Taylor must not escape judgment

by Noah Novogrodsky

This comment article first appeared in the National Post on June 9, 2003 

The good news is that one of the worst human rights abusers in modern history was publicly indicted for his crimes last Wednesday. The bad news is that he eluded capture -- yet again.

The indictee is Charles Taylor, President of Liberia. He was charged by the Sierra Leone Special Court with responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law, including the use of child soldiers, in Sierra Leone. The Special Court is a hybrid United Nations-Sierra Leonean tribunal tasked with trying those who "bear the greatest responsibility" for grave violations of local and international law.

On Wednesday, Taylor was in Ghana, attending peace talks aimed at ending the seemingly endless war in Liberia. When Special Court Chief Prosecutor David Crane learned that Taylor had left the relative safety of Liberia, he disclosed the previously sealed indictment, served a warrant for Taylor's arrest on the Ghanaian authorities and sent a copy to Interpol. Amazingly, Ghanaian officials hesitated and Taylor exploited their inaction to return home to Monrovia on a Ghanaian jet.

It was not the first time Taylor has escaped judgment. In the 1980s, Taylor was charged with fraud in Liberia but fled to the United States where he was arrested and spent 16 months in a Massachusetts prison. Taylor then escaped from jail and made his way to Libya where he received training and financial support from Colonel Gaddafi before returning to Liberia to start a rebel war.

According to human rights groups, Taylor developed a particularly depraved brand of warfare. During the 1989-97 war in Liberia, Taylor's forces conscripted child combatants (many of whom were forced to kill family members), turned thousands of women into sex slaves and uprooted whole civilian communities. In all, more than 200,000 Liberians were killed and more than one million people fled as refugees. Exhausted and terrorized, those Liberians who remained in the country elected Taylor President in 1997, although fighting and widespread repression continue to this day.

In neighbouring Sierra Leone, Taylor is alleged to have supported the Revolutionary United Front, led by the notorious Foday Sankoh. Taylor is charged with providing "financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition" and other support to the RUF in order to gain access to Sierra Leone's diamond mines. The RUF, in turn, allied itself with the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. Together, these rebel armies massacred civilian populations, enslaved whole villages and committed widespread rape and sexual abuse. Counts nine and 10 of the indictment charge Taylor with supporting forces that mutilated civilians by hacking off limbs and carving their initials on the bodies of victims. The killing only ceased when United Nations peacekeepers (including British Special Forces) intervened to restore order.

Today, the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world polices Sierra Leone and construction is underway at the Special Court. It is no exaggeration to say that the court was built with Taylor in mind. Although Taylor is a sitting head-of-state, the court's statute was drafted to prohibit sovereign immunity as a defence to gross violations of human rights.

Taylor then is left to argue that he should not be prosecuted because to do so would jeopardize the Liberian "peace process." In fact, on the day of his indictment, Taylor indicated he would consider stepping down within the year if it would bring peace to Liberia.

This is a patently hollow promise and a deal the international community should reject for a host of reasons. First, Taylor's friend Foday Sankoh mouthed the same words at peace talks in the Ivory Coast in 1996 and in Togo in 1999 only to continue his butchery in the days that followed. Between the Sierra Leonean precedent and Taylor's abysmal track record, there is no reason to believe Taylor would ever step aside.

Second, even if Taylor could be held to his promise, trading peace in Liberia for the possibility of justice in Sierra Leone is unconscionable. Most Sierra Leoneans support the work of the court. Where warlords once ruled, the Special Court now offers a legitimate criminal accounting for the most culpable perpetrators. That group includes Taylor and appropriately so -- in a region where human rights abusers cross borders, the court's reach must extend to the worst offenders wherever they are.

Equally important, a court capable of trying Taylor will contribute to the rule of law. Because the Special Court is located in Sierra Leone, at the scene of the crime, it will also be seen to provide justice. This matters in a country that has known virtually no rule of law for a decade. If afforded political support, the court will leave the legacy of a world-class courthouse, a cadre of trained Sierra Leonean lawyers and the precedent of the court's jurisprudence.

Finally, although the Bush administration is famously opposed to multilateralism and the International Criminal Court, the prosecution of Taylor's crimes has been a unifying event for Western powers. On this issue, U.S., British and Canadian foreign policy is largely aligned and all three countries have committed to the process. David Crane is American. The court's registrar and chief judge are British. And many of the prosecutors and investigators are Canadian. On Thursday, Mr. Crane recalled the words of another Canadian, Madame Justice Louise Arbour, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Arbour was accused of disrupting peace talks when she indicted Slobodan Milosevic to which she replied:

"I don't think it's appropriate for politicians before and after the fact to reflect on whether they think the indictment came at a good or bad time; whether it's helpful to the peace process. This is a legal, judicial process. The appropriate course of action is for politicians to take this indictment into account."

If only the Ghanaians had paid attention. Perhaps the next time Taylor leaves Liberia, foreign authorities will see him for the indicted war criminal that he is.

Noah Novogrodsky is an adjunct professor and director of the International Human Rights Program. He visited Sierra Leone in February; approximately 10 students at the University of Toronto law school are conducting research for the Special Court Office of the Prosecutor.