VZCZCXRO0292
OO RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHMV #0248/01 0921610
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 011610Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY MONROVIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9898
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MONROVIA 000248 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE DRL FOR SHARON COOKE. 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV EAID ECON PREL LI
SUBJECT: LIBERIA: TRC BRINGS SOME RECONCILIATION TO COUNTIES 
 
REF: MONROVIA 30 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The GOL Truth and Reconciliation Commission 
(TRC) recently concluded one-week public hearings in five of 
Liberia's fifteen counties, and will head out again to the 
remaining counties after a two-week break.  The hearings were 
positively received and the traditional leaders of each 
county organized reconciliation and forgiveness ceremonies 
for local citizens to coincide with the TRC's visit, which 
contributed to concrete healing in many cases.  The rugged 
five-week trip has taken its toll on the Commissioners, 
however, causing tensions to run high between them at times, 
although reports of physical fighting are unfounded.  The 
DRL-funded project implemented by Benetech to statistically 
analyze witness testimony appears to be going well.  The TRC 
intends to hire more staff in order to code and data-enter 
witness statements more quickly, with the goal of including 
all 20,000 statements in the analysis for its final report 
due in December.  END SUMMARY. 
 
TRC "ROAD SHOW" HITS FIVE COUNTIES 
 
¶2. (SBU) The TRC Commissioners have conducted one-week public 
hearings entitled "Confronting Our Difficult Past for a 
Better Future" in Maryland, Grand Kru, River Gee, Grand 
Gedeh, and Sinoe counties.  The Commissioners' schedule has 
been hectic, as they have essentially worked over twelve 
hours per day, every day for five weeks, in very rustic 
conditions.  TRC psycho-social teams have followed them to 
provide counseling to any Liberian citizen wishing to discuss 
traumatic experiences during the war.  Press coverage has 
been extensive, and of fairly high quality; a recent report 
by the Press Union of Liberia was basically positive. 
 
HEARINGS HAVING SUPRISINGLY POSITIVE IMPACT 
 
¶3. (SBU) The response of people in the Southeast was 
overwhelmingly positive and exceeded TRC expectations.  In 
many counties, large audiences packed the venues.  Often more 
witnesses came forward to tell their stories than the 
Commissioners had time to hear.  Local citizens walked miles 
from their villages to the county capitals to participate and 
then reported back to their neighbors the events of the visit. 
 
¶4. (SBU) For rural Liberians -- especially those who are 
illiterate and don't understand English -- their county's one 
week TRC visit constituted the whole TRC process.  For many, 
this one week visit was enough to let them turn the page and 
move on.  Others are benefiting from the TRC's psycho-social 
teams that are in the counties to help anyone who needs their 
care. 
 
LOCAL CEREMONIES HAVE LEAD TO CONCRETE HEALING 
 
¶5. (SBU)  Traditional leaders organized forgiveness and 
reconciliation ceremonies in each county during the TRC's 
visit.  Though the ceremonies were not officially part of the 
TRC's program, they complemented the TRC's goals and had a 
profound effect on many of the local citizens.  In at least 
some cases, the ceremonies provided real healing, and gave 
communities the impetus to move beyond the past.  In River 
Gee County, for example, a man named Washington Moore served 
in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia during the war and 
forcibly took four men who refused to fight away from their 
families to go to war for Taylor, despite pleadings from 
their wives.  All four men were ultimately killed under 
unknown circumstances, and Moore has been a pariah in his 
village ever since.  A special traditional ceremony was 
organized during which Moore apologized to the women, they 
forgave him, and all the villagers pledged to accept Moore 
again.  Now the women are providing food and helping him to 
reintegrate into society. 
 
¶6. (SBU) However, Moore's reconciliation ceremony created 
tension among the tired TRC Commissioners, as the ceremony 
was announced at the last minute and was planned in a village 
that was an eight-hour drive and a two-hour canoe trip in the 
opposite direction from their next assignment.  The 
Commissioners held a heated three-hour closed-door argument 
to decide whether to attend.  The press alleged that 
Commissioners Massa Washington and Pearl Brown Bull got into 
a physical fight during that meeting.  Ultimately, four 
Commissioners attended the ceremony for Moore. 
 
¶7.  In a meeting with PolOff the following week, the 
commissioners acknowledged that tensions were high between 
them due to the stress of the trip but denied any sort of 
physical violence.  Washington and Brown Bull were friendly 
and joking with each other.  The Commissioners decided they 
 
MONROVIA 00000248  002 OF 002 
 
 
needed a two week break in Monrovia (after five weeks on the 
road) to allow rural officials to conduct the census and TRC 
staff to reconnect with their families. 
 
DRL-FUNDED CODING AND DATA-ENTRY NEEDS MORE STAFF 
 
¶8. (SBU) The DRL-funded project to statistically analyze 
witness testimony appears to be going well.  Implementer 
Benetech's manager for Liberia Kristen Cibelli moved to 
Monrovia from California to oversee the TRC employees' coding 
and data-entry of the statements.  Of the approximately 
20,000 statements collected thus far, the crew has coded 
7,000 and data-entered 3,000.  Cibelli said Benetech will run 
a preliminary analysis of the data they have captured in June 
to help the TRC plan for its thematic hearings this summer. 
She is confident that the sample at that point will be 
statistically significant and lead to meaningful conclusions. 
 The GOL feels, however, that it is politically essential for 
every statement submitted to be included in the TRC's final 
report due in December.  TRC Chairman Jerome Verdier told 
PolOff that the Liberian people had opened their hearts in 
good faith to give their statements and that "no one should 
be excluded from history." 
 
¶9. (SBU) While Verdier would liked to have had all the 
statements coded by the June hearings, the TRC does not 
currently employ enough coders and data-enterers to achieve 
that goal.  (Benetech is barred contractually from paying 
local staff.)  A $1 million Swedish grant included some funds 
to hire between six and ten new staff members.  These new 
employees mean that the TRC could realistically finish all 
coding and data-entering in time to draw conclusions for the 
December report.  Verdier has vowed to push the report back 
to January or later if necessary to make sure every statement 
is included.  Meanwhile, the TRC will look for other funding 
options to speed up the statement coding and data-entry 
process. 
 
¶10.  Post notes that the TRC has launched a website, 
including press releases, videos, and photos of the hearings, 
at www.trcofliberia.org.  The site also allows Liberians to 
submit formal statements to the TRC online. 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶11. (SBU) Donors continue to be worried that the TRC will be 
under political influence when it has to decide whether to 
recommend prosecutions and restitution payments concerning 
individuals in its final report.  It is clear, however, that 
the TRC's visits to counties affected by the war have already 
had a very positive impact for the people living there.  The 
county public hearings, psychological counseling sessions, 
and the traditional reconciliation ceremonies have been 
vehicles for a veritable healing process at the local level, 
making the effort successful even if the Commissioners never 
quite get the "major-league warlords" to testify.  Media 
coverage of the hearings in the counties, like earlier 
coverage of proceedings in Monrovia, has been extensive and 
generally factual.  Overall, the public response has been 
calm, and the TRC seems to be providing a valuable outlet for 
Liberians while helping build a common story/history of the 
war years. 
BOOTH