Freedom Newspaper (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Bubu Hamma
15 March 2008
opinion
The end of Charles Taylor reminds me of the proverb:"Power corrupts,absolute power corrupts absolutely"
If anyone told Taylor the fearful war lord the following in the early nineties...That, one day, the head of his killer-squad "ZigZag" would reveal this live horror movie in the Hague....would he have believed it? No Taylor would not have inhaled that "perfumed" smoke in his head. In his head Taylor was seeing beyond Liberia. In his head Taylor saw himself as another PAN AFRICAN. Here is what PAN AFRICANS who use arms,blood and death end up doing to us Africans.
This makes one see the reason behind another saying.."show me your friend then I tell you,who you are..." Yahya Jammeh showed his friends along the way...They are Sanni Abacha(late),Gnasingbe Eyadema of Togo(late) and Charles Taylor(alive and in the a cell in Hague). Doesn't this tell us who Yahya is? I hope it does. Has he ever denounced Taylor? Not yet. Can he do so now? Unless if his shameless jinx stirs him to disown Taylor as a spent force!
We all remember when the same Charles Taylor came to visit Yahya Jammeh in 1995. He was welcome like a head of state. At a time when he was coming from the jungle of Liberia using human intestines as barricades! The same Taylor loaned his aeroplane(then) to the new Gambian "PAN AFRICANIST" in camouflage uniform, to hop and meet President Nino Viera on a special mission to Guinea Bissau.
During that trip Taylor planted one Bangura a Guinean-born protocol officer of Taylor himself,to fly with Yahya Jammeh to and from Bissau.
This was only a year after Jammeh started tasting power. That trip Taylor made to The Gambia was symbolic and helpful for Yahya Jammeh. It was a trip meant to consolidate ties between Yahya and Tripoli. By then Taylor was in the good books of Colonel Ghadafi. It was a trip meant to consolidate ties between Yahya and the Generals(rebels) who were fighting in Taylor's favour in Nimba County and other locations within the thick jungle of Liberia. It was a trip meant to consolidate ties between Yahya and Sanni Abacha(deceased) former Nigerian dictator who died in 1999. It was a trip meant to open a market for Taylor's transhipment of timber from Liberia and blood diamond from Sierrleone. It was a trip meant to plan for Yahya's exit route because at the time him Yahya was always thinking of the return of former President Jawara. The articles quoting Taylor where he was lambasting former President Jawara are still in the stacked shelves of the daily observer. This was the trip that bonded Baba Jobe and Yahya closer than before because Baba's buddies from Liberia(rebel fighters) were Taylor body guards during his trip in The Gambia in 1995. During this trip Taylor was first lodged at the Sunwing hotel where he refused to stay,calling it a degrading dwelling for a man of his caliber. He was then moved to Kairaba hotel,stayed in hotel room 1041.
One of the Gambian mercenary fighters who accompanied Taylor is a man named Shiriff Ba Jobe. He is presently an arch enemy of Yahya Jammeh. Jobe can testify in any court against Yahya exactly as "Zig-Zag" did in the Hague. Jobe should come out and speak. His family will be protected,he will be proctected let him spill the beans. This could end Yahya's terror without a single shot being fired. People like Jobe can assist the Hague and ICC against some one like Yahya. Sure when eveidence is gathered and complete Yahya's international arrest warrant can be easily made and excuted forthwith! The only he can resort to is stop traveling out of the Gambia a country under a state of siege for years now because of the APRC regime of armed bandits in power.
Ask youselves these questions? When Tayrlor was "lured" out of power by former Nigerian President General(rtd) Olusegon Obasanjo..Didn't the former take last major steps? Why did his wife former first lady Jewel Taylor fly directly to Banjul even before joining her husband in Nigeria? What did she come to conceal in Banjul? What did she say to Yahya Jammeh? That can be known very easily,with the help of people like Shiriff Ba Jobe. He has nothing to fear at this hour because he will help investigators establish facts against a gun runner like The Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. These are no empty threats or jokes. There are people who will issue an arrest warrant against Jammeh at anytime from now. More evidence please so that there will be a better way to get him to Hague right away.
To continue on the same thread,the same Jewel Taylor went back to rejoin the politics of Liberia. Why didn't she stay with Taylor in Nigeria? Because Taylor was promised by leaders like Yahya that with special "marabouts" or witch doctors he could make a comeback! What a lie! As some of these witnesses continue releasing what they know,people who doubt will come to realise why we believe that Yahya Jammeh the president of The Gambia cannot escape a net catching Charles Taylor. Now this confirms what one Gambian Immigration officer said sometime back..That is,President Jammeh asks his killer-squad to set an example on perceived enemies when caught thus instill fear in the minds of others thinking of trying him. The same method Taylor was using is what Jammeh does at Mile Two. He does the same at the NIA and at Jeshwang Prisons( a place many do not remember these days). This is what Yahya Jammeh meant when he said he was going to set an example after the so-called march 2006 coup. He said so after flying from Mauritania,aided by Musa Jammeh,Tumbul Tamba,Solomon Jammeh
General Tamba a soldier who does not even deserve the rank of first class let alone what he holds now was the one calling and lying. Known as a coward Tamba cannot even fight anyway. This rank with Tamba should not pain anyone because Charles "dished" out the same ranks to drunken rebels in the bush. Lest we forget the famous General Mosquitoe(who Taylor killed) because he was to reveal somethings against him in the Sierraleone courts!
Tell me the difference between Jammeh and Taylor?
The soup they cooked will be served in their cells!
Read the story from the BBC compare and contrast! Yahya Jammeh will ever understand that he started the fight but I will END IT!
Taylor 'ordered solders to eat their enemies' flesh
Written By:BBC , Posted: Fri, Mar 14, 2008
Caption: Taylor is on trial at The Hague for backing rebels in Sierra Leone in an 11-year war in which thousands died.
Ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor ordered militias to eat the flesh of their enemies, a former death squad leader has told his war crimes trial.
Joseph "Zigzag" Marzah said Mr Taylor had instructed his fighters in Liberia to even eat UN peacekeepers to "set an example for the people to be afraid".
Mr Taylor is on trial at The Hague for backing rebels in Sierra Leone in an 11-year war in which thousands died.
He has denied the 11 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has been moved away from West Africa because of fears that it could lead to renewed instability in the region.
It began last June, but was adjourned until January after only one day when Mr Taylor dismissed his lawyer. Many witnesses have since testified behind closed doors.
Mr Marzah, a key prosecution witness, agreed to appear in open court only after lengthy negotiations over the protection provided for him and his family.
Describing himself as Mr Taylor's former chief of operations and commander of a death squad in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Mr Marzah said the former leader ordered militias to eat the flesh of enemies in Liberia, including African and UN peacekeepers.
"He said we should eat them. Even the UN white people - he said we could use them as pork to eat," Mr Marzah said, adding that it was to "set an example for the people to be afraid".
He said repeatedly that nothing was done without an explicit order from Mr Taylor and that anyone who violated his commands would be executed.
Mr Taylor began an uprising against the Liberian government in 1991
Mr Marzah then recalled how the victims of the cannibalism were usually members of the Krahn tribe of Liberia's former president, Samuel Doe, who was in power in 1989 when Mr Taylor started the country's six-year civil war.
However, he said they had also included troops from the West African Ecomog peacekeeping force, which was deployed in 1990, and some UN peacekeepers.
The international peacekeepers eventually helped stabilise Liberia, leading to a peace agreement in 1995 and a presidential election two years later that Mr Taylor won.
"We ate a few [Ecomog soldiers], but not many. But many were executed, about 68," Mr Marzah said.
When asked by defence lawyer Courtenay Griffith about how the militiamen would "prepare a human being" for eating, Mr Marzah described the splitting, cleaning, decapitating and cooking of the corpse with salt and pepper.
"We slit your throat, butcher you... throw away the head, take the flesh and put it in a pot... Charles Taylor knows that," he added.
Mr Marzah also described how he had killed so many men, women and children that he had lost count, and also slit open the stomachs of pregnant women on Mr Taylor's orders.
Earlier in his testimony, Mr Marzah told the court he had taken weapons, some stored at Mr Taylor's presidential mansion, to Sierra Leone and returned to Liberia with diamonds which he then delivered to Mr Taylor.
Mr Taylor is accused of funding Sierra Leone's former rebels, the Revolutionary United Front, by selling diamonds on their behalf and buying weapons for them.
The RUF became notorious for hacking off the hands and legs of civilians during their armed rebellion in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002.
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