A Young CDC-ian

"Hi, it's Michael!" he always says to me. I remember his name after the first time I meet him at Golden Beach, one of the many locales he sells beaded jewelry, wood carvings and chess pieces made from empty bullet casings.

"Hi, it's Michael!" he greets me today. As soon as he spots recognition, he starts talking as I continue to walk, our habitual arrangement, and suddenly, in one breath, asks what do I think of the election and says that his friend was killed Monday on the beach.

We go into the Cape Hotel. Michael Miller is 30, born in 1981, August 7. He grew up in Bunadin Town where his father is from near Ganta in Nimba County. 

He joined the war in 1994. "Bandits came and harassed our people, raped our sisters, stole our cattle," he says. "We said we have two hands and two feet, we can do the same."

The bandits were rebel fighters opposed to Charles Taylor.  Michael says he was recruited with a single-barrel shotgun, the kind used for hunting, he explains. Led by a community elder, there were 40 of them in total. They set an ambush at the top of the hill. When the rebels came, they killed twelve men and sent the others running, taking the machine guns off the dead.

"This is how I became to be part of the revolution."

Soon after, Taylor sent Gen. Martina Johnson to take over the area. Michael, now 15, was among those to join Taylor. They fought through 1996 and 1997, until Taylor was elected president. The war briefly ended and Michael went to live with his brother Eugene in Monrovia.

Then LURD rebels advanced on Ganta, sending Michael back to Nimba, where he fought with Jungle Fire, headed by Benjamin Yeten, a four-star general. 

Michael goes quiet for a second.

He returns to his brother, a deputy battle group commander in Taylor's special operation division, known as s.o.d., or son of the devil. UNMIL forces arrive Dec. 7. A disarmament process begins. At first the UN offers $75. Michael and Eugene wait. Then the UN offers $150. The brothers gather the 7 AK-47s in their house.

Michael goes through the disarmament and rehabilitation process and like so many other ex-combatants, is now living "by the grace of God," as he puts it. He learned to make chess pieces, rings and peace signs out of empty bullet casings. He graduated from high school. He now lives in a concrete shack without running water, electricity or latrine. He says, doing the math aloud, he pays $180 a year.

He thinks CDC will bring change. That's why he voted for George Weah in 2005, when the famous footballer ran at the top of the party ticket, and why he went to party headquarters the Monday before the presidential runoff election, where the dancing and singing and later rioting was met with tear gas and live bullets. Michael ran to Bernard's Beach, behind the CDC compound. There he says he was confronted with Nigeria's Vanguard forces. "They were shooting up like this and then at sea level -- that means straight," he says. 

As a former fighter Michael knew to drop to the sand, but his friend Jason remained upright and was shot through the chest. "We tried to drag his body to hold him, but they kept firing. I left his body there because I was fighting for my life, too," he says.

He asks, as so many CDC supporters have asked me, if I saw the polls on election day. I did. There were few people, no queues. The previous day's violence seemed to have a chilling effect.

"We, the true CDC-ion, did not vote," he says. 

He suggests UP partisans voted for the CDC just to fill the gap. When I express disbelief, he abandons the speculative and returns to Monday.

"They shouldn't have gone as far as shooting people. What the unit does, the commander is responsible and Madam Sirleaf is the commander."

I ask him about Winston Tubman, the party's standard-bearer. Michael says Tubman urges them to remain peaceful. But Michael is still a soldier.

"If they don't conduct a new election, we will not honor the government at all."