Mr. Quiah who was released from detention in the aftermath of the military takeover to become the junta's first Minister of Internal Affairs said speculations that there were foreign involvements in the coup were mere imaginations.
"Those were mere imaginations that the CIA participated in the staging of the coup. There were no CIAs, no KGBs during the coup," the founding secretary general of the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) said Monday during the TRC Thematic and Institutional Public Inquiry Hearings at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion.
Mr. Quiah said during the coup, there were no foreign military advisors.
Witness Quiah:
"There were no American advisors; there were no Russian advisors, no foreign advisors. That much I certainly know."
But the witness explained that following the military takeover, the coup makers first contacted the Embassy of the United States in Monrovia for assistance but the Americans told them to await a response.
However, Mr. Quiah said they later contacted the Embassy of the Soviet Union where the Soviets said they were willing to assist, but following their returned to the U.S. Embassy they informed them that the assistance requested was already in the Executive Mansion.
Mr. Quiah said following the U.S. response large quantities of arms and ammunitions were discovered in the Executive Mansion.
He said after the coup, the coup leaders sent soldiers to free them from the Post Stockade and they were taken to the Executive Mansion where they met members of the Peoples Redemption Council (PRC) seated.
At the Mansion, Quiah said, a speech was drafted for Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe to announce the military takeover.
Before the coup, Quiah, Baccus Matthews and other organizers of the April 14, 1979 Rice Riots were awaiting trial.
The men known as the "progressives" were released by the coup makers and appointed to senior cabinet portfolios.
Under the theme: "Understanding the Conflict Through its Principal Events and Actors," the ongoing hearings will address the root causes of the conflict, including its military and political dimensions.
The hearings will focus on events between 1979 and 2003 and the national and external actors that helped to shape those events.
The TRC was agreed upon in the August 2003 peace agreement and created by the TRC Act of 2005.
The TRC was established to "promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation," and at the same time make it possible to hold perpetrators accountable for gross human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law that occurred in Liberia between January 1979 and October 2003.
