Charles Taylor has been indicted on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in violation of international humanitarian law. However, the trial has not yet been held, and it will be of interest to see what elements of proof will be presented.
Charles Taylor has left Liberia with a society shattered, the population fragmented and the economy ruined. However, he is unlikely to be tried for his actions in coming to power through civil war nor for his use of violence to stay in power once president.
Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, has been forced from his comfortable exile in Nigeria by growing international pressures and cooperation between Liberia's new president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo. Taylor has now been arrested for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including sexual slavery, mutilation and sending children into combat. Taylor
The rare glimpses at Ethiopia through the cracked lenses of mainstream media distort more than they inform about the political crisis in this country of over 75 million people. The blurred picture that comes to the distant minds in Europe and North America usually includes a long history of famine conditions and war with neighbouring Eritrea. Zenawi
The British medical journal Lancet recently took greater notice of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) than all western media outlets combined. A group of physicians reported that about 4 million people have died since the "official" outbreak of the Congolese war in 1998 (1). The BBC reported the war in Congo has claimed more lives than any armed conflict since World War II (2).
On October 14, 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague announced that it issued warrants for the arrest of five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the first such step taken by the new human rights court. The ICC prosecutor has accused Joseph Kony, leader of the LRA and four of his closest commanders, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen, and Raska Lukwiya, of killing, raping and robbing civilians. The chief ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, put a special emphasis on the LRA's systematic kidnapping of children, forcing them to fight and using girls as sex slaves. The ICC has no police of its own and must depend on cooperation from Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire), where the LRA leaders are believed to be operating. Child Soldier in Uganda
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019