TUBMANBURG, July 3 (AGCNewsNet) — More than three decades after his violent death at the hands of rebels during Liberia’s first civil war, former President Samuel Kanyon Doe was given a symbolic state funeral on Friday, in an event that stirred both solemn national reflection and enduring questions over his final resting place.

President Joseph Boakai, who served under Doe as agriculture minister in the 1980s, led the ceremony in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County—just miles from Doe’s birthplace in Tuzon—fulfilling a campaign promise to promote national reconciliation and honor the memory of Liberia’s controversial 21st president.

"This is not just a burial; it is a moment of national reflection, a time to reconcile with our history, to heal from our wounds, and to remember with respect and purpose," Boakai said in his eulogy.

The state ceremony, attended by government officials, traditional leaders, and hundreds of local residents, marked the culmination of days of national mourning, which are set to end on July 4.

Two coffins draped in the Liberian flag were paraded through the streets to the town hall under full military honors. One contained the remains of Doe’s wife, Nancy, who died in 2024 while helping the government plan her late husband's reburial. The second—the symbolic casket meant to represent Samuel Doe—was empty.

The absence of Doe’s remains added a layer of mystery to the otherwise grand and emotional event. It underscored the unresolved trauma surrounding his brutal execution in 1990 by forces loyal to rebel leader Prince Yormie Johnson — a former warlord and senator who himself died in 2024.

The grisly killing, partially captured on video, showed Doe naked, bleeding, and being tortured, while Johnson looked on drinking beer. It remains one of the most haunting images of Liberia’s descent into civil war.

During testimony before Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 2000s, Johnson admitted his men had disposed of Doe’s body but denied persistent rumors of cannibalism. He claimed that Doe’s remains had been exhumed in the presence of a foreign journalist before being cremated, with the ashes thrown into a river.

“They went to the grave, took a picture and I asked them to burst the grave and bring the body out. The body of Doe was as hard as a rock. Doe was embalmed for 25 years,” Johnson said during the hearing. “Later I told them to rebury the body, but my deputy said the dead can’t have two graves, so Doe’s body was cremated.”

Asked why Doe had not been handed over to international justice mechanisms, Johnson said the killing was retribution. “Doe’s regime did not favour my people, he killed them like chicken,” he told commissioners, referring to government-led crackdowns in Nimba County in the 1980s.

Samuel Kanyon Doe seized power in a bloody 1980 coup that toppled and killed President William Tolbert, ending the dominance of Americo-Liberians. As the country’s first indigenous leader, Doe was both a symbol of populist ascendancy and, later, a figure widely criticized for corruption, ethnic favoritism, and human rights abuses.

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