Eleanor Gaye, owner of Elea’s Restaurant in Providence, is one of several local Liberians who are giving testimony to the Liberian Truth & Reconciliation Commission about their experiences during Liberia’s civil war.

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The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — During Liberia’s protracted civil war, rebel soldiers forced the Rev. Claudius Cooper to bury decomposing bodies in exchange for a cup of rice, so precious a commodity it was then known as “gold dust.”

He saw human heads propped on sticks, and intestines “used as rope.”

“Liberians did heinous things to one another. And how are we going to get past that? The only way is to forgive,” said Mr. Cooper, pastor of the Christ Center of Praise Full Gospel Ministries in Providence. “I think it’s helpful that we know what we’ve been through. The only way to stop it is to talk about it.”

As such, Mr. Cooper is among dozens of Liberians in Rhode Island who have given statements for the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The Liberian legislature established the TRC in 2005 as part of a peace process: in 2006, newly elected president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf appointed its 10 members.

Like other truth and reconciliation efforts worldwide — most notably in post-apartheid South Africa — the Liberian TRC aims to promote healing after more than two decades of conflict marked by horrendous human-rights abuses. It must, by mandate, identify victims and perpetrators and make recommendations on prosecution, amnesty and reparation. Its work will enter the historical record.

But stepping forward to give a statement — even anonymously — requires dredging up horrific memories, and many Liberians here are simply unwilling to do so. Some do not trust the process and worry about retribution, here and against family members living abroad.

Others, like Liberian Association of Rhode Island president Mator Kpangbai, believe it is “the duty of all Liberians to contribute towards the process.” He said, “It’s a slow process, it’s a painful process, and people don’t want to relive the experience. But by the same token, we have to try to tell the stories because we owe our future leaders and our partners to help us to bring on true reconciliation and healing.”

In January, TRC chairman Jerome J. Verdeir Sr. acknowledged those tensions when public hearings began in Liberia.

Many gave the commission “little chance — and understandably, too, in view of the numerous challenges that bedeviled it — to come this far,” Verdeir said. “Similarly, many others, from the lowly to the great, have placed their faith in the TRC process as a tenable option in exorcising the ghosts of the past.” He pledged that the hearings — separate from statement-taking — will provide “the ultimate forum for victims, witnesses and perpetrators to recount their experiences in the full glare of the public eye.”

Pro-bono lawyers paired with student volunteers — all of whom have undergone special training and signed confidentiality oaths — are taking statements throughout the Liberian diaspora in the United States, the United Kingdom and West Africa. The diaspora includes some 15,000 Liberians in Rhode Island: the largest per capita Liberian population in the country.

Statement-taking began here in February and will continue through the end of August. People may give statements anonymously (with no identifying information); confidentially (confidential statements will remain so for 20 years); or publicly.

The statements will form the basis for investigations and hearings, and a final report issued to the government and people of Liberia.

Eleanor Gaye, owner of Elea’s Restaurant on Broad Street in Providence, worked as a planning analyst at the Ministry of Agriculture before she fled Liberia in 1981. In 1984, she returned briefly for a little more than a year.

Gaye has given a statement, but will not testify at a hearing. She calls the TRC effort “a waste of energy” and money — money she believes could be better spent on reconstructing Liberia.

“It was kind of painful because I had gotten over the whole thing and I want to let it go,” said Gaye. So, I decided to give my statement and let them know it is not necessary to dig up old wounds.” Identifying perpetrators and victims “will bring about another problem,” she said. “If you open up a can of worms, it’s going to start all over again.”

Gaye lost family members, including a brother, nephew and sister-in-law who succumbed to heart problems after witnessing atrocities.

Of her brother, Gaye said, “My mother was present when they killed her son in front of her and she told me about it. He was killed right in front of her, and she passed out and everything. … And before they killed him, he asked ‘Can I say a prayer?’ And they said, ‘Yes, go ahead and say a prayer,’ and after that they killed him.”

Gaye said even if the truth and reconciliation process determines who killed her brother, she does not want to know.

“I’m a Christian. I have prayer. I am forgiving. I’ve forgotten,” she said. “We pray with each other, we cry, and then try to forget.”

The TRC will continue hearings in Liberia through next month, and resume in the fall. Commissioners will hold hearings in Minnesota from June 9 through 14, said Jennifer Prestholdt, deputy director of The Advocates for Human Rights, a Minnesota organization piloting the truth and reconciliation process outside Liberia.

An estimated 200,000 people died during the civil war, and hundreds of thousands of Liberians fled to other countries, creating a diaspora as their homeland descended into anarchy.

During the overall period of conflict, a host of human-rights violations recorded: executions, massacres, mutilations, widespread rape and torture. The country’s infrastructure was destroyed, and to date, large parts of the country remain without power or running water. Rebuilding efforts continue.

Prestholdt said the TRC process will examine the period of conflict from 1979 through 2003 – inclusive of the 1989-1997 civil war.

That period encompasses the “rice riots” of 1979; the 1980 coup by Samuel K. Doe; his dictatorship through 1989 and his execution in 1990; the 1989 offensive by Charles Taylor that launched the 1989-1997 civil war; Taylor’s election as president in 1997, and exile in 2003, followed by the signing of a peace accord in Ghana; and all the surges and lulls in violence and the many shifting players.

Prestholdt said the U.S. hearings “will be thematic in nature and will focus on the diaspora experience,” including “the human rights abuses in Liberia and why people had to leave,” additional human-rights abuses both in internal displacements within Liberia and in refugee camps outside the country, and refugee life in the United States.

She said the advocacy organization is now examining the statements “to see who has a story that should be told, and review who has expressed willingness to speak publicly” at a hearing.

Moses P. Saygbe Jr., crime prevention specialist for the state attorney general’s office, said he believes Liberia is not yet prepared for truth and reconciliation, and that testimony could leave people open to retribution and revenge.

“The reconciliation is something that’s good but we don’t have a yardstick to see how we can compare the results, we’re not sure what yardstick is going to be used to see if the reconciliation is going to be successful,” said Saygbe. “I don’t think [truth and reconciliation has] been done successfully anywhere in the world.”

Saygbe added, “In a civil conflict, you have people of equal power going after one another, and my fear is we’re not prepared for what is at stake after the stories have been gathered. We’re not certain of the justice system [in Liberia]; we don’t have any means of treating these people who are going to relive the trauma, and we will increase the sense of vengeance and reopen wounds.”

The statement-taking got off to a slow start in Rhode Island, but momentum “is picking up through word-of-mouth,” said lawyer Elizabeth Tobin Tyler, of the Roger Williams University Law School.

Tobin Tyler is pairing RWU law students with lawyers from the principal law firms involved in statement-taking: Dechert in Boston and Hartford; Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge in Providence; and DLA Piper in Boston.

The public hearings in Liberia have brought forth horrific testimony.

Last week, a witness told the TRC that militiamen loyal to former President Charles Taylor “forced civilians to eat human flesh and dogs after they massacred scores of civilians in 2003” in Lofa County, according to the TRC Web site ( www.trcofliberia.org). In March, a witness described how rebel soldiers roasted dozens of villagers — whom they accused of witchcraft — alive on open fires.

Evan Posner, an associate in the Dechert law firm’s Hartford office whose practice involves financial services, is one of hundreds of volunteers collecting statements in the diaspora. Posner has worked largely in Rhode Island.

“I view this as really the start of healing process for this country, and to be involved on a very small scale in the healing of a country is an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” said Posner.

“I don’t think anybody going into it can quite prepare for the experience,” Posner said of collecting statements. “After my first interview, I was physically sick the next day after hearing the stories.”

Posner said, “Two things that amaze me: number one, how depraved humanity can be. But number two, the people I’ve been interviewing — one of the questions we ask is, ‘What do we do to reconcile if family members have been killed — what do we do to reconcile with that [perpetrator]? It’s amazing how many say, ‘I forgive them, I’m moving on.’ ”

Prestholdt, of The Advocates for Human Rights, said the Minnesota hearings will be streamed over the Internet and possibly simulcast in Rhode Island. That, she said, will present a “tremendous opportunity to educate the American public about conflict of Liberia and history of Liberia with the United States, and also, about the refugee experience.”

Liberians interested in giving a statement in Rhode Island, Massachusetts or Connecticut can call 1-800-799-3688. Information on the multiple ways to give a statement can be found at http://liberiatrc.mnadvocates.org/Give_a_Statement.html.

kziner@projo.com