General Butt Naked

Joshua Milton Blahyi (born September 30, 1971), better known by his nom de guerre General Butt Naked, is a Liberian evangelical preacher, writer and former warlord best known for his actions during the First Liberian Civil War.

Joshua Milton Blahyi was born on September 30, 1971, in Monrovia, Liberia.

He was born into a Krahn family, some of whom resided in Sinoe County, located in the south of the country; among the Krahn people, belief in child sacrifice and black magic was common.

After Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) officer Samuel K. Doe staged a coup d'état against President William R. Tolbert in 1980, the new regime employed Blahyi to perform black magic rituals at the presidential palace in Monrovia to help him win the 1985 general election.

In 1980, Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) master-sergeant Samuel Doe staged a coup d'état, overthrowing then-President William Tolbert.

Born in the Liberian capital of Monrovia to a Krahn family, Blahyi was handed by his father to several tribal elders who initiated him as a high priest in 1982 at the age of eleven.

When he was seven years old, his father granted parental control over him to several Krahn elders, who arranged for Blahyi to be a warrior and initiated him as a high priest in 1982, when he was at the age of eleven.

As Blahyi noted in his memoirs, the role of high priest included overseeing human sacrifices.

Blahyi, like other Krahn priests, would use visions to determine which individual would be sacrificed.

After receiving the vision, Blahyi would "give the victim’s last name to its village elders", who would then lead a procession to the sacrifice victim's house, abducting and then sacrificing them atop an altar; after Blahyi stated an invocation, the victim would then be ritually dismembered.

Blahyi claims that Doe employed him to perform black magic rituals to influence the 1985 Liberian general election, although Doe's victory relied more practically on destroying most of the opposition's ballots.

Blahyi later explained his support for Doe as being based on a sense of tribal loyalty, as they were both members of the same ethnic group.

In 1989, National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebel leader Charles Taylor launched a rebellion against Doe's regime, sparking a civil war.

Blahyi joined ULIMO, a rival militia group, and operated primarily around the Monrovia area.

During the conflict, Blahyi and his men, a group of soldiers known as the Naked Base Commandos, fought without clothing and perpetrated numerous atrocities, including child sacrifice and cannibalism.

In 1989, Charles Taylor, a rebel leader in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), launched a rebellion against Doe, sparking the First Liberian Civil War.

After Doe was murdered and his regime collapsed in 1990, the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) was founded by Krahn and Mandinka refugees and former AFL soldiers in 1991.

Blahyi became a member of ULIMO and fought against the NPFL and rival militias, which came to control most of Liberia amidst the conflict.

During the conflict, Blahyi became a warlord, leading a unit of several dozen combatants (consisting primarily of child soldiers) known as the Naked Base Commandos which operated primarily around the Monrovia area.

The unit, including Blahyi himself, frequently wore no clothing except for their shoes and magic charms, earning Blahyi the nom de guerre 'General Butt Naked'.

Blahyi claimed that this practice made him and his soldiers "immune to bullets."

During the conflict, Blahyi's forces perpetrated numerous atrocities, including cannibalism and human sacrifice.

Blahyi would later claim that he had received a vision from the Devil during the conflict; in the vision, the Devil told him that he would become "a great warrior and should practice human sacrifice and cannibalism to increase his power."

Recalling the atrocities he and his soldiers perpetrated against civilians during the conflict, Blahyi stated in an interview, “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'd cause accidents.

Sometimes I'd just slaughter them."

Blahyi also made his soldiers consume psychoactive drugs in order to make them more alert and willing to follow Blahyi's orders.

He would later recall that whenever the Naked Base Commandos captured a town, “I had to make a human sacrifice.

They bring to me a living child that I slaughter and take the heart out to eat it." The rival militias, including the Naked Base Commandos, frequently fought with each other over control over Liberia's lucrative diamond fields and gold mines, and Blahyi traded gold and diamonds with Mexican drug cartels for weapons and cocaine.

During the conflict, Blahyi led a group of soldiers which fought on the side of anti-rebel group United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) before converting to Christianity and becoming a pastor in 1996.

Blahyi abandoned his life as a warlord and turned to preaching after undergoing a religious conversion in 1996, attributing these actions to receiving a vision of Jesus.

On April 6, 1996, the NPFL launched an operation to arrest ULIMO rebel leader Roosevelt Johnson in the Monrovia region, leading to Blahyi and other militias affiliated with Johnson to resist the attempt by force of arms.

The ensuing confrontation led to an intense firefight breaking out, which ultimately resulted in the forced displacement of half of Monrovia's population.

According to Damon Tabor of The New Yorker, during the firefight a bystander reported seeing Blahyi standing atop a truck, "holding an assault rifle in one hand and a man's severed genitals in the other."

In 1996, as the civil war was drawing to a close, Blahyi claimed that as he saw the blood of a child on his hands, he received a vision of Jesus Christ, who "asked [Blahyi] to stop being a slave."

After receiving the vision, Blahyi eventually converted to Christianity and became an evangelical preacher, ministering to Liberian refugees in Ghana along with former combatants who had served under him during the conflict.

From 2006 onwards, Blahyi also made several visits to Monrovia's slums in an effort to engage with and assist former child soldiers who were living there.

In 2008, Blahyi testified at the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, claiming that his victims numbered at least 20,000 individuals.

The public testimony brought mixed reactions and led to international attention, leading Blahyi to be featured in several documentaries.