Charles Taylor is one man who will forever remain a
scar on Africa’s conscience. Europe had Hitler, South America had Augusto
Pinochet and Asia had Suharto and Pol Pot. Charles Taylor fits perfectly in
this list of heartless tyrants who terrorized entire generations in the last
century. Taylor’s story is a fascinating tale of violence, lawlessness and
impunity in a world whose moral compass is obscured by endless greed, and where
the wheels of justice (if at all) take decades to turn. From a variety of
sources, here is the story of the man whose memory evokes images of chopped off
limbs of young children in Sierra Leone and horrific images of rebel soldiers
eating raw human hearts of their dead enemies. This is a man who served interests
of the two cold war powers, sponsored multiple conflicts in West Africa and
even claimed to be Jesus.
Read, and thank God he is gone....
Charles McArthur ‘Ghankay’
Taylor (born ) was born in Arthington, Montserrado County, Liberia on 28 January 1948.
He attended Bentley College in the US before returning to Liberia to work
in the government of Samuel Doe.
Government, imprisonment and
escape
Having supported the 12 April 1980 coup led by Samuel Doe, which saw the murder of President William R. Tolbert,
Jr. and seizure of power by Doe, Taylor was appointed to a high
position in Doe’s government in the General Services Agency of Liberia, which left him in charge of procurement on behalf of the Liberian government.
However, he was sacked in May 1983 for embezzling almost $1,000,000 and channelling
the funds to an American bank account.
Taylor fled to the US but was arrested
on 24 May 1984 by two US Deputy
Marshals in Somerville,
Massachusetts, on a warrant for extradition to face charges of
embezzling $922,000, government funds, intended for machinery parts. Citing a
fear of assassination by Liberian agents, Taylor sought to fight extradition
from the safety of jail with the help of his attorney, former US Attorney General
Ramsey Clark. He was detained in a House of
Corrections in Plymouth,
Massachusetts.
On 15 September 1985, Taylor and four other inmates
allegedly escaped from the Plymouth facility, a minimum security prison, by
sawing through a bar covering a window in an unused laundry room. After
dropping 12 feet to the ground by means of a knotted sheet, the five inmates
climbed a fence. Shortly thereafter, Taylor and two other escapees were met at
nearby Jordan Hospital by Taylor's wife, Enid, and Taylor's sister-in-law,
Lucia Holmes Toweh. A getaway car was driven to Staten Island, where Taylor then disappeared. All
four of Taylor's fellow escapees, as well as Enif and Toweh, were later apprehended.
Civil war
Taylor managed to flee the United States and
shortly thereafter it is assumed that he went to Libya,
where he underwent guerrilla training under Muammar Gaddafi, becoming Gaddafi's protégé.
Eventually, he left Libya and traveled to Côte d'Ivoire, where he founded the National
Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
In December 1989, Taylor launched a Libyan-funded
armed uprising from Côte d'Ivoire into Liberia to overthrow the Doe regime,
leading to the First Liberian Civil
War. By 1990, his forces soon controlled most of the country. That
same year, Prince Johnson, a senior commander of Taylor's NPFL, broke away and
formed the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). In
September 1990, Johnson captured Monrovia, depriving Taylor
of outright victory. Doe was captured and tortured to death by Johnson and his forces,
resulting in a violent political fragmentation of
the country. The civil war turned into an ethnic conflict, with seven factions fighting for
control of Liberia's resources ( iron ore, diamonds, timber, and rubber).
According to a 2 June 1999, article in The Virginian-Pilot,
Taylor had extensive business dealings with American televangelist Pat Robertson during the civil war. According to
the article, Taylor gave Robertson the rights to mine for diamonds in Liberia's mineral-rich countryside.
According to two Operation Blessing
pilots who reported this incident to the Commonwealth of Virginia for investigation in 1994, Robertson
used his Operation Blessing planes to haul diamond-mining equipment to his new
mines in Liberia, despite the fact that Robertson was telling his 700 Club viewers that the planes were sending
relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda. The subsequent investigation by the Commonwealth of Virginia concluded that Robertson diverted his
ministry's donations to the Liberian diamond-mining operation, but Attorney General
of Virginia Mark Earley blocked any
potential prosecution against Robertson, as the relief supplies were also sent.
Presidency
After the official end of the civil war in 1996,
Taylor ran for president in the 1997 general
election. He famously campaigned on the slogan "He killed my
ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him." The elections were overseen
by the United Nations' peacekeeping mission, United
Nations Observer Mission in Liberia, along with a contingent from
the Economic
Community of West African States. Taylor won the election in a landslide,
garnering 75 percent of the vote. Taylor's toughest competitor, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
collected only 10 percent of the vote. Taylor's victory has been widely
attributed to the belief that he would resume to war if he lost.
During his time in office, Taylor ran down the Armed Forces of
Liberia, dismissing 2,400–2,600 former personnel, many of whom were
ethnic Krahn brought in by former President Doe. In its
place, he installed the Anti-Terrorist
Unit, the Special Operations Division of the Liberian National
Police (LNP), which he used as his own private army.
Numerous allegations were leveled at Taylor during
his presidency, particularly regarding his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War.
He was accused of aiding the rebel Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) through weapon sales in exchange for blood diamonds. Due to a UN embargo against arms
sales to Liberia at the time, these weapons were largely purchased on the black market through arms smugglers such as Viktor Bout (arrested and extradited to the US
from Bangkok, Thailand). Furthermore, he was charged with aiding and abetting
RUF atrocities against civilians that left many thousands dead or mutilated,
with unknown numbers of people abducted and tortured. Moreover, he was accused
of assisting the RUF in the recruitment of child soldiers. In addition to aiding the RUF in
these acts, Taylor reportedly personally directed RUF operations in Sierra
Leone
Taylor obtained spiritual and other advice from the
evangelist Kilari Anand Paul. As president, he was known for
his flamboyant style. Upon being charged by the UN of being a gunrunner and
diamond smuggler during his presidency, he publicly appeared in all white robes
and begged God for forgiveness, while at the same time denying the charges. He
was also reported to have said that “Jesus Christ was accused of being a
murderer in his time.”
Rebellion and indictment
In 1999, a rebellion against Taylor began in
northern Liberia, led by a group calling itself Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
(LURD). This group was frequently accused of atrocities, and is thought to have
been backed by the government of neighboring Guinea. This uprising signaled the beginning of the Second Liberian
Civil War.
By early 2003, LURD had gained control of northern
Liberia. That year, a second Ivorian-backed rebel group, Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), emerged in southern Liberia and
achieved rapid successes. By the summer, Taylor's government
controlled only about a third of Liberia: Monrovia and the central part of the
country.
On 7 March 2003, the Special Court
for Sierra Leone (SCSL) issued a sealed indictment for Taylor. Earlier that year,
Liberian forces had killed Sam Bockarie, a
leading member of the RUF in Sierra Leone, in a shootout under Taylor's orders.
Some have claimed that Taylor ordered Bockarie killed in order to prevent
Bockarie from testifying against him at the SCSL.
In June 2003, the Prosecutor to the Special Court
unsealed the indictment and announced publicly that Taylor was charged with war
crimes. The indictment asserted that Taylor created and backed the RUF rebels
in Sierra Leone, who were accused of a range of atrocities, including the use
of child soldiers. The Prosecutor also said that
Taylor's administration had harbored members of Al-Qaeda sought in connection with the 1998
bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The indictment was unsealed during Taylor's
official visit to Ghana, where he was participating in peace talks
with MODEL and LURD officials. With the backing of the then-South African president Thabo Mbeki and against the urging of Sierra Leone president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah,
Ghana declined to detain Taylor, who returned to Monrovia.
Resignation
During his absence for the peace talks in Ghana, it
was alleged that the U.S. government urged Vice President
Moses Blah to seize power. Upon his return,
Taylor briefly dismissed Blah from his post, only to reinstate him a few days
later.
In July 2003, LURD initiated a siege of Monrovia,
and several bloody battles were fought as Taylor's forces halted rebel attempts
to capture the city. The pressure on Taylor increased further as U.S. President
George W. Bush stated that Taylor "must
leave Liberia" twice that month. On 9 July, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo offered Taylor exile
in his country on the condition that Taylor stay out of Liberian politics.
He instead insisted that he would resign only if U.S. peacekeeping troops were deployed to Liberia.
Bush publicly called upon Taylor to resign and leave the country in order for
any American involvement to be considered. Meanwhile, several African states,
in particular the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the leadership of
Nigeria, sent troops under the banner of ECOMIL to Liberia. Logistical support
was provided by a California company called PAE Government Services Inc., which
was given a $10 million contract by the U.S. State Department.
On 6 August, a 32-member U.S. military assessment team were deployed as a
liaison with the ECOWAS troops.
On 10 August, Taylor appeared on national
television to announce that he would resign the following day and hand power to
Vice President Blah. He harshly criticized the United States in his farewell address, saying that the Bush
administration's insistence that he leave the country would hurt
Liberia.
On 11 August, Taylor resigned, with Blah serving as
president until a transitional government was established on 14 October. At the
handover were Ghanaian President John Kufuor, South African President Thabo Mbeki, and Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, all representing African
regional councils. The U.S. brought Joint Task Force
Liberia's Amphibious Ready Group
of three warships with 2,300 Marines
into view of the coast. Taylor then flew to Nigeria, where the Nigerian
government provided houses for him and his entourage in Calabar.
Exile
In November 2003, the United States Congress
passed a bill that included a reward offer of two million dollars for Taylor's
capture. While the peace agreement had guaranteed Taylor safe exile in Nigeria,
it also required that he not attempt to influence Liberian politics, a
requirement that his critics claimed he disregarded. On 4 December, Interpol issued a red notice regarding Taylor, suggesting that
countries had a duty to arrest him. Taylor was placed on Interpol's Most Wanted
list, declaring him wanted for crimes against
humanity and breaches of the 1949 Geneva Convention,
and noting that he should be considered dangerous. Nigeria stated it would not
submit to Interpol's demands, agreeing only to deliver Taylor to Liberia in the
event that the President of Liberia requested his return.
On 17 March 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
the newly elected President of Liberia, submitted an official request to
Nigeria for Taylor's extradition. This request was granted on 25 March, when
Nigeria agreed to release Taylor to stand trial in the Special Court
for Sierra Leone. Nigeria agreed only to release Taylor and not to
extradite him, as no extradition treaty
existed between the two countries.
Disappearance and arrest
Three days after Nigeria announced its intent to
hand him over to Liberia, Taylor disappeared from the seaside villa where he
had been living in exile. One week prior to his disappearance, Nigerian
authorities had taken the unusual step of allowing local press to accompany census takers into Taylor’s seaside Calabar compound.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was scheduled to meet with
President Bush less than 48 hours after Taylor was reported missing.
Speculation ensued that Bush would refuse to meet with Obasanjo if Taylor were
not apprehended. Less than 12 hours prior to the scheduled meeting between the
two heads of state, Taylor was reported apprehended and en route to Liberia.
On 29 March, Taylor tried to cross the border into Cameroon through the border town of Gamboru in
northeastern Nigeria. His Range Rover with
Nigerian diplomatic plates was stopped by border guards, and Taylor's identity
was eventually established. State
Department staff later reported that significant amounts of cash and
heroin were found in the vehicle.
Upon his arrival at Roberts
International Airport in Harbel, Liberia, Taylor was arrested
and handcuffed by LNP officers, who then immediately transferred responsibility
for the custody of Taylor to the United
Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Irish UNMIL
soldiers then escorted Taylor aboard a UN helicopter to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he was delivered to the SCSL.
Trial
The SCSL prosecutor originally indicted Taylor on 3
March 2003 on a 17 count indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed
during the conflict in Sierra Leone. On 16 March 2006, a SCSL judge gave leave
to amend the indictment against Taylor. Under the amended indictment, Taylor
was charged with 11 counts. At Taylor's initial appearance before the court on
3 April 2006, he entered a plea of not guilty.
In early June 2006, the decision on whether to hold
Taylor's trial in Freetown or in The Hague had not yet been made by the new SCSL
president, George Gelaga King.
King's predecessor had pushed for the trial to be held abroad because of fear
that a local trial would be politically destabilizing in an area where Taylor
still had influence. The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court dismissed a
motion by Taylor's defense team, who argued that their client could not get a
fair trial there and also wanted the Special Court to withdraw the request to
move the trial to The Hague.
On 15 June 2006, the British government
agreed to jail Taylor in the UK in the event that he is convicted
by the SCSL. This fulfilled a condition laid down by the Dutch government, who had stated they were
willing to host the trial but would not jail him if convicted. British Foreign
Minister Margaret Beckett
stated that new legislation would be required to accommodate this arrangement.
While awaiting his extradition to the Netherlands, Taylor was held in a UN jail in
Freetown.
On 16 June 2006, the United
Nations Security Council agreed unanimously to allow Taylor to be
sent to The Hague for trial. The Association for the Legal Defense of Charles
G. Taylor was established in June 2006 to assist in his legal defense.
When Taylor's trial opened 4 June 2007, Taylor
boycotted the proceeding and was not present. Through a letter which was read
by his attorney to the court, he justified his absence by alleging that at that
moment he was not ensured a fair and impartial trial. On 20 August 2007,
Taylor's defense now led by Courtenay Griffiths
obtained a postponement of the trial until 7 January 2008.
During the trial, the chief prosecutor alleged that
a key insider witness who testified against Taylor went into hiding after being
threatened for giving evidence against Taylor. Joseph "Zigzag"
Marzah, a former military commander, testified that Charles Taylor celebrated
his new-found status during the civil war by ordering human sacrifice,
including the killings of Taylor's opponents and allies that were perceived to
have betrayed Taylor, and by having a pregnant woman buried alive in sand.
Marzah also accused Taylor of forcing cannibalism on his soldiers in order to terrorize
their enemies.
In January 2009, the prosecution finished
presenting its evidence against Taylor and closed its case on 27 February 2009.
On 4 May 2009, a defense motion for a judgment on acquittal was dismissed, and
arguments for Taylor's defense began in July 2009. Taylor testified in his own
defense from July through November 2009. The defense rested its case on 12
November 2010, with closing arguments set for early February 2011.
On 8 February 2011, the trial court ruled in a 2–1
decision that it would not accept Taylor's trial summary, as the summary had
not been submitted by 14 January deadline. In response, Taylor and his counsel
boycotted the trial and refused an order by the court to begin closing
arguments. This boycott came soon after the 2010
leak of American diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, in which the United States discussed
the possibility of extraditing Taylor for prosecution in the United States in
the event of his acquittal by the SCSL. Taylor's counsel cited the leaked cable
and the court's decision as evidence of an international conspiracy against
Taylor.
On 3 March, the appeals court of the SCSL
overturned the trial court's decision, ruling that as the trial court had not
established that Taylor had been counseled by the court and personally
indicated his intent to waive his right to a trial summary, Taylor's due process rights would be violated by preventing
him from submitting a trial summary. The appeals court ordered the trial court
to accept the summary and set a date for the beginning of closing arguments. On
11 March, the closing arguments ended and it was announced that the court would
begin the process to reach a verdict.
Verdict
The verdict was announced in The Hague on 26 April
2012. The SCSL unanimously ruled that he was guilty of all 11 counts of aiding
and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Family
In 1997, Taylor married Jewel
Taylor, with whom he has one son. She filed for divorce in 2005,
citing her husband's exile in Nigeria and the difficulty of visiting him due to
a UN travel ban on her. The divorce was granted in 2006. Jewel Taylor currently
serves as the senior senator
from Bong County.
Phillip Taylor, Taylor's son with Jewel, remained
in Liberia following his father's extradition to the SCSL.
He was arrested by
Liberian police officials on 5 March 2011 and charged with attempted murder in
connection with an assault on the son of an immigration officer who had
assisted in Charles Taylor's extradition. At the time of his arrest, he had
been attempting to cross the border into Côte d'Ivoire.
Taylor has another son, a U.S. citizen named Charles McArther
Emmanuel, born to his college girlfriend. Emmanuel was arrested in
2006 after entering the US and was charged with three counts, including
participation in torture while serving in the Anti-Terrorist Unit in Liberia
during his father's presidency. The law that prosecuted Taylor was put in place
in 1994, before "extraordinary rendition" in an attempt to prevent US
citizens from committing acts of torture overseas. To date, this is the only
prosecuted case. In October 2008, Emmanuel was convicted on all three counts
and sentenced to 97 years in prison.
