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.

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.

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.

Male victims of sex crimes in war 'almost equal' number of female victims

In recent years, there's been quite a bit of press coverage of the rape and sexual assault against women during war time, and rightly so. However, there's virtually no awareness of such crimes against men. Both al-Jazeera (here) and the UK Observer (here) have done pieces on this mostly ignored scourge.

Both news outlets report the claim that sex crimes against men during war is nearly as common as those against women, some of the victims having been gang raped repeatedly for months or even years.

But The Observer points out that the problem is so little thought of that such statistics are hard to find. Because there has been so little research into the rape of men during war, it's not possible to say with any certainty why it happens or even how common it is – although a rare 2010 survey, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 22% of men and 30% of women in Eastern Congo reported conflict-related sexual violence.


They note that, in addition to the taboos (and in some places, laws) preventing many such men from getting help, many non-governmental organizations are set up to help female victims of sex crimes but not males.

"The organisations working on sexual violence don't talk about it," says Chris Dolan, director of the Refugee Law Project (RLP) at the Makerere University in Uganda.

But it goes beyond not talking about it to an active muzzling of reality.

"I know for a fact that the people behind [a 2006 United Nations] report insisted the definition of rape be restricted to women," [Dolan] says, adding that one of the RLP's donors, Dutch Oxfam, refused to provide any more funding unless he'd promise that 70% of his client base was female.

The Observer article concludes depressingly: Before receiving help from the RLP, one man went to see his local doctor. He told him he had been raped four times, that he was injured and depressed and his wife had threatened to leave him. The doctor gave him a Panadol.