Liberia's V.P. Dogolea's Mysterious Death:
God's Hands or a Familiar Pattern?
By Tom Kamara

President Taylor, announcing the abrupt and mysterious death of his Vice President and rebel comrade Enoch Dogolea, 48, said, "Liberia has become a complicated society characterized by rumours, chaos and disharmony." What an admission! And with the ongoing intimidation of journalists coupled with the banning of credible media institutions, the floodgate for unsubstantiated but credible information in the "Gestapo State" is normal.

Such is the case with media coverage and "rumours" around the mysterious death of the Vice President, a man with long-standing ties to Taylor, and with whom the President trained as teacher in rural Liberia and a rebel fighter in Libya years ago.

Despite these long ties, the relationship between the two men was only smooth on the surface but rotten underneath. According to the journalist Mark Huband in his book "The Liberian Civil War", Dogolea was among 40 Gio fighters, including Prince Johnson who broke away later and formed his own Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), who wrote a letter to their Libyan benefactors contending that Taylor was the wrong person to lead Liberia because, they alleged, he had links with the CIA. They therefore refused to swear loyalty to him. The Libyan authorities, convinced that they had found their man to destabilize West Africa and teach Washington a lesson, later informed Taylor that Dogolea was the author of the letter. In a Mafia-oriented political culture that Taylor religiously subscribes to, you don't forgive your enemy no matter how long, and how loyal he or she may turn out.

The circumstances around Dogolea's death are worrisome, and indicate a now too familiar pattern of fast deaths amongst Taylor's disciples because prior to the announcement, the government had accused its members, along with its security establishment, of receiving money from unnamed sources to overthrow it by assassinating the president. Unconfirmed sources also say about 14 security men have been secretly executed and 40 others unaccounted for based on the now too common and mundane coup allegations.

But even before Dogolea's death, Taylor was on the defensive to prove that the man's death was normal. He insisted that contrary to "rumours," the Vice President did not fall ill on his (Taylor's) farm, and that his (Taylor's) notorious bodyguards did not mercilessly beat the Vice President. "These are evil fabrications calculated by detractors to tarnish my good image and destabilize this country", a troubled Taylor said, unmoved by the words "good image". He called on these "rumour mongers to join my government in prayers for the Vice President's recovery". But as claimed by the "rumour mongers", the Vice President did not recover. The rumour mill had it that the man had long died on the President's farm. Executive Mansion sources say Dogolea, a Baptist who refrained from all sorts of alcoholic drinks, was a chronic coffee drinker. In Taylor's household, they knew this. Thus when he visited the farm, the "coffee" came. "Chief, here your coffee oh," the offer came after he refused incessant offers of food. Immediately after sipping the "coffee", he fell and died. The dead body's flight to Abidjan was a part of the concealment plot, our sources say.

With Taylor's hasty explanations aimed at disabling Liberia's powerful rumour machine, one would expect suspicions to wither. But Taylor's past explanations of events now increasingly make him less believable, (just as his predecessor Samuel Doe was less believable when he warned Liberians that the advancing rebels were not only after his head, but everyone else). In 1997, for example, Taylor assured frightened Krahns who had survived summary eliminations at the hands of his rebels that "If I had captured Doe, I wouldn't have killed him He was my friend." By 1997, he was unleashing his rebels on lesser "Does," innocent men and women whose only crime was sharing the same tribe with the slain junta leader.

To further counter the "rumours" that the Vice President was killed on his (Taylor's) farm, the Government dispatched large numbers of journalists to Abidjan with the objective of validating the President's claims of natural death by interviewing "doctors" who treated Dogolea before his death. The same method was used recently when the government escorted scores of local journalists to the Sierra Leone border to "dispel" claims that Burkinabe and other mercenaries have been recruited. The journalists simply looked around and saw black faces. "No mercenaries. All Government troops in high spirit to defend the Motherland", they reported. Whether reports by journalists traveling with state largesse, and from heavily censored and intimidated media are reliable in establishing the cause of Dogolea's death is something else.

But there are too many unknowns in the Vice President's death, and too many past variables in sudden deaths within Taylor's entourage to believe him now. After all, Taylor has long warned, and reminded us, "I'll do it (commit crime, deal with enemies, etc.,) and apologize." With such a reminder, it is not unreasonable to conclude that he has done it and apologized by accusing "rumour mongers". Let us look at the all too familiar pattern and circumstances of the Vice President's death.

The first news of Mr. Dogolea's death was leaked by confidential sources in Monrovia. Hours later, his wife told journalists that her husband was critically sick. Following that, the Government announced that Dogolea "was critically ill" and that he "was in a comma." The Government said the Vice President had been flown to Abidjan to be flown to Paris for further treatment. A day after, Taylor finally announced that the man was dead. In a familiar pattern, he swiftly promised that the Government would look into causes of his death. He ordered an autopsy. This is the stage. Now let us examine other factors.

About a week before the Vice President was "critically ill", and "in a comma", he gave an interview on the BBC World Service program Focus on Africa, dispelling widely held views that his Government was a do-nothing and doing a lot-of-talking government. He had led an array of government officials to undertake physical labour, that is, to clean up the science complex at the University of Liberia (destroyed by the NPFL during the war) to show their commitment to education. Thus, the Vice President, a man capable of physical labour a week before his mysterious illness, had no known history of "critical illness" that would, under normal conditions, lead to such a sudden death.

In Monrovia, sources say the man infact died on the President's farm, and that the "comma" news was an angle to prepare minds for the obvious. "To have announced the man dead while he was visiting the President's farm would have been too obvious. So the stage had to be prepared. It may turn out to be a perfect murder particularly when the murderer is the "custodian of the law," says a university student from the Vice President's tribe.

What is clear is that Dogolea's death follows the pattern of deaths of key and influential members of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) since 1989. The list of sudden and unexplained deaths among the "originals" of the NPFL is just inexhaustible. First, it was the death of its first Commander, the US trained Marine Elmer Johnson. Inside NPFL sources, including Tom Woewiyu, confided to this writer that Johnson (also an accountant who was credited for installing high level of discipline within the rebel army) was actually ambushed and shot upon Taylor's orders in Firestone (just a few miles from Monrovia) despite claims of Samuel Doe's army that they killed the Commander.

As the war drew nearer to Monrovia, Taylor sensed victory, and concluded that Johnson was too popular, too independent-minded, too educated to have around, sources say. Although Taylor had close links to Johnson and his family, he never communicated his death to Johnson's grieving American-based family, according to Woewiyu.

From then onward, more of the original members of the rebel group, the Libyan-trained "Special Forces", were gradually and systematically eliminated to forestall any possibility of any Nimba or "Native-Liberian" rise within the rebel army that would lead to their commanding influence. Libyan graduates and "Special Forces" members such as Yeabeh Degbon (known for his recruiting talents), Anthony Gonkanu, Maquinagbe, alias C.O. Dry Pepper, Sam Lartoe, Oilver Varney, Anthony Kormahun, Nixon Gaye (then regarded as the de facto Number Two to Taylor) Casious Jacob were all eliminated.

This wave of elimination led a group of top NPFL rebel commanders, in 1995, to publish an advertisement in which they charged that Taylor has masterminded the elimination of their comrades for ritualistic (and political) reasons.

But in actual fact, the elimination process began almost simultaneously with the war itself. One of the first groups of casualties was Cooper Teah, (a well-known Nimba soldier who also trained in Libya) who took 60 of his comrades to join Taylor against Doe. They were all beheaded. Teah, the story goes, with hands tied and his head placed on a chopping board, unsuccessfully pleaded for his life, warning that such cruelty would make the NPFL "fail." He was wrong!

Moses Duopu, Taylor's personal friend during their American years, a friendship cemented by the fact that they were married to two sisters, was ordered executed after he challenged Taylor's claim to the presidency. As Taylor's paranoia for leadership intensified, non-NPFL political figures regarded as threats to his leadership claims became victims in the unending tale of horror. For instance, immediately after the July 1997 elections, a popular anti-Taylor professional soldier, Gen. Joseph Fahngalo, left Liberia a healthy man en route to the US since he could not stay in the country with Taylor as president. During an Abidjan stopover, he fell in the company of his fellow tribesmen. What he underestimated was that Abidjan remained Taylor's center of covert operations, packed with paid agents who kept tag on NPFL enemies. Unsuspecting, Gen. Fangalo accepted entertainment from his Nimba tribesman. Suddenly afterwards, he fell ill, and by the time he reached the US, deadly poison had eaten up his internal organs, according to friends and family members. There was nothing the American doctors could do to save him. This healthy and bouncing soldier died immediately. But at least family members were told the cause of death by the American doctors who treated him, something impossible had he died in Liberia like many others.

The story is virtually the same regarding the death Shade Kaydeah, one of Samuel Doe's wealthiest and trusted tribal allies who, according to sources, switched his loyalty to Taylor. Upon Taylor's electoral victory, Kadiah returned to Liberia to conclude a business deal with the new president. While in Abidjan en route to his London home, he suddenly fell ill and was rushed to an Abidjan hospital or clinic. Family members said the diagnosis of death was poison. Was he poisoned because he was an entrusted ally whose usefulness had ceased?

Dr. Bangali Fofana, a ranking member of Sawyer's government who crossed over to Taylor and was later appointed Minister of Commerce, died suddenly after a few months in office. Some say he was murdered because men who leave one master for another cannot be trusted.

Back during the war, the butchering of Opposition politician Jackson F. Doe (no relations to Samuel Doe) was linked to Taylor. Says Woewiyu, (quoted by Dr. Stephen Ellis in "The Mask of Anarchy") then Defense spokesman for the rebels and now Senator representing Taylor's political party:

"Jackson Doe was not captured in combat, he walked over to our side, led by some of our fighters joyously to Kakata where there was a very, very big festival in the middle of the war to celebrate that a leader of our people had been saved. He was escorted to Harbel to Taylor. He was received. At the time I was in Sierra Leone, Taylor informed me that Jackson Doe was with him and that I should inform Amos Sawyer, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and all the politicians that Jackson Doe was safe, only for me to arrive in Harbel one week later and he could not tell me where Jackson Doe was."

An NPFL insider told this writer that on the night of his murder, Jackson Doe was spotted outside the Kakata Police Station (notorious as an execution chamber) sitting in a jeep in a depressed mood. "It looks like his hands were tied. He looked daisy. No one was allowed to go near him," the source remembered. That was the last time Jackson Doe, known to have actually won the 1985 elections against Samuel Doe, was seen alive.

Others such as Opposition politician Gabriel Kpolleh, along with key Nimba politicians such as Patrick Biddle, David Dwayen and several top opinion leaders from a county that provided the whelming recruits for the rebel army, were executed in the belief that they posed an obstacle to Taylor's presidency. The murder of Samuel Dokie, his wife and two members of his family by the president's bodyguards in 1997 meant that the process had no end.

NPFL insiders, some of them women who formed an impressive part of Taylor's bodyguard units but later defected, explained in gruesome details how many of their colleagues were killed, some buried alive in Gbarnga as sacrifices. Many of the victims were intensively loyal to the warlord. Their executions therefore instilled fear into others who fled. Many have become refugees, afraid to return and see the "glory" for which they fought.

If the Vice President was murdered as it is now believed in Monrovia and amongst Liberians outside, then there must be a motive, a motive linked to speculations regarding a possible constitutional replacement for Taylor, now viewed as the obstacle for reconstruction and peace within the sub-region based on his demonization as the godfather of rebellion and crime in West Africa. Increasingly, this has led to the circulation of Dogolea as a "harmless" choice to replace a harmful President. Since most of Taylor's foot soldiers are Dogolea's kinsmen, this made him a powerful choice. It was the same factor that made him a Vice Presidential choice even if the powerful Americo-Liberian team within the regime disapproved. But for Taylor, even if he agreed with his fellow Americos, dumping a son of Nimba for an Americo, as vice president would have sent an obvious message to the bulk of the NPFL fighting men ready to resume the war if he lost the election. So, Taylor needed a "Native" stigma (he so successfully used during the war) for his presidency, convinced that it was not the positions in government that matter, but the substance and importance given to them in an over imperial presidency. During the war, the Native names such as Woewiyu, Supuwood, Dokie, Duopu, etc., sold the NPFL as an all-encompassing, nationalist Liberian group with no ethnic divisions. This useful strategy was to be maintained in "peace time" since anyone with a modicum of common sense would know that an Americo ruling today's Liberia without "Native" crumbs-picking foot soldiers would not survive a day longer. Hence, the country's Vice President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and leader of the Senate (after the fleeing of Charles Brumskine, an Americo) are all "Natives" in this yet successful camouflage of the concentration of power in one individual and economic opportunities in one tribe - the Americos.

With Dogolea's death, the challenge is maintaining this superficial balance. The tiny number of Americos fanatically determined to hold on to power, and afraid that Taylor's exit may leave them at the mercy of an unpredictable "Native", wish to have a Vice President they trust, and it must one of them. On the other hand, Taylor risks further widening the existing rift with his "Native" followers, particularly those from Nimba, the base for his war. He had promised them Heaven on Earth if he became President, but Hell remains with them. He promised millions of dollars to develop the county after elections, but later told them that "Nimba was not Liberia". Unease among his Nimba followers has made Taylor more suspicious of his former comrades. Thus, the President's main cycle of confidantes, his primary, personal defense lines, are no longer made of Nimba people. These have been replaced by mercenaries. Mercenaries are only loyal to their paymaster.

These factors seem to complicate Dogolea's replacement. Despite their sidelining, the Nimba gang in the NPFL remains influential mainly because of their large numbers in the multiplying and antagonistic "security forces". How would they view a non-Nimba Vice President? On the other hand, as some see it, Dogolea's death was an opportunity to make the needed switch and reduce the Americos' reliance on Nimba as the center of their power. But such a switch must address Taylor's fears of a powerful replacement and the Americos' fear of not losing grip on power which they have fought so hard to gain following the 1980 which interrupted their grip for over 130 years.

Some names to watch are Blamo Nelson, a Kru with an Americo-Liberian heart and mind. He enjoys Taylor's confidence, and has been left in charge of the presidency on several occasions. As Taylor's second in command at the General Services Agency during the rule of Samuel Doe's junta, the two men worked well together, further cementing a friendship during their American years as student activists. Nelson admires Taylor tremendously for his "craftiness". Others are: House Speaker Nyudueh Morkonmona. He is also Taylor's personal friend and confidante during their American and war years. He stood by Taylor's despite the odds, and remains intensely loyal. Senate leader Kekura Kpoto, a former Chair of Samuel Doe's National Democratic Party of Liberia who began recruiting for the NPFL after Doe's death. He is loyal, but intelligent enough in choosing a winning side. Then there is former Vice President Bennie D. Warner, who has long rumored to have an interest in getting his old job back. It can be recalled that President Taylor almost replaced Dogolea with Bennie D. Warner after Dogolea's security officer assaulted a member of the House of Representatives, Rep. Sando Johnson (Bomi County). A stiff resistance from the VP's Nimba constituency made Taylor to change his mind.

However, it is clear that long before Dogolea's death, Taylor knew whom he wanted as Vice President. Such a person will soon emerge, since the Constitution gives the President the right to select a Vice President.

Whatever happens, Dogolea's death is not the end of sudden deaths in an organization that sees death and executions as convenient political tools. It may just be the beginning.

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