>
New Topic
>
Reply<
Esato Forum Index
>
Regional >
Europe, Middle East and Africa
> Nigerian forum - Leave Taylor alone
Bookmark topic
WITH the election of a new democratic President in Liberia, the international community has begun to mount fresh pressures on the Nigerian government to release the war-weary country's former leader, Charles Ghankay Taylor, for trial.
Taylor, who is in Nigeria on asylum, is wanted by the United Nations (UN) War Crimes Special Court in Sierra Leone for allegedly aiding instability in the region while in office, leading to the murder of thousands of people.
Only last month, the UN Security Council passed a resolution, while the Liberian election was being rounded off, that the former warlord be tried at the special court.
The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that empowered the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to arrest, detain and transfer Taylor to the court anytime he shows up in Liberia.
On Thursday last week in Washington DC, the Liberian President-elect, Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, met with the United States (U.S.) Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, where the Taylor issue was believed to have been discussed. The American government has been in the forefront of calls for Taylor to face trial.
Before the meeting, some members of the U.S. congress from both parties wrote Rice demanding that Taylor be brought to justice and that Nigeria be made to release him for trial. A similar letter was written to Rice by an influential international group, the Human Rights Watch.
The Olusegun Obasanjo administration has insisted that it would not release Taylor except a request to that effect comes from a democratically elected government in Liberia.
That seems to explain the renewed vibrancy in the U.S. of calls for Taylor's trial, since a democratic president has been elected in Liberia.
Johnson-Sirleaf, who will be sworn in next month, January 16 in Monrovia, has not made any categorical statement on how she would handle the Taylor matter. But during a recent visit to Nigeria, she admitted discussing the Taylor issue with Obasanjo.
In Washington DC, the bipartisan group of five U.S. senators and eight members of the House of Representatives demanded that Taylor be called to account for his actions in Sierra Leone.
The group was led by Representative Ed Royce, a Republican from the State of California and a member of the U.S. House Committee on International Relations and former chairman, but currently is the vice chairman of the House Africa Subcommittee.
In the December 13 letter, the lawmakers urged Rice to make the Taylor issue a priority in her talks with the Liberian president-elect.
Congressman Royce in a statement expressed hopes that "Secretary Rice will strongly recommend to President-Elect Johnson-Sirleaf that she calls upon the government of Nigeria to transfer Charles Taylor to the custody of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has indicted him for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The signatories include Representatives Henry Hyde (Republican-Illinois), Frank Wolf (Republican-Virginia), Chris Smith (Republican-New Jersey) and Sue Kelly (Republican-New York). The list also includes Betty McCullum (Democrat-Minnesota), Vic Snyder (Democrat-Arkansas) and Dianne Watson (Democrat-California).
The rest are Senators Lincoln Chafee (Republican-Rhode Island), Patrick Leahy (Democrat-Vermont), Barack Obama (Democrat-Illinois), Jack Reed (Democrat-Rhode Island) and Russ Feingold (Democrat-Wisconsin).
In its statement, the Human Rights Watch said: "Condolezza Rice should urge Liberia's president-elect to call on Nigeria to surrender Charles Taylor to the UN backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone."
It added: "Johnson-Sirleaf needs to know that she has firm U.S. support to request Charles Taylor's surrender to the Special Court," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Programme."
The group continued: "This will strengthen her hand to take this crucial step once she takes office."
Taylor has been accused of war crimes and indicted in March 2003 by the UN Special Court in Sierra Leone. Specifically, he has been indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in contributing to the deaths, rape, abduction and mutilation of thousands of civilians during Sierra Leone's armed conflict. He has lived in exile in Nigeria since August 2003.
Human Rights Watch said that it "welcomed the (George W.) Bush administration's recent expressions of support for Taylor's surrender, including Bush reportedly raising the issue with Johnson-Sirleaf in a telephone call at the end of November."
Rice should, at the planned meeting this week with Johnson-Sirleaf "build on these efforts", it said.
"This visit by Liberia's incoming president gives the Bush administration a prime opportunity to press for justice in West Africa," said Human Rights Watch's Dicker, who added: "Rice should make the most of this meeting.
Multidox
[ This Message was edited by: felucci on 2007-05-19 17:21 ]
--
Posted: 2005-12-19 22:58:19
Edit :
Quote
@Felucci: Try
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=70823
--
Posted: 2005-12-19 23:22:10
Edit :
Quote
Abeg add this:
http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/board-20.0.html
This is a politics thread.
--
Posted: 2005-12-19 23:40:28
Edit :
Quote
New Topic
Reply
