RedHanded - Episode 196 - General Butt Naked: Liberia’s Cannibal Warlord

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

In Liberia's first bloody civil war, a feared warlord known as "General Butt Naked" believed that human sacrifice and cannibalism would give his army of child soldiers “divine” strength. Raping and ravaging his way through Liberia, Joshua Milton Blahyi is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of at least 20,000 people. In this episode, Suruthi and Hannah follow the trail of destruction created by Blahyi, and ask can a man once dubbed “the most evil man in the world” really change? Sources: redhandedpodcast.com  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone.

We just got a very exciting last minute bit of information. That's why I'm squeezing this in at the top of the show. By now, you'll all know that we have written a book and a lot of you have been asking about this. So we are here to deliver signed copies. If you would like to get your hands on a signed copy, you can do so now. There is only very limited stock of the signed copies. So if you do want one, please get one now. We can't guarantee that there'll be more, but we're leaving the links in the episode description below. They'll also be in our link tree

all over social media so please go get your hands on those depending on the region that you're in please use the correct link just to save yourself costs on like shipping and customs fees and that kind of thing they'll be clearly labeled which link is for who so please check that out get your hands on those signed copies and we can't wait. See you soon. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Okay, you all know what's about to happen, or you think you know what's about to happen. You think I'm going to talk to you about the book and that we're going to pester you to pre-order it. We are, but we've decided to do it in a much more structured way for a little while. So what we've decided, Hannah and I, is that us just randomly talking about the book at the start

of every episode, you know, we're not really telling you guys enough. So from now on, at the start of every episode, we're going to take one minute to talk about the Red Handed book. One red hot minute for the Red Handed book. And it's going to take one minute to talk about the red-handed book one red hot minute for the red-handed book and it's going to be timed and there's going to be pressure i've just pulled up the stopwatch app on my ipad i'm going to be shouting at you throughout because you have to go first it's your turn so this week i'm going to give you an overall rundown of the book and then from next week we're going to do every chapter we're going to do one minute on every chapter to tell you what it is about and why you have to pre-order this book and get it into your hands so we're going

to do this i haven't timed myself with the little bit i've written so we're going to find out if i make it ready okay i'll count you in excited three two so the question that we always get hey whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa i did not say go okay you may go so the question that we always get what no hey whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa i did not say go okay you may go so the question we always get asked by everybody on red handed is why someone becomes a killer the problem is it's just not that simple and we have found try as we might society wants to label these most heinous killers as monsters it just doesn't work it doesn't make sense because usually what led them to kill is something quite human indeed so in this book we're not really focusing on the one-off killers, the just sort of like

random people who kill their spouse because, you know, spur of the moment, whatever. Rather, we're focusing on people who've committed multiple murders and asking how their genetics, their childhood sex, relationships, misogyny, all impact their behavior. And in one chapter, we also dissect the world of cults. I know it sounds like it's out of left field, but it's not, hear me out, because we are fascinated by not just what drove cult leaders to kill but also what drives ordinary seemingly ordinary people who join cults to also go on to kill others 15 seconds the book is jam-packed and there's a lot to take in we learned so much while writing it so please please please go pre-order you will not be disappointed oh you've got seven seconds left you know you have no it's not about

it's the whole minute oh my god. Link is in the episode description below. Go check it out. And you are out of time. You have lost points. Oh no. So there we go, guys. Yeah, just go pre-order the book. Like I said, link is in the episode description.

We're honestly so pumped about it. And that's all we'll say. And tune in next week for me tackling chapter one in 60 seconds. Absolutely. Can't wait. Considering it's possibly the most brain-heavy chapter, prepare yourselves for that. I'll definitely be doing some practice sprints.

Outstanding. Can't wait. So that is all we'll say on the book matter because fucking hell, have we got a bloody case for you guys today. It's a lot. Ready? Everyone, I don't know if I am emotionally. I'm actually super excited for it, but I'm a pervert.

This is the problem. So, right, let's start. Okay, everybody ready? Let's go. In February 2021, the trial of Jibrel Masakwai began in Finland. Masakwai is accused of murder, aggravated war crimes, and aggravated crimes against humanity. In his former role as a senior member of a rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front. Anything with front in it, bad, bad, collectively terrible. There's going to be a lot of fronts. There's going to be a lot of united fronts.

You can see where this is heading, right? So Massaquai was operating in this role in Liberia between 1999 and 2003. For the very astutely aware amongst you, you will know that that was during the nation's bloody second civil war. The RUF was known for atrocities such as hacking off the limbs of civilians, torture, murder and mass rape. Massaquai, however, denies all the charges and says that he was actually taking part in peace talks at the time of his alleged crimes. I don't believe him.

No. I think the running theme of this episode is, firstly, warlord, but secondly, just saying that you're actually a good guy when you're like, actually, I just really need some amnesty, please. Yes, please. That delicious amnesty. Give it to me. I'll take all of it. So we will have to wait and see what the outcome of 51-year-old Massaquai's trial is. I mention here that he's 51 because honestly, when I saw pictures of him, I was like, you expect when you're looking at like a war crimes tribunal, I don't know, to see like an old man sat in the dock. He's so young. And I'm like, you're a fucking war criminal. You've killed so many people, allegedly. It's weird how young

he is, right? So yeah, like we said, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Hopefully he will be convicted. And if he is, it will be an absolutely groundbreaking moment. We'll talk about why later on in this episode but if it also happens it will give some people who absolutely need and deserve it perhaps a feeling of a tiny bit of justice having been done. Because up until today accountability, acknowledgement and justice for the people of Liberia for all that they have endured during the two apocalyptic civil wars that have ravaged their nation has been absolutely non-existent. In this episode of Red Handed, we are going somewhere we haven't been before, both geographically speaking and also crime-wise, because we're off to Liberia in West Africa on the trail of a warlord.

But it won't be Gibral's story that we're telling. We're going to focus on a different man. A man who, during the time of the Liberian civil wars, when all sorts of violent militias roamed the land, still drove a special kind of terror into the hearts of the nation's citizens. Today we're talking about none other than Joshua Milton Blahey, also known as General Butt Naked, the naked cannibal warlord of Liberia. So firstly we have to tackle the most obvious thing, which is of course his ridiculous name. If you have seen the Book of Mormon, you will probably be aware there is a character in the Book of Mormon called General Buttfucking Naked. And it is, of course, based on Joshua Milton Blahey himself. That was one of the moments during Book of Mormon where my jaw hit the floor because I'd already seen the Vice documentary. And I was like, I know that's based on a real

person. And like, is that over the line for me? Quite possibly. You know, there are conversations to be had about Book of Mormon in general, but that's not for today. It's for my spin-off musicals podcast. Oh my God, I can't wait. You've kept that under your hat. No, you're right. And what's really interesting, actually, when I was reading about this was, did you know that they originally were going to use Kony, another African warlord's name? Wow, wow. And then when Book of Mormon was coming out, Koney, you know, it was very, very prevalent. The video about Coney, was it Coney 2012?

I can't remember. That video was going absolutely viral. Obviously, everyone's aware of the horrendous things that he was doing with child soldiers. So they were like, oh, we won't call it Coney anymore. That feels in bad taste. We'll call it General Buttfucking Naked. And I'm like, do you know what he did?

Because it's not any better. Yeah, right. Fuck me. I'd also like, who is on the good taste board in the writer's room of the Book of Mormon? Yes. The writers of South Park. Like, there's no way.

Very true. So these kind of surreal names, not Coney, we're talking about General Buttfucking Naked and General Butt Naked, these names were extremely common during the Liberian Civil Wars. Liberian generals chose names that were meant to incite fear in their enemies.

So we've got General Butt-Naked, we know about him. There was also General Mosquito, terrifying because mosquitoes carry malaria, which has killed more people than anything else ever in the world. And then there was his nemesis, General Mosquito Spray, General Rambo, and even General Bin Laden. There was also a guy possibly named after like Jabba the Hutt called Jungle Jabba. There's just so many of them I couldn't list all of the names in this episode. There are a lot so I think when people watch Book of Mormon they're like oh ha ha ha General Buttfucking Naked. I'm like no these were the actual kind of names that they gave themselves.

Yeah real people doing real atrocities. Also, like worth mentioning, my sort of rehabilitative justice stance. If you are a war criminal, not even Norway will fuck with you. Like that's like stipulated in their legal code that like the only time you'll get more than 21 years is if you are a war criminal or Anders Breivik. Rightly so. I fully back that. I'm a-okay with that plan. While these names might sound ridiculous, it is the only thing that is funny about these men, and we are going to delve in detail into the atrocities they inflicted upon the people of Liberia throughout this episode, and it's not going to be an easy listen. We definitely sound the no-eating klaxon. You have been warned. But before we get into the horrors of what unfolded, let's start with a brief history of Liberia. Because the story of Liberia itself and the civil wars are completely key in understanding not just to what Blahi did, but also how he managed to escape all accountability. Now, many of you may be aware

that Liberia is often stated as being the only African nation never to have been colonized. There are maps out there that you can take a look at, and it's literally like, we've shaded in green all of the countries that were ever, you know, controlled by the Europeans. And there's just one little orange dot on the west coast of Africa that wasn't, and that is the tiny West African nation of Liberia. Now, before people lose their minds and ask us about Ethiopia, we know that Ethiopia also holds this claim as being an African nation that was never colonized. Because although it was occupied by the Italians between 1936 and 1941, the Italians didn't actually build any colonial

infrastructure there. We do know that. So I guess it's more accurate to say perhaps not that Liberia is the only African country never to have been colonized, but to say maybe that it is the only African nation never to have been under European control in any sense. So those of you who get annoyed with all of our talk on this show about the evils of colonialism and Western interference and how this has led to much of the political instability and violence we see around the world today, you might be positively beaming right now. Not for long. No, no, no. Turn that upside down frown back upside down. The clue is that the most spoken language in Liberia is English. And there's a reason for that.

Absolutely. We're going to get there. Because after all, you might be thinking, those of you who are beaming, that the two Liberian civil wars are absolutely considered to have been the most bloody of all African conflicts, which is fucking saying something. And it is also the epicenter of violence that ended up spilling over into neighbouring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. So you might be thinking, no European interference, no European control, but yet the most bloody civil war and the one that spread that violence around parts of West Africa. You can't blame it all on colonialism then, can you? You two fucking hags. I don't know. Liptards. Liptards. blame it all on colonialism then can you you two fucking hags i don't know libtards you've owned yourself you fucking libtards well mr and miss and everyone else who's saying that

mr and miss brightbot i'm sorry to break it to you but the only only reason the Europeans kept their grubby little hands off of Liberia was because the United States was already fucking balls deep in this nation. And it's directly down to this that Liberia spiraled into total apocalypse. Liberia was founded in 1847 created as a homeland for formerly enslaved black people in america to return to their continent did you know that nina simone lived there for three years really i didn't know that there's a really great and like heartbreaking documentary called what happened with simone about her like life and how horribly tragic it was and there was a bit in her like i want to say her like early 40s possibly i could be wrong I haven't watched it for a while but she was like fuck America I'm done with this she moved to Liberia for three years because of this sort of

culture of like oh it's the home of the enslaved people so she very much drank that Kool-Aid which is you know difficult for reasons that we are going to explain but she lived there for three years and like loved it took it very seriously absolutely and i can understand the appeal for black people at the time to want to go along with this in some instances but hear us out hear us out before you know we come to any conclusions about this i find it particularly problematic and i'll talk about why in a moment and i just really enjoyed in some articles i read about this they honestly describe it as a place that, quote, the former slaves who decided to go back to Africa could. Okay. Okay.

I just feel like where to even begin addressing the kind of stupidity of this comment. Firstly, the idea that these slaves who were abducted from all over Africa, which is a fucking giant continent, as if I need to tell you all, were just told, now you can just go to Liberia. Not even back, because they're not from there, they're from all over Africa. You can just go to Liberia. These former slaves could have been from anywhere on the continent. As individuals, they would have belonged to countless tribes, religions, cultures, ethnic groups groups and spoken any number of languages as their mother tongue i mean just consider any other continent in the same way consider like a bunch of people being stolen from all over asia or from all over europe and then being told oh we

know you're from like fucking finland but we're gonna send you back to this tiny part of fucking italy and you can live there right it's the same thing like it's no different yeah it's why would that be different for you everyone there looks like you why is that a problem yeah it's not like the north and the south of the US went to a bloody civil war when they all looked the exact fucking same and all came from various parts of Europe it's not at all like various nations tear each other apart just because of ethnic differences or mild border culture differences. This was so moronic and so ignorant, I cannot even like begin to cope with it. And it is, of course, deeply, deeply rooted

in all sorts of fucking rancid racism. And basically, the thing you need to understand is like despite all of this disparity diversity of these former slaves who were now being told to go back to Liberia the Americans were like nah what what are you talking about you all look the same to me you can all just go happily live in Liberia we just don't want you here being black and wanting to be a part of a society that you built for free. Many of those sent to Liberia weren't even born in Africa but in the US as the children of slaves but still the American government called it repatriation. How is it repatriation if you're being sent somewhere you aren't from? Have you literally have never been? Yep. Repatriation. What?

And the American government claimed that the best way for former African-American slaves to get their freedom and equality was to move back to their homeland of Africa because obviously everything in every inch of Africa is exactly the same and they'd slot right in. This blew my fucking mind. So Monrovia, which is the capital of Liberia, is actually named after the President of the United States, James Monroe,

who was the president when Liberia was founded as this like ex-slave state. And the flag, which I'm terrible at flags, but I do remember the Liberian flag because of this particular reason. It is exactly the United States of America flag, but it's got one star. When you look at it, because I actually didn't realise that, I didn't actually read about it. I was talking to my dad about this case and he was like looking it up and he was like, have you seen the flag and showed it to me? And I was like, in what world, if somebody showed me that flag and guess what nation that is, I would never, ever, ever have said it was an African nation.

It looks nothing like the flag of an African nation. Oh, yeah. In a red-handed rundown kind of way, essentially what happened was the white Americans, the ones in power, were like, we just don't really want you black people here anymore. And we're never really going to be cool with you if you want real freedom and equality and to be treated as if you're a normal person with rights. It's just not going to be possible here because you're still inferior to us. But you can go back to Africa and have everything there. Be with your own kind. And we've already showed you how to oppress and subjugate. So go and use some of those tactics if natives try and stop you. And it's

really simple. We've done it before loads of times. Have fun. Bye. That's it. That's the manifesto. So as the US.s abolished slavery they just shipped a bunch of their former slaves off to liberia rather than actually account for their enslavement or offer any significant reparations or support or anything like that and it was for this reason and this reason alone that liberia wasn't colonized by europeans or anybody so i don't know some people might be listening being like, well, maybe they wanted to go there. Maybe they didn't want to be around a bunch of white people who were always, you know,

looking down on them and having to fight for equality. They just wanted to go back to Africa and start again and live their lives. I'm not at all like questioning the motivations of the black people that chose to want to get the fuck out of America and go back to Africa and live in this new state as, you know, free people. Now, it's the racism behind why this happened. That's my issue. They weren't just given land in America and told like,

hey, you're free now, have this land, live your life. They were like, we don't fucking want you here. So piss off and we'll make it happen. That's the problem. So the former American slaves who moved to Liberia became known as Americo-Liberians. And they actually ruled Liberia as a privileged and dominant minority for over 130 years. And when we say minority, fuck me, I looked up the stats on this. 90 to 95% of the Liberian population, indigenous, ethnic indigenous.

So we're talking 5-10% of the population were AmeriCo Liberians. I'm pretty sure at the start it was only 5%. It's maybe now crept up. So they are very much a minority, but very much dominant. The AmeriCo Liberians saw the indigenous and native Africans who already lived in Liberia as inferior to them, and they believed that having been American, they were culturally superior. And the tragic irony of this part of our story is that Americo-Liberians had learned about the brutality and subjugation

that they needed to control this nation from the white Americans who had enslaved them, and they used these tactics to do the same to the indigenous people of Liberia. And for generations, this group controlled everything politically, socially, culturally, economically. And this led, of course, to massive societal unrest. You've got these foreigners essentially coming in and then ruling everything, a foreign minority. So of course, the locals were like, we don't trust you, we don't like you. And then you've got the issue of the Amerigo-Liberians looking down on the natives. Of course, this led to unrest.

And this, coupled with the inequality that came from that, lit the spark for the Liberian civil wars. Unease had been bubbling away for a long time, but the violence was properly kicked off in the 1980s when then-America-Liberian President William Talbot was overthrown in a violent coup by the leader of the revolution, whose name was Sergeant Samuel Doe. Doe was a native Liberian and a member of the Kran, an ethnic group found throughout West Africa. He was elected president in 1985 and became the first ever indigenous head of state for the nation. But Doe didn't hold onto power for very long thanks to more violence, economic collapse and widespread food shortages.

In 1989, a rebel leader called Charles Taylor, who led the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, wow, National Patriotic and Front, all terrible words, and to have them all in a row. Just throw in Eagle and United and you've got a fucking... So he was again, Americo-Liberian and he overthrew indigenous President Samuel Doe. Charles Taylor had actually been educated in the US in the mid 70s. He'd studied economics at Bentley College in Boston. It was a vicious takeover, and Taylor seized the capital in 1990.

Following this, Liberia entered its first civil war, which wouldn't end until 1997. After Taylor's successful coup, the old president, Samuel Doe, was executed. Though executed feels like possibly not the right word, because really what happened is he was murdered brutally. At the command of Taylor, an allied militiaman named Prince Johnson took Doe captive and tortured him to death. And if you really want to,

the video of what Johnson did to Doe is out there on the internet and it is relatively easy to find. I saw clips of it and then I started to try and watch the whole thing and I was like, I just don't need this. No thank you at all very much. Goodbye. But I'll give you a rundown of what happens. Imagine a dark room. Doe is being held down by a group of men. Johnson is sat behind a desk drinking cans of Budweiser and laughing his ass off as his men cut bits of dough off, starting with his ears. And it is so sinister because parts of the video aren't even showing what's happening. It's just focusing on Johnson sat behind his desk drinking his beer and laughing while you can hear a man that is clearly very close to him, like physically speaking, screaming.

It is so horrific. And this entire ordeal, two-hour ordeal, was recorded on videotape. Today, Prince Johnson, the man who was sat there drinking beer while his men mutilated the former president, is a senator in Liberia. Remember what we said about there being absolutely no fucking accountability for anyone ever in Liberia? This is going to be a running theme throughout this episode. He is a senator. And so, like, unbothered by it. Like, in the General Butt Naked documentary, they have an interview with him.

I have an enormous amount of respect for the people who made that film because I think I would just be too scared to sit in a room with someone who'd done something like that. He says like, prove it, prove that I'm a war criminal. And then they just show the footage of him literally being a war criminal. And then he's like, oh, yeah, that one I did. But the rest of it, prove it. Yep, yep, yep. And that is one of the most fascinating things about it, because this also becomes another running theme throughout this episode. Prince Johnson converted to Christianity.

He's like a born again evangelical now. I just find it hard to believe because like Hannah just said, he watches this video of him committing atrocities. All right, that one. But what else have you got? You can't prove I did anything else. I thought Christianity was all about confessing in order to get true absolution or whatever. Like to be truly repentant, you have to confess. Well, that's only a Catholic thing, really.

Okay, okay. So evangelicals, do you not need to? I mean, I have less experience with evangelical Christianity, but I think that confession specifically as a practice is a very Catholic thing. The Anglicans might do it because they're just Catholics in disguise. But like, I don't think sort of as a broad Christian thing, because you can secretly tell them to God, that's okay. But like the confessing to like a priest figure, I think is a Catholic exclusive thing. So the two documentaries we're going to reference heavily in this episode that we will link below is the Vice documentary that is very famous.

Most of you probably already seen it. There is another documentary that is called The Redemption of General Butt Naked that I would absolutely recommend that people watch. It took five years to make and it is fascinating. And it's like two and a half hours long. It is meaty. And in that, even he, and we'll come on to this, but even Butt Naked says things like, well, no one really knows what happened, but God knows, and that's good enough. And that feels like a bit of a cop-out, but we'll leave it at that. Oh, sorry, unless you don't want to. No, I will be taking it apart, but later on. Okay, okay. We'll leave it for now, then.

Let's come back to Taylor's coup. This power grab absolutely started, unsurprisingly, given that it started with the fucking mutilation execution of the former native indigenous president. It kicked off an era of relentless violence. And it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't have, like I said, given how bloodily it started. But also, given that in 1997,

when Taylor was officially elected president, he ran with the following campaign slogan. About himself. Are you ready? I was like, this cannot be real. His slogan for his presidential run was, he killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I'll vote for him. Talking about himself. What? Where the fuck are the un oh fucking absolutely nothing like where the fuck are the un like i couldn't like obviously been watching the documentaries about this and like i feel like everyone is very aware of the rwandan civil war because of the film

hotel rwanda like where is the hotel rwanda about liberia doesn't fucking exist because hollywood would never fund it because they would have to admit that it's kind of America's fault. 100% that is exactly the reason. Because even like Blood Diamond is about Sierra Leone. But like, why? No one wants to talk about Liberia. And I'm not saying that. I do also think that what happened in Sierra Leone is massively underreported and not talked about enough. But Liberia, people are just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, shush. There's no coverage of it. There is no coverage of it at all. Nothing, nothing. After he ran with this campaign slogan and won the presidency, it wasn't going to be smooth sailing after this. And of course, anti-government fighting broke out once again, not long after,

inciting the second civil war. This civil war, Mark II, rampaged through the country for 14 years, so twice as long as the first one, before it finally ended in 2003, changing forever one of Africa's oldest democracies into a nightmarish hellscape. Liberia and its people fell under the rule of sadistic warlords, whose drugged-up militias set up countless checkpoints all over the city to control the population. These official stations were kept decorated with bones, human intestines and severed human heads.

And that's not hyperbolic, like that's fact. It's literal. We are talking very, very literally. Yeah, not like paintings or like models of plastic, like actual real human remains. During the Civil War, thousands of young children were forced to become child soldiers and ordered to fight. Women were raped and turned into sex slaves for the militants. These were known as bushwives. The fighting was brutal as enemies were slaughtered in the streets, disemboweled, hacked apart, cooked and cannibalised.

The important thing to say is there's not like one good side and one bad side. There's just brutality. They are just fighting out because of, you know, ethnic differences, because of the lack of equality between the Amerigo-Liberians and the native populations. They are as brutal as each other. It is just bloodshed on both sides. And I feel like that's why, sorry to bang on about Rwanda, but that's why Hotel Rwanda is quite a nice Hollywood thing because it's black people oppressing each other over tribal differences. Black on black crime. Black on black crime, exactly. Whereas Liberia sort of fits into that, but because of American quasi-colonialism.

So it's estimated that 250,000 people were killed and more than 600,000 Liberians were raped, maimed or mutilated in this conflict. If there is a hell, Liberia during the civil war couldn't have been too far off. And to be honest, although the civil war in Liberia is now officially over, the lives of its people remain in shambles. The Vice documentary that we've referenced captures the squalor, that's the only word I can think, in which Liberian citizens today are living in perfectly. It shows and it's heartbreaking to watch this documentary. There is no sewage system in Monrovia, no electricity. People are forced to defecate on the beach, which obviously just spreads disease even more. Drugs like heroin flood the neighborhoods of Monrovia. And in this

documentary, children as young as like what I would estimate, because I'm not very good at like children's ages and they don't specifically say, I suspect that those kids probably don't even know how old they are. But I would estimate that some of them are as young as 10 and they are smoking crack. It is like fucking unbelievable when you watch this. And also the brothels of the city, which again are shown in the documentary, honestly look like a fucking Eli Roth film, like Hostel or something. It is nightmarish. And violence against women as well in Liberia, particularly in Monrovia, is absolutely off the charts. And when I read this next statistic, my jaw hit the floor. A recent study found that a shocking 70%,

7-0% of women in Liberia have been raped. That means the majority of women have been raped. A significant majority, yeah. That is normal there, to have been raped then. It is just absolutely harrowing. And in Liberian slums, AIDS, malaria and venereal diseases also run rampant. And while, of course, COVID in Liberia is also exploding, they can't as a nation even worry about this global pandemic that is crippling the rest of the world because Liberia is also simultaneously facing a monstrous outbreak of Ebola. So they're like, we haven't

really got time to worry about COVID because people are dying of Ebola. Yeah, COVID's kind of a small fry problem in Liberia, I think. And of course, it's going to be no surprise, therefore, to anybody when I tell you that the Liberian economy is absolutely in the toilet. An unbelievable 80% of Liberia's adult population is unemployed. And this, of course, has made the people desperate. And it is reported that a large percent of the Liberian population, and we're not talking just about the warlords or the gangs or the militias, we're talking about ordinary citizens, have eaten human flesh in order to survive. And I would encourage people to watch the Nina Simone documentary, not just because it's interesting, but also there is footage of her in Liberia, like at bars, on beaches, just like having this amazing time living in this beautiful house

and like just equate that with what we're talking about. Obviously, I'm sure Nina Simone, you know, if you're going to Liberia with money, like you're going to be fine. But like to compare those two things, like there was a huge change with the civil wars. Today, Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, is still very much in the shadow of the war and the country's current political system remains extremely fragile, as vast areas are still run predominantly by tribal warlords rather than by any official local government. But back then, as the civil wars raged on, numerous militias and warlords had laid siege to Monrovia on an almost daily

basis. And in 1996, for that one year, no warlord was more feared than General Butt Naked, aka Joshua Milton Blahy. Blahy's early life is fascinating, but highly contentious. And the reason for that is because most of it comes from him. And I don't think I've ever considered a man more likely to lie. I almost feel like everything he says, you should just think the opposite. You should just believe the opposite. Most of what we know comes directly from him because now, in the now times, he has a website. And he even wrote and published his biography in 2006 and the biography it's got fucking rave reviews so i don't know i'm not going to stand here and recommend that you buy it

it's called the redemption of an african warlord normally hannah and i will buy the book for every case and we will read it to inform our research we didn't really feel like giving our money to someone like blah he So we just watched the documentary, The Redemption of General Butt Naked instead. I'm sure he did get paid from it, but you know, that's unavoidable. But I don't really want to buy his book. And all the rave reviews come from Christians who were like, yay, praise Jesus. Look, it saved this guy. Okay, I'm gonna hold my Christianity rant in until we get there. Sorry, I keep teasing you. I'll save it for the end.

No, it's fine. I'm edging. I'm just blue balling you. Christian blue balling you. Yeah, you really are. You really are. But it'll be worth it in the end when I transcend to a higher realm. So we have, despite all of the misinformation that is out there, we have done our absolute very best to piece his early life together. But please take into account that we can never be 100% certain. So Blahi was born on the 30th of September 1971 into the Sapo tribe of Liberia. What's important to know about the Sapo people is that they are, of course, a native tribe to West Africa, and they are one of the groups in Africa to have retained much of their

indigenous belief systems and customs. So a lot of African tribes were obviously during colonization, etc, converted to Christianity or to Islam or to one of the other main religions. But because Liberia wasn't interfered with by the Europeans, the indigenous tribes there have held on to much more of their native cultural beliefs and customs. So that actually forms like a really important part of how this case transpired. And that's why we're talking about it. The Sabo people also very much believe in witchcraft and black magic. And an important custom to this ethnic group is for tribes to appoint priests. Now, Blahi claims that at the age of just 11, he was named one such priest by his tribe, which is quite an achievement if it's true when you learn that apparently these communities fill these positions according

to spiritual and physical prowess, and the selection process for the priest is determined through a fight. On Blahi's website, he states, quote, the traditional fight was a no-holds-barred affair. The eventual victor was allowed to kill and maim his opponent to show his strength and bravery. The strongest or last man standing after the bloody contest would take over the birthright and leadership of the tribe. And apparently, at the age of 11, he won this fight. after the bloody contest would take over the birthright and leadership of the tribe.

And apparently, at the age of 11, he won this fight. I can't find who he fought. Did he fight a six-year-old? Because maybe then, okay. Did he fight a grown man? I don't know. What's important to note is that Blahi's siblings say that this is all fucking bullshit. And they are on the record saying that.

But Blahi says it's true. It's hard to know. I'm probably going to go with the fact that it's not true. Yeah, it feels like it really feeds into his own myth-making in an almost unbelievable way. So, I mean, no, totally unbelievable. Why am I giving him any credit? No, I don't believe it, for a sec. I think just from a young age, he's been quite the little megalomaniac.

Very Jim Jones being a kid preacher. Oh, very Jim Jones. Very much so. I think he's very much from a young age, very narcissistic, very, you know, like we said, having megalomaniac tendencies. I just don't believe that he became a priest, but it is reported in so many places as a fact. Like newspapers I respect report this as a fact.

His siblings are like this never fucking happened and why would they lie? What incentive is there for them to lie? There's a lot of incentive for him to lie. So I don't know. I don't believe it. But anyway let's go with it that he did do this. He continues to tell us about that initial fight and that initial becoming a priest journey when he was 11. Because apparently, after he won the fight, over the course of the following three-day ritual ceremony, he claims to have participated in his first human sacrifice. Blahi says that it was during this event that he experienced a vision.

It was of a high-ranking deity within the Sapo belief system. And I'm going to try and say the name, but I cannot find a single place on the internet that was giving me like a pronunciation guide. So I haven't got a clue if I'm saying this correctly. So I do apologize, but it is written like Nyambe Awe. That's the name of the deity. And apparently Blahi says that this deity appeared to him in this vision when he was doing the human sacrifice and told him that he would become a great warrior if he just continued to practice human sacrifice and cannibalism. As you will see later on, having visions becomes

quite normal for Blahi. He pulls out that particular story plotline quite often. But maybe, if this is true, this holy apparition was bang on, because Blahi did deliver on the cannibalism, and in return, he was granted what he called great powers. And it was one of these powers that earned General Bartnaked his name, because according to Blahi, the deity had given him the ability to be, quote, invisible and bulletproof when he fought naked. We're not going to delve into this too much now, but don't worry, we will come back to it. For now, let's keep steaming ahead to 1989. And this was when the first Liberian Civil War started, which you will know if you are keeping notes. There will be a quiz at the end. And Joshua Milton Blahey,

who was now done with just being the high priest of his tribe, was already a mini 18-year-old warlord with a vicious gang around him. Much of this gang was made up of child soldiers. And in the documentary Not the Vice One, the one that's called The Redemption of General Butt Naked, which you can find the link for below, Blahy talks about why he went after children specifically. Child soldiers are obviously nothing new by the time that Blahy turned his hand to recruiting them, but he did know how to groom and manipulate children specifically well.

And he also understood why they were so useful. He explains in the documentary that children are perfect fighters because they are malleable and because they don't think about danger or their futures in the same way that adults do. He went after kids because they are naturally reckless. Teenage brain reward centres can actually light up when an adolescent engages in risky behaviour. In this militia, Blahi had a dedicated group of child soldiers that he referred to as the SBU, which stands for Small Boys Unit. He's not even pretending. He's not even like, oh, I'm going to make you a man.

He's like, no, please stay boys. You're much more useful to me as this gang of lost boys. Exactly. He would sometimes find orphaned children to recruit but often he claims that he would make the children orphans himself. Lahey and other warlords would rape, torture and murder entire families, often just leaving the children alive to turn them into soldiers. And in reports that I read, these children would sometimes even be made to rape, mutilate and kill their own family members.

And this bit is just so fucking sick, as if it's not all sick. But apparently when the warlords would force these children to kill, rape and mutilate their own family members, they would also force them to laugh as they were doing it. This quote-unquote training would then continue back at butt-naked barracks in Monrovia. I'm not even making it up, that's what they called it. That's what his HQ was called. Here, they would take the kids back

and Blahi would find the most violent Hollywood films that he could and make the kids watch. He apparently says that he wanted to glamorize the violence and he would tell the children that when they were out on the streets fighting, it would be just like this movie they were watching. It was all just a game. These traumatized children would often go on to become some of the most violent offenders in Liberia's civil wars. They would tear through a neighborhood, killing, raping and looting as they went. And this bit is particularly horrific. A favorite game of the SBU was to smash babies' heads against rocks in front of their screaming mothers.

Another game that is widely reported was the boys of the SBU taking it in turns to guess what sex baby a pregnant woman was carrying before slitting her belly open to see who won. Like we said, it's hell on earth. But I don't think any of this was accidental or just rooted in sadism. I don't think Blahi is like making these kids do it just because he's getting sadistic kicks. I think it's a part of it, but I don't think it's everything. Because I think that Blahi understood the power of terror and the power of marketing. Because during the Liberian civil wars, there weren't like official organized armies.

Both sides would often have to battle it out to hire troops of fighters and mercenaries. And the top warlords would be the ones that would get to sell their services to the highest bidder. It's a business model. That's exactly what it is. Exactly. His SBU and his like running into battle naked and like the violence and all of this and the extra depravity is PR. It's his packaging, you know. Blahy, being a native Liberian, was, of course, drawn to fight against the Americo-Liberians like Taylor, but he was also in it for the money, and presumably the Americo-Liberians had quite a bit more of that. Blahy also knew that to become a highly sought-after warlord

who could make top dollar for fighting, he needed a USP. He needed to be the baddest, sickest, most brutal motherfucker around. And so, before taking his troops into battle, General Butt-Naked would regularly sacrifice a child. In an interview he gave to the South African Star, he said, quote, Usually, it was a small child, a girl between three and ten.

It had to be someone whose fresh blood would satisfy the devil. And he wouldn't just kill this child. That would be a waste. Blahi would rip out the child's heart, which would then be cut up and passed around for the gang to eat. Often the rest of the child's remains would be eaten by the group as well. What's interesting there, you know when he says in this interview with the South African Star that he had to get the blood of somebody who would satisfy the devil. This is a really interesting point to make because he gives all these interviews retrospectively. So he's giving them now, right, once he's converted to Christianity. At the time, in his original thing, he's saying he's doing it based on this high ranking deity within the Sapo belief system. When he converts to Christianity, he says,

oh, I was tricked. It was the devil. And that's an important point to consider. To wash down their child remains, the troops would drink the child's blood, then they'd get drunk and take whatever drugs they could get their hands on. Then they would take off all of their clothes and prepare to go to war. In pictures of the fighting, the butt naked battalion certainly stand out they were all completely naked for a start except for their shoes and some of the most like harrowing imagery i think comes from these like child soldiers wearing like wigs and halloween masks and sometimes these wigs aren't just sometimes it's like normal black curly ones but sometimes they're like neon pink and the boys are

carrying like handbags which they've clearly stolen I can't imagine not that I'm a hand-to-hand combat expert but like I imagine running around with a handbag handbags are annoying as it is it is honestly one of the most baffling things that you will see it's like you know they're just trying to stand out it's like warlord peacocking you know they're like look at me it's like they're trying to give national geographic the best possible shot oh yeah in his biography which i obviously haven't bought but i have read about and seen pages of filled with pictures of them on the streets fighting in just like bright wigs random fucking like a spider-man mask or whatever and a handbag but completely

naked it's extremely theatrical and visceral and it's very easy to see how and why General Butt Naked made such a name for himself. So once the group were naked and ready to go they'd hit the streets armed with guns or machetes or both and as Blahy himself put it, we'd slaughter anyone we saw, chop their heads off and use them as soccer balls. We were nude, fearless, drunk, yet strategic. We killed hundreds of people. So many I lost count. Blahi and his gang of children believed that their nakedness was a source of protection from bullets. And you can see him in the documentary being like, if I was naked, nothing could touch me. It's like part of the thing. It's like part of the game. Absolutely. So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader.

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had grown up in communities where these beliefs were just a given. Now one of the key things is like I don't know if Blahy really believed that sacrificing a child and running into battle made him invisible. I would suspect that maybe he did. I don't know for sure though because in interviews he says things like being naked activated his spiritual powers. Maybe it's hard to know what he genuinely believes because he comes across as so theatrical about everything he says that it's hard to see what's authentic, if you see what I mean. But he certainly managed to convince his followers and his enemies that if he was naked, he was invisible. And also to his followers that if they were, they too

had his protection because those fighting against him became so terrified that blah he really couldn't be stopped that sometimes they would flee as soon as he turned up for a fight again this is the marketing this is what he wanted yeah if you convince people you're going to do a good job quite a lot of the time you don't actually have to do the job precisely and by convincing his own soldiers that they too were protected if they were naked and if they ate, you know, these children and stuff like this, he managed to convince them to take larger risks. You know, if you tell your soldiers, especially children, hey, you know, if you're naked, the bullets can't even touch you, go nuts. They are now operating at a level where they don't even

have fear because they actually believe in this witchcraft or this magic or whatever we want to call it. And what is interesting is that despite all the violence he was involved in, and I was really surprised when I read this, Blahy was never shot. Apparently not even once. I mean, it kind of makes you want to believe. Again, I'm like, is it psychological though? Is it just like, I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to know. And he also, he fights like a berserker.

You know, he's just like so high energy, so erratic. And I just wonder if he just fucking scared people. And again, with the whole him never being shot, this is official reports. This is what he says. Maybe he was. Though in the documentaries, he has got his top off quite a lot of the time. And I can't see the scars. So maybe it's true.

But just because he wasn't shot, that doesn't mean the men and the children in his gang were not. They were indeed, and they died by the thousands. And what's interesting about Blahi is when one of his group got shot and killed, and the others would be like, hey, I thought you said that wasn't going to happen. There was always a way out for Blahi is when one of his group got shot and killed and the others would be like, hey, I thought you said that wasn't going to happen. There was always a way out for Blahi. He would always just say that those who were killed just hadn't prayed right that day or they just hadn't eaten enough of the child or done what he had properly commanded. So it was always their fault, you know.

But everything was about to change for Joshua Milton Blahi because it was at this point that he was about to meet Jesus. The people of Monrovia where Blahey did his worst offending were of course absolutely terrified and desperate. They knew that no authorities would be able to stop the rampaging warlords so one local bishop decided to take it upon himself and this is from the documentary The Redemption of General Butt Naked. Apparently, a local bishop named John Kunkun prayed for an end to the tyranny of the warlords. And he heard, apparently, according to him, from God that if he fasted for 54 days, he would gain the spiritual fortitude he needed to be able to convert the very worst of them,

General Butt Naked, to Christianity. Sure. I mean, do you remember when the Pope was like, I've had a word with God and he says he's going to stop COVID? Like, it's just, it's ridiculous. It's just such a level of magical thinking I can't even imagine. But that's what the bishop hears and that's what he believes, or that's what he says he believes. So Bishop Kunkun went hungry, did the fast,

and then he went straight to Blahis HQ in Monrovia. And like, whatever he believes or doesn't believe or like, whatever he's doing, this is fucking outrageously brave. Right. I'm like, what are you doing, mate? Go back to your church. Don't do this. And apparently the bishop was shocked to find that the day that he arrived at Butt Naked Barracks, he was able to simply walk through the gates and up the stairs of this madman's lair, and he managed to find Blarhy.

Bishop Kunkun then told a shocked Blarhy, because he's obviously like, how the fuck is this guy in my fucking room, told him all about the Bible, and how God had spoken directly to him, and said that he, General Butt N naked, needed to become a Christian. Did he? Like, I am aware that, like, Bishop Kunkun has corroborated this story, but I just don't believe it.

It feels like propaganda. It feels like Christian propaganda. Exactly. Like, you are telling me that the fiercest warlord in the Liberian Civil War who recruits child soldiers and murders babies for a living doesn't shoot this man he doesn't recognise in his house? Bullshit. No way. I just don't, I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it.

And I also don't buy it because of, like, what happens next. Well, yes, exactly. In the documentary, this Bishop Kunkun character, who is a tiny, normal-looking man, is just like, yeah, I turned up and I was like, I have to come to talk to you about Jesus Christ. Literally like a Mormon just like knocking on his door, being like, do you have a moment to talk about Jesus?

Because he loves you. And then apparently upon hearing this, Blahi, the most vicious warlord in all of Liberia, claimed that the feeling of wanting to hurt people went from his mind. But it didn't wander that far away from his mind, because the very, very next thing he does is extremely violent indeed. Straight after Bishop John Cuncun left,

Blahy gathered himself and ran downstairs to confront his child army, and also the men army, and he shouts at them and asks them how they could have let a random man enter the compound and just walk all the way into General Buttnaker's room just like that. And one of his child bodyguards, nicknamed Senegalese, was sat at the bottom of the stairs. When Blahy questioned him specifically, the boy just said that no one had gone upstairs all day

and that there was no way anyone could have gone up or down those stairs. But Blahy didn't believe him and, furious, he shot both of the child's legs. And then he had Senegalese put into a bathtub, hidden away in the barracks, for a week with no treatment. Eventually, this boy was taken to a hospital, but by then it was far too late and both of the boy's legs were amputated. It's quite violent, isn't it? Exactly. Quite anti-Christian, one would argue. I would argue that. I think that's why I was saying, like, I don't necessarily believe that it's true, even though, like I said, Bishop Kunkun does say that this is true.

The fact that Senegalese is like, no one came in, no one went up those stairs, and then he gets shot in the legs. I don't know. So we'll come back to Senegalese later. But for now, let's see what happened next in the adventures of General Butt Naked and Jesus Christ Superstar. One day after this incident with Bishop Kunkun, Blahi was naked, about to lead a band of child fighters into battle. As was custom, Blahi had just slaughtered a child, and he had sent his boys down to the river to fetch him some water so he could wash his bloody hands. That's when Blahi says, quote, I had a vision where Jesus met me and told me to repent and live or refuse and die. That day I retreated from the front. That day I did not fight. I could not fight that day. And yes, that day in October 1996, and at the peak of his power and notoriety, Joshua Milton Blahey laid down his arms and disappeared. He's 46. He started this shit at 18 years old, and now he's 46. That is bananas.

And also, like, I was really, really shocked like that, because he does not look like he's 46. That is bananas. And also, like, I was really, really shocked like that because he does not look like he's in. I mean, he must be, what, in his 50s now? 60s? No way does he look that old. He looks like he's in his late 40s now. I believe he's magic. I really do. I believe that he is magic. Truly. Oh, fuck it all. So, yes, he lays down his arms and he disappears. And some people seem to give him quite a lot of credit for stepping down at this point. But the first Liberian civil war, of which Blahi was a part, ended within months of him leaving. Does it not seem much more likely, because it does to me and it does to us at Red

Handed HQ, that Blahi just felt the tide turning and realised that it was just better to get out now while he still could? Because people are like, he was at the peak of his power then he didn't have to step down and he gave it all away after all of the stuff he'd done and he fled not when it ended i think he just fucking knew it was over and that's why he left i agree and if you've been warlord in for three decades you're gonna know when the jig is up you're gonna be like this feels different to the previous 30 years of my life i'm gonna believe that as a warlord in for three decades, you're going to know when the jig is up. You're going to be like, this feels different to the previous 30 years of my life. I'm going to believe that as a warlord, you would have some like gut instinctive feeling about the way that stuff is going, you know? And the only reason that I can think, apart from more propaganda, that people say this at all about

Blahi, and maybe they're confused because the first Liberian civil war ended, but the violence didn't end. Because as we said at the start, the second Liberian Civil War kicked off almost immediately after. And that raged on for another number of years before finally coming to an end in 2003. So I think people maybe just think, oh, we stepped down, but like the Civil Wars didn't end until 2003, but he stepped down in 1996. I'm like, no, no, no. The first Liberian civil war ended like within months of him stepping down. So that's the key thing to remember. And in 2003, when the second Liberian civil war ended, like we said, over 250,000 people at this point were dead.

Countless were traumatized and the nation was destroyed. So where did he go, whatever became of General Butt Naked? He left Liberia and went to Ghana, where he lived in a refugee camp. He even joined a church and confessed his crimes. Well, he sort of did. He said that the devil had possessed him and that's why he'd been a murderous, raping, mutilating warlord. Incredibly convenient, isn't it? You can just blame things on the devil whenever you like

needless to say the people of the church were terrified at first but slowly they accepted that general butt naked was a changed man and over the years blah he became a well-known evangelical preacher and he even bills himself on posters advertising his gatherings as ex-war general and chief priest to the late Liberian President Samuel K. Doe. Yes, Blahey claimed that he was President Samuel Doe's spiritual advisor back when he was in power. We don't know if that's true. There is no veritable account. I am going to go out on the shortest of limbs and say that it's absolutely not true. I also love the name of his ministry, the End Time Train Evangelicist Ministries. What does that mean? I don't know. I don't know.

The End Time Train? I don't know. But that's what it's called. That's what it's called. The hot tub time machine? Like, I don't know. I'm lost. I'm lost. Baffled. And also he labels himself as one of the anointed men of God, a status which apparently most African Christians feel uneasy about challenging. Anything about anointed, like Christ means the anointed one, like anything, you're throwing that word around like people are going to take you quite seriously. So Blahi started travelling all around Africa, putting on lively shows for crowded rooms full

of excited congregants, telling them all about how the love of God had disarmed him. And when you watch his sermons, he is a very charismatic, outgoing and confident man. He wouldn't be out of place in any sort of like James Brown-esque situations. He is the perfect warlord and he's the perfect preacher. He even got married to a woman from the church whose name's Josie and they settled down and had a few kids. But according to Blahy, it wasn't enough for him and he says that he felt a deep need to, quote, balance the scales for what he had done.

This scale balancing happens to coincide almost perfectly with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission being put together, but I'm sure it's completely nothing to do with that. And again, I feel like it screams to his inherent psychopathy. He has escaped. He's living in Ghana now. He's got, like, a relatively decent income from being this travelling-like preacher. He's got a wife. He's got kids. He's got a house. Why not just live your fucking life and let your

redemption be through your good deeds now? Yeah, exactly. The feeling that he felt it wasn't enough and he needed to go back to Liberia and insert himself as he does, as we're going to talk about, to me screams of like the boredom of a psychopath i completely agree with you and so in 2007 after 10 years in self-imposed exile blah he returned to monrovia in the documentary the redemption of general butt naked they follow him as he meets with the families of some of those his gang and him raped and slaughtered as we said definitely recommend this documentary go Go check it out. It's really important to be able to see the visuals behind what we're about to tell you, I feel like.

Because it's a really eye-opening portrayal of Blahi. And I would also be really interested to see what you guys think because a lot of the opinions that Hannah and I have formed are based on what we saw in that documentary. Because the only thing I can really say is that when I was watching it, I felt uncomfortable. I felt deeply uncomfortable. Because Blahi finds these people, people who were brutalized by him or by his gang on his orders and lost loved ones because of him. It feels like he

just turns up and imposes himself on them physically and emotionally. Like when you watch it, he sits down next to them. He's really like dominating the space. He's like very physically like domineering. And he hugs them. He puts his arms around them. And he's a big guy. And like when they turn up and see these people they look fucking traumatized and he just like i don't know i feel like he just has no boundaries and it's very uncomfortable and very uneasy to watch and also i'm gonna finally blow my load here he says to these people who he has personally mutilated and personally killed their family members like their babies etc and he says stuff like you have to forgive me jesus says you have to that's not like i obviously chat a lot of shit about christianity

but the christian message like it's about like if you accept jesus into your heart it gives you the strength to forgive those who have wronged you not the other way around like you can't just force people to forgive you because you're a christian. Like that's just not the way it works. So it's a fundamental misunderstanding of doctrine. And like he is not the only person to do it. But it's just this like, oh, no, I am reformed. Therefore, you have to like you have to accept me in my current form and you're not allowed to be upset with me anymore because I've forgiven myself. And that is not how it works.

Like even in I mean, I have my problems with like 12-step programs and stuff, but even AA, like the serenity prayer, it's like, there are some things you cannot change and some people will not forgive you. And you have to be strong enough to accept that. And like, he has just completely flipped the whole thing on his head

because he's not really a Christian. He doesn't really care. He just wants to get away with it. He wants to be absolved, not because he feels guilty, but just because his life will be easier if he has absolution. That is like my general feeling about the entire thing as well. We will talk more about like whether we believe he is truly remorseful and all of that like later on in the episode.

But I don't really believe it. I feel like there are other elements to this because I can't help but feel as well when I watch him with these people that he has directly traumatized. There is one particular snippet, well, there were two, but I'll talk about one, where he goes to this village

and he's talking to this family and it's a mother and a daughter and the daughter is clearly blind in one eye, like something has happened to one eye. And what has happened is Blahi had come there and hit her when she was a baby in the eye with his gun with the butt of his gun this girl is now blind in one eye and she's like a teenager and he's talking to her just non-stop fucking like proselytizing preaching to her about forgiveness and she starts crying and i was like oh my god

this is awful but then she says to have him come here and say sorry to me and a man like that to apologize I'm like moved so I'm not here to take away from that if that really helps that family right but I don't believe him I don't believe his true intentions behind his actions are to give these people closure it just all made me feel very uncomfortable but But it's what happens. Go watch it. Definitely want to hear from you guys on what you personally think. I also felt like when he goes and speaks to these people, right, that there is an element of sadism to all of it. And this is just my theory, but hear me out. Like, I feel like he says himself in these documentaries when he's talking about being

a warlord, that when he went on his killing sprees, he, quote, loved to watch people suffer and know that he was the reason. Does that just go away? That is the definition of sadism. Does that go away because Jesus? I don't believe that it does. I don't believe you can cure sadism from what we've learned during the research of this book.

So could these little forgiveness trips that he goes on really be to relive the trauma that he inflicted? So he gets to see firsthand this suffering. And I also feel like it's a bit of a power play because there's no doubt that as a preacher, when he goes to see these victims, again, he's in a position of power. Something that I genuinely believe that Blahi is absolutely addicted to. And I think it's hard to not say or hard to not feel that these new hobbies he's got of shouting the gospel to adoring crowds and harassing his victims for forgiveness seem to

be part of the same kind of egotistical megalomania as his warlord days because it's still all about him. That's the key thing. But whatever it is, in some cases people do genuinely seem to forgive him. One of those being Senegalese, his child bodyguard, whose legs he shot off. Senegalese is one of the most stunning parts of the documentary because you first meet him and you're like, oh, he's in a wheelchair and he's got no legs. That's because he was a child soldier and like he, you know, in battle, whatever. It's not till like half an hour later that you realize like, no, blah, off like it wasn't like a combat injury it was his leader shot them and then kept him from getting treatment until the point that it got so bad that the legs just had to be amputated and this part of the story is something that people who want to believe that Blahi has been

saved love to go on about one of Blahi's particular causes that he at least pretends to care about is the rehabilitation of child soldiers. In the documentary, you can see him scouring the streets, the brothels, the crack dens of Monrovia to find his old fighters from the SBU. And he says he wants to save them. And fuck me, do they need saving? Like, I don't think I've seen quite such explicit footage of people smoking heroin before. Whether Blahi is the man to save them is up for some debate. So these former child soldiers, obviously now men, are mostly homeless, unemployed, addicted to hard drugs, missing limbs and traumatised beyond belief. They're also shunned from society in Liberia quite often because they're covered in scars

and wounds and people tend to know that they fought in the civil wars and therefore they don't want to help them. This is even more pronounced when the child is a girl. This seems to be connected to the idea that a woman crossing those lines and taking part in such violence is far worse than a man doing it. It's seen as more shocking. Girls also often ended up having children with the militiamen, another thing for which they are outcast. The plight of the child soldiers of Liberia is really gut-wrenching. And yes, they did absolutely horrific things, but they were groomed and forced into it. These kids were torn from their families and left with nothing. They became so desensitized to the violence and so traumatized that they didn't stand a chance. It's like with Blahi, I believe that he is like, we don't know that much about his childhood, but I wouldn't be shocked to believe that he was a genetic psychopath, that he was born that way. And

one of the things we discovered with the book is that psychopathy is generally now considered to be a congenital condition. So something that you are born with, whereas sociopathy is generally considered to be something that is created. And what could be more sociopathic creating than literally having your family murdered or you having to murder them and then be left with nothing and growing up in the middle of the Liberian Civil War. These children were turned into sociopaths. And then being pumped full of like psychoactive drugs as well. Like's the perfect storm they did not stand a chance and also so you know given that it's unsurprising that the effect of being a child soldier are lifelong so we've covered the social dislocation that they face and all studies show

that among war effective children child soldiers are more likely to endure harsher psychological consequences such as PTSD, major depression, hostility, sadness, self-confidence issues and an inability to cope with daily life, which doesn't seem surprising at all. Reintegration into society is often next to impossible for these kids without major support. And so it's no surprise that in the documentary, Blahi finds Senegalese living a sad and lonely life on the streets of Monrovia. The young man, like you know, is of course missing both his legs, thanks to Blahi,

and also just being shunned. He has no job, he has nothing. He just had little to no hope. But Blahi finds him and says that he's sorry. Just the fact that Blahi is even able to look at senegalese in the eye after what he did to him let alone like talk to him and ask him for forgiveness blah he is 100 a fucking full-blown stone cold psychopath how could you look at that person after what you did and he doesn't even ask for forgiveness. He demands it. And I feel like

out of all of the people in the world who are able to manipulate someone like Senegalese, it's the person who made them what they are. And he knows that. You know, there's a reason he goes after the boys that he recruited and not just like general war victims. It's because he knows how to fucking get what he wants from them. Absolutely. And as another testament to how fucking sick all of this is, initially Senegalese is really reluctant to talk to Blahi and he's also very, very angry. Of course he is. But by the end of the meeting, Senegalese is saying,

and when he said this, it broke my heart. He says that he now knows that Bl he truly loves him because he only shot him in the legs he's like he could have killed me i could have died he saved my life really what fucking hell and after this meeting senegalese actually died of tuberculosis so he just a sad life i mean for the whole film he looks very unwell it is just such a sad life. I mean, for the whole film, he looks very unwell. It is just such a sad, sad, sad story of Senegalese. And again, the whole thing with Blahi going around and meeting all these people and doing what he does feels so exploitative. In other cases, Blahi finds his victims, convinces them to forgive him.

Then he drags them to his church to parade them around on stage and talk about the power of Jesus and forgiveness. And maybe you think like maybe those people want to do it, like there's no harm in that. No, no, no. Some of these people explicitly say in the documentary that they didn't want to stand up, that they didn't want the world to know what happened to them, but they felt that they had to. They couldn't refuse Blahi because he is a man of God again manipulation and again it shows the force and ferocity with which Blahi ruled is now the same force and ferocity with which he now preaches and manipulates his congregants and also these people that he uses as puppets and when you watch him on stage with his victims, he's so graphic. He's got the person next to him that he did these horrific things to,

and he's so graphic about what he did. It's like he revels in the brutality of it all, and you can see that that person looks desperately uncomfortable. And I think the reason that he goes into all the grisly details of the horror that he inflicted is possibly because it makes his transformation and also the forgiveness that he's managed to achieve even stronger like an even stronger story he's got this person he's like i literally raped this person cut his foot off whatever and look he's forgiven me so everyone can forgive everyone yeah and it just feels like sort of token keeping in a way like he's collecting people rather than like buttons or badges.

We'll come back to whether Blahi is really remorseful or not in just one moment but for now let's talk about the victims. Impunity for war crimes is a massive issue in Liberia. Like we said at the start basically no one has been held accountable for the violence. Charles Taylor was forced into exile after the second civil war and he was later arrested and put on trial for war crimes. He's currently serving a 50-year sentence right here in jolly old England. But that's only because he was convicted for his actions in Sierra Leone after he left Liberia. He's never had to answer for what he did in his own country. In 2007, with the people of Liberia desperate for acknowledgement and justice, finally Liberia's parliament established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission

to investigate the past two decades of civil conflict. It was the first attempt made by the government to confront the countless war crimes, though it did seem a bit toothless since this commission didn't have the power to lock anyone up or do anything. All they can do is make recommendations for criminal proceedings. Yeah, they literally say all they can do is recommend people for prosecution if there is ever a war crime court established. And said war crime court to this day has never materialised. It could possibly be because people like Senator Prince Johnson, the former Budweiser swilling general we met earlier as he instructed his minions to cut someone's ears off, is fervently opposed to such courts.

But he would be, wouldn't he? Because he would go to prison. Yep, and it's handy that he's now a powerful senator in that same country, isn't it? Exactly. And he says stuff like, if we start bringing up our past, our ugly past as a nation, definitely not me, definitely nothing to do with me. But us as a nation, all as a collective, our future will be doomed. He says everyone's over it. The people have healed. We need to just move forward. Stop breaking up the past. Shut the fuck up. So of course, people like Prince Johnson weren't super keen on even the pesky little pointless, well, not pointless, toothless, should I say, Truth and Reconciliation

Commission. In fact, most of these former warlords who were free and living their lives didn't even turn up to testify. Johnson did, however, but only after he was subpoenaed and only, I think, because he had a political career to worry about. And when he did testify, he didn't offer much reconciliation. He just said that if the commission recommended him for prosecution, that there would be violence. And he doesn't say it in a way like, there will be violence and I'll do it. He's saying, do you know what you're doing? You're opening up old wounds. If you prosecute me, the people are going to come out and there's going to be violence. A very thinly veiled threat.

So Blahy, okay, I do have to give him some credit for this, right? Blahy was the only former warlord who willingly testified. He turned up to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, wearing all white, of course, because he's pure, he's a man of God now, and he gave a harrowingly detailed look at his time as a killer he is incredibly candid at the hearing and he testified that he directly or indirectly most likely killed at least 20 000 people when he says this the court gasps and then he says he's sorry. But with no emotion, I might add. Like, he is very matter-of-fact. I feel like he builds it up as this, like, suspense thing.

The lady who's, like, leading the commission, she asks him, she's like, how many? And he, like, gives this, like, quite long-winded roundabout way of setting it up before he finally drops the 20,000 bomb and then everyone in the room is like... He's a performer. He's a performer, yeah, yeah, yeah. One year later, the TRC released its report, making suggestions on how to move forward and also recommending 50 former combatants for prosecution.

Johnson was one of these 50. But Blahy, thanks to his cooperation, was not. But it doesn't make that much of a difference. I'm sure it was literally the only reason he testified, but he needn't have bothered because none of the recommendations made by the TRC were implemented. And today in Liberia, former warlords live as free men and women, and in some cases have been able to grab positions of serious political power. And it is infuriating. And while campaigners have continually tried their best, nothing much has come of it.

These people need to be held accountable. Otherwise, many fear that the cycle of violence in Liberia will never end. Many Liberians still want and long for justice, but it doesn't seem to be on the cards in any real sense. The case we mentioned at the start of the show, the trial of former rebel leader Massaquai, if in the coming weeks is moved to Liberia, as it is currently set to, because remember it's taking place in Finland where he was arrested and

he's being tried there for war crimes in Liberia, but no trial for the civil wars and the atrocities committed during that time have ever been held on Liberian soil. But it is looking like while Massaquai will stay in Finland, that they will move the trial to Liberia in the sense that they will interview witnesses in Monrovia. That is the closest we've ever come to this happening. So that's why I said that it will be a groundbreaking thing if it happens, because it will be the first sort of trial like this to play out on Liberian soil, which absolutely will be a pivotal moment for the people of this ravaged nation. So what about Blahi? Well, he claims that he is living in purgatory, receiving daily death threats. And so he says that he would be happy to be prosecuted. I don't know. I do feel like when he went and spoke to the TRC and testified, he didn't know that it wouldn't end in his prosecution. I do have to be honest and say that he didn't know that it wouldn't end in his prosecution.

Yes, right. He has said repeatedly, I want to be prosecuted. I would happily, gladly be prosecuted. And the reason he states for this is because he says, if I'm not, I'm not even worried that someone will come and kill me. I'm worried that someone will come and kill my children in a revenge attack. And I can believe that. There's a lot of people very, very angry at him, rightly so. So he says this repeatedly. He says that he would be happy to be prosecuted. But there's no political will in Liberia to make this happen because you can't just prosecute him and then leave it. If you prosecute him, what about all the other 50 people, including people like Senator Prince Johnson, who were recommended for prosecution? You've got to go after all of them and no one wants to do that because then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. So Blahy now runs a

project that he calls the Journeys Against Violence Initiative, where he is, according to him, rehabilitating young boys who were former gang members this charity has received millions of dollars in donations mainly from christian groups around the world because blah he is like the perfect christian propaganda for them and people really want his story to be true they really want this man who you know has repeatedly been labeled the most evil man alive today to to have been saved by Jesus. But we do have to be honest and point out that there are countless reports that Blahi is misappropriating the funds,

and that the boys are barely fed or looked after. Yeah, I mean, it's not hugely surprising. But if people will keep giving warlords money, that is going to continue to happen, I think. I just don't think anyone's redemption is that significant I just don't so yeah whether he is redeemed or not whether he is remorseful or not I don't know I don't know if it even matters at this point because there's never going to be any action taken what I do believe though is that even if he is remorseful

truly deeply remorseful for what he did, he still deserves to be prosecuted. Just because you are sorry, it doesn't mean that that is enough. Even if you're rehabilitated, I don't believe for these crimes that that is enough because the people of Liberia need to heal and they need acknowledgement and they need justice to be done in order for them to heal. And I think that's the most important thing. That's the fucking case of general butt naked aka well no i guess we should say the case of joshua milton blahy aka general butt naked

and a very quick and brief run through of the two liberian civil wars right that's it should we say thank you to these people and then all go sit down because I'm fucking knackered after that. I also really need a wee. So thank you very much. Grace West, Danielle Ford, Sarah Derry, Moose Penguin Shoes, Melissa, Hi Chick, Sarah H, Abby Haight, Laura Hartigan, Ember Olivia, Nicole Packard, Sarah, Sophie Todd, Kevin McLaughlin, How the fuck are we still only in October? Lydia, Fiona Kerr, Alyssa Johnson, Rebecca Prudhomme, Wendy Jackson, Stephanie Hayes, Kylie, Reese, Sarah E. Brake, Kelly Swainson, Vera Goetze, Jane Lobb, Katie Beaver, Zoe Mentz, Gia Radley, Justine Cairns, Jolene Valdez, Axel, Jenny Noble, Sydney Caprista, Balo Walker, Amy D, Shannon Kramer,

Heather Robinson, Amy Thomas, Kristen Link, Celeste Finne-Shao, I don't know, Celeste, sorry. Jen Peterson, Holly Greave, Olivia Lucy, Jenny Engwell, and Brandon Murphy. Thank you ever so much for supporting the show. Do not forget to follow us on Instagram.

We have a blue tick now, so you have absolutely no excuse. Let's see if we can get to 100,000 before the end of the year. It's one of my personal targets. And also the YouTube channel. Don't forget to do that. Yes, please. Please, please, please do that.

We'll see you guys next time. Bye. Goodbye. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life.

I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+.

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