Truth and Reconciliation Commission

South Africa set up this after the power handover, and from all reports it has been largely successful in bringing a measure of closure to old injustices: sometimes by justice and sometimes by mercy but always with clarity about the nature of the old crimes.

Liberia put together such a thing too. I remember thinking: "OK, sounds like a fine idea" and not examining the issue much. Then I read some complaints from Liberians saying "don't muddy the waters, this is too close, this could be trouble." Perhaps it was reporting bias, but it seemed as though those in favor were often relatively mobile elites and those opposed were people on the ground in Liberia.

A little further thought reminded me that the situations weren't really all that parallel: in South Africa nobody seriously thought the old regime was at all likely to return in a coup, but in Liberia everybody believed that the warlords still had arsenals ready to hand and were able to start fighting again with little preparation. The legislature is alleged to be chock-a-block with partisans of the various warlords.

I didn't spend the time to do a detailed review of who was who on the commission and what their backgrounds were, but decided that the default position should be that alleged to be of the people in harm's way: don't push this. This isn't South Africa and another civil war is going to be worse than failure to bring justice. Or, to put it another way, criminals are going to get away with murder because there is no robust framework for bringing justice; and there's no use pretending otherwise.

Earlier this year the TRC announced a report calling for the President to resign, not because she had committed any crimes or because she was a warlord or even a current partisan of a warlord, but because she had supported one faction years ago. Red flags went up for me: this isn't about crime and justice, but about politics.

And so it seems to be. If Gbaba is speaking for them all, they are calling for disbanding the government and instituting an interim government. They don't specify who they think should be running it, but I think I could nail it in less than three guesses.