Murderous war criminal scum finally receives justice

One of the world's worst war criminals finally received a small measure of justice this week. Former Liberian warlord and dictator Charles Taylor was convicted of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. Taylor was convicted of aiding and abetting crimes in that country by arming Sierra Leone rebel groups knowing full well of the groups' actions.

As you might infer, I hold particularly enmity for this vile piece of trash. I lived in Guinea in the mid-90s, when the country hosted over half a million refugees from the Sierra Leonean and Liberian civil wars. I personally knew people whose lives were ruined by Taylor's roving bands of murderous thugs.

Since Taylor still has many allies inside Liberia itself, he was never going to be treated for the even greater he was responsible for in his own country, so it's a consolation that he will like spend the rest of his miserable life rotting in jail.

Mali: a boon to African democracy?

The recent events in Mali, previously one of the most stable, democratic countries on the continent, have been widely described internationally as a blow to African democracy. Over at SEADiaspora blog, Adien Ignoi takes the opposite view. The refusal of the Malian population to accept the junta's legitimacy, essentially forcing it to hand back power to civilians, is, in his view, a good sign.