‘Jungle Jabbah’: Gbarpolu, Cape Mount Celebrate Jailing of Ex-warlord in America
Gbarqueta, Gbarpolu/Lofa Bridge, Grand Cape Mount – In Lofa Bridge an almond tree stands by a mosque and a shop. Its leaves are already orange and yellow – unusual at this time of year when the rains have arrived in this old mining town located along the banks of the Lofa River in the Gola Konneh District. The mosque is painted radiant blue and white but the shop’s black and white colors have faded. The coming and going of customers is a reminder of Lofa Bridge’s long-running history of trade and commerce.
But back in the 1990s, this shop was home to the fearful Mohammed Jabbateh, alias “Jungle Jabbah”, the former cannibal rebel commander who on Thursday became the first Liberian sentenced to jail for his role in the civil war. Jabbateh received a sentence of 30 years for lying to US immigration officials about his role in the war, the maximum sentence available.
It has been almost 30 years since Jabbateh and his marauding, dreadful ULIMO Zebra Battalion ravaged towns and villages from the North to the West of Liberia. The court in Philadelphia found they killed, tortured, enlisted child soldiers, committed cannibalism, slavery and mass rape. The memories of some of the worst crimes the world has even seen remain fresh on the minds of survivors here, as if they were yesterday.
“He had a big dryer where he used to dry human beings after he finished eating their hearts,” recalls 60-year-old Town Chief Momo Fen-Seh, pointing to the shop. “Whenever soldiers under his command complained of hunger he would ask for all the prisoners to get out. He liked the fair skin people. Whether you are a woman or man as long as your skin is fair he referred to you is hog meat.”
“Here in Lofa Bridge, when they kill somebody he takes of their heart to cook pepper soup and eats it,” adds John Wanner, 49.
Jabbateh and his men also had an eye on money and business. While in Lofa Bridge, he traded diamonds and gold, locals say, and he looted anything. In Philadelphia he showed his entrepreneurial streak by starting a successful shipping business before he was indicted in 2016.
A visitor here may be confused as to Jabbateh’s character when arriving at the “Jungle Jabbah” Bridge here. But the naming of this improvised bridge made of logs in Bopolu District, Gbarpolu County is not meant to honor Jabbah (as the famous “Gabriel Tucker” bridge on Bushrod Island honors the work of the architect of so much of Liberia’s infrastructure works). This bridge is named so the people here never forget the horrors Jabbateh inflicted on them.
In 1993 Jabateh and his men loaded a truck with scraps from earthmovers and other equipment that they were stealing from a logging company in a place called Gaingbai and headed towards Bopolu for Monrovia, its final destination.
Junior Mulbah of Yeama Town in Bopolu District, Gbarpolu County
Jabbateh and his men came across a bridge but could not cross it with their truckload of scraps. So they rounded up men and boys from nearby towns and villages to repair the broken bridge so that he and his men could cross.
“We went into the bush, hauled logs and tied the bridge,” explains Junior Mulbah, 53, elder of a village called Yeama not far from the bridge. When we tied the bridge, he brought his truck.” But the bridge collapsed. “It was the driver’s own negligence made him to make accident,” Mulbah adds.
Two of Jabateh’s men died that day in the accident, including one of his strongest men identified only as Cece.
“He said he wanted to kill someone because we were the ones who tied the bridge and the truck made an accident,” Mulbah recalls. “He had power and he had arm, so we jumped in the bush. He said the fault was from the civilians, and we said the fault was not from us.”
In those days the route between Belefasama to Bopolu and to Duala was the major route linking that part of Western Liberia to the capital.
“When they used to come, we would not stay in town,” recalls 78-year-old Joseph Ballah of Gbarqueta, the largest town around the bridge. “He was not taking time with us. We were making farm for him. He used to force us. We brushed a lot, it was a large farm. We planted rice there.”
Jabbateh is the first Liberian to be convicted in connection to war crimes committed in Liberia. Former President Charles Taylor is serving a 50-year sentence for aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone. His son, Charles Taylor Jr., is serving a staggering 97-year sentence in Liberia but as an American citizen.
“Yes, he supposed to go to jail,” exclaims Wanner of Lofa Bridge. “Thirty years is even small.”
Liberia has not set up a war crimes court though the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended back nearly a decade ago. Some of its former warlords hold key positions in the government, including Senator Prince Johnson of Nimba County and Representative George Boley of Grand Gedeh County.
That is not a trend that Jabbateh, 51, can follow, at least for a good while. A father of ten, he will stay in prison in America until he is 80. The length of Jabbateh’s sentence came in large part because of the testimony of 17 witnesses flown in from Liberia who bravely testified against him in court. They did so knowing there was a chance he may be sent home as George Boley was after he was arrested in the US in 2012. He has never faced trial.
“I really feel happy because those are the people who tortured our people here,” says George Massaquoi, a 51-year-old resident of Gbarqueta. “I was very surprised to hear that he told the [court] that he did not fight war in Liberia, that he did not do anything.”
“The things that he did in Liberia here, especially Gbarqueta in Gbarpolu, let him bear the penalty,” says Ballah. “He ran away from here to America, taking himself to be a good person. Let him bear the penalty.”
Report by James Harding Giahyue in Gbarpolu and Tecee Boley in Grand Cape Mount County
This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by Civitas Maxima. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
