This is no ordinary travel documentary; this is total “Hell on Earth”. Warlords, cannibalism, child soldiers on heroin, squalor and total madness. General Bin Laden, General Butnaked, General Mosquito…just imagine the scene in Baboon town. This is a black humorous look at what is a comical yet deadly situation…amazing!
What Andy Capper, Editor Vice UK, is said about the film: We came to Liberia with a small team of three and quickly found a local journalist who would be our guide and fixer. Our first shoot location was the prestigious West Point, home to 80,000 people living in that redefine squalor. Thousands of rotting garbage around the neighborhood, which has no sewage system.
Almost everyone – including local government officials – defecate and urinate in the open. Drugs, prostitution and armed robbery are the main industries. We got to know some of the residents of West Point, they told us their stories as he smoked heroin and cocaine and we asked for money.
Then we visited a local brothel. Women who lived there spoke to us about the UN peacekeepers who have sex with child prostitutes and beat older women, and then not pay.
But perhaps the most revealing parts of our trip to Liberia came to the meeting of the main leaders of the nation’s civil wars. There is a tradition in the Liberian militias outrageous noms de guerre assumed. Therefore, our subjects Bin Laden named General, General Rambo and General Butt Naked. The latter, in particular, was one of the Liberian warlords, most famous. He claims to have personally killed 20,000 people, including babies, and sometimes have cannibalized his victims.
Today, General Butt Naked is on his birth name, which is Joshua. During our time together, we said that Liberia will surely implode into civil war when the UN leaves again next year. But in the meantime, Joshua wants to redeem himself. He offered us a vision of Liberia that wants to establish, and we are growing for him. He took us to his church, which rehabilitates child soldiers. We watched as he preached his way through Monrovia on a Sunday.
Is there a possibility that successful mission, and the civil war still can be avoided in this country so desperately? That’s one of the many questions that arose with our safe return of Liberia. View our documentary about our stay there and see what you think.
