CHARLES TAYLOR’S DOUBLE WHAMMY: The Snares of International Politics By Max Willie Former Liberian President Charles Taylor’s encounter with the International Court of Justice over the past one decade could well fit the caption, “Live Twice without Dying”. The Court’s final verdict to seize Taylor’s liberty forever, caps the Liberian leader’s fate on earth; perhaps it’s reasonable to say only heavenly intervention can suffice. All predictions about Taylor’s destiny have come to end. Taylor’s appeal for dismissal of a verdict of 50 years in jail from a previous hearing of the Court met no consideration from the Court’s judges of appeal. The 50-year jail sentence was affirmed; although many legal scholars and practitioners across the globe disagree with the decision, describing the trial itself as a sham. HISTORICITY • Official rumors have it that Taylor worked for the CIA • In September 1985 Taylor supposedly broke jail from a fortified maximum prison in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States • The same year, Taylor removed himself from the U.S. back to Africa where he built an army of Liberian refugees to stage a revolt against President Samuel Kanyon Doe. • On December 24, 1989 Taylor and the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia) arrived in Liberia and started an uprising against Doe • In 1990, a new equation emerged. A group called ULIMO (United Liberation Movement for Democracy) bred and armed in neighboring Sierra Leone aligned with Samuel Doe and launched attacks from Sierra Leone on Taylor’s forces. • On March 13, 1991 Sierra Leone’s civil war began, led by Foday Sankor and his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) Charles Taylor was accused of supporting and abetting the RUF. The Sierra Leone war and the war Liberia interspersed. • From 1990 to 1995 scores of local and international peace initiatives ensued to resolve the conflict in Liberia • In 1995 a settlement was brokered and agreement reached in Liberia • On July 7, 1997 Charles Taylor was elected president of Liberia by a landslide • On August 2, 1997, Taylor was inaugurated • By then at the conclusion of the civil war and Taylor’s election, more than 150 thousand people had died • Barely two months into Taylor’s Presidency, a group under the banner of LURD a.k.a. Liberians United for Reconstruction and Development launched attacks into Liberia from neighboring Guinea. Thousands more of Liberians and other nationals were maimed or killed. • In June 2003 Taylor was charged for war excesses in Sierra Leone. • On August 13, 2003 Charles Taylor stepped down from power and went into exile in Nigeria • On March 28 2006 President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf wrote Nigerian President Olusegun Obassanjo requesting to have Charles Taylor returned and tried for war crime in Sierra Leone • Taylor arrived at RIA in hand-cuffs as a common criminal • On June 4, 2007 Taylor’s trial began and lasted nearly six years • April 2012 Taylor was brought down guilty and committed to 50 years in prison • On January 22, 2013 Taylor filed an appeal for a reverse of the judgment • Late September 2013, appeal denied, and 50 years in jail punishment affirmed The consummation of Charles Taylor’s destiny in The Hague should be of no surprise to the rational mind. Why? Because: 1. Taylor’s accusers, same as powerful nations and state actors who are the chief financiers and who in the first instance instructed the International Court of Justice to conduct the trial, had already declared Taylor guilty far ahead of the trial proceedings. Some of these powerful nations harbored a less kind view of Charles Taylor. 2. Before the trial had started, Great Britain had offered and was in preparation to host Taylor in prison. 3. Statements from influential states were unequivocal in favor of Taylor’s indictment and chastisement for the sake of it ‘to serve as a warning’ for other ‘African dictators’ who might want to “drug”, “rape”, “mutilate” and “murder” their own people. 4. Millions of dollars was spent to enlist bogus witnesses who were either far removed from the episode of the war in Sierra Leone; or unassuming ‘witnesses’ who were induced to perform in the interest of the Prosecution. 5. An African, Charles Taylor, among so-called dictators of all colors, forms, and creed around the world, is the first and only leader to become the black-sheep .in the 60 plus year- history of the International Court’s existence. 6. One of the Court’s trial judges, Justice El Hadji Malick from Senegal who opposed the decision of guilty, put it succinctly: “I could not indulge in the face of the countless contradictions, lies, deceptions and manipulations in this trial, and concluded that the accused was guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crimes he was charged with. You cannot conclude that there was no doubt in your mind when you see all this money spent on witnesses, and part of this money you didn’t know the origin.” Judge Malick, with 30 years’ experience as an international trial judge, stated further: “ I. disagree with the findings and conclusion (in the Charles Taylor trial) because under the mode of liability under any acceptable standard of proof, the guilt of the accused from the evidence provided in this trial is not proved beyond reasonable doubt by the Prosecution. The system (the International Court of Justice) is under grave danger of losing credibility.” If these declarations hold any ground at all, if so, the once World Court of grandiosity and elegance would be regarded henceforth as having left with no speck of integrity and trustworthiness. And the world’s justice system is evident to come to naught. WHAT’S THE CATCH IN THE CHARLES TAYLOR CASE? There’s a new thinking in power block countries. If you don’t like a country’s leader, particularly an African ‘dictator’, don’t assassinate him. Eliminate him; it does not matter what threat that leader poses or not; simply a game of “might makes right”; a mimic of literary character General Zaroff’s game of jungle hunting, where life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and if need be, to be taken by the strong. Given all that Charles Taylor is thought to be, a child of destiny in the new international order of things, Taylor was compulsive about pro-home rule, perhaps like Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, George Washington, a founding father of the United States of America, etc… He had the vehemence to stand for what he believed in and the audacity to stand up to odds and trepidations. He spoke his mind freely and grossly in whatever given situation. He once told Firestone Rubber Plantation, an American company to pay plantation workers in U.S. currency, the same exchange medium used to market their products; otherwise they should shape up or ship-out. He warned the U.S. that the days Washington called to instruct Monrovia is long gone. He called Nigerian peace-keepers rabbits, mere carrot eaters; he and drove them out of Liberia irrespective of the monumental sacrifice Nigerians committed to resolving the civil conflict in Liberia. He chastened Great Britain by declaring British-trained Sierra Leonean soldiers invalids, when it came to handling a pistol. His purported jail escape from maximum prison in Boston Massachusetts probably shamed the United States. He told former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi that while he welcomed assistance from Libya, by no means would he succumb or fall under the influence of socialism. He was at variance with former Guinean President Lasannah Conte for breeding LURD and giving support to its armed incursion into Liberia. Charles Taylor was arrogant, the same as almost all leaders of the world. The exceptions are difficult to locate anywhere on globe. He was fearless, he was firm, and he was no-nonsense in many respects. He was a stand-up guy. All that made him the lousy politician and statesman that he was. Taylor’s independent disposition on world view ruffled some leaders particularly in West Africa’s sub-region. His effort to exert influence on the international stage was utterly disproportionate to Liberia’s power assets, and most leaders in West Africa were not pleased. His concept of sovereignty was outmoded. His international insight was twisted. His crave to become a regional power was improbable. So those who held an unkind view of Charles Taylor found a wide opening to contain him ad infinitum. And dragging him to court in The Hague and condemning him to life imprisonment was the sure way. And in the face of not proving beyond all reasonable doubt the crime they levied against the man. One could even imagine hearing from their secret chambers, tantalizing voices of “crucify him”! The hysteria to pursue Taylor for war crime he was reported to commit in Sierra Leone, while showing a blind-eye to the bigger and more devastating civil war persecuted in Liberia by Taylor and others widened the suspicion of many around the world that a grand international design was conceived and hatched to terminate a man they detest. This scenario, combined with the knowledge that Taylor’s adversaries, both local and foreign were raising huge sums of money to acquire guns to invade and destabilize Liberia during Taylor’s reign, all the same confirmed the feeling of an international conspiracy against Charles Taylor. So there goes Charles Taylor of Liberia. WHO’S NEXT?
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 03:52:02 +0000
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