Monrovia — The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has been accused of denying the people of Sierra Leone access to the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

SCSL conducted a public procedural hearing at the Hague Wednesday, but failed to broadcast a video of the hearing anywhere in Sierra Leone, the country where the crimes for which he is being tried took place.

According to the Special Court Monitoring Project, an advocacy group, the Court violated UN Security Council Resolution 1688, which requested that the Special Court make the trial accessible to the people of the West African sub-region, including Sierra Leone, through video link.

"Trial Chamber II scheduled the hearing to explain last week's decision to delay the trial until 20 August.

This delay means that those who suffered during the civil war will have to wait even longer to see justice delivered to Charles Taylor.

It is vital that Sierra Leoneans have the opportunity to fully access these proceedings, so that they can understand the workings of the judicial process, and because they more than any other group will have to live with the results". A press release said.

The proceedings took a surprising turn - one that the people of Sierra Leone were forced to miss - when Taylor arrived unexpectedly to plead not guilty to the recently amended indictment.

This is not the first time the Sierra Leonean people have been denied access to observe the judicial process at work: first, the case was transferred out of Sierra Leone to the Hague.

Then on 4 June, the morning of the Prosecutor's opening statement, the broadcast at the Special Court repeatedly sputtered and halted, with the Court eventually resorting to broadcasting coverage from news channel CNN.

On 25 June, when the trial was scheduled to resume, the broadcast again failed. Sierra Leoneans have thus been denied any and all access to the trial of the man accused of sponsoring a war that killed thousands of their countrymen and victimized millions more, the release states.

"Lack of access to the Taylor trial does not only hinder the healing process of the Sierra Leonean people," says Mohamed Suma, Programme Director of SLCMP, "but also undermines the anticipated impact of the trial on our legal system since the lack of access to justice was one of the underlying causes of the war."

"These repeated failures indicate a lack of seriousness by the Court in terms of its commitment to accessibility," elaborates SLCMP's Special Court monitor Joseph A.K. Sesay. "This can only erode the legitimacy of the Court in the eyes of the people of Sierra Leone."

This denial of access seems particularly absurd in the context of the Special Court, which, unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal

Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was placed in the country where the alleged crimes occurred specifically to encourage greater public access to the court and a stronger national legacy. These goals seem impossible to achieve when the public cannot even observe the proceedings.

The absence of access has further implications for transparency and accountability because it disrupts observations by local monitors attempting to keep track of the national impact and implications of Court decisions.

Instead, they are forced to track the proceedings via transcripts or broadcasts available only on the internet, a luxury which remains prohibitively expensive to most Sierra Leoneans.

It is said that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. Taylor's proceedings are currently scheduled to continue on 20 August.

Hopefully the Special Court will successfully broadcast them in Freetown, and the people of Sierra Leone will have the opportunity to watch the Prosecution call its first witness in one of the most important trials in recent African history.

If not, the SCSL will have again violated its commitments to transparency, a positive legacy, and the people of Sierra Leone.

St. Peters Honors Visiting Bishop

The adage "gives the man his flower while he is yet a live" was what the Lutheran Church in Liberia did Sunday for one of her most important friends, the Bishop of the Susquehanna Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Donald Main.

The St. Peter's Lutheran Church on 14th Street in Sinkor was over crowded by worshipper who gathered from nearly all Lutheran church perishes to grace the occasion.

The Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Liberia Sumoward Harris amidst cheers from the congregation notated the overwhelming support Bishop Main has given to the church in Liberia.

He classified the prelate as a true friend of Liberia who in his words has been there during force behind all the revitalization of Lutheran church facilities across the country.

He did not just send us countless numbers of 50ft containers loaded width assorted relief items over the years but have send in teams of a technocrats to help us rebuild our hospitals, clinics schools and even our churches Bishop Harries emphasized.

When Bishop Main took the microphone to talk, he was out of words. He was over whelming by the honor and offered never to forget about Liberia.

His traveling companies his wife, Dr. Robert Braford and his wife recounted the many times that they have visited Liberia and how everything is changing from war4topeace.

Bishop Main was actually the main man of the day. He broke the bread of life and served communion. In his sermon he lamented the suffering people of the world are going through much of much he attributed to bad decision political leaders make.

Most government in the world makes decisions that are driven by greed, he noted. Bishop Donald Main is retiring in August of this year as Bishop of the Susque Hana Synod evangelical Lutheran church in America. He promised that Liberia and Liberians will always be on his mind.