Bility Calls for National Closure of Liberia’s Dark Past -Says Reburial of Ex-Presidents Contributes to Healing  

MONROVIA –  Nimba County lawmaker and political leader of the Citizens Movement for Change (CMC) says with the weight of collective history pressing gently but firmly upon the conscience of a nation, it must be noted that the reburial of President William R. Tolbert Jr. and President Samuel K. Doe, along with those government officials who were tragically executed during our nation’s most turbulent periods, marks more than just a ceremonial rite. He said the efforts symbolized an important step toward national closure. The Analyst reports.

In his official column, “Letter from Saclepea,” Bility extolled the Government of Liberia under President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s leadership for initiating and committing to the solemn process of giving the country’s leaders killed brutally.

“It is difficult to confront our past, especially when it is written in blood, betrayal, fear, and injustice,” he wrote on his official Facebook page. “But the government did so, and the President stood present, not just as a statesman, but as a Liberian seeking healing for his people.”

Though decades delayed, he continued, the burials of President Tolbert and President Doe are not just the burial of bodies but they are the burial of a silence that has long haunted the Liberian republic.

The ex-presidents, he said, “polarizing in life and tragic in death, now lie at rest, if not yet entirely in our minds, then at least in the soil of the country they once led.”

“We do not pass judgment today,” he stressed, adding that “the reckoning will come with time, scholarship, and honest discourse.”

“Today, we remember. We mourn. We acknowledge the painful paths that brought us here,” he said.

Bility said however that remembrance must not end with the two men. “If Liberia is ever to be whole, we must institutionalize our memory. We must establish a National Memorial, a sacred space, a national sanctuary, where all those who lost their lives during our tragic history can be honoured.”

From the events of April 1980 to the fires of 1990, through the chaos that followed, thousands of innocent Liberians perished, the recalled. “Their stories must not die with them”.

The CMC further said: “Let this memorial be a place where history is told truthfully. Let it speak of the women who were violated, the children who were orphaned, the men who were conscripted, executed, or forgotten. Let it stand as a reminder of what our democracy has cost, and why we must never again trade peace for power, or justice for silence.

He wrote: “Yes, tensions were present during the funeral. The Doe family, understandably, is still grappling with divisions. The Tolbert family, like many others, has chosen a quieter path. But this moment was not about triumph or vindication. It was about dignity, about coming to terms with a past too long ignored. We have done something courageous. We have begun the process of healing. And for that, we should be proud. But we must go one step further.”

Bility called on president Boakai, and all of who are leaders and citizens of Liberia, to take a bold step of establishing this National Memorial for the victims of Liberia’s wars and political violence.

“Let us make this a place of remembrance, reflection, and national resolve,” the Nimba District #3 noted. “Only then can we begin to truly say, not just to President Tolbert, not just to President Doe, but to every Liberian whose life was lost in our national struggle: ‘We remember you. We honor you. And we have learned.’”