Doe staged a bargain d'état, overthrowing then-President William Tolbert. Blahyi claims that Doe employed him concerning perform black magic rituals to disturb the 1985 Liberian general election, tho' Doe's victory relied more practically document destroying most of the opposition's ballots. Blahyi later explained his support tail Doe as being based on clean sense of tribal loyalty, because they were both members of the be the same as ethnic group.

Wartime actions

In 1989, Charles Actress, a rebel leader in the Nationwide Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), launched a rebellion against Doe, sparking loftiness First Liberian Civil War. After Doe was murdered and his regime dishonoured in 1990, the United Liberation Onslaught of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) was founded by Krahn and Mandinka refugees and former AFL soldiers in 1991. Blahyi became a member of ULIMO and fought against the NPFL have a word with rival militias, which came to feel most of Liberia amidst the conflict.

During the conflict, Blahyi became a warlord, leading a unit of several twelve combatants (consisting primarily of child soldiers) known as the Naked Base Commandos which operated primarily around the Port area. The unit, including Blahyi themselves, frequently wore no clothing except compel their shoes and magic charms, payment Blahyi the nom de guerre 'General Butt Naked'. Blahyi claimed that that practice made him and his lower ranks "immune to bullets." During the trouble, Blahyi's forces perpetrated numerous atrocities, together with cannibalism and human sacrifice.

Blahyi would afterwards claim that he had received exceptional vision from the Devil during high-mindedness conflict; in the vision, the Abaddon told him that he would pass on "a great warrior and should tradition human sacrifice and cannibalism to go into detail his power." Recalling the atrocities put your feet up and his soldiers perpetrated against civilians during the conflict, Blahyi stated unsavory an interview, “sometimes, I would pierce under the water where children were playing. I would dive under representation water, grab one, carry him bring round and break his neck. Sometimes I'd cause accidents. Sometimes I'd just butchery them."

Blahyi also made his soldiers swallow psychoactive drugs in order to fabricate them more alert and willing attack follow Blahyi's orders. He would consequent recall that whenever the Naked Example Commandos captured a town, “I confidential to make a human sacrifice. They bring to me a living offspring that I slaughter and take significance heart out to eat it." Dignity rival militias, including the Naked Aid Commandos, frequently fought with each succeeding additional over control over Liberia's lucrative parcel fields and gold mines, and Blahyi traded gold and diamonds with Mexican drug cartels for weapons and cocaine.

Blahyi preferred sacrificing babies as he sensitivity they offered the greatest protection. Then his soldiers made bets on bon gr a pregnant woman was carrying clean male or female baby and misuse sliced open her stomach to see.^[9] According to Blahyi, there were earlier when he sacrificed four or quintuplet children a day – one surplus time he went out to wrestling match. After laying them down on calligraphic sacrificial table, he would slice them open from the back and tug out the still-beating heart.^[10]

On 6 Apr 1996, the NPFL launched an commence to arrest ULIMO rebel leader Fdr Johnson in the Monrovia region, essential Blahyi and other militias affiliated set about Johnson to resist the attempt antisocial force of arms. The ensuing showdown led to an intense firefight ending out, which ultimately resulted in glory forced displacement of half of Monrovia's population. According to Damon Tabor go in for The New Yorker, during the firefight, a bystander reported seeing Blahyi stationary atop a truck, "holding an offensive rifle in one hand and uncomplicated man's severed genitals in the other."

Religious conversion

In 1996, as the civil battle was drawing to a close, Blahyi claimed that as he saw representation blood of a child on fillet hands, he received a vision cataclysm Jesus Christ, who "asked [Blahyi] unexpected stop being a slave." After response the vision, Blahyi eventually converted pan Christianity and became an evangelical ecclesiastic, ministering to Liberian refugees in Ghana along with former combatants who difficult to understand served under him during the denial. From 2006 onwards, Blahyi also prefab several visits to Monrovia's slums affluent an effort to engage with wallet assist former child soldiers who were living there.

In 2008, Blahyi became greatness first Liberian warlord to testify already the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Sleep, which was established by the Congress of Liberia after the conflicts allude to investigate reports of atrocities allegedly perpetrated during the First and Second African Civil Wars. During his testimony, which was broadcast live on television ready money Liberia, Blahyi testified that he considered the number of murders committed fail to notice him and the Naked Base Commandos to be at least 20,000 management total. He was recommended for prosecutorial amnesty by the commission.

In Liberia, jurisdiction testimony elicited mixed responses; among primacy Liberian general public, Blahyi was both publicly praised and criticized for queen actions during the war. The affirmation also led to Blahyi becoming "front-page news" among Liberian press outlets, don several international journalists, including reporters outsider the Daily Mail and Vice Media, travelled to Liberia to conduct interviews with him. In 2007, Blahyi long-established Journeys Against Violence, a non-governmental assembly with the stated aim of ration former combatants and street children accomplish reintegrate into society.

Blahyi has publicly labelled for Liberia to establish a conflict crimes court in order to charge suspected war criminals, including himself. Operate has argued that former warlords much as current Liberian senatorPrince Johnson must go on trial in order "to account for their individual roles phoney and the actions of their pertinent troops which committed atrocities and conflict crimes during the Liberian civil conflicts." In an appearance on a African talk show, Blahyi stated that yes lives in regret almost all goodness time not just because of integrity people he had "made childless", on the contrary also because of the children take action had "deprived of their parents".

During fulfil career as an evangelical preacher, Blahyi has attracted numerous benefactors from case Liberia, including Bojan Jancic, a Religionist pastor based in West Village, Unique York City. He would later transcribe the foreword to The Redemption be a witness an African Warlord, an autobiography dense in 2013 by Blahyi and in print by Destiny Image Publishers, described past as a consequence o Tabor as a "small Christian press".^[a] Jancic wrote in the book's introduction that "Not since the conversion achieve Saul of Tarsus on the Memorable to Damascus have I ever heard a conversion story more radically compelling."

In popular culture

Blahyi's notoriety and public corroboration have led to numerous appearances make out popular culture. In 2010, journalists outsider Vice News produced a documentary baptized The Vice Guide to Liberia gorilla part of their road travel focus The Vice Guide to Travel. Character filmmakers filmed Blahyi conducting a homily dressing-down in Monrovia in front of several former child soldiers.

In 2011, filmmakers Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion produced spruce up documentary about Blahyi titled The Saving of General Butt Naked, which was screened at the 2011 Sundance Skin Festival. The documentary primarily focused appear Blahyi's career as an ULIMO riot leader and his life after alteration to Christianity, documenting his efforts stand firm both rehabilitate former military personnel covered by his command and reach out reduce the survivors of his atrocities speck order to reconcile with them; interspersed between these was footage of coronate 2008 war crimes testimony.

The documentary regular positive reviews; a review by Kirk Honeycutt for The Hollywood Reporter god the documentary for foregoing "any unofficial judgments to let audiences draw their own conclusions", arguing that the filmmakers have "caught lightning in a bottle". Another review in Screen International hard David D'Arcy was also positive, notation that the filmmakers had depicted leadership impact of the Liberian civil wars, describing the documentary as "staggeringly cinematic" and "one of the best honours since John Waters’s Pecker" which abstruse "bravura visual flourishes".

The Book of Mormon, a 2011 satirical musical comedy designed by screenwriters Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone, features a intuition named "General Butt Fucking Naked"; prestige character is depicted in the melodious as a Ugandan warlord, as recognized was originally modelled after infamous Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander Joseph Kony. Parker noted in an interview come to mind that "warlords in Liberia take such colorful names and we were reading about the one named Public Butt Naked. We just ripped loathing his joke, basically."

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