(Chicago Sun-Times) Charles Taylor, Liberia’s notorious warlord-turned-president who has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, has become the new hot topic in international criminal justice. International attention has switched to Taylor since the recent death of Slobodan Milosevic, who was being prosecuted for war crimes and other atrocities before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 2003, while still president of Liberia, Taylor was indicted by the U.N.- backed Sierra Leone Special Court for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the territory of Sierra Leone between 1996 and 2002. The 11-count indictment alleges that Taylor assisted and directed the commission of crimes such as acts of terrorism, unlawful killings, sexual and physical violence, forced enlistment and abduction of child soldiers, forced labor and looting. Most of the victims were women and children. Taylor’s notoriety dates back to 1983, when he was accused of embezzling nearly $1 million in Liberia and fled to the United States. He was detained here on a Liberian arrest warrant, but while awaiting deportation back to Liberia, he escaped from a Massachusetts jail in 1985 by cutting through bars with a hacksaw. Taylor eventually returned to Liberia and launched an insurgency to overthrow Liberia’s brutal dictator, Samuel K. Doe. Taylor’s brutal campaign for power led to more than 250,000 deaths and displaced nearly half of the country’s population of 3.5 million. Proportionately, this would amount to the killing of all African Americans, or 40 million Americans.
From 1989 to 1997, Taylor and his cohorts fought their way into the presidency with brutal violence and viciousness, and in doing so destabilized not only Liberia but nearly all of West Africa. Sierra Leone was perhaps the worst affected because Taylor allegedly supported the Revolutionary United Front, the notorious rebel group infamous for hacking off the limbs of civilians, including children, and killing tens of thousands of people. Taylor also has been identified as a key figure in Sierra Leone’s blood diamonds trade and is said to have given an economic haven to al-Qaida. After being ousted from power by a popular insurgency in 2003 and forced into exile in Nigeria, Liberia’s civil war ended and a new transitional government was established in November 2005, when the people of Liberia democratically elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president. Two weeks ago, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria extradited Taylor to Liberia, but not before the warlord escaped, only to be later arrested by Nigerian border guards while trying to cross into Cameroon. Taylor was immediately extradited to Sierra Leone to face his charges. Given that he has been the central figure in the destabilization of West Africa for more than a decade, and based on the security threat he poses to the region, the Sierra Leone Special Court has requested that the U.N. Security Council move his trial to the Hague, the world’s judicial capital. The council is expected to consider a United Kingdom- sponsored resolution on this issue next week. If Taylor’s trial is held in the Netherlands, there are questions on whether his next stop should be the newly founded Hague-based International Criminal Court for committing atrocities in Liberia. One thing is certain: Whatever crimes Taylor may have committed in Sierra Leone, they pale in comparison to his crimes against Liberians. Most Liberians seem pleased with his arrest and pending prosecution for war crimes in Sierra Leone, but do not understand why the international community has yet to hold him accountable for committing atrocities against Liberians. With Milosevic’s death, Taylor’s trial will likely be the most important international criminal prosecution of the 21st century. However, we should not underestimate his ability to escape or overestimate the strength of the Special Court’s case against him. Until he is held accountable for committing atrocities against Liberians, it will be difficult to claim that Taylor has really been brought to justice.
