09 May 2006: ISS Today: West Africa`s Horrific Wars Catch Up With Taylor
09 MAY 2006: WEST AFRICA`S HORRIFIC WARS CATCH UP WITH TAYLOR
BBC
Liberia`s former President Charles Taylor is finally in a detention centre in Sierra Leone, three years after a warrant for his arrest was first issued by a UN-backed war crimes court. But what about other indicted persons?
The recent arrest of former Liberian president Charles Taylor recently and his subsequent arraignment before the Sierra Leone Special Court (SCSL) on charges of crimes against humanity are momentous events in Africa. They sets the stage for the punishment of one of Africa’s leaders on grounds of human rights abuse. Africa has many such leaders, most of whom have gone unpunished for far too long. Thus, the successful prosecution of Charles Taylor would signal that this era may be coming to an end.
Charles Taylor`s was a source of instability that kept the ECOWAS region in a constant state of crisis since the end of the Cold War. The charges against Taylor relate to the Sierra Leone civil war and his alleged support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels led by Foday Sankoh. He is charged as one of those “bearing the greatest responsibility” for war crimes (murder, taking hostages); crimes against humanity (extermination, rape, murder, sexual slavery); and other serious violations of international humanitarian law (use of child soldiers) in Sierra Leone. Taylor is also charged for providing training to, and helping finance, the RUF’s armed conflict in Sierra Leone.
Taylor’s arrest is particularly welcome news for the fragile democracy in both Sierra Leone and Liberia. As long as Taylor was at large in Nigeria, there was an imminent threat to these democracies and the stability of West Africa. Beyond the region, his arrest and arraignment before the Special Court is a remarkable testimony that the international community will not tolerate monstrous acts without assigning responsibility and meting out appropriate punishment to perpetrators of heinous crimes, even if the perpetrators are former heads of state. This is evident in the recent the warrants issued by the ICC for the arrest of the leader of the Lords Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, and his deputy, Vincent Otti, This view is further underscored by the recent UN Security Council Chapter VII Resolution against four rebel leaders in Darfur.
From another perspective, finding Taylor guilty should not be the only objective of his trial. It should also provide insights into how he managed to jump bail and evade arrest after being imprisoned in Boston in the 1980s, and how he was able to organise and run his war machine for so long. Such disclosures might perhaps explain the difficulty if finding a state in which to serve his prison sentence should he be found guilty.
If there is something dangerous about Taylor as yet unknown to the ordinary person on the street, then his arrest and successful trial and sentence will have served the ends of justice, because for more than a decade Taylor operated in West Africa with impunity.
Furthermore, the development of international law since the historic judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, has established the principle of individual criminal accountability by proclaiming that "Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities. Only by punishing those who commit these crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced".
This remarkable development eventually led to the creation of the ICC - and Special Courts - which try heinous offences, among them shocking crimes, war atrocities, genocide and aggression. In these courts lie the promise of universal justice, representing a struggle to ensure that no ruler, state, junta or army can abuse human rights with impunity.
However, the greatest shortcoming of international law - which constitutes a threat to the rule of law - continues to be the lack of enforcement. Failure to enforce the law is fatal to its credibility and is antithetical to the rule of law itself. Beyond Taylor’s arrest, which is a bold move in the right direction, the UN system needs to evolve more effective mechanisms for apprehending indicted persons still at large.
Festus Aboagye
