The Death
ExaminersThe Death
ExaminersA June 26, 2000, Pan African News Agency dispatch says that a team of ‘‘doctors Monday commenced an autopsy on the remains of Liberian vice president Enoch Dogolea in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, health minister Peter Coleman disclosed in Monrovia. He said the team of Ivorian and Liberian doctors and forensic experts will be working to determine the cause of death of the Liberian vice president.’’
What may not be obvious to a casual observer is that though an autopsy is but one of the routine activities in death record keeping, many have died in Liberia without the benefit of having their death circumstances examined routinely. In some cases examination was almost impossible. That was the case of Nimba County native Samuel Dokie, who was killed and then burned to a charcoal.
In the case of, perhaps, the most prominent Nimba citizen in the last two decades – Senator Jackson F. Doe – there was nothing to examine. He simply disappeared after visiting then rebel leader Charles Taylor, and has never been heard from since. In fact, Charles Taylor never made – and does not now make – any attempt at guessing what might have happened to Senator Doe. Ditto Mr. Moses Duopu, Dr. Steven Yekeson, Mr. Gabriel Kpolleh, Mr. Teah Cooper, etc. That is the now familiar Taylor death signature – sometimes no traces, other times no corpses to examine. But now, neatness in making a death look natural is being suggested as the mode of operation of this acknowledged intelligent killer. If there is only one way Taylor kills, then what is it besides being neat?
It is often said that Charles Taylor is too smart to do a messed-up job in getting rid of anyone with a potential to be an alternative to his brutish style of rule. So there have been messy killings, so messy – the argument goes – they could not be the work of Charles Taylor. But if deception is subsumed in the definition of crime, then messy killings are meant to protect the streak of a professed perfect criminal. We can thus prove, at least theoretically, that the reputation of a smart criminal – which some Taylor supporters wish to advance – also verifies the supposed messy killings as the master’s strokes of genius.
The same conclusion is reachable by another means that President Charles Taylor himself provided. In the case I am about to make, however, intent will suffice without subscribing to the belief inherent in the method. In a 1998 New York Times newspaper article, President Charles Taylor described his custom-made walking stick as one carved from a tree which does not permit the growth of other trees in its shadow. Death is the result if any tree capable of casting a shadow sprouts in the vicinity of this dominant tree.
By definition, a vice president – though a mere sapling when he teams with a president – has the potential to rise and spread his branches as the eventual replacement of the president. This would not work in any reasonable interpretation of the metaphor of the tree from which President Taylor’s walking stick and macabre allegory are carved.
Taylor’s jabbering may seem like the curious musings of a man on the brink of losing his mind. However, given his power to take action to forestall any threats implicit in these same obscure divinations, we have no choice but to regard him as a hazard. And we can do so without necessarily certifying his method of determining any perceived threats that may prompt his actions.
Vice President Enoch Dogolea suffered too quickly from too many things in a relatively short time. The contention is that natural death usually does not permit the string of suggested causes as have been offered for the loss of V.P. Dogolea. And it’s not only the public that seems confused about what killed Mr. Dogolea; the Taylor government’s official channels seem to have a different story or two per channel.
There was mention of heart attack, the catch-all cause of unexplained deaths in dirty politics. Then there was liver cancer without a history of the disease or a habit that predicts it. Prostrate cancer was suggested without its symptoms. The rest included flogging without apparent bruises; yellow jaundice thrown in for a good measure; being poisoned or persuaded to ingest a fatal potion in his Last Supper with President Taylor; and a slow trip to any modern health facility when all these ills conspired to render Dogolea mute, which the Taylor government sources called a ‘‘coma.’’ It appeared as if the Taylor government representatives were copying from different pages of a publication ‘‘How to Kill Your Vice President and Get Away with It’’ without knowing it, or without seeming to care.
Then President Taylor showed up at the bedside of the crippled Vice President to give his presidential diagnosis that V.P. Dogolea was gravely ill. That’s how the ambulance idea came to mind. So Charles Taylor deserves at least some credit for coming up with that.
But of all the things that could have made Vice President Dogolea sick, the alleged visit with President Taylor is being denied by Taylor with greater vigor than even the demeaning allegation that he was beaten unconscious by Taylor’s vagrant bodyguards. No wonder the Vice President fell into ‘‘coma,’’ which is also why he could not bear witness to the plethora of medical and other conditions his body hosted seemingly simultaneously.
Simply put, Taylor has already lost too many visitors. (According to Woewiyu’s 1991 press conference, Taylor had a party for Senator Jackson F. Doe and other prominent, mainly Nimba, politicians before they were ‘’erased.’’) So if Vice President Dogolea signed off as Taylor’s guest, he might count as one lost visitor too many, and a Nimba one at that.
For a smart mind at the center of a killing streak, a double meaning for the chosen method of ending Vice President Dogolea’s life may not be all that far-fetched. The prompter is that Vice President Dogolea himself once ordered or administered some beating of a high Liberian government official. So, if beating is a suggested cause of Vice President Dogolea’s death, it would spark sentiments of poetic justice before it reached the sympathy level.
Whether this method of sending a subliminal message works or not, it remains a creative attempt, and lends still more credence to the claim that Charles Taylor is a smart killer. These layers of plots bespeaking human tragedies may seem only appropriate for the playhouse, but tragedies are sadly the staple of African political theater.
And so, the curtain is drawn on Vice President Enoch Dogolea as one more presidential timber that falls in what LANS News Director Jerry Wion calls ‘‘the thinning forest of Nimba.’’ – Tarty Teh [Washington D.C., July 1, 2000]
Copyrighted © Tarty Teh 2000
