The Reformed Cannibal

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

General Butt Naked is a former commander of forces under the wider control of Liberian warlord Roosevelt Johnson.  His real name is Joshua Milton Blahyi.  He was known for his violence and atrocities during the First Liberian Civil War in the early 1990s. 

Blahyi is a member of the Sarpo tribe in Liberia, and claims to have been initiated as a tribal priest at age 11.  He said he participated in his first human sacrifice then, part of a three-day Krahn ritual.  Blahyi said that he had a vision in which he was told by Satan that he would become a great warrior, and to continue to practice human sacrifice and cannibalism to increase his power.  He was later appointed a high priest, and the spiritual advisor to Liberian President Samuel Doe.  The Krahn system of beliefs is a syncretic faith of Christianity, and various African remnant religions and spiritual beliefs.  Blahyi’s personal idol was Nyanbe-a-weh, and he believed he was an aspect of Satan.  Blahyi led his troops naked except for shoes and a gun.  He believed that his nudity was a source of protection from bullets.  Blahyi said he would regularly sacrifice a victim before battle, “Usually it was a small child, someone whose fresh blood would satisfy the devil.” 

He said, “Sometimes I would enter under the water where children were playing.  I would dive under the water, grab one, carry him under and break his neck.  Sometimes I would cause accidents.  Sometimes, I would just slaughter them.”  In January 2008, Blahyi confessed to taking part in human sacrifices which “included the killing of a child and plucking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for us to eat.”  Blahyi claimed he “met Satan regularly and talked to him,” and that from age of 11 to 25, he partook in monthly human sacrifices. 

Before a typical battle, Blahyi said, “We would get drunk and drugged up, sacrifice a local teenager, drink the blood, then strip down to our shoes and go into battle wearing colourful wigs and carrying imaginary purses we had looted from civilians.  We would slaughter anyone we saw, chop their heads off and use them as soccer balls.  We were nude, fearless, drunk yet strategic.  We killed hundreds of people - so many I lost count.”  He later estimated that he was responsible for 20,000 deaths. 

Blahyi claimed that during that period he had “magical powers that made him invisible” and a “special power” to capture a town singlehandedly, then call in his troops afterwards to “clean up,” which as invariably horrific slaughter and cannibalism.  Many of Blahyi’s soldiers were boys in their early teens and younger.  They would enter battle naked; others would wear women’s clothes.  They were known as the Butt Naked Brigade. 

Blahyi’s rampage ended in 1996, when the civil war in Liberia was coming to a close.  He stated that his conversion was bolstered by a church in Liberia where a Bishop Kun Kun is pastor.  They claimed to have heard from God to fast 54 days for his deliverance.  After the fast, they claim God gave them spiritual powers to infiltrate his coven in the city of Liberia and preach to him.  Shortly after, he said he had a theophany in which Jesus Christ (a.s.) appeared to him as a blinding light, spoke to him as a son, and told him that he would die unless he repented his sins. 

In 1997, Blahyi travelled to the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana.  It was at the camp that he made confession for his sins at a church and “had his life saved”.  When he goes out to preach now, he says he sometimes encounters relatives of his victims.  He absolves himself by saying he was possessed by Satan and was not himself.  Blahyi is now the President of the End Time Train Evangelistic Ministries Inc., with headquarters in Liberia.