[Mb-civic] A beckoning in West Africa - Editorial - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  A beckoning in West Africa

April 6, 2006  |  Editorial  |  The Boston Globe

WITH ITS PROSECUTION of the former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, the 
United Nations will send a message to the strongmen of Africa that they 
can no longer export terror and death to neighboring nations. The trial 
needs to proceed fairly and quickly to convince Africans that the 
international community is serious about enforcing norms of conduct on 
this most vulnerable of continents.

The location of the trial shouldn't be Sierra Leone, where Taylor faced 
charges this week for allegedly fomenting a revolt that resulted in the 
deaths or mutilations of thousands of people. He is still a feared 
figure in this section of West Africa, and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, his 
successor as president of Liberia, wants him out of the region and tried 
at The Hague, the traditional seat of international tribunals. The 
United States supports the move, and Britain is circulating a resolution 
to this effect at the United Nations.

Some people in Sierra Leone oppose the move, on the grounds that they 
want the man they consider their tormentor tried at the scene of the 
crimes. But the fragility of West Africa argues in favor of a more 
stable location. Before the special UN court is moved, however, someone 
must pay for the expense of witnesses and lawyers living in the 
Netherlands, as well as the cost of transmitting video of the 
proceedings back to Africa.

The Bush administration has already done much to bring Taylor to justice 
by cajoling Nigeria, where he had sought refuge, into giving him up. The 
United States, Britain, and the rest of the developed world need to 
provide the money to make sure his trial is scrupulously conducted and 
widely publicized.

Taylor's six-year rule of Liberia was brutal, but he's not being accused 
of crimes there. Instead, the trial will focus on his attempts to 
subvert the government of Sierra Leone by backing an insurgent army 
loathed for its brutality. Meddling in the affairs of weaker neighbors 
is hardly a behavior confined to Africa, but the continent became 
unusually susceptible to outside interference after the breakup of the 
colonial empires starting in the late 1950s.

A few of the interventions come quickly to mind: apartheid South 
Africa's support for a rebel group in Mozambique, US backing of a 
guerrilla army in Angola, Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy's meddling in 
Chad and (in support of Taylor) in Liberia, and most recently, the 
Ugandan and Rwandan invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 
hindsight, with the possible exception of the Rwandan attack 
(self-defense following the genocide), none was justified. When outside 
interference descends to the brutality of the struggle for Sierra Leone, 
it is time to establish a marker for international conduct that other 
leaders, in Africa and elsewhere, will be expected to follow.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/04/06/a_beckoning_in_west_africa/

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