Liberia’s Future

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The New York Sun

War-torn Liberia’s real transition could begin in January, when Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf becomes Africa’s first elected woman head of state. The transitional government she succeeds has used international aid not for such Liberian needs as clean drinking water, electricity and employment, but for cars, computers, and office furniture that its officials are stealing from state offices before relinquishing their positions. Starting over, President Sirleaf will need assistance from America if her promising new government is to have the basic tools for success.


This time such aid must be coupled with strong American backing for President Sirleaf to institute a culture of accountability among Liberian leaders. Corruption and cronyism have spilled wars across West Africa and left Liberia in tatters. It will take a bold move to convince West Africans that a new era of accountability is dawning. Nothing could do more to shake the region’s leaders and instill hope in their populations than bringing Liberia’s former president, Charles Taylor, to justice.


Mr. Taylor stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in neighboring Sierra Leone during the 1990s. Mr. Taylor organized and directed the notorious Revolutionary United Front, which abducted children and murdered, raped, maimed, and mutilated its way through Sierra Leone. It also secured the country’s diamond wealth for Mr. Taylor and his cronies.


To prosecute those most responsible for such atrocities, the Bush administration offered political and financial support for the United Nations and government of Sierra Leone to launch a war crimes tribunal. The Special Court for Sierra Leone’s chief prosecutor indicted Mr. Taylor in March 2003.


That indictment, after it became public in June 2003, helped to strip Mr. Taylor of his political viability and was instrumental in his removal from power two months later. Mr. Taylor’s ouster allowed the peace process in Liberia to take hold.


In recent weeks, scenes of Liberians voting peacefully in presidential and legislative elections may seem to justify the Bush administration’s decision in August 2003 to join others in coaxing Mr. Taylor into Nigerian exile rather than pressing for his delivery to waiting prosecutors in Sierra Leone. Though the administration sacrificed the justice sought at a court it supported, it can point to tangible progress in stabilizing West Africa.


But West Africans know Charles Taylor, and they know that short-term stability is not durable peace.


Charles Taylor did not go quietly to Nigeria as called for under the deal that sent him there. He has maintained ties to Liberian politicians and militias throughout the region, engaged in business, and funneled money to supporters. He even appeared on Nigerian television last year to discuss his intention to return to Liberia.


Despite Mr. Taylor’s breaches of his exile agreement, the Nigerian government has said it will only send Mr. Taylor for trial if asked by Liberia’s democratically elected leader. All eyes now turn to President-Elect Sirleaf.


With Mr. Taylor’s backing, his cronies did well in last month’s legislative elections. For President Sirleaf, overcoming resistance from Mr. Taylor’s supporters and requesting his transfer to the court in Sierra Leone will prove difficult without strong American support.


The Bush administration may have signaled such support two weeks ago, when it sponsored a resolution at the U.N. Security Council authorizing U.N. peacekeepers to arrest Mr. Taylor if he returns to Liberia. Yet many Africa hands at the State Department and the Nation al Security Council – still as inured to impunity for African despots as Africans themselves have become – favor containing Mr. Taylor rather than putting him on trial. They would leave Mr. Taylor in Nigeria, and articulate neither a long-term vision for securing the region from his wrath, nor for credibly bolstering good governance in West Africa.


The U.N. institutions that have kept Mr. Taylor in check are pulling back from West Africa. U.N. peacekeepers will leave Sierra Leone at the end of the year, and soon the 15,000-strong force in Liberia will begin its drawdown. The Special Court itself is slated to wrap up its work next year.


Meanwhile, the notoriously tenacious Mr. Taylor bides his time in a Nigerian luxury villa and waits for his opening to return to an unguarded Liberia.


It is an unguarded Liberia for which President Sirleaf must plan. Her background in civil society and international banking provide hope that she can deliver on campaign promises of broad economic development, and steer Liberia’s peace beyond the withdrawal of international peacekeepers.


If Mr. Taylor can be brought to trial, then President Sirleaf will gain allies in Liberians newly emboldened to hold their leaders to account for corruption and mal-governance. The Taylor threat will be eliminated, and would-be warlords dissuaded from pursuing power through the gun.


Whether that happens and West Africa gains a chance for durable peace could be determined by what Bush administration officials are now whispering in the ears of President-Elect Sirleaf.



Mr. Witte is former political adviser to the chief prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and a senior fellow at the Democratization Policy Council, a trans-Atlantic initiative for accountability in democracy promotion.


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