Liberia - The hellbound heart? Regime breakdown and the deconstruction of society

Hell can be no worse than this place, said a merchant from Monrovia. I cannot imagine a bad dream worse than the look of these bodies piled on top of one another. And it is not just the soldiers - it is the old men and women, and even the babies. Human beings can sink no lower than this. -Gail B. Stewart1 Reporter Denis Johnson describes arriving at the triumphant rebel h.q., a ranch-style house on the edge of an abandoned plantation. On entering the living room the reporter met Field Marshall Prince Johnson and his guitar-playing subalterns singing a rasta version of "By the Rivers of Babylon." He says the group was good. Prince and his men could get a gig at the Music Machine in L.A. The afternoon passed in banter, cold Buds were handed around in a plastic tub, and then the Doe tape was played. Doe is sitting on the floor. He is stripped, bound and bleeding. "Where is the money?" Prince's boys scream at him. The reporter describes various mutilations he saw on the video. Doe dying like a goat at some angry expiation ceremony. Then the electricity failed. Images flickered on again, but the President is dead. -Donald J. Cosentino2.