Liberia recently held a special reburial ceremony for former President William Tolbert, 45 years after he was killed during a military coup in 1980. His body is thought to have been thrown into a mass grave, and the ceremony was part of the country’s efforts to deal with its violent history.
The event, which happened on Tuesday, also honored 13 members of Tolbert’s cabinet who were executed just days after the coup. They were tied to stakes and shot by a firing squad on a beach in Monrovia after unfair trials by a so-called kangaroo court. None of the 14 bodies have ever been found.
The reburial was attended by President Joseph Boakai and other important officials, and it is seen as a big step towards reconciliation. This is part of Liberia’s larger efforts to recognize past injustices and encourage healing.
President Tolbert, who was in office from 1971 to 1980, faced increasing unrest because of long-standing ethnic and economic inequalities under the rule of the Americo-Liberians—descendants of freed African-American slaves who controlled Liberian politics for over a century.
His assassination marked the start of many years of instability, including two brutal civil wars that took hundreds of thousands of lives and ended in 2003.
The person who overthrew him, Sgt Samuel Doe, also had a violent fate when he was captured and killed by rebel forces in 1990. Last week, President Boakai ordered Doe’s reburial in his hometown, which further highlights the government’s reconciliation efforts.
