As word trickled through of the capture of former president Charles Taylor, huddles of Liberians began to congregate around the nearest radio. For the first time in years, the Champions League football was switched off in favour of the news.
”This is a great day,” said Jerome Verdier, head of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. ”It’s a fundamental triumph for the rule of law both in Liberia and the sub-region. The warrant of the court has been respected and I’m proud that Liberia has had an exemplary role to play.”
Verdier has himself been held hostage and nearly executed by several of the warring factions that emerged after the former warlord-turned- president invaded Liberia in 1989. Liberia’s war quickly spilled over its borders; the 17 counts of crimes against humanity Taylor is currently facing relate to his backing of rebel groups in Sierra Leone.
A United Nations-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone indicted him for his support of rebel groups who hacked the limbs, lips and ears from thousands of civilians during a struggle to control the country’s diamond fields. Residents of Freetown also blame Taylor for funding Operation No Living Thing, an onslaught on the city that claimed thousands of lives.
”We need to see justice done in the case of Charles Taylor,” Verdier said. ”That means not just a trial, but a free and fair trial. We have not had a great experience with these special courts — Foday Sankoh [of Sierra Leone] and [Slobadan] Milosovich both died in custody. Now is our chance to prove ourselves.”
At the request of a newly elected Liberian government, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo reluctantly agreed to extradite Taylor last Saturday. He has been living in luxurious exile in Nigeria for the past two years but disappeared from his seaside villa earlier this week. He was apprehended early on Wednesday by Nigerian security forces in Gamboru, a small town in northeastern Nigeria on the border with Cameroon. No charges have yet been brought against Taylor in his native Liberia, but Verdier has refused to rule out the possibility of prosecuting any of the masterminds behind the conflict. Up to a quarter of a million died before Taylor was forced into exile in 2003, declaring from the steps of the plane, ”God willing, I’ll be back.”
On Wednesday he was, but there was no triumphant homecoming. The former president was hustled off a Nigerian jet, read his rights, and handcuffed before departing for Sierra Leone in a helicopter within an hour. The UN was taking no chances with security. Tanks full of Irish and Swedish soldiers ringed Roberts International airport and riot police threw cordons around the tarmac. UN officials going out to take custody of Taylor all donned sky-blue bulletproof vests as helicopters circled overhead.
Mike McGovern, the West Africa head of the think tank International Crisis Group, commented: ”The arrest closes an ugly chapter in Liberian history and gives people the confidence to look to the future.”
Despite increased patrols by UN soldiers, reports have already appeared in Liberian papers that former commanders of pro-Taylor militia units have slipped over the border to Côte d’Ivoire. Other Taylor supporters have been arrested in the Liberian capital but many, including his former wife and ex-son-in-law and a militia leader known as General Peanut Butter, hold powerful positions in the new government.
Despite these obstacles, most Liberians are upbeat about the future. Having 15 000 UN soldiers to police the country has certainly helped. Liberia’s Security Minister, Brownie Samukai, said peaceful elections had made such a difference that even Taylor’s escape had not sparked a full-scale panic.
”It hasn’t affected security issues in the country because Liberians have begun to hope. They are looking to the future, they don’t want to be tied to the past,” he said.
Although many observers were surprised at the speed with which new Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf asked for Taylor’s extradition — a confrontation she had repeatedly dodged during her campaign — McGovern believes ”her hand was forced because money needed to rebuild the country was tied to this request”.
Liberia has had no running water or electricity for 15 years. Unemployment stands at 80% and raw sewage runs down the main streets of the capital. In the Temple of Justice, bullet holes pockmark the shattered windows. More than 100 000 former fighters roam the countryside and the newly recruited army is still in its fledgling stage. After a trip to Washington by Johnson-Sirleaf, the United States pledged millions of dollars to help rebuild the shattered country. But Verdier, and thousands of other victims, believe the arrest of Taylor will go much further in rebuilding its shattered people.