General Butt Naked fought Naked to Make Himself Bulletproof.

Joshua Milton Blahyi, often known as "General Butt Naked," is a former warlord, author, and evangelical preacher most known for his involvement in the First Liberian Civil War.

Before turning to Christianity and taking on the role of a pastor in 1996, Blahyi served as the commander of a unit of troops that fought for the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) during the war.

The Beginning

Joshua Milton Blahyi was born in Monrovia, Liberia, on September 30, 1971. He was born into an ethnic Krahn family in rural Sinoe County, Liberia's south. They commonly believed in black magic and ceremonial child sacrifice.

According to Blahyi's biography, "The Redemption of an African Warlord," he was seven years old when his father voluntarily surrendered him to Krahn elders in 1982, who deigned him to be a warrior and introduced him as a priest. He claimed it was a position that needed ceremonial human sacrifice.

Blahyi, like other Krahn priests, used visions to choose who would be sacrificed. After obtaining the vision, Blahyi would "deliver the victim's last name to its village elders," who would then lead a procession to the sacrifice victim's residence, abducting and then sacrificing them atop an altar; the victim would then be ritually dismembered after Blahyi said an incantation.

Master-sergeant Samuel Doe of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) staged a coup in 1980, deposing then-President William Tolbert.

Blahyi asserts that Doe hired him to perform black magic rituals in order to influence the 1985 Liberian general election, although Doe's victory was based on burning the majority of the opposition's ballots.

Blahyi later said that his support for Doe was motivated by tribal loyalty because they were both members of the same ethnic community.

Participation In War

The First Liberian Civil War began in 1989, when Charles Taylor, a rebel commander in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), launched a rebellion against Doe.

In November 1990, Doe was mutilated and executed. Liberia was now in the grip of civil war.

Ethnic hostilities had suddenly become established, and armies had formed along ethnic lines. All sides committed horrible atrocities, such as the Monrovia Church Massacre, in which 30 Krahn forces slaughtered 600 refugees in one single sweep.

Blahyi, a significant character under Doe, claimed a honored rank. General Butt Naked traded locally mined gems and gold for guns and cocaine with Mexican cartel members who exploit the Liberian coast to fund his side of the battle and keep the soldiers drugged.

During the conflict, Blahyi rose to the rank of warlord, commanding the Naked Base Commandos, a unit of several dozen combatants (most of them were child soldiers). The unit, including Blahyi, frequently wore nothing but their shoes and magical charms.

Blahyi stated that by doing so, he and his army became "immune to bullets." Blahyi's army committed various atrocities during the fight, including cannibalism and human sacrifice.

During the conflict, Blahyi claimed to have gotten a vision from the Devil, in which the Devil instructed him that he would become "a powerful warrior and should perform human sacrifice and cannibalism to boost his power."

Recalling the horrors he and his forces performed against civilians during the battle, Blahyi remarked in an interview, "Sometimes, I would enter under the water where children were playing." I'd dive beneath, grab one, drag him under, and break his neck. I'd occasionally cause accidents. "I'd sometimes just slaughter them."

Blahyi allegedly ordered his men to take psychoactive medicines to increase their alertness and willingness to execute his directives. "I had to make a human sacrifice," he would later recall, whenever the Naked Base Commandos seized a town. "They bring me a living child, which I kill and eat the heart from."

Repentance

As the civil war was coming to an end in 1996, Blahyi stated that as he saw the blood of a kid on his hands, he saw Jesus Christ, who "asked [Blahyi] to quit being a slave."

Blahyi then converted to Christianity and became an evangelical preacher, ministering to Liberian refugees in Ghana as well as former soldiers who had served under him during the conflict.