The Taylor verdict: victory for justice?

Right. Can we just step away from the euphoria for a little while? Charles Taylor has been declared “guilty” for having aided and abetted murder, rape, the use of child soldiers, pillage and other offenses.

That’s good, no? This is an important day for international justice, you say? I’m not so convinced. Not because I don’t want to see Charles Taylor tried and convicted for what he did. I do, but not in this manner.

Let’s talk a little history here. Having shot his way to power and secured an election trough massive voter intimidation (“He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I’ll vote for him”) in 1997, Charles Taylor unleashed a reign of terror and dreadful incompetence, from which his country will take decades to recover.

This happened in Liberia. Charles Taylor was not on trial for any of that.

Special Court

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has now established that he aided and abetted, and in some cases was involved in the planning of a large number of human rights abuses in neighbouring Sierra Leone.  The prosecution has spent inordinate amounts of time, effort and money to establish evidence leading to the guilty verdict. In Liberia, his (and indeed other warlords’) atrocities are a matter of public record.

But once again, Charles Taylor is not on trial for what he did to his own country. And this is where the story gets messy.

Of course, principally, Charles Taylor brought disaster upon himself. His ultra violent and catastrophically inept government invited the inevitable next invasion. With the help of the neighbours, principally Guinea and at the very least the tacit approval of the USA and the UK (both of which had meanwhile adopted “anyone but Taylor” policies), two rebel movements forced him out in August 2003.

Prosecutor

And now it gets even messier. A former Pentagon lawyer called David Crane managed to get himself appointed the chief prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). He indicted Taylor for the crimes for which he has now been found guilty. There was one problem though: no neighbouring state was going to hand him over to the SCSL. Not Ghana, which he visited as head of state. Not Nigeria, where he was given asylum. It took a clearly stage-managed “escape” and “re-arrest” to get him into the hands of the SCSL, conveniently just in time for then president Olusegun Obasanjo’s state visit to then president George W. Bush.

Questions

So, here are the unanswered questions. One. Why was the chief prosecutor in such a hurry to have Taylor indicted? Two. Could he not have waited until the Liberians themselves had given the sign that they were ready for their man to be put on trial?

True, a war crimes tribunal is controversial in Liberia but Liberians have now been forever deprived of what we may call closure. That obviously was of no concern to Crane. Neither, by the way, are 157 dead Guineans. In an infamous 2010 report Crane and his colleague Alan White whitewashed Captain Moussa Dadis Camara and his junta’s role in the stadium massacre that took place in Conakry on September 28, 2009. So forgive me for reaching for a bucket when I hear this man intone before a BBC camera that ‘this is an important day for the people of West Africa.’

So what have we got here in the end? A US and UK-funded Court that neatly fitted the geo-strategic policies of these two countries. A torturous road to a guilty verdict that leaves millions of his victims out in the rain. A smug looking international community that can claim its first scalp “since Nuremberg” as the activists never tire of telling us. Well if Milosevich had not died he would have been the first one and I can still hear the assessment of a Serbian foreign ministry official ringing in my ears when he said that Milosevich’s delivery to The Hague was not so much an ethical issue as “a matter of foreign trade”.

Taylor’s case had less to do with ethics and a lot more with making sure he was kept out of the West African region. The correct objective – achieved in the wrong manner.

This is a quest for justice that’s gotten lost in a maze of foreign policy interests, personal career opportunism and the fact that the paymasters of this court would not have accepted another result.

Conspiracy? I certainly don’t think so. But a victory for international justice? Sorry, not to me.

Views from the hill

This has not been a very active and/or productive month and that’s because I was hiding. Here:

This is what you see when you sit on an uphill terrace in the city that was home to Cesaria Evora. In the early evening, the view looks like this…

In the foreground, the street leading to downtown Mindelo, because that’s where we are. In the background, a French frigate. I was told that during the Senegalese elections a French warship was spotted around Cabo Verde. Some folks never seem to learn. Still, you have to wait until…

…before the music comes out. It was in the bars and taverns downtown that Cesaria Evora was singing to sailors. She also performed on Portuguese cruise ships before the rest of the world discovered the twin magic of her voice and Cape Verdian music.

Today, you’ll come across the good, the mediocre and the embarrassing in all shapes and sizes. I was subjected to some seriously off-key morna in a restaurant but in this very same town you only have to walk down the street and run into Tcheka and Lura, two of the best voices Cabo Verde has to offer. They may play somewhere tonight – but then again, they may not. Beer and grogue, a lethal local distilled drink, widely available. Good food too.

I’ll be back here, staying in the superb Solar Windelo for the view, flying to the capital Praia for the excellent Kriol Jazz Festival (more about that at some other point), and taking the boat out to Santo Antão, the next island, for some spectacular mountain walking. If only to sweat out the grogue…

Outside the airport, which is named after her, there’s a statue of Cesaria Evora, in her characteristic, almost nonchalant pose, holding a microphone. I took my imaginary hat off and bowed. I didn’t think she’d mind…

Mali and Tinariwen

I’m doing a cross-posting here, from a piece I wrote for the music and current affairs website News and Noise. Here it is: 

More original blogg stuff on the way but not right now. Busy!