-Liberia Mourns the Death of Sen. Prince Y. Johnson
By Jerromie S. Walters
Influential Nimba County Senator Prince Y. Johnson has been confirmed dead. The highly-venerated son of Nimba County died early Thursday, November 28, 2024, at the Hope for Women Clinic in Paynesville.
Sen. Johnson was last seen on November 25 when he honored the legacy of the late Gnassingbe Eyadema, former President of Togo, by naming his university’s auditorium after him.
Born on July 6, 1952, Prince Yormie Johnson was a prominent Liberian politician and former warlord who served as a senator for Nimba County since 2006. His controversial past as a rebel leader during the First Liberian Civil War shaped his political career. Johnson later allied with Charles Taylor as part of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), serving as the NPFL’s Chief Training Officer. Taylor’s fighters crossed the border from Ivory Coast and began operations in Liberia on Christmas Eve, 1989.
Formation of the INPFL
An internal power struggle resulted in Johnson breaking off from the Taylor-led NPFL and forming the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). Despite intervention in the civil war by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), INPFL forces captured most of Monrovia in the late summer of 1990.
During the Civil War, Johnson was notorious for killing anyone who opposed or criticized his actions. When Hare Krishna devotees, who were distributing food to starving people in Monrovia amid the chaos of the civil war, sent him a letter begging him to stop killing people, he orchestrated the murder of Hladini devi dasi—born Linda Jury—and five of her students on the bank of the Saint Paul River on the night of Thursday, 13 September 1990.
