Charles Taylor: a case of selective justice
Far from holding a brief for former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is facing war crimes charges, we think that it is right for international justice to take its course.
However, we would be remiss in our duty as journalists if we fail to look dispassionately at an issue that has inflamed passions everywhere. In the charged atmosphere that has arisen since Taylor was taken to Freetown, rational arguments have been thrown overboard and the whole issue has become foggy.
So much so that it is beginning to appear that justice might not be served.
We certainly do not condone impunity in Africa. And when we talk of impunity in Africa we are not just referring to Africans who have committed or benefited from crimes on the continent. We are referring to outsiders who have been responsible for fuelling conflicts in Africa, from which they themselves have benefited immensely.
Obviously, in the Sierra Leone matter, there were a lot of actors who aided and abetted the commission of the crimes that Taylor is alleged to have committed. Indeed, in national and international criminal law, these people are equally culpable. A provision of the Special Court Statute states: “A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime...shall be individually responsible for the crime.”
As it is, the Taylor case raises more questions than answers and that is why his trial should be quite interesting – if he is prepared to spill the beans, that is. As a start, we would like an answer to this puzzle: how did Taylor manage to escape from prison in America of all places to start his rebellion in December 1989? The first President George Bush was in power when Taylor’s disappearing act occurred.
Let’s look at the facts. The regime of Samuel Doe had fallen out with the Bush administration. So it was clear that the Americans wanted Doe out. They were on the lookout for someone to replace Doe. By then Taylor was being held in custody in the US, awaiting extradition to Liberia for alleged fraud while he was working for the Liberian government’s procurement agency, the General Services Authority. The next thing that the Liberian authorities heard was that Taylor had escaped and was leading a rebellion from Cote d’Ivoire. How come? Surely, the Bush administration might know something about this?
This begs the question: if the Americans had not allowed Taylor to “escape”, would West Africa have suffered the kind of violence we have witnessed in the last 20 years? Does this not mean that the first President George Bush should be held individually accountable for crimes under international law? It’s up to the human rights activists and international humanitarian lawyers to look into this matter. Maybe Bush would be called to account for his actions when the Liberians get round to holding their own war crimes trial.
Ironically, the Special Court in Freetown is full of American rookie lawyers who are using it as a training ground for better-paying jobs when they return home. They are not interested in justice for Sierra Leoneans. In fact, had it not been for the Sierra Leoneans lawyers working for the Court, the Americans would have botched-up the indictments. Culturally and professionally, they have been out of their depth. But this sort of thing could only happen in Africa.
Let us turn to President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso. He seems to have got away with his country’s involvement in Sierra Leone’s war. There is enough evidence to show that Burkinabe troops were fighting alongside rebels of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone and that diamonds from the country were transiting in Ouagadougou long before they were seen in Monrovia. Taylor and Compare were supposedly “partners in crime”, as it were. Indeed, Taylor spent quite a long time in Ouagadougou while he was masterminding his insurgency in Liberia, which, according to the Special Court, extended to Sierra Leone.
So why hasn’t Compaore been indicted? Is it because he decided to change sides after Liberian opposition groups visited Ouagadougou and pleaded with Compaore to stop his support for Taylor at the height of the 2002 offensive by the rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy? Compaore, we think, should also be held individually accountable for crimes under international law.
What about the diamond dealers in Antwerp and Amsterdam, who knowingly bought the stones sold by the RUF? After all, they were party to the crimes being committed against the government and people of Sierra Leone. According to the UN Expert Panel on Sierra Leone, the RUF mined and sold diamonds worth between $25 million and $125 million.
What the indictments of Taylor and the late RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, say is quite instructive. In the case of the former Liberian president, the indictment noted that Taylor backed the RUF “to obtain access to the mineral wealth of the Republic of Sierra Leone…” In the case of Sankoh, the indictment said that he was to provide “the natural resources of Sierra Leone, in particular the diamonds…to persons outside Sierra Leone in return for assistance in carrying out the joint criminal enterprise”.
Are we to believe that Sankoh supplied the diamonds to Taylor and that the matter ended there? We don’t think so. The diamonds found their way to Antwerp and Amsterdam through middlemen who sold the stones to dealers who knowingly bought natural resources belonging to the government and people of Sierra Leone that had been obtained through a “criminal enterprise”.
Why aren’t these dealers before the Special Court? If these criminals had any conscience, the least they could do is to refund the profit they made from their illicit trade to the government and people of Sierra Leone to help with the reconstruction of the war-devastated country. But, somehow, we don’t think they would.
As we regularly point out, Western companies thrive on adversity in Africa because democratic institutions and law and order, which are now taking root on the continent, are becoming impediments to the shady operations of these foreign enterprises. These are the issues Western human rights organisations should be looking into. They should stop claiming the moral high ground long after Western businesses have finished exploiting conflict and criminal activities in Africa.
So, what we have here is a case of selective justice. The state of global justice is an issue that is gradually being raised by African international lawyers. One such group that has taken up the matter is Accra-based Africa Legal Aid.
In its recent publication, African Perspectives on International Justice, it posed some pertinent questions: “Do the various international and foreign criminal courts have sufficient regard for African norms and values, for example, where gender crimes are concerned? Why do gross economic and environmental crimes not constitute international crimes? Why have certain offences, which have particular resonance in Africa, such as the crime of apartheid, not attracted prosecution under universal jurisdiction?
Given the economic and political dominance of the North, can international law contribute to justice in the South? Should the exercise of universal jurisdiction by Northern courts over crimes committed in the South be viewed as a welcome contribution to justice or, as some claim, a form of judicial imperialism?”
These questions adequately sum up the dilemma facing Africans today: whose interests are being served as they strive for justice?
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