"" is 1982 and as day breaks in Liberia, the
Krahn tribe prepares for the initiation of its
high priest.
Against the sound of the drumbeat, he is
taken to an isolated area, led by a man in a
carved black mask.
The priest stands before an altar, naked.
The elders bring a little girl, unclothe her and
smear her body with clay. The priest slays
the child.
In a ritual that spans three days, her heart
and other body parts are removed and eaten.
In the course of those days the priest has a
vision: he meets the devil who tells him he
will become a great warrior.
The devil says to increase his power he must
continue the rituals of child sacrifice and
cannibalism.
The initiation is complete and the priest is
now one of the most powerful leaders in West
Africa. The priest is 11 years old.
As prophesied, the boy priest grew up to
become one of Liberia's most notorious
warlords: General Butt Naked.
He and his boy soldiers would charge into
battle naked apart from boots and machine
guns.
The initiation sacrifice that he carried out
aged 11 was the first life he took out of the
20,000 deaths for which he now claims
responsibility.
His rivals dispute the number of deaths as
impossible to prove.
Yet what is indisputable is that during
Liberia's 14 years of civil war, the man
became known as one of the most inhumane
and ruthless guerrilla leaders in Africa's
history.
After the former General Butt Naked
confessed his past to Liberia's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2008,
one internet blogger asked: 'Is this the most
evil man who ever lived?'
His crimes included child sacrifice,
cannibalism, the exploitation of child soldiers
and trading blood diamonds for guns and
cocaine, which he fed to boy soldiers as
young as nine.
Yet today he says he is a reformed man. In
July 1996, the warlord had 'an epiphany'.
Having spent 14 years holding nightly
conversations with the devil, he had a
blinding vision of Christ who told him to end
the killings and convert.
This was a Damascene conversion like no
other: the former tribal priest and warlord is
now known as Pastor Joshua Milton Blahyi.
Aged 39, he is married, a father of three and
lives as a Christian preacher.
He says if he can change, anyone can. He
also calls for the tribal religious practice of
child sacrifice and cannibalism to end, saying
it still goes on in Liberia to this day.
Liberia's TRC, set up to investigate the war's
atrocities, reported in 2009 and called for a
pardon for Blahyi on the grounds of his
candour and remorse.
Now in an exclusive interview with The Mail
on Sunday, Blahyi says he is willing to go the
International Criminal Court at The Hague
and be tried for war crimes.
He lifts the lid on Liberia's secret societies
that conduct child sacrifice and cannibalism,
as well as his role in the war - and his
desire to change.
His interview paints a terrifying portrait of
one man's descent into Hell and his quest for
redemption.
It is a confession that will leave many asking
whether such crimes can ever be forgiven. It
is a question he asks himself.
Along with Ethiopia, Liberia is the only
African country without roots in European
colonisation. It was founded and colonised by
freed American slaves in the early 1820s.
Yet its recent history has been blighted by
civil war.
Between 1989 and 2003, Liberia's inter-tribal
war killed 250,000 people, displaced one
million and led to one in five children
becoming soldiers.
During the course of the conflict, this corner
of West Africa became a nexus for the trade
in blood diamonds and cocaine, gunrunning
and laundering the funds of terrorist groups
such as Al Qaeda.""


The General in his "combat" uniform

Wow thats a hell. Of a story!!

Crazy stuff, huh?!

Yep, I do gotta say though I believe that people really can't change if they want to

Wow is all I got to say

That was supposed to be " can change"

Gee willikers!

Wth? She just went all "1950s" on us

hater!