PHOTO: Supporters of the campaign with banner
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
When the bloody April 12, 1980 coup took place, Liberia’s 19th President William R. Tolbert, Jr. was assassinated with a large number of his officials and buried in a mass grave at the Palm Groove Cemetery in central Liberia.
But 41 years later, his ruling party, the “grand old” True Wing Party (TWP) has officially launched a massive campaign aimed at exhuming the remains of former President Tolbert and 13 officials of his government who were killed in that coup staged by a group of soldiers under the banner of the then People’s Redemption Council (PRC).
TWP Chairman, Reginald Goodridge has disclosed that after 41 years, the removal of the fallen officials of government will serve as the first step in the campaign aimed at exhuming of this mass grave for a national memorial park where all fallen presidents and officials of government will be buried in the future.
TWP Chairman, Reginald Goodridge
Mr. Goodridge, a former Minister of Information during the former ruling NPP government of ex-President Charles Taylor, spoke recently at the official launch of the campaign to remove mass grave on Center Street and all mass graves around Liberia to a national memorial park organized by the TWP.
According to him, the grave bears the remains of 13 stalwart citizens and the remains of many noble Liberians because some say 100 , others say up to 200.
Mr. Goodridge said: “We will never know the real count until we develop the courage with international support to exhume the remains of those bury there and through the use of modern technology to determine their identities. Our efforts today for the removal of the mass grave at the Palm Grove Cemetery are only the first step in our campaign to locate all other mass throughout Liberia to carry out a similar operation,” the TWP Chairman said.
“Let us be clear that the blood of the stalwart men in the Center Street is not better than the blood of the ordinary decent Liberians buried in mass grave all around the country regardless of their backgrounds”
He proposed the privatization of the Palm Grove Cemetery in order for good maintenance and to ensure that it does not relapse into ugly disrepair.
“In removing the mass grave,” he went on, “it is very important that the restoration of the Palm Grove Cemetery be accelerated as we celebrate of our nation. Information available to us indicates that American diplomats who served more than 150 years ago and other nationals are also buried in the Palm Grove Cemetery,” Mr. Goodridge explained.
The True Wing Party Chairman also proposed the establishment of what they called, the National Memorial Registry, whereby families across the country who still grieving over relatives who were not properly buried to be registered.
According to Mr. Goodridge, the National Memorial Park will serve as a place where Liberians from all walks of life will use as a regular pilgrimage so that just visiting and seeing their names of their relatives in a place of honor will symbolize the essence of the memory of that person.
This will require the input of not only the Liberian government, civil society organizations and the religious communities, but also the United Nations , the African Union, ECOWAS, and international partners including the United States, the United Kingdom , the European Union and the People’s Republic of China, the TWP Chairman indicated.
“The United Nations along with our traditional partners spent billions of United States Dollars over the past 20 years to win peace in Liberia,” he said; adding: “we Liberians have failed to heal our wounds. We want to make it clear that although the True Whig Party has initiated this project with the backing of the families, the last thing we want to do is to make it a political issue. This is not a political issue and this is purely a humanitarian issue and the mass graves have no place in the new Liberia,” the TWP Chairman’s statement added.
As a part of the activities, the brigade comprising members of the TWP, relatives of former officials of government executed following the 1980 military bloody coup, earlier paraded from the South Beach where they were killed to the Palm Grove Cemetery on Center Street where the program was held.
The program was graced by Montserrado County Senator Darius Dillon, Richard Tolbert, former Chairman of the National Investment Commission, relatives of the fallen statesmen and women, members of the TWP and sympathizers.