Eulogist Contrasts PYJ Version of Doe’s First Burial -Apostle Zoe: ‘Former President’s Body Never Cremated’

MONROVIA – Samuel Kanyon Doe, like any revolutionary, strongman or despot—whatever one calls it—carried a storm of widespread controversy that never dies, controversy that sparked from the onset and continued long after death and in his second burial. One of the unending controversies is how he was buried after he was grabbed and cruelly assassinated: was he cremated, was he buried at river, or he was buried underground? The debate resurfaced yet again minutes before final burial, as the funeral discourse orator provided a version that contrasts with the long-held narrative which was spread on the records by Prince Y. Johnson, the man who killed the ex-president and took custody of his body for some time. The Analyst reports.   

Established in May 2005 following more than 20 years of a fratricidal civil conflict, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was mandated to promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation by investigating and reporting on gross human rights violations that occurred in Liberia between January 1979 and 14 October 2003.

Among those who appeared at the TRC, was Prince Yormie Johnson, former INPFL rebel leader who would later become Nimba County senior senator. He provided a detailed account of his participation in the Liberian civil conflict, and stated during one of his appearance that he actually ordered the exhumation and cremation of the remains of the late President Samuel Kanyon Doe at the then infamous Caldwell Base in order to dispel rumors that he and his men had cannibalized the fallen statesman.

That long-held account pivoted by Senator Johnson’s TRC seems to have a brutal counter — another seemingly incredulous version — emanating from US-based Liberian prelate Apostle Amos W. Zor who delivered the funeral discourse during the wake keeping of the exhumed remains of the late President Samuel K. Doe in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County over the weekend.

According to Apostle Zor, the body that the former warlord Johnson stated on the records as being exhumed and burnt was another soldier’s body, not Doe’s.

 Zor Explained: “Few years back, the former First Lady Nancy B. Doe called me and told me and said she want to bury her husband. And I told her, go to where they buried him. And she and her children along with me went there on the site and there I told them to take their time to search. I told them, I will pray with you, but the time has not come. When the time comes, I will come and we will get his remains.”

Appostle Zor who did not give date he and the Doe family made the trip to search for Doe’s remains, continued: “Few years after President Boakai became president, I told the family, ‘Now is the time we can get the bones; because God was setting premise’. He has found a servant that will set out the premise called deliverance, reconciliation. The reconciliation is in three-fold, and this is one-fold, remaining two more.”

Continuing his pastoral eulogy, Apostle Zor said it was the Bassa people that buried Doe. He said they put him down into the ground and sat him in the hole.

Speaking on the theme, “It is finished,” Apostle Zor said with such a burial position given the former president by the Bassa County, “it means that Doe was still seated in the country, over the country, because he was sitting in hole and not lying down; therefore, his reburial was necessary spiritually.”

According to Apostle Zor, when the wife of the late president, Nancy B. Doe, died and the government wanted to bury her and her husband together, he and others could not locate the burial spot immediately.

His narrative continued: “An old woman saw us digging around and asked what were we looking for and we said we were looking for Doe’s remains. She then asked who the right person to speak to was, and “we said the wife died and the government wants to bury them together”.

He continued: “She said, but where you people are digging is not the place Doe was buried. Follow me, and I will show you where we placed him. According to the lady, she and others had a funeral service and buried him when the then warlord Prince Johnson sent for his body, we gave him another soldier’s body and he burned the body and threw the ashes in the sea.”

According to Apostle Zor, after walking awhile, the old lady directed them further and, “Dig this spot, you will see his body. He is buried with one gunshot and he is sitting in the hole.”

He said further: “And I told her thanks. I told the police to surround the place. And where she led us, when we dug about four feet, the first thing we saw was a gun shot. After seeing the gunshot, two of the diggers fainted. We later continued digging and found his body.”

PYJ’s Doe exhumation, cremation version

It can be recalled that the late Prince Y. Johnson during one of his TRC hearings, admitted exhuming the remains of slain President Samuel Kanyon Doe, burning the remains and throwing them in the ocean.

“I think everybody wants to know where Doe is. After the many years of war and peacetime now, I don’t think Doe will be in Nimba hidden somewhere,” he said on tape still widely watched on YouTupe.

“After the demise of Doe he was buried on the Base, and we had the inscription ‘Samuel Kanyon Doe’, alongside my commanding general. While we were here, Dr. Sawyer and his MOJA propagandists were writing all sorts of things about me, that I am a cannibal; that I ate Doe; that we chopped him and we ate him. So, some foreign journalists came to me and asked me all these questions and I called my base commander to take caterpillar and take them to the grave. They went to the grave and took the picture but they were not still certain.

“So, I asked them to bust the grave and bring the body out. The body of Doe was as hard as a rock. Doe was embalmed for 25 years. After the journalists took the pictures, I asked that they should bury him back. But my deputy said no; one man can have two graves. So, we cremated him and threw the ashes in the river.”