24/05/2026
Carlos E. Tingban writes...
Veronica Doe, your story may reflect the side of history you experienced as a daughter protecting the image of her father, but for many of us, the name Samuel K. Doe does not bring memories of humanity ; it brings memories of terror, bloodshed, fear, and irreparable loss.
During the July 29, 1990 Lutheran massacre my father (S. Moses Tingban), along with countless innocent Liberians, became victims of the brutality and cruelty that defined your father’s regime and the violent chaos that engulfed our country. Families were slaughtered, communities destroyed, and an entire generation traumatized. Many of us grew up not with stories of protection and kindness, but with memories of executions, disappearances, torture, ethnic killings, and the endless cries of mothers who never saw their sons return home.
You speak passionately about your father protecting another man’s mother during war, and perhaps that is true. But one act of compassion cannot erase the suffering endured by thousands of Liberians under his rule. It cannot erase the civilians who were humiliated, tortured, or murdered. It cannot erase the deep tribal divisions, the violence against innocent families, and the pain still carried today by those who buried loved ones or never even had the chance to bury them at all.
History in Liberia is painful because every side carries blood and grief. Samuel Doe, Charles Taylor, Prince Johnson, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and many others remain controversial figures because Liberia’s tragedy was not written by saints. It was written through violence, revenge, greed, power struggles, and the suffering of ordinary people.
As someone whose family was directly affected, I cannot romanticize Doe’s legacy simply because he showed mercy to one individual. My father and many others never received mercy. Their lives mattered too. Their dreams mattered too. Their children were left behind too.
Liberia still bleeds from the wounds of that era because too many people try to defend personalities instead of acknowledging the collective pain of the Liberian people. True reconciliation begins when we stop rewriting history to suit emotions or political loyalties and instead recognize every innocent life lost regardless of tribe, status, or political side.
May all the souls lost during Liberia’s dark years rest in peace, including my father and the many forgotten victims whose stories are rarely told.
NOTE: THE MAN IN THE WHITE TROUSERS IS MY LATE FATHER and the LITTLE BOY IN THE PHOTO IS ME.
