Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, (r.), and his defense lawyer are seen at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday.
(Robin van Lonkhuijsen/AP)Photos (1 of 1)
Charles Taylor at the Hague: Theatrical defense reminiscent of Hussein, Milosevic
The former Liberian leader kicked off his defense for alleged war crimes Monday by quoting Shakespeare.
By Matthew Clark | 07.14.09
We’ve seen this movie before. You know, the one where the brutal dictator finally gets his day in court only to turn into a drama queen, angrily denouncing the court as a charade one minute, crying about being misunderstood the next. (”They just don’t understand me, your honor. I did everything for them.” Sniff, sniff … weep.)
This time it’s Liberia’s former leader and chief warlord, Charles Taylor. The first African head of state to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity “swaggered into the witness stand in the Hague to plead his innocence,” reports The Times of London.
The UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted Mr. Taylor in June 2003 on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the 1991-2002 war in Sierra Leone but condensed the charges to 11 counts in 2006. The prosecution has closed it case after bringing in a range of witnesses to tell stories of violence, rape, and amputation. Now it’s Taylor’s turn to tell his side.
Taylor quotes Shakespeare
Ever the showman, Taylor proceeded to portray himself Tuesday as a victim of a mob thirsty for revenge. And what better way to do that then to quote the master of drama in the English language, William Shakespeare?
“Haven’t they had their pound of flesh?” he asked, apparently referring to the fact that he’s been made to spend time in a heavily-fortified detention center in The Hague while his trial plays out.
That’s right, Taylor was comparing himself to Antonio in Merchant of Venice. And the hundreds of thousands of Liberians and Sierra Leoneans who lost family members during the brutal, diamond-fueled war under his rule? The countless children forced to become soldiers, woman raped, and people maimed? Are they supposed to be Shylock?
Tragedies and ‘comedies’
Taylor’s theatrics bring to mind other leaders tried for war crimes.
Remember when Saddam Hussein angrily denounced his trial for crimes against humanity as a “comedy” and insisted he was still Iraq’s head of state?
Or how about when former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic told the war crimes tribunal in The Hague that the charges against him were “a mutilation of justice“? He just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. It was “a farce, pure and simple,” he said. “Our greatest wish was to establish peace. During all of those 10 years [inside Serbia], there was no discrimination against anyone.”
More recently, there was Thomas Lubanga, the Congolese warlord accused of recruiting 30,000 child soldiers. His trial, which started in January, is the first trial of the International Criminal Court. It got off to a rocky start after a key witness took back his testimony as he sat in full view of a glaring Mr. Lubanga, who grinned as the witness recanted. The prosecution ended today and the defense is scheduled to present its case beginning in October.
What will tomorrow bring from Taylor? Don’t expect contrition.
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2. Howard | 07.14.09
I am going to be in Amsterdam on Thursday and Friday July 30 and 31. Can the public sit in on the trial?
3. Alex | 07.15.09
We don’t have a right to sit here in the West pointing our self-righteous fingers at other countries until we hold our own leaders accountable. Our leaders have more blood on their hands than guys like Charles Taylor or Slobodan Milosevic ever did. What about the millions of civilians that have died in the wars we’ve waged from Iraq to Vietnam? They don’t count, but the 75,000 people who died in Sierra Leone do?
Even if Taylor is guilty, this trial is still a bogus political stunt. This isn’t about bringing a war criminal to justice. This is a propaganda ploy to convince people that the Western political establishment is civilized and law-abiding, when it routinely wages wars of aggression for its own political and economic purposes. This is like the Taliban putting a KKK member on trial for religious intolerance to show everyone how civilized they are. It’s crap, and when guys like Saddam Hussein and Charles Taylor denounce their trials as being a farce they’re absolutely right — even if they really did the things they’re accused of.
How can we even begin to talk about justice when there is one standard for the President of Liberia and another one for the president of the United States? Without impartiality and equity before the law there is no justice.
4. Elizabeth | 07.17.09
The hague has cost alot of panic in my country Kenya because their are some people answerable to the course of post election violence in 2007.I wud love them to feel what Taylor is feeling right now every offender must face justice no matter what!No one is gonna have mercy on them did they have mercy on those who were shot by the police and those who were burnt in the church?What about those displaced,kids whose parents got lost and vice versa?LET THEM FACE JUSTICE,TAYLOR YOU GOT COMPANY DONT WORRY.
5. Timothy | 07.20.09
Though Charles Taylor’s trial is taking place in The Hague, it is being conducted under the auspices of the SCSL, not the ICC. The SCSL is a Sierra Leone court supported by the UN…not run by the UN. The SCSL is judging Charles Taylor under international law (albeit heavily influenced by Western standards) and Sierra Leonean law. Concur the invasion of Iraq was an unjust war, but the former President of the U.S. who authorized the invasion will not face any court for that decision. Though some violations of Laws of Conflict were committed by a few U.S. soldiers, prosecuted under UCMJ when reported, and were very limited compared to the egregious acts of various rebel groups such as Taylor’s NPFL and Sankoh’s RUF, which deliberately and brutally targeted civilians more than enemy combatants.
6. King Gray | 08.10.09
I do not know what Matthew Clark has been learning about justice but his prejudice against Charles Taylor speaks to the kind of negative propoganda that continue to allow this kind of kangaroo court to be set up. Does Matthew Clark even understand what has been going on in West Africa? This case, as the prosecution itself has charged, is purely about DIAMONDS and has got nothing to do with HUMAN RIGHTS.
Charles Taylor has been charged with supporting the rebels in Sierra Leone in exchange for DIAMONDS but any reasonable Liberian or Sierra Leonean knows that this is a pure joke. Even those people in West Africa that hates Taylor’s guts knows that this case is about CORPORATE INTERESTS. Because Taylor resfused to grant HALIBURTON the rights to exploit Liberia’s OIL RESERVES, because Charles Taylor demanded that Firestone Rubber Company (Liberia had the largest rubber plantation in the world that allow firestones to make tires ect.) must renegotiate their 99 years contract which did not benefit Liberians, because Charles Taylor insisted that Liberia rich mineral deposits of DIAMONDS, GOLD, IRON ORE (Liberia’s iron ore built the steel industry in America), URANIUM ect will not be exploited for pennies by multi-national companies. These are the reasons that Charles Taylor was declare a dangerous man because he is the first African leader to publicly demand that Africa’s natural resources be control by Africans PERIOD.
All this nosie about human rights and crimes against humanity is a disguise to protect CORPORATE INTERESTS. If ordinary people in Western societies do not resent this kind of criminality on the part of multi-national corporations, special interests will continue to dominate the politics of the west because it is the exploitation of small countries that provide all the wealth for corporate executives.
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1. Henry Kahrs | 07.14.09
There we go again with our double standart.Taylor gets charged and Bush walks around free. Bush in my book is a much bigger fish than taylor will ever be. Is it any wonder that western poeple are hated in most countries