For almost a decade, the international community has seen Charles Taylor's role as one which fueled Sierra Leone's civil conflict through gun running and drug smuggling, he lamented to Special Court for Sierra Leone judges today. Nothing he did could change this impression and Liberia suffered because of it, Mr. Taylor said.
"They had made up their minds, it really did not matter whatever I did," Mr. Taylor told the judges today when responding to international community allegations against him that he provided support to Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels who waged an 11 years war in Sierra Leone.
Mr. Taylor has been responding to a 2000 United Nations (UN) Expert Panel Report which alleges that he was fueling the conflict in Sierra Leone through an arms-for-diamond trade with the RUF rebels.
Mr. Taylor told the judges that when the UN Expert Panel Report came out in 2000, accusing him of providing support to the RUF rebels, the United Kingdom, through its ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, proposed sanctions against Liberia at the UN Security Council. As a condition to lift the sanctions against Liberia, Ambassador Greenstock said that Liberia "needed to take urgent steps to stop support for the RUF and the trafficking of diamonds and arms to and from Sierra Leone."
ECOWAS leaders, Mr. Taylor said, asked for a delay of the sanctions "so Liberia could take steps to address the concerns in the report in two months."
Despite this plea from ECOWAS leaders, the UN Security Council went ahead and voted for sanctions against Liberia. "Sometimes, regional response does not matter. When one of these big countries want to do something, they will do it."
Mr. Taylor said similar fate befell him when he became president of Liberia in 1997. Prior to his election as president, the UN had imposed an arms embargo on Liberia. After his election as president, Mr. Taylor said ECOWAS lifted the arms embargo on Liberia and requested the UN Security Council to do the same. The Security Council, Mr. Taylor said refused this request from ECOWAS.
In 2001, Mr. Taylor made another plea for the lifting of the arms embargo when he wrote a letter to the UN giving them the "list of weapons we wanted for self defense purposes and told them to send observers to monitor the use of the said weapons." The UN, Mr. Taylor said, refused his appeal at a time when insurgents were attacking his government with support from Guinea.
As a condition to lift sanctions, Mr. Taylor said that the UN asked him to address the following concerns:
1. Expel all RUF members from Liberia
2. Stop all military and financial support for the RUF
3. Stop the importation of diamonds from Sierra Leone
4. Freeze all RUF assets in Liberia
5. Ground all Liberian aircraft
To address these issues, Mr. Taylor said that he gave a 72-hour ultimatum to all RUF personnel to leave Liberia. Mr. Taylor said that even RUF commander Sam Bockarie, who had relocated to Liberia with the approval of the international communit,y had to leave for the Ivory Coast with a handful of his followers. The bulk of the followers that Sam Bockarie took with him to Liberia when he left Sierra Leone in 1999 had to stay in Liberia because they had now become Liberian citizens and were part of Mr. Taylor's Anti Terrorist Unit (ATU). He said he therefore saw no need to ask them out of the country. Mr. Taylor said that Sam Bockarie had become a "center of allegations and was bringing harm to the Liberian republic" and so he had no option but to ask him to get out of the country.
On the other conditions raised by the UN, including stopping all support for the RUF, Mr. Taylor said there was no need to respond, as he had not been providing any support for the RUF. He said that he took steps to stop the importation of diamonds from Sierra Leone and even asked for international support to monitor the Sierra Leone-Liberia border but he did not receive any such support. Mr. Taylor also said he took steps to check if RUF members had any assets in Liberia which needed to be frozen but he found none. Mr. Taylor said he further grounded all aircraft that was registered in Liberia.
Mr. Taylor also told the judges that Ambassador Greenstock accused him of setting up a meeting in January 2001 in Ivory Coast between the RUF and an international businessman Lionel Menning. Mr Taylor denied this allegation, saying that "Liberia was not involved in setting up this so called meeting." He said that at the time of this "so called meeting," Lionel Menning was in custody in Italy. "There was no such meeting," he said.
Mr. Taylor is responding to allegations that he had control over RUF rebels in Sierra Leone and that in return for diamonds, he provided arms and ammunition for the rebels which they used to cause mayhem on the people of Sierra Leone. He is presently testifying as a witness in his own defense.
Mr. Taylor's testimony continues on Monday.
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This is an additional response to your comment, Mr./Miss Aki. I don't even know your gender; whether you're woman or a man. Your name doesn't sound like a Liberia or a Sierra leoneaan, but whaever you are, you sound like an ignorant idiot about this Liberian / Sierra Leonean crisis. Just what is popular revolution? popular revolution is not short-lived like Mr. Taylor's. Revoution is defined in nutshell as a change for the better, whereby the country populace benefit from the social- economic and social welfare/health development and subseqent distribution. Mr.Taylor invaded the both countries and began smuggling diamond , gold, and other resources in exchange for weapons to terrorize both countries for huge wealth acquisition. That's not what revolution is. You Carles Taylor's fokes need to shut your big mouths and sit and watch the UN to do all she can to defend impoverized citizens at the hands of power- greedy and weatlh hungry terrorists, like charles Taylor. Thank you.
Wherewere-U, I will not try to debate the Taylor issue with someone who is as narrow minded as you. I will tell you though that concerning my heritage you are completely wrong. In fact I am of both Liberian and Sierra Leonenian decent.
Aki, thaks for partly clarifying your cultural heritage as Liberian-Sierra Sierra Leonean. First, you're pointing your finger at your very self by accusing me of being narrow-minded;that's exactly what you are, about this Taylor issue. Your mind is closed on the Sierra leonean/Liberia civil crisis. By your approach to the issue,you appear to lack objectivity and you've persistently narrowed your argument toward Taylor's defense for some reasons best known to yourself(either you were an accomplice of Mr Taylor or a highly paid death squard commander), and as such your defense for Mr. Taylor is infinite. We are considering lots of issues that resulted ultimately as Mr Taylor waged war on Liberia and its neighboring Sierra Leone , and as such throwing the both countris back hundred years, in terms of development; education, health,social warefare , economy,communication,transportation, technological advancement, and above all the destruction of human resouces,which one of the comentaries referred to as destruction of future generation.All of these basic human surviving tools will take the next hundred more years to be adchieved to their fulliest replinishment for both countries. I don't know your level of education or cognitive advancement in order to fully comprehend what the UN is doing. I hope I'm not wasting my time here saying thes things when you don't even possess any intellectual ability evidently. Nevertheles, there are other readers out there that possess good intellects. You need go to school to acquire more knowledge so that you can contribute meaningfully to important national or international issues like uors. Ok? Thank you.
Wherewere-U,
You talk as if both Sierra Leone and Liberia were highly developed countries under Siaka Stevens and Samuel Doe respectively. I starting to think you live in a Utopia world about the two countries. To remind you it was Sierra Leone who was behind the destabilizing of Liberia way before Charles Taylor. In 1985 to be exact when they funded and launched the Quiwonkpa invasion of 1985. Concerning education, I won't put my resume on the internet but believe me I am far more educated both in terms of degrees and quality of schooling then you.
Hi, Aki, let me give you the benefit of the doubts that you are educated as you profess,but young man ,education without wisdom is a waste. I've been following all of your comments and they don't appeal to me by virtue of your qualification as you claim . It was better for Sierra leone and Liberia to remain underdevelpoed and peaceful than adding insults to injuries by further ruining the little development made at the time by both countries. Look, let me tell you a liitle bit about myself in terms of my point of argument here. I'm neither Samuel Doe's tribesman nor his supporter. I was strongly opposed to the Doe administaton for also being a bellingrant and/ or a tyrant like Taylor, and I lost three of my beloved brothers at his weaked hands.And I was an official in the Taylor Rebel government initially, but I left his government when I found out that he was nothing but a power-drunk, womanizing and a goodtimer dictator without any development orientation. I'm just being objective with the Taylor issue, ok. I'm not some of you who take side because you benefit and thus you offer loyalty to please your boss and that's what all of your comments appeal. To conclue , if you're educated as you claim, do not be subjective, be objective;and that's that the way of education.Thank you.
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