AMID high drama, the Nigerian government deported Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, back to his country in the last week of March. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the newly elected President of Liberia and the first woman head of state on the African continent, had demanded that her predecessor be repatriated to face the international war crimes tribunal set up in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Interestingly, Sirleaf was a supporter of Taylor in the 1990s.
Taylor resigned from the presidency under an internationally brokered agreement three years ago. The agreement also had the backing of the regional grouping Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). As part of the deal, Taylor was offered political asylum in Nigeria and he was allowed to live in comfort in Calabar on the coast with his family members and close associates.
Since the successful holding of elections in Liberia earlier in the year Nigeria has been under increasing pressure to hand over Taylor to the United Nations-backed Special Court.
Desmond de Silva, the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court, went to the extent of saying that Taylor was among the three most wanted war crimes suspects in the world. A warrant was issued three years ago on 17 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. All the charges relate to the civil war in Sierra Leone. Taylor has been accused of selling diamonds in order to finance the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the Sierra Leonean rebel group blamed for most of the atrocities. Many of the RUF recruits were child soldiers.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo initially refused to heed the request of his Liberian counterpart. In late March, mainly because of pressure from the West, Obasanjo finally told Sirleaf that the Liberian government could send a plane to take Taylor back. However, there was panic for about 48 hours as Taylor managed to give the slip to his security guards and made a last-ditch attempt at freedom. He was caught near Maidugiri in northern Nigeria on the Cameroon border.
Taylor's supporters in Liberia say that his deportation was a breach of the 2003 peace deal, which effectively ended the Liberian civil war. The Nigerian government is unhappy with Sirleaf's decision. Nigerian officials have said that there was a lack of coordination between the U.N., the U.S. and the Liberian government on the issue. Nigeria politely rejected the request of Sirleaf and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Taylor be directly repatriated to Sierra Leone. It preferred to despatch him to his home country. Taylor was immediately handed over to the U.N. peacekeepers in Monrovia and taken in handcuffs to Freetown.
Though widely discredited even in his own country, Taylor is reputed to have a band of guerilla fighters still loyal to him. The civil war in Liberia owes its origins to the military coup staged by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe in 1980. Liberia soon plunged into turmoil with various guerilla groupings based on tribal affiliations cropping up all over the country. Many in the region initially welcomed the U.S.-educated Taylor's appearance on the political scene. He claimed to have escaped from a jail in Atlanta to spearhead the movement to oust the pro-American regime headed by Doe. Taylor at that time had the backing of the governments of Libya, Burkina Faso and Ghana.
After the assassination of Doe, Liberia plunged deeper into civil war. Taylor's guerilla faction, which was the best armed and most organised, had started its military campaign from Ivory Coast in 1989. Taylor had a good relationship going with Houphet Boigny, the authoritarian ruler of Ivory Coast. Many of Taylor's fighters were from Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. After Taylor emerged victorious in Liberia in 1995, many of his fighters turned their attention to Sierra Leone, which also was experiencing political instability since the early 1980s. Taylor hoped to emerge as a key player in the region by installing his proteges in power in neighbouring countries. The civil wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Guinea, had led to widespread devastation and the loss of more than a million lives in the last decade and a half. Taylor was undoubtedly involved in all these wars. Greed for the abundant diamonds, timber and other natural resources was an important factor. The U.N. had banned the sale of diamonds from Liberia as early as 1990. This was done in order to prevent Taylor from financing guerilla armies.
Latest reports indicate that Taylor will be flown to The Hague to stand trial, following a request from the Special Court. The court has now come to the conclusion that Taylor's trial in Freetown could spark a new round of bloodletting in the region.
John CherianCOMMents
COMMents
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