Charles Taylor, the Fruits of Africa and the Bad News Media

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

January 28, 2008

The Hague has been a busy place so far this century, attracting journalists, politicians and celebrity criminals to spend some quality time facing off on opposite sides of the aisle. Currently the only guest is Liberia's Charles Taylor, but with Milosevic's room cleaned and redecorated, some new arrivals from Serbia are expected soon in exchange for fast-track membership in the EU. But the international media is unimpressed with Taylor- who lacks the antics and brutality of Milosevic- and it took some saber rattling back in Monrovia to return Taylor to the headlines. Witnesses for the prosecution were complaining that Taylor's minions back in Monrovia were harassing their families, and so the case in Holland is taking new proportions, although for all the wrong reasons. For the most part, Liberia itself is off the radar screen thanks to the irony that once the violent images stop and the rebuilding begins, the cameras usually get turned off and pens clicked closed.

Managing the healing process in Liberia right now is a remarkable woman who deserves the media attention more than the warmed-over testimony of sadism during the Taylor regime. The President of Liberia since 2005 has been Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who ran in fair elections and has done an admirable job in sewing the pieces back together. Upon taking office she implemented a Truth and Reconciliation Committee on Mandela's model in South African model and was recently feted in the White House when she was awarded the Medal of Freedom. She is an economist by education and a World Bank professional by experience. A mother and grandmother, she is the maternal backbone in an otherwise broken country that respectfully refers to her as the "iron lady". This doesn't translate into video as well as images of gun-toting children do, and ethnic reconciliation is intrinsically hard to film- hence the silence.

Liberia's history is one of the oddest on the continent but it still shares many commonalties with the other post-colonial nations of Africa. If we fast-forward to the 1980's we see Liberian government suffering from tribal domination of one group over the other. Ironically, the faction in charge in Monrovia since the 19th century was the same caste of American slaves who had escaped bondage in the United States and went back to Africa in search of freedom. From this class of freed slaves Liberia had always drawn its governing elite, but by 1980, one master sergeant in the Liberian army had had enough.

Samuel Doe led a coup in Monrovia and killed the president. The United States didn't miss a beat in responding- sending $500 million to Doe with instructions to throw the Soviet Union out of the country and let America fly its aircraft over the country to spy on Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. The regime that Doe led was "socialist" on paper but mainly oppressive in nature. He legally lost the 1984 presidential elections and then had them annulled and recounted in his favor. After he restored himself in power, the country disintegrated into an ugly civil war along ethnic lines that made the conflict all but incomprehensible to the western world.

Doe's government turned out to be an historical blip; after the capital changed hands a few times in the late 1980's, the ethnic Americo-Liberian faction made a comeback at the military command of Charles Taylor. In 1990, they killed Doe and set up their own repressive regime that went on to commit the atrocities of which Taylor is now accused and waiting trial on in the Hague. Among others the list of crimes includes crimes against humanity, war crimes, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery.

One of the most effective foreign policy moves of the Nigerian government next door was to intervene in 2003. Within a few months, Taylor's forces were essentially defeated, but the Nigerians prevented death to the finish by offering Taylor exile in their country. Strangely enough, the international community was conspicuously silent at this prospect, since it was assumed that justice would be done along the lines of the Milosevic trial. Taylor put an end to speculation surrounding his fate when he was caught trying to return to fight in Liberia in 2006. Luckily he was caught and sent to The Hague, leaving the Liberians to their own means to pick up the pieces after 23 years of war.

In 2005, Liberians stood in line peacefully to vote for a new government. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won the election, and since then Liberia has prospered under a leader who represents the best of what the Liberian people have to offer. She has been successful in creating an economically-healthy Liberia, although tribal and post-civil war tensions divide the country. She has been exceptionally welcoming of the Nigerians; she has worked hard at attracting investment from the region's businessmen, and the Chinese are currently negotiating the construction of a factory outside Monrovia.

All that Charles Taylor has to offer now is another case study for future students of international law, but his perverted cause does return to make an occasional headline. Last week it was Taylor's henchmen back in Liberia intimidating witness' families. Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf's efforts unfortunately don't qualify as news, but her conviction to rebuild the country have been successful in at least preventing the return of ugly headlines from Liberia.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.