Former President of the Liberia Council of Churches, Bishop Kortu Brown, has hailed the move by President Boakai to reburial Liberia’s fallen Presidents as a good first step toward national reconciliation.
Brewerville, Montserrado County – July 1, 2025: In a statement issued on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, Bishop Brown urged Liberians to recognize the efforts of the Boakai administration over the last several weeks to rebury the retrieved remains of two former leaders of the country.
According to him, as the nation struggle to reconcile, the move to rebury the retrieved remains of former Presidents William R. Tolbert and Samuel K. Doe, who lost their lives during different phases of Liberia’s social upheavals and were buried in mass and/or sometimes unidentified graves, should be hailed as an appreciable first step.
“This is an appreciable first step on the road to reconciling the country,” Bishop Brown noted, as he identified with the agonies many families have suffered over the past five decades as they struggled with the gruesome loss of family members
Speaking on the second day of a weeklong Thanksgiving and Intercessory Prayer service on Monday, June 30, 2025, at New Water in the Desert Assembly Apostolic Pentecostal Church International in Brewerville, Montserrado County, the outspoken cleric emphasized the dire need for reconciliation in the country without which the people remain terribly divided and unable to forge together in promoting national development
“Reconciliation in Liberia must be executed in three phases if we must achieve national reconciliation and renewal,” the former president of the Liberia Council of Churches suggested, adding, “First, we must deal with our horrible past and try as much as possible to heal those deep wounds from our senseless crises.”
“Secondly,” Bishop Brown continued, “the Country must then move onto dealing with the present hurdles to healing and reconciliation some of which are rooted in our attempts to promote multi-party democracy, rule of law, etc., but we’re finding it difficult to adjust with how we maintain and/or promote, at the same time, peaceful coexistence, constructive dialogue, transparency, accountability and fiscal discipline, fight against corruption, amongst others,” he said.
“It’s not a secret that the presidential and legislative elections of October 2023 were closely contested and narrowly won. But a win is a win. However, we must also win the peace and not just an election. We must make efforts to bring the country together and not just govern with bigotry and disregard for the views of other people, even if they are considered ‘Opposition’ or different views from ours”, he warned.
Thirdly, he said, the Country must address threats to future peace and stability. “If we continue to behave and govern ourselves the same way we did that led to deaths and destruction, then we are undermining whatever little gains we make in healing our past and driving the present.
“We must eschew hate, lying on one another, undermining one another, governing in deceit and arrogance. We must ensure the economic plight of ordinary Liberians is addressed. We must make the right decisions for our country and not pursue vainglory. We should be able to apologize to one another when we are wrong, and we must reach out to each other to build a stronger peace and a better society. We must not mortgage the economic future of our country. This is how we will be assured of a sustained future peace and reconciliation”, he contended.
He drew lessons from Hebrews 13:8, where the nature, character, and promises of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are described as consistent and reliable. – Edited by Othello B. Garblah.
