http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042400893.htmlThe Bush administration is touting the rule of law and democracy as priorities in its effort to create stability and defeat terrorism. Yet it remains curiously apathetic about the activities of one of the world's most notorious indicted war criminals, a man who is also an abettor of al Qaeda and Hezbollah. I am speaking of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who has not only escaped answering for his crimes so far but who may be given an opportunity to repeat them if the United States does not act.
It seems to matter little here that Taylor's efforts to escape justice may well succeed because of U.S. inertia. Indicted on 17 counts of crimes against humanity, Taylor poses a clear and present danger to West Africa and U.S. interests. Yet the State Department continues to respond to congressional inquiries with bland assurances that everything is fine and Taylor is no longer a problem. It's not true.
Unless Taylor is turned over quickly to the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone to stand trial, he will never face punishment for the crimes he committed in the region at the cost of tens of thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed. The mandate of the court, largely funded by the United States, expires at the end of the year. It was established to try those "most responsible" for the atrocities in Sierra Leone. Taylor is at the top of the list.
Taylor's were brutal, vicious crimes. For more than a decade he presided over forces that murdered, raped and mutilated children; they also abducted children to use them as cannon fodder. He created "Small Boys Units" made up of specially trained children who, while high on amphetamines, were used to raze villages and murder civilians. He trained and supplied the Revolutionary United Front in neighboring Sierra Leone, whose signature atrocity was hacking off the arms, legs and ears of civilians, many of them children.
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