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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Asia Pacific World Liberia's looted museum becomes civil war shrine AFP - Wednesday, October 7 Send IM Story Print Albert Mackeh, the administrator of the National Museum of Liberia holds up the shoe of Prince Johnson, the warlord who ordered the killing of former president Samuel Doe and hundreds of other victims. The national museum was deeply affected by the 14 years of civil war in Liberia, and according to the museum director over 5 000 articles were looted during this period. MONROVIA (AFP) - – The soiled shoe of a notorious warlord takes centre stage at Liberia's national museum, near empty from looting during civil wars, in an eerie display that has replaced a once impressive collection. "This is Prince Johnson's shoe," said museum director Albert Mackeh, lifting up the leather and canvas item. "This is the shoe he used to wear to go fight. Some ex-fighters brought it here after the war." Perched on a table alongside spent rocket shells, it sits among a few dozen relics in what was once the ethnographic gallery of the crumbling museum. The rest of the once proud 159-year-old building in the heart of the capital Monrovia stands bare, mice scampering through the wings. "This is all we have here. These are things that were collected during and after the war," said a pensive Mackeh, sitting on an old bench, chin in hand. "The other collections were all looted." Ironically, the items now showcased came from those who did the pillaging in the west African country's two back-to-back civil wars, which ran from 1989 to 2003 and left a quarter of a million dead. Shoe-owner Johnson, now an elected senator, won a reputation for brutality during the 14 years of bloodshed. In one infamous incident, he videotaped his fighters torturing and killing then president Samuel Doe in 1990. On the same table are lined up several artillery shells. "We collected the rocket shells to show to our people that these are the weapons that were used to kill our people," said Mackeh. "Future generations will come and they will want to know what has happened. If they don't see anything and you just stand by and tell them history, they will not know the significance of what you are trying to portray." Africa's oldest republic founded by freed slaves from the United States, Liberia has been limping back to normalcy, with seaside capital Monrovia, bereft of electricity for more than two decades, gradually restoring a workable infrastructure. The country, however, remains divided among ethnic lines and has put in place a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to identify the perpetrators of warcrimes and encourage national healing. Before the fighting, the museum housed some 5,800 painstakingly gathered treasures. Only 233 have been recovered, said Mackeh, and most were bought from a local businessman who acquired them from rebel groups. And few of these are on view, the dilapidated museum deemed too insecure so the government has stored the pieces elsewhere. One of the recovered items is an ancient mask imbedded with shells that was used in tribal ceremonies. "People were worshiping those things like gods. The war actually broke down some of these traditions," said Mackeh. Another item is a chair stolen from a Masonic temple in the capital. It was the honoured seat of former president William Tubman -- the "father of modern Liberia" credited with modernising the country and attracting foreign capital during his 1944 to 1971 term -- when he was grand master of the lodge, but now sits now among dusty objects. "We had things of antiquity, things that existed years back, that we really need to get back because they are the base of our history," Mackeh said. Other missing items had belonged to former presidents, documents, photographs, objects in gold and valuable metals. "We are really missing those things today and do not know how to get them back," he bemoaned, saying efforts nonetheless were being made to try to retrieve items taken out of the country. For Mackeh, it's more than just reassembling a collection but vital to Liberia's recovery. "If a country does not have what is historical, the ethnographic material to really debate and interpret your culture, it is like cutting a chicken's head off abruptly," he said. "You will see it jumping and running in all directions. It is very sad." 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