General Butt Naked

The Krahn elders later appointed him as high priest, a position that would lead him to become the spiritual advisor to Liberian President Samuel Doe. Blahyi adhered to a complex traditional belief system as a Krahn priest. Blahyi himself said, "I was a high priest for the biggest god under the Krahn tribe, and the late Samuel K. Doe, being a fellow tribesman, was automatically placed under my jurisdiction . . . I also placed Nyanbe-a-weh amongst the first three high-ranking gods in West Africa’s black-witch coastal line division."

Nyanbe-a-weh was Blahyi’s idol who—according to him—demanded ritual sacrifice; Blahyi would come to believe that Nyanbe-a-weh was the Devil. He said that the Krahn tribe selects leaders based upon physical prowess rather than birthright. The selection process takes place through an annual fight: "The traditional fight was a no-holds-barred affair. The eventual victor was allowed to kill and maim to show his strength and bravery. The strongest or last man standing after the bloody contest will take over the birthright and the headship of the tribe."

On October 2016, Blahyi appealed to donors to donate half a million dollars to his Journeys Against Violence NGO which trains child soldiers and drug addicts in farming and construction.

During the First Liberian Civil War he led a mercenary unit, many of whom were child soldiers, which was known as the Butt Naked Brigade. They were funded by Roosevelt Johnson and fought alongside the ULIMO militia against militias led by Charles Taylor and Prince Yormie Johnson. ULIMO was loyal to Samuel Doe, who was captured and executed—personally—by Prince Johnson. Taylor eventually took control of the country.

Although the TRC accepted that figure, Norris Tweah, the Information Minister of Liberia, has since disputed that Blahyi was responsible for that many deaths. Blahyi was the subject of a 2010 documentary film: True Stories: The Redemption of General Butt Naked by the Sundance Institute, produced and directed by Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion.

He stated to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Sometimes I would enter under the water where children were playing. I would dive under the water, grab one, carry him under and break his neck. Sometimes I'd cause accidents. Sometimes I'd just slaughter them." In January 2008, Blahyi confessed to taking part in human sacrifices which "included the killing of an innocent child and taking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for us to eat."

Blahyi also purported that during this period he had "magical powers that made him invisible" and a "special power" to capture a town singlehandedly, then call in his troops afterwards to "clean up". Some of Blahyi's soldiers--often boys in their early teens and younger--would enter battle naked; others would wear women's clothes. In June 2006, Blahyi published his autobiography that included pictures of him fighting with a rifle, wearing nothing but sneakers.

In 2004, Liberian-American director Gerald Barclay traveled to Buduburam to shoot a documentary which included interviews with Blahyi. In January 2008, Blahyi returned to Liberia from Ghana and said before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia that between approximately 1980 and 1996 he and his men were responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 people.

In 1997, Blahyi traveled to the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana. It was at the camp, he recounts, that he made confession for his sins at a church and "had his life saved". When he goes out to preach now, he says he sometimes encounters relatives of his victims. "I feel very bad, so bad", he said, but he insists it was satanic powers that possessed him in the past and he cannot be held responsible. He has since expressed willingness to be tried for war crimes at the Hague.

Blahyi's rampage ended in 1996, when the civil war in Liberia was coming to an end. He states his conversion was bolstered by a church in Liberia where Bishop Kun Kun is a pastor. They claimed to have heard from God to fast 54 days for his deliverance. After the fast, they claim God gave them spiritual powers to infiltrate his coven in Monrovia and preach to him. Shortly after, he had a theophany in which Jesus Christ appeared to him as a blinding light, spoke to him as a son, and told him that he would die unless he repented his sins.

Joshua Milton Blahyi (born September 30, 1971), often known by his nom de guerre General Butt Naked, is a former commander of forces under the wider control of Liberian warlord Roosevelt Johnson. Blahyi was known for his violence and atrocities during the First Liberian Civil War in the early 1990s. Once described as "the most evil man in the world", Blahyi said in 2008 that he killed at least 20,000 people and carried out regular human sacrifice and cannibalism of children.