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NARR: On a weekday evening, 185 Parkhill Avenue is quiet save for the noise of a heavy metal door that creaks and slams as residents come and go.
AMBIENCE UP: metal door creaks open and slams shut, followed by silence (:05)
NARR: It's a big building, identical to several others in the Park Hill housing projects. The offices of the Staten Island Liberian Community Association are here, at the end of a long, flourescent-lit hallway.
Walters James Weah used to head the group's board of directors. Like other community leaders, Weah is encouraging New York's Liberians to make official statements to the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission - or TRC - about what happened during the country's years of civil war. He's met reluctance. He says that's understandable.
TAPE: Walters James Weah:
There's not that much clarity out there as to what are the benefits, and so we find ourselves asking the same questions over and over again. (:10)
NARR: For more than a decade, Liberia saw horrific violence. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Many more fled. Families were torn apart, towns burned, and child soldiers took up AK-47s. Former President Charles Taylor resigned in 2003, but Weah says fears are slower to recede. He says many Liberians on Staten Island worry for their safety.
TAPE: Walters James Weah:
One of the fears of many of the individuals that I've been fortunate to speak with is that the process is only intended to identify victims and again victimize them. So many individuals don't have trust in the process, and that's why most people are not participating at this point. (:22)
NARR: Park Hill is home to more than 4,000 Liberians, but local leaders say fewer than a dozen have given statements since the process began last fall.
Jennifer Prestholdt works for the Minnesota-based Advocates for Human Rights. The group coordinates the TRC process outside of Liberia. Volunteers are taking statements in nine U.S. cities as well as the UK and Ghana. It's important, Prestholdt says, to hear from those who were forced from the country.
TAPE: Jennifer Prestholdt:
This is a conflict in which more than a quarter of the population fled the country and so it will be more accurate if people that were forced to leave have a voice in contributing their experiences. (:13)
NARR: The Truth and Reconcilation Commission established in post-apartheid South Africa is generally considered a model of the process. Nearly 30 truth commissions have been launched worldwide, with varying levels of success. Presthold says the Liberian effort is the first any TRC has made to collect stories from its diaspora. She acknowledges the number of statements collected on Staten Island has been small, but she says that doesn't mean people will never come forward.
TAPE: Jennifer Prestholdt:
Any time that people are asked to talk about really bad things that happened to themselves that creates some challenges. I think that because we're outside of Liberia a lot of people aren't following the process as closely as the people that are in Liberia. (:19)
NARR: Community leader Telee Brown, like Walters James Weah, is among the few on Staten Island who have already spoken.
TAPE: Telee Brown:
I always thought I want to give my own statement as to what happened and... So it was not a difficult decision for me to reach, actually. It was not a difficult decision. (:10)
NARR: Brown arrived on Staten Island in 2000. His wife and two of his children came later. A third son - now 15 - has not yet arrived. The family thought he'd been killed, but he'd actually wound up in Nigeria.
These aren't easy things to discuss, but Brown encourages others to come forward.
TAPE: Telee Brown:
It's therapeutic, that's what we tell them personally. And again, you clear some of the maze. You help to establish the record as to what exactly happened. So posterity will one day read documents and say, "Oh yes, this thing actually happened." (:15)
NARR: Volunteers will continue taking statements on Staten Island until September. The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission will issue its final recommendations at the end of this year.
Molly Messick, Columbia Radio News.