“IF you trouble trouble, trouble will trouble you. If you touch me I Will scratch you seriously.”
The above quote by Charles Ghankay Taylor was made in one of the meeting rooms of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja in 1996, at a joint war lords’ briefing in the days when Nigeria was trying to mediate in the Liberia’s civil war, towards ending the bullets and using the ballots to settle scores.
The impish Ghankay was giving a swift response to an accusation laid on the table by one of the warlords, George Saigbe Boley of the then Liberian Peace Council (LPC), who claimed that while the warlords were meeting in Abuja, Taylor instructed his men to raid LPC held areas.
In fact, it had been argued that the regional group- the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders and their peace keeping force ECOMOG knew clearly then that Liberia would never know peace if Taylor, whose National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) held most of Liberia, was not allowed to take power. Hence the group turned a blind eye (was actually accused of collaboration) to the open intimidation and manipulation by persons and groups acting on Taylor’s supposed orders. And so, after a seven-year brutal civil war, Charles Taylor the warlord became Charles Taylor the president!
But by penultimate Wednesday, it was end of the road for the cat with nine lives, who would now be transported to a British prison to serve his 50-year sentence for crimes against humanity. Taylor, 65, became the first former head of state to be convicted by an international war crimes court since the Second World War when he was found guilty last year. Rwanda and Sweden had also offered to take him following the rejection of his appeal last month by a UN-backed special court in The Hague. If he comes out alive at age 115 (baring a concurrent running of his jail term), no one in his country, which he once bestrode like a colossus would recognise him. He in turn may not be able to recognise his grandiose, tastefully finished and furnished private mansion if that time eventually comes.
Taylor aided rebels in Sierra Leone during a brutal civil war in the 1990s, which left 50,000 people dead. Thousands more were left mutilated in the conflict that became known for the extreme cruelty of rival rebel groups, who hacked off the limbs of their victims and carved their initials into opponents.
He is also accused of helping to plan attacks in return for “blood diamonds” mined by slave labourers in Sierra Leone and peddling political influence in the volatile West African region.
As witnessed by this writer in the ensuing election which Taylor fraudulently won before the renewed hostilities that eventually threw him out, most voters in the Montserado county and area (Monrovia and adjoining communities) were so much in awe of the trouble Taylor could ferment and terror that could be unleashed, that they literarily preferred the peace guaranteed by the “devil.” They sang; “although you killed my father, although you killed my mother and although you killed our brothers, Ghankay, it is you we will vote for...”
But Charles Taylor’s main crime after he became president was his inability to voluntarily form a government of national unity and incorporate elements of the other political parties into his government and thus placating the Warlords. He chose to ride alone and got involved in the messy war in Sierra Leone. He could not resist blood diamonds as well as having a larger than life image in all countries in the Mano River area.
He forgot how devastated his country had become after the war. Post war reconstruction was not holistic. The country that Taylor inherited after the war had indeed been bad. What an irony of fate, the way his political flame has now been put out!
Just one picture would do. The one and half hours journey by helicopter from the aerodrome of Springfield through the battered Roberstfield airport to Gbarnga (used to be Taylor’s wartime headquaters) and Tubmanburg in the Bomi County was enough to bring anyone face to face with a spectacular ruination of a one beautiful country. The 50 km drive from Robertsfield to Monrovia was a mighty walk through valley of carnage. Desolation starred. Pockets of sacked villages, bullet-ridden houses, charred vehicles and faces of physiologically bruised countrymen were the spectacle. Everywhere seemed to smell of blood and wrath! Even cables of high-tension electricity poles were cut in a manner suggesting unbelievably dastardly motives. They were the handiwork of baser human instinct for vengeance and settlement of age long personal scores predating the war. Now the story was the same in all of the 13 counties, whose 16 ethnic groups did not forget their “brother man roots” during the war. From Montserado, Margibi, to Maryland, from Bomi through Bassa to Bong and Nimba, the story was the same. It would seem that former president Taylor carried on like that after becoming president until he got into the trouble of no return, as if he was destined for eternal damnation. He is today the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II
The Man, Ghankay
BORN in Arthington, Montserrado County, Liberia, Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor earned a degree at Bentley College in the United States. In fact, Taylor had broken jail in the US in 1985 while being detained in the Plymouth County House of Corrections. He and four other inmates escaped from the jail. The Boston Globe reported that they sawed through a bar covering a window in a dormitory room, after which they lowered themselves 200 feet (6.1 m) on knotted sheets and escaped into nearby woods by climbing a short fence. He returned to Liberia thereafter to work in the government of former president Samuel Doe. After being removed for embezzlement, he eventually arrived in Libya, where he was trained as a guerilla fighter. He came back again to Liberia in 1989 as the head of a Libyan-backed resistance group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, to overthrow the Doe regime, initiating the First Liberian Civil War (1989–96). Following Doe’s execution, Taylor gained control of a large portion of the country and became one of the most prominent warlords in Africa. During his term in office, Taylor was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). Domestically, opposition to his regime grew, culminating in the outbreak of the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003). By 2003, he had lost control of much of the countryside and was formally indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. That year, he resigned as a result of growing international pressure and went into exile in Nigeria, following a new peace deal by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, in conjunction with ECOWAS.
To sight the remarkable dates in Taylor’s militarized political sojourn is to remember 1989, when he launched a rebellion in Liberia. Two years later, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) started it’s own rebellion in Sierra Leone. Taylor was elected president in 1997 after a 1995 peace deal, but by 1999, rebels had taken up arms against him. In June 2003, an arrest warrant was issued on him. Two months later he stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria, but was arrested in March 2006 after a failed escape bid and sent to Sierra Leone. His trial then opened in June 2007.
But it was in 2006 that his country’s newly elected President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf formally requested his extradition, after which he was detained by UN authorities in Sierra Leone and then at the Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden, in The Hague for security reasons. He was found guilty in April 2012 of all eleven charges leveled by the Special Court, including terror, murder and rape, but mainly of abetting the commission of war crimes. He was subsequently sentenced to 50 years in prison. Reading the sentencing statement, Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said: “The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history.
The man from Gbanga would now be put away “forever.” The world and Nigeria (where he once broke away from a house arrest facility in Calabar) would remember him for, among the many acts, the thousands of gallant combatants’ lives lost in his country during the bitter years of war. Just so also, two brilliant Nigerian journalists violently cut down in their prime - Messrs Krees Imoudibie (political editor, the Guardian) and Tayo Awotunsin (Champion), while trying to tell the rest of the world what was going on in Liberia at the time.
African Leaders Fear Of ICC
INCIDENTALLY, Taylor’s prison sentence confirmation came at a time African leaders were asking for a halt of the continued ‘selective’ trial of sitting African presidents. It was like a face saving measure for the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Although it was the International War Crimes Court that upheld a 50 year sentence of the former Taylor, the leaders who gathered in Addis Ababa for an extraordinary summit of the African Union (AU) maintained that the prosecution of Kenyan president (and his deputy) as well as the Sudanese leader by the ICC is unjustifiable. The summit had been called to review and upbraid the relationship between the AU and the ICC amid complaints that the body has only ever pursued African leaders. The court has convicted just one man, a Congolese warlord, and has charged only Africans.
The AU leaders have now called for the U.N. Security Council to defer the trial of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta under article 16 of the court’s Rome Statute, which allows for an initial delay of a year, or it would seek an alternative means of postponement.
Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, are being accused of orchestrating large-scale violence after a disputed 2007 election, charges which they deny. Kenyatta’s trial is due to start on November 12, while Ruto’s already began last month. What is on ground now is that the AU’s stance means a challenge of the Hague-based court in its most high-profile case to date - the first trial of a sitting president.
The move by a group led by the AU chair with representatives from Africa’s five regions is expected to press the U.N. Security Council to defer proceedings against Kenya’s leadership and the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al Bashir, who faces charges of genocide.
And Nigeria is lending its weight to the new AU Move. Making a submission at the extraordinary summit president Goodluck Jonathan stressed that Nigeria believes that “while the work of the International Criminal Court is immensely useful for the achievement of a world without crimes against humanity, genocide and other acts of impunity, it would be fair to say that in Africa today, the wave of democratization has engendered greater commitment to the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights.”
His argument was that although the Constitutive Act of the AU explicitly prohibits war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity with clear sanctions for violations, he was “convinced that our Union and the International Criminal Court are united in our principles and objectives on these matters. This is why the profound dissatisfaction that has been expressed about the Court’s relationship with Africa deserves the special attention that this Assembly is paying to it at this session.”
He maintained; “It is also the reason why the refusal of the International Criminal Court to accede to the requests by our member-states for the deferral of the cases involving the President of Sudan, and now, the President and Deputy President of Kenya has left many of us in the African continent disappointed. Many are concerned that the African Union’s principled position that African leaders should not be targeted by the ICC has been ignored, and that the ICC, despite its universal jurisdiction, seems to be devoting unusual energy and enthusiasm to the prosecution of cases from Africa, compared to cases from other parts of the world.”
Taking a swipe at the ICC, Jonathan said: “If the Court is concerned about this implied allegation of bias; it has not, in our opinion, taken enough pro-active steps to address it and allay the fears of concerned stakeholders. We think it should... In our deliberations today, we must not lose sight of the legal identity of our Union, relative to the obligations of States Parties of the Rome Statute. Thirty-four (34) African countries, including Nigeria, are signatories to this Statute. Given that not all members of the Assembly are signatories to it, it is important that we balance our interests in a manner that enables signatory and non-signatory members of our Union to express solidarity with one another on matters arising from their obligations. In this regard, it is important that we maintain our unity and speak with one voice on Kenya.”
The Nigerian leader told a gathering of his colleagues and the watching world that: “It will also be useful to point out the limitations of the Rome Statute, in order to strengthen the ICC and reposition it for greater fairness and equity in the discharge of its noble responsibilities. This Assembly should urgently call its members in the Assembly of States Party of the Statute, to mobilize requisite support to achieve reforms in the shortest time possible. Our position is that certain Articles of the Rome Statute are of grave concern to Africa. In particular, Article 27, which denies immunity to all persons without regard to customary international law, conventions and established norms, must be amended.”
He argued further: “Similarly, Articles 63 and 98 need close scrutiny and review. There is also the need to align Articles 27 and 98 with a view to bringing them in conformity with the tenets of customary international law, conventions and norms...In expressing my support for Kenya on its difficulties with the ICC, I will like to acknowledge that five years after the post-election violence of 2007, the people of Kenya have proven to the world that they are capable of expressing their sovereign wishes in a free, fair and credible manner in accordance with democratic norms and values.”
Lessons Of Taylor’s Fall
LAST week, the fallen president requested that he serves his sentence in Rwanda, rather than the UK.
In a letter sent to the court that convicted him, he stressed that it would be easier - and less expensive - for his family to visit him in Africa. He also said he feared being attacked in a British prison. “Incarceration in the United Kingdom will likely... lead to me being seriously injured or killed,” his letter had been quoted as saying.
Taylor could afford to speak that way because he was actually convicted by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). His trial was held in The Hague in the fear that it could spark renewed unrest in West Africa. Also, The Netherlands only agreed to host the trial if he was imprisoned elsewhere.
Hear Taylor’s new musing: “My position is that serving my sentence in Rwanda, in my home continent of Africa, would be substantially more humane not only on my own account, but also on account of the impact on my family...a significant number of individuals from Sierra Leonean background are in detention in prisons in the UK.”
Reminding that the Bosnian war criminal, Radislav Krstic was attacked in a British jail by three Muslim men in 2011, apparently in revenge for his role in the Bosnian conflict, Taylor added that the UK authorities “may also simply be unaware of the groups that might be particularly motivated to attack me in prison.”
By quickly pointing out that it would be cheaper and easier to travel to Rwanda - and that Liberian nationals could obtain visas at the airport, unlike in the UK, the fallen man is determined to play around the fact that the court’s statutes say access for prisoners’ relatives should be taken into account when deciding where they should serve their sentence.
But for him personally, what has been the lesson in vanity and in contrition?
Apart from the horror that was visited on fellow Liberians, in the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone conflict, thousands died and he was found to have supplied weapons to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in exchange for so-called blood diamonds. The rebels were notorious for hacking off the limbs of civilians to terrorise the population. But on record, Taylor had always pleaded his innocence, maintaining that, “his only contact with the rebels was to urge them to stop fighting.”
Now, the warlord who saw blood and bones is in fear of being killed by ordinary criminals, while some other people convicted by the SCSL are already serving their sentences in Rwanda. The only wedge in Taylor’s plea is the submission by the UK Justice Minister, Jeremy Wright to the effect that the British offer to host Taylor had enabled his trial to proceed in The Hague.
International relations expert, Dr. Nwangwu Okeimiri does not believe the world should trust Taylor on the request to be interred in Rwanda. Taylor, he maintained, is capable of so many things.
“What is the guarantee that he does not have other plans? How secured are African jails? The man knows that a prison in the UK is like a castle and is cleverly resisting it. He broke jail in Calabar. Here is a man who has now mastered that art which he began in the US. Experience has shown that former warlords are never to be underestimated. We do not want a situation where an African prison is stormed commando style or an important inmate is released quietly and disappears and then changes his appearance, and another figure put in there in his place.”
On the symbolism of Taylor’s end, he said, “I agree with the submission made the other day that what we are witnessing clearly demonstrates that those who commit atrocities will be held to account and that no matter their position they will not enjoy impunity.”
But does this semblance of a trans-national resuscitation of the long arm of the law portend anything more? After Taylor, who next?
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