Evil scum war criminal pats himself on the back

In his sentencing hearing yesterday, evil scum and war criminal Charles Taylor pleaded for mercy from the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone... without acknowledging any guilt. The former Liberian dictator was convicted by the court of knowingly aiding and abetting war crimes in that country’s civil war (he’s never been charged for his role in the barbarity in his own country).

Taylor had the gall to praise himself as bringing healing and reconciliation to Liberia. He is correct.... sort of. Healing and reconciliation arrived in his country, but only after he fled the country in disgrace.

Prosecutors called for an 80 year sentence for the convictions, a term which defense attorneys called ‘disproportionate.’ They are correct, it is disproportionate. Taylor’s reign of terror which destabilized an entire region merits a much harsher sentence.

Tubman backs Taylor return

There has been a critical international reaction to comments by a Liberian presidential candidate. Winston Tubman, who recently qualified for a run off against the incumbent president and Nobel Peace laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said that former warlord and dictator Charles Taylor would be free to return to the country. Taylor, an indicted war criminal and convicted scumbag, is presently on trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone for his widely believed meddling in that country's civil war. He's yet to face trial for his role in his own country's conflict. Taylor's wife, a Liberian senator, is expected to be part of a Tubman administration if he wins. Tubman is a nephew of a former Liberian strongman.

The nature of reconciliation

Al-Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips (a former BBC journalist) has an interesting blog on reconciliation in Africa. In it, he suggests that one of the things Africans do better than people in other parts of the world is to figure out how to live with each other after conflict. He cites the tension and difficulties in places like Bosnia and Northern Ireland following prolonged civil conflict. He notes that people in Africa would find it absurd to be fixated by the outcome of a 14th or 17th century battle.

He adds that in African countries from Mozambique, to Angola, to Sierra Leone, rebel and government forces that fought on opposite sides in brutal civil wars, marred by atrocities and massacres, are now united in national armies, and apparently oblivious to recent divisions.

He also cites post-conflict stability in places like Biafra/Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. Philips concludes that the lessons Africans take from conflicts is that the price of disunity is too high to pay.

Yet that approach has its own flaws. Countless dictators, from Mobutu to Meles Zenawi, have exploited this very sentiment. The Rwandan dictatorship itself, praised by Phillips, uses the pretext of unity to crush all opposition... as the newly formed Rwandan Democratic Greens were the latest to learn first hand.

In the mid-90s, both Sierra Leone and Liberia were embroiled in savage civil wars, which sent hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighboring countries, including Guinea where I lived. Countless Guineans complained about the sclerotic, corrupt rule of Gen. Lansana Conté and his cabal. But few were willing to rise and challenge the dictatorship. When I asked why, I was told that Conté's regime was bad but at least the repressive stability was better than the alternatives they saw on the southern border, with women and children having their limbs chopped off by drugged boy soldiers.

But that forced unity has a price of its own. The forced unity didn't solve any of Guinea's myriad of problems; it simply delayed their explosion for a decade or so. When the problems finally did erupt, beginning with the general strike of 2007, it was not pretty. There were riots, at least one major massacre, mass rapes, reports of small scale ethnic cleansing and very real fears (expectations in some quarters) of a Liberia/Sierra Leone-style full scale civil war.

Thanks to the intervention and strong will of a sane military man, Gen. Sékouba Konaté, and to mobilization of the international community and especially of Guinean civil society, the country appears to have gotten past the worst of it. If not for a fortunate sequence of events (including an unmitigated disaster with an unexpected silver lining), things could have been much, much worse.

Phillips makes the valid point that honest dialogue is essential to move forward in post-conflict situations. But true reconciliation involves a voluntary partnership of equals not fake 'unity' imposed at the barrel of a gun.

Libel suits a threat to independent journalism in Liberia?

A Voice of America article reports on a huge rise in the number of libel suits in Liberia. Leading journalists fear that this phenomenon is merely an attempt to muzzle independent reporting.

Evil Scum Taylor begins spewing his lies

Earlier this week, former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor took the stand in The Hague during his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Taylor, henceforth known here as Evil Scum Who Ought to Rot in Prison for The Rest of His Pathetic Life (Evil Scum for short), denied being responsible for any of the accused offenses.

Evil Scum, who is 'credited' with destabilizing much of West Africa during the 1990s and much of this decade, is charged with 11 counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers and terrorism in his role backing rebels in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war.

He has not yet been charged for any of the countless crimes he is widely believed to have been responsible for in his native Liberia.

Evil Scum's lawyer was on CBC Radio's As It Happens program earlier this week giving the former warlord's point of view.

As if the Jewish people haven't suffered enough

Foreign Policy blog points out that former Liberian dictator and indicted war criminal Charles Taylor has pretended to convert to Judaism.

This might be surprising, as he used to be a pretend Christian. You may remember his farewell address shortly before fleeing the country rather than be overthrown, where he seemed to compare himself to Jesus Christ.

However, one of his wives [sic] clarified this to the BBC. "No, no, no he hasn't rejected Christianity. He has always been a Christian. He just decided to become a Jew. He wants to follow the two religions," she said.

As Foreign Policy put it: Least. Welcome. Convert. Ever.

Pres. Sirleaf's memoir

The New York Times has a review of 'This Child Will Be Great,' a memoir by Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

The first elected female African head of state was also on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last month to discuss the book.

Liberian president on US TV

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will be on Comedy Central's The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to discuss her memoir This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President.

The show airs tonight at 11 PM Eastern US time and re-airs tomorrow at 10 AM, 2 PM and 8 PM Eastern.

Guinea invaded by Liberian army... worms

West Africa has been invaded by worms. No laughing matter, the pests have caused agricultural damage in Liberia so severe that Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has declared a national state of emergency. According to the UN, the worms left wells contaminated with their feces, fields empty of crops and markets lacking food. Reports suggest that worms have crossed the border into southeastern Guinea.

Initial reports referred to the pests as army worms, but experts have since concluded that they are in fact an unidentified species.

Liberia's timber industry reborn

The IRIN has a story on the resumption of Liberia's logging industry.

The industry had come under serious scrutiny under the former dictatorship of Charles Taylor when the warlord was diverting logging revenues to himself rather than the treasury and using these funds to finance his ambitions of regional destabilisation. Logging company militias also became private armies, according to Global Witness.

The UN subsequently prohibited timber exports from the country, a ban that was recently lifted.

A World Bank expert estimated that logging could provide up to 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

A spokesman for the Liberian government’s Forestry Development Authority said logging companies will be made to sign social agreements with local communities to help fund development needs such as schools, health centers and roads.

Hopefully these agreements will actually be honored.

Progress in Liberia

The Center for Global Development has a report detailing the progress made in Liberia since the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Trial of the world's worst war criminal resumes

Yesterday marked the resumption in The Hague of the trial of Charles Taylor, someone largely responsible for destabilizing the much of West Africa. The barbarian who formerly held Liberia hostage* has been indicted on multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his widely assumed role in backing the heinous Sierra Leone rebel RUF during the 1990s.

*-Note: I know people whose lives were turned upside down by this scumbag and his drugged "men." So if you're looking for neutral, dispassionate analysis of the Taylor trial, this is not the place.

According to the prosecution, and most outside analyses at the time, Taylor armed, financed and trained the rebel army in exchange of diamonds.

Among the 144 witnesses to be called by the prosecution, 77 will be direct victims of the rebel crimes, eight will be experts and 59 will be called to testify the connection between Taylor and the crimes committed in Sierra Leone. Among them, will be "insiders", former associates of the warlords.

Liberia on the move

A few good news stories about a country that hasn't had very many in the last two decades.

Liberia is a country of particular interest to me. When I lived in neighboring Guinea in the mid-90s, it was at the nadir of Liberia's first civil war. The radio teemed with reports of atrocities by drugged up boy soldiers of the despicably murderous warlord Charles Taylor. Guinea was also home to over half a million refugees from Liberia's conflict and from the civil war in Sierra Leone, which Taylor also inspired and helped finance. I had friends and acquaintances who'd fled these wars and that helped give me an abiding hatred for Charles Taylor.

When the warlord blackmailed, bullied and intimidated his way to "winning" the 1997 presidential elections, people hoped stability, if not prosperity, would return to the country. But it was no surprise that a despicably murderous warlord turned into a despicably murderous head of state. Another civil war erupted. There were even calls for an intervention by American troops, an amazing thing considering the world's opinion (and particularly those of smaller countries) of the US invasion of Iraq.

This is probably what most Americans think about Liberia, if they know anything about it at all.

Things are now on the upswing. Progress is agonizingly slow but after 16 years of horror, any steps forward are welcome.

Loathsome scumbag Charles Taylor is now an indicted war criminal and is deservingly on trial in The Hague for his countless crimes against humanity.

But the application of justice for one man is only a first step. Infrastructure must be rebuilt. Electricity restored. Clean water made available. This piece from the Center for Global Development explores some of the many challenges.

A special section at AllAfrica.com has many stories on the proress being made in Liberia, particularly since the installation as president of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She gained notoriety as the first woman to be elected president of an African country but she will gain far more awe if she can continue to help rebuild Liberia into a stable country. So far, it looks like she's providing the leadership and good governence that has been so sorely lacking in the country over the decades.

Liberians in America to be expelled?

US National Public Radio had a pair of stories recently on Liberia. First, it reported that thousands of Liberians resident in the United States might be forced to return to the West African state next month. They came to the U.S. under a special immigration category known as Temporary Protected Status. TPS was first granted in 1991, as Liberia descended into a decade of brutal conflict. But with stability returning to the country, the status may be eliminated. Yet, Liberian government officials say they can't handle the return of such a large influx of returnees.

Community radio stations in Liberia

The UN's IRIN news service reports on the struggle for survival faced by community radio stations in Liberia.