USA Africa Dialogue Series - Charles Taylor: The great lessons for world tyrants

Charles Taylor: The great lessons for world tyrants    KAYODE KETEFE The massacre took place in an open field adjacent a thick ancient forest. About Five hundreds souls bounded in hands and feet were crying and begging for mercy.  The Emperor gingerly alighted from his chariot, cast a demeaning look at the supplicating captives and faced his soldiers who stood erect, attentively waiting for orders before launching the sanguinary offensive."Kill them all!" shouted the Emperor. Promptly, the soldiers swooped on the hapless men and women and put all of them to sword, amidst heart-rending wailings and cries. Grinning sadistically as he watched the dying souls writhed in agony in a deluge of blood, the tyrant sipped his wine from a golden cup before ordering another rounds of executions.  Of course, this is just a scenario enacted to re-capture the typical olden days cruelties unleashed on humanity by their leaders in the evanescent eras of sadistic kings and tyrannical emperors. Man inhumanity to man has blighted the Homo sapiens' records from time immemorial till the present times. The darkness of human hearts had, for instance, devised numerous methods of killings and torture. As for the former, the callous methods various societies across the world in the olden days employed included throwing the condemned persons to the den of hungry lions to be devoured; burning people alive at stake; crushing with stone; throwing off the from edge of cliffs, beheading, hanging, using horses or other wild animals to drag the condemned on the ground till they die or nailing to the convict to the cross until the person's death. It is against this background that one may view the sentence passed on May 30, 2012, by the United Nations' International Criminal Court, Hague, on the former warlord and President of Liberia Charles Taylor, as an epochal development in the quest for human justice without borders.  The court had sentenced Taylor, who is already 64-year-old, to 50 years imprisonment in what amounts in practical terms to a "life sentence"  It is pertinent to note that the modern trend of bringing rulers of nations across the world to justice is a fortunate breakaway from the old "Westphalian" concept which placed undue emphasis on the nation/state's prerogative to determine what happened within her boundaries including the fate of her citizenry. This old concept, anchored on the principle of state sovereignty had inhibited rulers across the world from being probed for the ill-treatment of their citizens. Happily, that notion is fast giving way to the global recognition of human rights and their inherent superior sanctity over the artificial concept of sovereignty. Taylor was charged, convicted and sentenced for committing "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" during his presidency,(which spanned August, 2, 1997 and August, 11, 2003)  when he was adjudged to have played a sinister role in the Sierra Leonean civil war.   The offences of Taylor as contained in the eleven-count charge for which he was found guilty included were violence, murder, sexual violence,  sexual enslavement of women, outrages upon personal dignity, use of child soldiers  which involves conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces, abductions, forced labour, enslavement, looting and  pillage. Under the old system, Taylor would have acted with impunity. After all, more bloodthirsty leaders like Idi Amin of Uganda, who perpetrated the most blood-chilling holocausts ever witnessed in Africa, was never brought to face trial at any international penal institution. Today, the story is different, even at the time of wars there is humanitarian law that governs the extent of cruelties the belligerents can unleash on the susceptible humanity like women and children, innocent civilians and even combatants who have been put hors de combat. Saddam Hussein was hanged for its atrocities in Iraq.  If Muammar Gaddafi had not been ignominiously killed by the rambunctious armed mob, he would have been arraigned before the International Criminal Court and would most certainly have spent the remainder of his life in prison. He had already been indicted by the ICC together with his son Saif al-Islam.  Three other African leaders have also been indicted by the ICC, these were, the current President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir; a former Vice-President of Democratic Republic of Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba; and a former President of Côte d'Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo. Only last Saturday, the 84-year old former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Egyptian court over the role he played in  the murder of demonstrators during January 2011 protests.  Now the attention of the whole world is turned towards, Syria led by a butcher called, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, who takes delight in wanton bloodshed that is escalating into a holocaust with the recent massacre 92 persons in Houla through "an artillery barrage by government forces." Hafez al-Assad should have no illusion about his own ultimate end; he would certainly have to account for his crimes. Taylor's tragedy is a happy pointer that to the fact that the era when leaders anywhere in the globe can perpetrate holocaust with impunity has gone forever. This is a big lesson for all other cruel leaders in Africa and across the world to be wary of whatever they do today, the watchful eyes of justice are roving all over the ever-shrinking global village and they will be held accountable sooner or later.

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