Nimba County Senator Aldolphus Dolo, also with the nom le guerre Gen. Peanut Butter, has denied any membership of the country's multiple armed factions or atrocities linked to him, although he fought for a number of them.
Sen. Dolo told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Wednesday that although he fought for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia and the United Liberation Front for Democracy in Liberia ULIMO), he did not formally enlist in any of them.
Mr. Dolo's name surfaced in The Hague when kinsman Zigzag Marsah testified against former President Charles Taylor:
Zigzag Marsah: "I saw Peanut Butter coming from the front line. He thought I did the massacre and he went on to Monrovia. He told Taylor that Zigzag had killed all the civilians. Taylor yelled at him that he did not have to tell stories from the front lines in front of people..."
Mr. Dolo denied role in any atrocities allegedly linked to these two former rebel groups, saying he was a victim of circumstances.
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Sen. Dolo alias "General Peanut Butter" told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Thematic and Institutional hearing Wednesday. He described reports painting him as a dreadful fearless rebel general as mere perception, saying the first time he met Taylor was in 1996 and that he's in no way a Libyan trained commando.
Sen. Dolo further denied joining any of these factions but said he was only affiliated with them.
Explaining his role in the Liberian civil conflict, Dolo said the only time he volunteered to fight was in 2003 to protect his native county from advancing LURD rebels, who by then had captured Ganta, a Commercial town in Nimba.
He told the TRC that he is not one of those people who will never think that there is a tomorrow, whether in good or bad times. "I am not any of those people who will not think that there is a tomorrow," he said.
Sen. Dolo, a survivor of the 1990 Lutheran Church massacre said his affiliation with the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) began in August, of 1990, few weeks after the massacre when he went to seek refuge on the INPFL base.
Sen. Dolo further stated that his affiliation with the INPFL ended in October the same year when he parted company with his former rebel boss, Prince Johnson, now Senior Senator of Nimba County.
He told the TRC that after his brief relationship with the INPFL, he left Liberia for the United States just before the 1992 "Octopus" attack on Monrovia and did not return until 1996, just two weeks before the April 6, 1996 war.
He said his affiliation with the NPFL was in 1996, after he was picked up from the Barnesville Junction and forced to fight along side the NPFL and ULIMO-K, as a combined force.
Sen. Dolo said after the April 6, 1996 war, he returned to the US, just to come back two months after to continue his business.
Sen. Dolo said from the on set, he was never part of Charles Taylor's government, but was consulted from time to time by ex-President Taylor who later appointed him as a member of the presidential security guard SSS.
Dolo offered is credit card and traveling documents to the TRC to verify, saying most of the incident to which he had been allegedly happened when he was out of the country. He said the name "General Peanut Butter" was a code name. (Story by The New Democrat Newspaper)
