Читать книгу Shakespeare on a Train - B. NAIR - Страница 5

I switched off the air-conditioner and opened a window. The sound of gunfire and the roar of heavy trucks hit me hard. It was around 5:00 in the morning, when the night security guard had rung the bell and the musical sound had woken me up. I strained my ears to pick up any further sounds which would give me some clue of what was happening outside. Seeing me at the window, the security guard called me out from his post below and told me that there was trouble in the city.

Sleep suddenly abandoned me. I stood there gripped with fear. A minute before, my wife and I together with our children were blissfully ensconced in our bedroom and in deep sleep. Now my mind was reeling under the fear of some impending danger. My wife woke up sensing the tension. We sat huddled together on our bed with our sons in our laps, a ten-year-old and a three-year-old, who were sleeping without a care in the world. Fear of the unknown gripped us like an evil spirit.

I switched on the radio. In the place of usual entertainments, we heard several announcements that were being broadcast continuously. Commander Peter Quiwonkpa had seized power from Commander-In-Chief Samuel Doe in a midnight coup. This was followed by an announcement that several ministers and senior government functionaries had been arrested and detained. After that came the announcement of the appointment of new ministers and other officers.

At about 5.45 am we saw army trucks turning from Tubman Avenue into the enclave in which we were living. We had no idea what their aim was. It could be us. Gripped with fear, we waited. The convoy turned into our lane and passed our house and continued to the end of the lane. We breathed a sigh of relief when the convoy did not stop at our house. It continued to the end of the lane where the country’s Vice President lived. It stopped in front of his house. A few minutes later we saw the convoy returning. At that time, we had no clue what transpired there. Later, we learned from the radio announcement that it was a group of rebels who had come to arrest the Vice President.

Our house faced a large open space extending up to Tubman Avenue. At the other end of the open space, diagonally opposite our house, was the house of Vice President Harry Moniba. This house was protected by the state security guards. There was just one more house in our lane in which a wealthy Liberian lived. Immediately behind our house was the official residence of the Swiss ambassador, which was separated from our house by a compound wall.

Monrovia is the capital city of Liberia on the Atlantic coast at Cape Mesurado in West Africa. My family and I arrived in Monrovia in August 1984. My assignment was to establish an operation of the company I was working for, in Liberia. After staying at a temporary place for a few days, we moved into a large, well-appointed house within the diplomatic enclave in Sinkor, a residential suburb about eight kilometers from the city center. The country was still under the military rule of Commander-in-Chief Samuel Doe, but the life was generally peaceful and enjoyable.

Liberia was founded in 1822 as the second Permanent Black American Settlement after Freetown in neighboring Sierra Leone. Monrovia, the coastal town where the settlement began and which later became the capital of Liberia, was named after US President James Monroe, who supported the resettlement of emancipated American black Africans in Africa.

In 1847 the settlers proclaimed Liberia as a republic, adopting a constitution. They adopted a national flag with eleven red and white stripes and one white star in the canton, which was very similar to the American flag of the time with thirteen stripes and twenty-eight stars. Liberia is the only republic in the whole of black Africa without a history of colonization.

In 1980 Samuel Doe, a twenty eighty-year-old master sergeant leading a group of young non-commissioned officers, staged a coup against the elected president William Tolbert, killing him and seizing power. His closest ally was Thomas Quiwonkpa, a twenty-six-year-old private who was shortly thereafter appointed as Commanding General of the Liberian National Army while Doe himself assumed the title of General and Commander in Chief. In 1983 Doe and Quiwonkpa fell out and the latter fled the country.

In October 1985, a general election was held and as expected Samuel Doe’s National Democratic Party won a landslide victory paving the way for Doe to establish himself as the elected president.

The 11th of November 1985 was just like any other day for us. After putting the children to sleep and watching the TV for a while, my wife and I retired for the night. From the time our night security guard woke me up next day morning to the sounds of gunfire, our life took a different turn where peace and happiness were replaced by fear, apprehension and horror. We had heard the gruesome stories of looting expatriates’ homes, attacks on persons and even raping during the coup in 1980.

After listening to the radio, we came downstairs and switched on the TV. It was showing the Elwa Radio Station, which the rebels had seized. Sitting on the low veranda in front of the station were the Vice President and several ministers who had been arrested. All of them were stripped to their underpants. The TV also showed the rebels surrounding the Executive Mansion. President Sam Doe was trapped inside his quarters.

The rebel leader Thomas Quiwonkpa hailed from the Gio tribe from Nimba county. Our houseboy was also from the same tribe. He lived in the servant’s quarters within our compound. Having learned from the radio that the rebels belonging to his tribe had seized power, he quickly finished his early morning chores and valiantly walked out of the house to join his jubilant fellow tribesmen. Our security guard, however, stayed back, for he belonged to a tribe that supported Samuel Doe and therefore feared for his life.

I telephoned the Swiss ambassador, who was our immediate neighbor and expressed my fears of the possibility of raids by soldiers or hooligan civilians. I sought his help to move to a safe place. All he could do to assist me was to welcome me and my family into his house, if we could make it. I also realized that in the circumstances prevailing in the country, no one was in a position to help anyone else. His house was behind our house. It was not safe for us to leave our house, walk to the left and then take two more left turns to reach the ambassador’s front gate. The only possibility was to climb the wall dividing our compounds and jump into his compound and that was what we did when we felt that we were in danger.

The TV was showing scenes of jubilation on the streets as the civilian crowd mingled with rebel soldiers were dancing and singing. Some rebels were shooting into the sky for fun. Some were carrying bottles of beer and most of them appeared inebriated. Intermittent radio announcements were heard declaring the success of the rebels and it only remained to capture Samuel Doe from the Executive Mansion. The rebels had surrounded the Mansion, but they seemed in no hurry to enter and capture President Doe, who had apparently no avenue of escape.

By this time, our telephone line had gone dead. At about 9:00 a.m., we saw a dozen or so soldiers carrying guns coming from Tubman Avenue and shooting helter-skelter. They entered our enclave. Since we were the only expatriates living in that area apart from the heads of various diplomatic missions, we concluded that the group must be targeting our house. We quickly gathered our passports, exited through the back door and proceeded to climb the compound wall. I, my wife and our two sons climbed the wall and jumped into the compound of the Swiss ambassador’s residence. Our security guard also accompanied us trembling with fear.

We strained our ears for any noise coming from our house. There was no sound from our house though we were fearing it being broken into by the group of soldiers who had been seen advancing towards our lane a few minutes before. We also noticed that the sound of gunshots was gradually receding. We sent our guard back to find out the position. He climbed the wall and jumped into our compound. After a few minutes, he returned and reported to us that the soldiers were looting the house of the Vice President and that our house was safe. With a sigh of relief, but still very fearful, we returned to our house. We saw the soldiers carrying TV sets, radios, beds and other household goods which they had looted from the Vice President’s house. We remained on high alert.

By about 1.30 p.m., the radio started singing a different tune. President Samuel Doe came on the radio and announced in a ‘special statement’ broadcast on the Monrovia Radio Station:

“I take this opportunity to inform the nation that the coup has failed''.

The radio station had been taken over by rebel forces 13 hours earlier, but was recaptured by the government troop.

''I am still the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Liberia and Head of State,'' he said.

A spokesperson for Doe’s government further stated that government forces had repelled the rebels and taken back all the public installations, the rebels had occupied in the morning. Many rebels had been shot dead. The rebel leader, Thomas Quiwonkpa, was in hiding and the army was in hot pursuit of him. They were confident of capturing him. A twenty-four-hour curfew was imposed. Our houseboy who had left our house to participate in the jubilation of the success of his fellow tribesmen returned like a wet cat and promptly hid in his quarters. He knew that if the army found him, being a Gio tribesman, as the rebel leader was, he would be killed. I feared that we also could land in trouble for sheltering an enemy if he was found in our compound, but hoped that no one had noticed him.

Later, we learned how the table had turned in favor of Samuel Doe. Apparently, the rebels became over-confident and started their victory celebration a little too soon. They became careless. Samuel Doe, who was isolated in the Executive Mansion, quietly mobilized an army unit from the Robertsfield army barracks, some eighteen kilometers from the city. The unit overran the motley rebels, who were totally drunk and shot most of them dead. On the third day, rebel leader Thomas Quiwonkpa was captured and killed.

Quiwonkpa’s body was brought to the Executive Mansion. The body was exhibited in an open area within the Mansion. It was seen being hit and kicked by the soldiers. It was then dismembered and the parts were taken away by the soldiers. One soldier made a necklace with some fingers cut from the body. We watched these scenes on the TV, utterly horrified. My wife fell sick seeing these barbaric and grisly acts.

Then the reprisals started. The members of the Gio and Mono ethnic groups from Nimba County, Quiwonkpa’s homeland, were slaughtered. Quiwonkpa’s village was burned down.

The twenty-four-hour curfew was changed to dusk to dawn after three days with a stern warning from President Doe stating, ‘The situation in this country is very tense—I repeat, if you are caught out one minute after 6 o'clock you will be executed’. Foreign diplomats breaking the curfew will ‘face the full force of the law,’ he added.

Our telephone line started working. On the fourth day, my driver Sidi Bah reported for duty. Our day security guard also returned to work. I decided to go to the office since the curfew would not start until 6:00 p.m. During my drive to the office, I noticed several civilian cars on the road. The people on the road appeared to be going about their normal tasks. There were many army vehicles also on the road. I reached the office around 10:00 a.m. Some of my staff members were present. I quickly made a report to my head office and then got immersed in work. By 1:00 p.m., the staff members took permission to leave. I knew that the curfew would not commence until 6:00 p.m. and therefore continued with my work.

At around 3:00 p.m., I left the office and got into the car. My driver eased the car into Broad Street from the parking lot. I was dumbstruck. There was not a single civilian on the road. All the shutters were down. The only movement on the road was speeding military vans and trucks. I was scared. Directly in front of my car was a military van. The back of the van was open and four soldiers were sitting facing me, training their guns directly onto my car. My driver had no choice but to continue the journey. I started sweating and felt that at any moment I would collapse. Lots of unholy thoughts came to my mind. One of the guns from the van in the front could fire off, intentionally or not, which would without doubt, kill me. Any soldier could stop me and arrest me. I could simply be blown away.

Sidi Bah drove the car through Broad Street and turned into Camp Johnson Road where Capitol Hill was situated. Capitol Hill was the seat of the Executive Mansion, the residence and office of the President. The whole area was occupied by heavily armed soldiers. Army vans and gun-mounted trucks were speeding in all directions. There seemed to be no order or pattern. Bah drove the car in between those speeding military vehicles. If my car as much as touched any one of those trucks or vice versa, I knew my driver and I would be arrested instantly. The very thought of the consequences made me dizzy.

The van in front of my car turned off in another direction. Bah drove the car through Tubman Avenue and reached my house. The guard opened the gate and the car stopped at the porch. I bolted into my house and collapsed on the sofa.

Later, I learned from the friends who were in Liberia during the 1980 coup that even though the curfew would officially start at 6:00 p.m., the soldiers would be so inebriated by the afternoon that they lost any sense of time and there was a risk of getting shot and killed. I realized that this must be the reason the roads were deserted but for the presence of the army long before the curfew hour.

A few days later, President Samuel Doe called a town hall meeting of selected individuals including some business executives. I also was an invitee. After a long wait, President Doe strode on to the podium in his military uniform, exuding confidence. He appeared affable. He made a short speech outlining his victory against the rebels, adding a clear warning to anyone who might dare to make another attempt against him. Ending his speech, he walked towards the backstage, but dramatically turned around and returned to the podium. He announced, “I lift the curfew” and abruptly walked away. The lifting of the curfew was a great relief. Gradually, the life limped back to normal.

EPILOGUE: I left Liberia in June 1986 to take up a new posting in Mauritius. Samuel Doe’s reign of terror continued, but civil war broke out in 1989. On 9th September 1990, Samuel Doe paid a visit to the headquarters of the Economic Community of West Africa Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) at the Freeport of Monrovia for a reconciliation meeting arranged by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). There, he was captured by the army of a new rebel leader and warlord, Prince Johnson. Doe was taken to Prince Johnson’s camp, stripped naked, brutally tortured, dismembered and shot dead.