14 May 2008
guest blog
The monitors of former President Charles Taylor's trial report for www.charlestaylortrial.org
In a highly anticipated development, Charles Taylor's former vice president, Moses Blah, took the witness stand today. Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp questioned him. Blah testified about the formation of Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), its training in Libya, and arming through Libya, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast.
Blah fingered Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and Burkinabe President Blaise Compoare as key supporters of Taylor's 1989 rebel invasion of Liberia. In recounting the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Blah frequently said that he did not know about key developments. However, among the information he provided that supported the prosecution was a first-hand account of Taylor shrugging off reports of killings, rapes and looting directed at civilians by his forces in Sierra Leone. Blah also testified that eating human flesh was required before anyone could join Taylor's Executive Mansion Guard unit.
Before Blah took the stand this morning, Defense Counsel Terry Munyard completed his cross-examination of former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) commander Karmoh Kanneh and Prosecutor Julia Bailey conducted a brief re-examination of the witness.
Karmoh Kanneh completes his testimony
Defense Counsel Munyard resumed his cross-examination of Karmoh Kanneh by continuing to point to inconsistencies between his testimony and his prior statements to the prosecution. At the conclusion of the cross-examination Munyard asked the witness about payments from the court, as well as an accusation that he had brought marijuana with him from Freetown to The Netherlands.
Inconsistencies highlighted by Munyard included the following:
Munyard briefly reviewed payments made to the witness by the prosecution and the court's Witness and Victims Section (WVS). These included travel reimbursements, food when he came to the court, and a witness attendance allowance, which Kanneh said had come from WVS and amounted to 16,000 Leones (just over 5 US dollars) per day.
The cross-examination ended with Munyard raising a report from a WVS official, in which an accusation had been leveled against Kanneh for allegedly bringing marijuana with him to The Netherlands. Kanneh said that WVS officials had confronted him, and he asked them to search his room in The Hague. He denied bringing marijuana from Sierra Leone and said he didn't even smoke. Munyard had no further questions for Kanneh.
Prosecutor Julia Bailey conducted a brief re-examination of Kanneh:
Bailey had no further questions for Kanneh on re-examination. When the prosecution sought to admit into evidence a resolution of the United Nations Security Council, the defense objected. The resolution was from 2000, and the prosecution sought to use it to show that the Special Court had been contemplated at the time, and so it was not impossible for Taylor to have been worried about it at that time, as Munyard had implied in his cross-examination of Kanneh. Munyard argued that Bailey had not introduced the document through the witness. Bailey responded that the witness had already testified that he was not familiar with UN documents, so there would have been no purpose in trying to introduce the document through the witness. After several minutes of deliberation, the judges ruled in favor of the defense and refused to admit the document into evidence.
Former Liberian President Moses Blah begins his testimony
Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp called Moses Blah to the stand. Blah, dressed in a dark suit, began by answering questions about his background. He said he was a retired president of Liberia. A member of the Gio tribe, Blah said he was born in Liberia's Nimba County and attended school there before training as a mechanic. During the regime of Samuel Doe, Blah's cousin, Thomas Quiwonkpa, was the commanding army general and Blah took a job in the government.
In 1985, Doe turned on Quiwonkpa, ordering his death, and began targeting all Gios and Manos in Liberia. Blah fled with many others to Ivory Coast, where they plotted their return to Liberia. There he learned of Charles Taylor, who at the time was in jail in Ghana for attempting to invade Liberia from that country. However, Blah said that he and other Doe opponents were advised to fly to Burkina Faso to meet with one of Taylor's wives, Agnes. Blah said she provided transport and food for a group of 22 Liberians, including Blah, to travel from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso. For six months, the group undertook physical training in a military camp in the Burkinabe capital.
Libyan training camp
Blah testified that from Ougadougou, the group was flown to Tripoli, Libya, where they were taken to a military camp. Libyan trainers began instructing them, including in how to use a variety of weapons. Over the next two-three months, the group of 22 was joined by other fighters, eventually swelling to 180. Blah said that before the group reached that size, Charles Taylor came to the camp, and that this was the first time he ever saw Taylor. Blah testified that Taylor called a formation, introduced himself, and said that the group's name was the National Patriotic Front of Liberia.
Blah said that Taylor was based in Burkina Faso and came and went, leaving two others in charge of the camp in his absence. However when these two attempted to take control from Taylor while he was away, Taylor ordered their arrest. At this point, Taylor appointed Blah as Adjutant General and placed him in charge of the training under the commander Isaac Musa.
Blah testified that the group spent about a year and a half at the camp in Libya. He said that there was a group of Gambians who had trained there, launched an unsuccessful coup attempt in The Gambia, and then returned. Additionally, there was a group of 10-15 Sierra Leoneans led by Foday Sankoh. Blah said Sankoh told him he was planning to overthrow Sierra Leone's government, and added that Sankoh called Taylor "chief". Beyond physical and weapons training, Blah said that those in the camp received ideological training at Mataba, a nearby school that taught revolutionary theory as espoused by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
