Slain Liberian President Samuel Kanyon Doe in 1998 requested collaboration from key opposition politicians to seek a second term in office, Grand Kru County Senator Blamo Nelson said.
Mr. Nelson said President Doe called a meeting of opposition politicians in October or November 1998 and informed them that he wanted a second six year term as president. He said Doe called the meeting because he wanted a scenario that will ensure that he won a second term.
But Mr. Nelson said that the opposition political leaders except veteran politician Gabriel Baccus Matthews rejected President Doe's request because according to them it would have required collaboration with Doe's National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL).
He was testifying Monday at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia ongoing Thematic and Institutional Inquiry Public Hearing on the Contemporary History of the Conflict at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.
Following the deliberations with President Doe, Mr. Nelson said the political leaders resolved that it was time to force the president out of power.
He however said that Mr. Matthews who agreed to President Doe's proposed collaboration "prophetically cautioned other opposition politicians that any attempt to remove the president from power outside of the constitution will delay the country." Mr. Nelson said that Mr. Matthews warned his political colleagues of the dire future consequences of a forcible removal of President Doe.
He described the resulting Liberian civil war as a "clash between the forces of evil and evil."
Under the theme: "Understanding the Conflict Through its Principal Events and Actors," the ongoing hearings are addressing the root causes of the conflict, including its military and political dimensions.
The hearings are focused 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.
