Taylor conviction sends warning to tyrants
Warlord-turned-liberian president found guilty of war crimes, crimes vs humanity
LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands—former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war crimes court, a historic verdict that sends a message that tyrants worldwide will be tracked down and brought to justice.
The warlord-turned-president was found guilty on Thursday of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for arming Sierra Leone rebels in exchange for “blood diamonds” mined by slave laborers and smuggled across the border.
Judges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone said Taylor played a crucial role in allowing the rebels to continue a bloody rampage during that West African nation’s 11-year civil war, which ended in 2002 with more than 50,000 dead. Ten years after the war ended, Sierra Leone is still struggling to rebuild.
The rebels gained international notoriety for hacking off the limbs of their victims and carving their groups’ initials into opponents and even children they kidnapped, drugged and turned into killers. The rebels developed gruesome terms for the mutilations that became their chilling trademark: They would offer their victims the choice of “long sleeves” or “short sleeves”—having their hands hacked off or their arms sliced off above the elbow.
The 64-year-old Taylor will be sentenced next month after a separate hearing.
The court has no death penalty and no life sentence. Judges have given eight other rebels as much as 52 years in prison.
The verdict was hailed by prosecutors, victims and rights activists as a watershed moment in efforts to end impunity for leaders responsible for atrocities.
The ruling “permanently locks in and solidifies the idea that heads of state are now accountable for what they do to their own people,” said David Crane, the former prosecutor who indicted Taylor in 2003 and is now a professor of international law at Syracuse University. “This is a bell that has been rung and clearly rings throughout the world. If you are a head of state and you are killing your own people, you could be next.”
UN Secretary-general Ban Kimoon hailed the judgment as “a significant milestone for international criminal justice” that “sends a strong signal to all leaders that they are and will be held accountable for their actions,” said UN deputy spokesperson Eduardo del Buey.
US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Taylor’s prosecution “delivers a strong message to all perpetrators of atrocities, including those in the highest positions of power, that they will be held accountable.”
Despite optimism over the verdict, international efforts to prosecute leaders have been spotty at best. Slobodan Milosevic died in his cell before a verdict could be reached on charges of fomenting the Balkan wars. Moammar Gadhafi was killed by rebels last year before he could be turned over for trial. Sudanese President Omar alBashir is openly defying attempts to arrest him on interna- tional genocide charges.
In one success story, prosecutors at the UN’S Yugoslav war crimes tribunal are close to wrapping up their case against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic—although it took more than a decade to have him arrested.
The global implications meant little to survivors of the war in Sierra Leone who celebrated Taylor’s conviction.
“I am happy that the truth has come out ... that Charles Taylor is fully and solely responsible for the crimes committed against the people of Sierra Leone,” said Jusu Jarka, who had both his arms hacked off by rebels in 1999 and who now runs a support group for fellow amputees.
Prosecuting Taylor proved how hard it is to bring leaders to justice. He fled into exile in Nigeria after being indicted in 2003 and wasn’t arrested for three years. And while the Sierra Leone court is based in that country’s capital, Taylor’s trial was staged in the Netherlands for fear it could destabilize the region.
There was no clear paper trail linking Taylor to rebels, and the three-judge panel wound up convicting him of aiding and abetting the fighters. He was cleared of direct command responsibility over the rebels.
In their verdict, reached after 13 months of deliberations, the judges said Taylor regularly received diamonds from rebels. But they made no mention of the most famous witness to testify about the gems—supermodel Naomi Campbell, who recalled being given a bag of “very small, dirty-looking stones” at a 1997 dinner at Nelson Mandela’s official mansion in South Africa.