Letters on Non-Violence
War is Not an Option…
The Direct Effects of War
My name is Gomo K. Kollie. I am a Liberian. And now, I am a refugee living in Ghana on the Buduburam Refugee Camp. I am 21 years old and a “Grade A Student”, I am warm-hearted, young and friendly. This is my plea to all who will listen and lend a hand to help me shape the future of my life and the future of our world. This is my story about the direct effects of war and, about the reason why war is never and will never be an option.
Prior to the war, my family and I were living a great life. My father and mother were both security personnel with the Liberian Government. My father was a top officer in the army (AFL) but when the war broke out in 1989, things began to fall apart.
As the war was at it’s worst, rumors began to circulate about the rebels’ threats and plans to attack and kill government workers, especially officials of a specific ethnic group. As a family, we began to fear for our safety. The fighting drew nearer and nearer to Gardenville, Monrovia, to my home.
Unexpectedly, early one morning, when I was still in bed, our community was attacked. The rebels and the government soldiers fought a bloody battle the whole day and all through the night until the center of the defense could no longer hold. The rebels had the upper hand and within hours 1 990 of Charles Taylor’s troops set upon the men, women and children of my community.
They began to carry out house-to-house searches and commanded everyone to come out of their houses and form a queue. I was petrified and feared for my life and my family’s life. When everyone was standing in a queue, like they demanded, they began to point out government officials. To my horror, they identified my father and he was told to leave the queue with his children. While leaving the queue, the Commander gave an immediate order that my father should be killed and that, if we didn’t sing and dance and pretend we were happy, we, his children would follow him to our deaths. There are no words to describe what happened next. Except to say that my father was brutally killed in front of his children and my eyes by the rebels. Something I will never forget and that is a heavy weight on my heart. Before the capture of my community, my mother was taken by immigration services and we didn’t know if she was dead or alive.
I was still a young boy, alone. Hunger and uncertainty was the order of the day. My sisters and I would pick Palm nuts off the trees and eat anything that came our way - as undesirable as it was. These were hard times. During this time, one of my sisters died and the other was shot in the leg by stray bullets during a battle.
Later, during the same year, the Peace Keepers (ECOMOG) arrived and began rescue missions. My sister and I were rescued from the bloody hands of the rebels. This unfortunately did not last long and in 1992 another deadly war broke out which was even worse than the previous. It was called the “Octopus War” as it spread throughout most of Liberia. Countless of thousands of children lost their parents to senseless killings and everybody started to fend for them selves no matter on what side you were previously on. As the saying goes in Liberia; everyone for himself or herself, only God is for everyone.
Meanwhile, my sister and I separated when mass confusion hit and conditions became desperate. Alone, I remember crossing over countless dead bodies, scrimmaging for food, looking for a place to escape. And then, to my dismay, I was captured again by the rebels and thrown into a room of Men and Boys with the strict instructions to have us all killed. There was a list of Names of all the males in the room and they began to execute systematically down the list.
Day after day the executions went on and I was sure I would be next. By some Miracle I was saved when the combined forces of the AFL and ECOMOG invaded the area and rescued the hundreds of men, women and boys from the hands of the rebels. I was later taken to ECOMOG Base where I live until the 1996 Crisis hit and as luck would have it I was “smuggled” out of Liberia on board a holding ship to Ghana where I find myself today.
When I arrived in Ghana, we were transported to the refugee camp where, among the hundreds who came to check if dear ones had arrived and survived the kulling in Liberia, I saw my Mother’s face! She was alive! I was reunited with my mother after believing she had died in the war.
So now I find myself on the Refugee camp, along with +- 30 000 other refugees. We all do whatever we can to survive as we are not allowed to work in Ghana and the UN funding is not enough to feed us and educate us.
There are NO excuses. War is NOT an Option. As Humanity, it is time we realize this fact. No one wins in war. Miraculous Solutions do exist. There are ways to make sure that both sides of the conflict gets what it wants. One thing is for sure; It is not through war.
With Peace and Love,
GOMO K. KOLLIE
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