Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor disappears

By Tererai Karimakwenda
28 March 2006


The Nigerian government announced Tuesday that Charles Taylor, the ruthless former president of Liberia, had disappeared Monday night from the southern town of Calabar where he has lived since he was exiled. President Olusegun Obasanjo had agreed just days ago to let Taylor be extradited to Sierra Leone where he was to be tried by a UN tribunal for atrocities committed during the civil war in his country and next door in Sierra Leone. Obasanjo was at first reluctant to surrender Taylor to the UN tribunal, but agreed to cooperate after Liberia’s new president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf made the request. But before details of his hand-over had been sorted, Taylor is reported to have gone missing. Some members of Taylor's Nigerian security team have been arrested. The Nigerian government released a statement saying President Obasanjo was creating a panel to investigate Taylor’s disappearance.

Chris Maroleng of the South Africa Institute of Security Studies says the Taylor saga sets a precedence for political leaders who believe they are immune from prosecution for human rights abuses.
More specifically Maroleng said the argument here is that this means people like Robert Mugabe, who has been accused of carrying out human rights abuses during his tenure in office, could be unwilling to step down because he would not have the the protection that comes with being in office. But it also means that dictators planning to commit atrocities believing they have impunity, might think twice.

In recent years African leaders have been accused of failing to hold each other accountable for human rights abuses. They have also protected each other from censure at the United Nations and in other international forums. Maroleng said the Taylor case signals to abusive leaders that you cannot continue with these autocratic tendencies. Analysts say president Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has received much criticism worldwide for failing to criticize Mugabe and this has affected his reputation as a champion of democracy in Africa. Taylor’s prosecution would usher in a new era and hopefully inspire leaders like Mbeki to speak out. Obasanjo is now under pressure to explain how Taylor escaped from Nigeria.

Taylor is accused of starting civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some 3 million people are estimated to have died. He also faces charges of harboring Al-Qaeda suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Nigeria made it a condition of Taylor’s asylum that he stay out of Liberian politics and stay away from the media. But a report by the Coalition for International Justice showed how the exiled president asserted control over the Liberian embassy in Nigeria and used couriers to give cash to supporters. Taylor was warned by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on several occasions, but Obasanjo refused to send Taylor to Sierra Leone for trial. And now the news that Taylor has disappeared is likely to raise suspicion about his role in the escape.