Taylor's trial may end Africa's gentleman's club

Tue Apr 4, 2006
By Daniel Flynn
DAKAR (Reuters) - Africa's ageing presidents may act as a gentleman's club sheltering former dictators but Liberian warlord Charles Taylor's trial suggests club rules could be changing.
Taylor became the first African leader to stand before an international court on Monday after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, under pressure from Washington, handed him over to face trial in Sierra Leone for war crimes.
The former warlord, who fled to exile in Nigeria under a 2003 peace deal to end Liberia's 14-year civil conflict, was Africa's most notorious war crimes suspect and his arrest was welcomed across the world's poorest continent.
"The message here for the political leadership of Africa is that the days of absolute impunity for mass crimes is coming to an end, and that is a major milestone," Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's international justice programme, said.
In the past, notorious African dictators such as the former-Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and Uganda's Idi Amin have fled overseas to live out their days unpunished.
Rights activists hope the Taylor decision will stiffen Africa's resolve to tackle rights abuses. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is probing war crimes in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan's Darfur region.
The first big test will come in June, when an African Union (AU) summit must decide whether to extradite former Chad President Hissene Habre from exile in Senegal to Belgium to face charges of mass murder and torture during his 1982-1990 regime.
But enormous resistance remains to foreign meddling in African affairs. Sudan, due to chair the AU in 2007, blocked a visit this week by U.N. Under Secretary General Jan Egeland to Darfur, where Khartoum is accused of backing genocide.
Taylor's trial on charges of backing rebels in Sierra Leone during a 1990-2001 civil war may also deter African leaders from sanctioning further tribunals, analysts say.
"This opens up an enormous can of worms for African presidents," said Richard Reeves, West Africa specialist at London-based think-tank Chatham House. "If you look at any African leader in office for more than a dozen years, they have all tried to destabilise neighbouring countries."
COMING OF AGE
Known as "Pappy" to a generation of drug-crazed child soldiers, Taylor became a byword for more than a decade of civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. But leaders in Guinea, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso also played their part.
With many leaders having much to lose by Taylor taking the witness box, his arrest took many Africans by surprise.
"That we have not heard a wave of condemnation from African leaders after one of their own handed over Taylor shows the African Union is coming of age," Kenya's Sunday Standard wrote in an editorial.
It may have been the introduction of Africa's first elected female president which helped change the rules of the "gentleman's club": Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took office in January and soon sought Taylor's prosecution.
But the Habre case may prove more problematic. Many African leaders resent that a court in an ex-colonial power, accused of rights abuses in Congo, is trying to extradite one of their own.
"It must be Africa which tries him ... It is a question of finding an African judiciary to judge the case," Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said at an AU summit in January.
The torture charges against Habre could also be much more commonly applied than war crimes accusations facing Taylor.
"The Habre case is more worrying for African leaders as it is more universal in its implications," said Reeves. "They will find it a very difficult decision."
The fate of other ex-leaders, such as Ethiopia's Communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, may depend on the Habre ruling.
Mengistu, accused of a "Red Terror" which killed thousands during his 1977-1991 rule, remains a guest of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe despite Ethiopia's attempts to extradite him.
In Congo, Taylor's trial raised hopes the ICC probe could gather pace. Last month a Congo militia leader Thomas Lubanga became the first suspect transferred to the ICC for trial for conscripting children during a 1998-2003 war.
"This is a sign to those in power who have the blood of the Congolese people on their hands," said Dolly Ibefo, vice president of Congolese rights group, La Voix des Sans Voix.
Many ordinary Congolese, used to decades of rights abuses, remain phlegmatic about Taylor's arrest.
"I guess it is a good sign," said Jean-Pierre, a taxi driver. "They arrested Lubanga ... but what about the others here in Congo. The ones who are still in power."© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.