Charles Taylor, a former warlord who was president
of Liberia from 1997 to 2003, has been convicted on eleven counts of war crimes
by the Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting in The Hague. In a trial that began in 2006 and that, over
the years, included lengthy testimony from Taylor and over a hundred other
witnesses concerning conflict diamonds, amputations, and cannibalism,
prosecutors sought to link particular war crimes in Sierra Leone’s civil war to
Taylor without written orders or testimony putting him at the scene of the
crimes. They were able to do so using
intercepted communications and testimony from Taylor’s radio operators.
Taylor was a high-ranking member of Samuel Doe’s
government in Liberia following the 1980 coup that toppled William
Tolbert. In 1983, he was dismissed from the government and
charged with having embezzled Liberian government funds. He fled to the United States where, on May
24, 1984, he was arrested and charged with laundering the funds that had been
embezzled through an American bank. He
escaped from prison sixteen months later—with help from the CIA, according to
his own testimony at trial—and made his way to Libya where he gained support
from Muammar Gaddafi.
Eventually Taylor traveled to Cote d’Ivoire where he
formed the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and attacked Liberia in
an effort to unseat Doe. A rival
organization eventually deposed Doe, but the civil war continued in the form of an ethnic
conflict wrapped up in a struggle to control natural resources.
Elections were held in Liberia in 1997 following the
conclusion of the war a year earlier.
Taylor won the election with 75 percent of the vote (using, among others, the campaign slogan “he
killed my Ma, he killed my Pa, but I will vote for him”). As president of Liberia, he supported the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) rebel force in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, allegedly
by supplying arms for diamonds. It was
his engagement with the RUF that prompted his indictment for war crimes and
crimes against humanity by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Sentencing in the case has been set for May 3.