How do we comprehend what happened in Sierra Leone? Before the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor began in January 2008 the world only knew part of the story: photographs and media reports of amputations, butchery, widespread rape, blood diamonds, child soldiers. Ugly images of brutality and viciousness that came to be associated with a decade-long conflict that crippled the West African state and killed over 100,000.
And even after months of hearings before the Special Court for Sierra Leone (sitting for this case only in The Hague), during which the testimony of over 90 prosecution witnesses was heard, and as Charles Taylor took the witness stand for the first time last week, there is a sense that still only part of the story has been told.
The defence does not deny that these crimes occurred. Indeed the evidence of their commission is overwhelming. Previous SCSL trials held in Freetown left little doubt that rebels hacked off arms and legs, gouged out eyes, chopped off ears. That girls and women were systematically enslaved and sexually violated. That the diamond resources of Sierra Leone were used not to improve the lot of its people, but to maim and kill.
What remains unclear is the role of Charles Taylor, who is charged with ordering these crimes from the comfort of his Liberian presidential mansion, who never set foot in Sierra Leone but nonetheless, in the words of the Prosecutor, “stamped his mark indelibly on the whole country.”
The Prosecution has set out to prove that Taylor is responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes carried out by the Sierra Leone rebel groups the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The Prosecution alleges that all of the crimes were carried out as part of a sub-plan to control and terrorise the population of Sierra Leone in order to prevent resistance to the attempt at seizing power. The key question is: what is the link between Charles Taylor and the RUF, and to what extent was he controlling or supporting their activities?
To this end, the prosecution has first sought to demonstrate a connection back to Liberia: that the RUF fighters were either from Liberia or were controlled from there. Witness TF1-189, who like other witnesses testified without giving names to prevent reprisals, was raped and enslaved by rebels. She told the court that while accompanying a female rebel on a shopping errand, they met a rebel who was eating something in a bowl. The rebel told them that he was eating the heart of a Kamajor, a member of an ethnic tribe whose fighters fought against the AFRC and RUF after the invasion of Freetown in 1999. The rebel, she said, had a Liberian accent. Other witnesses who testified to having heard soldiers speak Liberian English specifically described foreign accents, poorly spoken Krio, or fighters using unfamiliar phrases such as “mah mei.” The prosecution also tried to elicit from witnesses descriptions of clothing worn by members of armed groups. The AFRC usually wore military fatigues, the RUF did not.
The defence, through cross examination, sought to challenge the conviction on the part of the witnesses that the rebels were speaking Liberian English. The defence may possibly seek to prove through its own witnesses or documentary evidence in the months ahead that the involvement of fighters speaking Liberian English, or being of Liberian origin, is not conclusive evidence of Taylor’s involvement.
The second basis on which the prosecution sought to establish Taylor’s connection to war crimes in Sierra Leone was the supply of resources that fuelled the war, such as ammunition, communications equipment and finance. Witness TF1-045, who was captured by the RUF and forced to join their ranks, testified that in 1991, he saw RUF leader Foday Sankoh bringing arms, ammunition and medicines into Sierra Leone from Liberia for use by the RUF. Some witnesses testified that Sankoh had a close connection to Taylor that could be traced back to their respective military training in Libya in the early 1980s, a relationship that lasted throughout the war years in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In his testimony, Taylor denied meeting Sankoh in Libya: “Foday Sankoh was nothing when it comes to revolutionaries that were in Libya. Nothing. We didn’t know him and there was no need to know him.”
If his testimony is accepted, it would cast considerable doubt on the prosecution’s theory that the criminal plan was hatched in Libya. Taylor described his relationship with Sankoh, who was leading the revolution in Sierra Leone, as one based on mutual security interests: fighting the rebel group called ULIMO (The United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy) which had invaded Liberia, and a common enemy to both men.
During the first day of his testimony, Taylor denied that he “knowingly assisted Foday Sankoh in the invasion of Sierra Leone” or that he provided the RUF with any military assistance to invade. He did however admit that in 1991 to 1992 that he provided “small amounts” of arms and ammunition to the RUF in the interests of protecting the Liberian border.
The issue of ‘blood diamonds’ is central to the allegation that Taylor was aiding and abetting RUF crimes, and is a core aspect of the Prosecution claim that Taylor was part of a Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) that was formed well before the beginning of the indictment period (1996) to take political power and control of Sierra Leone in order to exploit its abundant natural resources. The Indictment alleges that Taylor provided financial support, military training, personnel, arms and ammunition to the RUF in order to obtain access to the mineral wealth of Sierra Leone, in particular its diamond wealth, and to destabilize the State. In turn, the diamonds were allegedly provided to those outside Sierra Leone as payment for assistance in carrying out the joint criminal enterprise.
During testimony, Taylor’s counsel presented a Press Release that had been issued in 1994 from an RUF office in Accra, Ghana. “To say that the RUF is an agent for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor is not only false and misleading but also outrageous,” it declared.
“Were you conspiring with the RUF?”, asked Taylor’s counsel. “No. Impossible. We are just so far divided, so far apart that I could have never been associated with this.”
As evidence of aiding and abetting, a focal point for the Prosecution is Taylor’s alleged involvement with mining, and his supply of arms and ammunition to the RUF in exchange for diamonds. Witness TF1-174, who had worked with children, said that children told him that they had accompanied their commanders to Liberia where they exchanged diamonds for new guns and clothing.
Evidence was also presented to seek to prove that RUF (and AFRC) commanders were subordinate to Taylor, and that he was also responsible on the basis of ‘command responsibility’ for knowing or having reason to know that crimes were being committed and failing to punish or prevent those crimes. For example, Witness Karmoh Kanneh testified that there was regular communication between Taylor and RUF Commanders Sam Bockarie and Issa Sesay, whom the prosecution alleges provide the key link between Taylor and the RUF/AFRC alliance. The Prosecution alleges that Taylor received diamonds from these commanders, knowing that civilians, including children, were used as forced labour in the diamond mines of Sierra Leone. And Witness Samuel Kargbo testified that the AFRC and RUF referred to Taylor as their ‘Godfather’ and followed Taylor’s advice to attack the town of Kono in 1998 because it was strategic for the mining of diamonds, which would be used to purchase much-needed combat supplies.
Asked by his counsel during his testimony whether he ever dealt in diamonds with the RUF in exchange for arms, Taylor replied, “Never. There is not one human who believes in the truth [who] can say that I, Charles Ghankay Taylor, dealt with the RUF or anyone in the RUF taking diamonds for arms or taking diamonds for anything. Never ever did I receive, whether it is mayonnaise or coffee or whatever jar, never receive any diamonds from the RUF. It’s a lie, it’s a diabolical lie. Never.” Referring to a letter tendered by the prosecution that Sankoh sent to Taylor thanking him for supplying a small quantity of arms and ammunition, Taylor said, “Sankoh never gave me any diamonds for any arms and if he did then he got a very, very bad deal because I didn’t have the arms to give him.”
The trademark atrocity of the conflict in Sierra Leone was amputations. Mohamed Sesay lost both of his hands after being captured by rebels a week after the invasion of Freetown on January 6, 1999, allegedly ordered by Taylor. Sesay was ordered to queue along with 24 other men. The commander told the first man in line to put his arm down to be amputated. He refused, and was shot in face. Five others were killed with axes to the head. Sesay pleaded to be shot, but in a twisted irony, the rebels cut off his hands instead.
“It is impossible for that [amputations] to have ever been ordered by me”, insisted Taylor. “It never happened in Liberia … and we would never have encouraged it in Sierra Leone.”
Witness TF1-143, who was a child at the time, was taken from a house during the night at gunpoint and kept prisoner along with 150 others, including 50 children. The following morning, rebels came to ‘mark’ the children. “They carved AFRC on the forehead of a boy and RUF on his chest using a razor blade”, said the witness, testifying under protective measures. “All the boys and girls were marked this way. They marked me as well.”
The Prosecution alleged that this barbaric practice had a strategic purpose. “The AFRC/RUF fighters were of the view that carving their letters into their captives would result in them being identified by other free civilians as RUF or AFRC fighters. Consequently, the scarred captives would be unwelcome in civilian villages and back in their own homes. This practice was part of an overall strategy to terrorize civilians, thus holding a large population of people throughout the country in a state of physical and psychological captivity.” Taylor has not addressed this accusation during his account so far.
TF1-143, who became a child soldier fighting on the side of the rebels, also told the court that they gave him ‘blue pills,’ emboldening him to carry out their orders. After taking the pills, he was told kill a group of villagers. One of the rebels known as ‘Kabila’ “demonstrated to us how to do it and hacked the first man on his neck.” The witness then killed a woman in the same way, and decapitated a child. “One of them begged me not to do it but Kabila told me to do it or he would kill me”, said the witness, “so I hacked him as well and cut off his head.” The witness was also ordered by Kabila to rape an old woman, but he refused. As punishment, he was forced to eat the commander’s faeces.
Indeed rape, and forced marriages, were the only choices open to Sierra Leonean women captured by the RUF or the AFRC. These women would prefer an attachment a single fighter as a “bush wife” because this was the best way to limit the abuse they would suffer. The alternative was that, in the words of one witness, “to be treated like a football in the field,” being exposed to gang rape and other forms of violence, often murder.
“We heard that people were getting killed, women were getting raped and different things, and we couldn’t understand it,” said Taylor during the first day of his testimony. In his defence he drew attention to the fact that several generals were tried and executed in Liberia for committing rape, a fact that also constituted evidence rebutting the accusation that the phenomenon of ‘bush wives’ existed in Liberia, which he denied.
“Why would anyone believe or bring themselves so low to believe that what I was not permitting in Liberia, even if I had control in Sierra Leone, I would permit in Sierra Leone?,” he asked.
Despite addressing some allegations in relation to Sierra Leone, most of Taylor’s testimony during the first week focused on events in Liberia in the 1980s and early 1990s. The reason for addressing these events is that during the presentation of its case, the Prosecution submitted evidence about ‘similar acts’ or ‘evidence of a consistent pattern of conduct’ in relation to Taylor’s conduct during the Liberian Civil War which began in 1989. According to the Prosecutor Stephen Rapp, “such evidence is relevant to question of intent and plan in terms of the crimes that we are alleging” as having occurred in Sierra Leone.
During the second day of his testimony, Taylor was asked by his counsel Courtenay Griffiths QC whether - during the training period in Libya in preparation for the ‘revolution’ and overthrow of Samuel Doe in Liberia - a plan was hatched to terrorise the civilian population. Taylor replied that it would be “silly and really stupid for anyone wanting to launch a revolution using civilians to want to terrorise them.”
Taylor is also alleged to have openly recruited child soldiers in Liberia, even deploying a special ‘Small Boys’ Unit’ in battle. But when questioned by his counsel on July 22, Taylor denied that they were soldiers, saying “these are individuals that are going along with their brothers, that have had their families killed and there is this revenge attitude going on … we did not encourage or recruit or train children.” During testimony last week, he confirmed the veracity of accounts of children carrying rifles but added, “what the reports don’t say is this: that the men that they see carrying those rifles are young men walking with their family, but [who] never entered combat.” According to Taylor, their role was limited to fetching water, cutting wood and washing clothes. He denied instructing Sankoh or the RUF to use child soldiers. “How can I instruct a leader of another country almost?,” he asked rhetorically.
The court had previously heard evidence of Liberian roadblocks festooned with human entrails and human heads. They were “Skulls, not human heads,” Taylor pointed out emphatically during his third day of testimony. “Skulls were used as symbols of death.” Asked by his counsel if the practice was employed to instil fear, Taylor agreed that of course it could have that effect, explaining that “a skull, even in fraternal organisations, is used also to say: ‘if you do wrong, this is the result’.”
Taylor’s testimony is expected to continue for several weeks.
Katherine Iliopoulos is an international lawyer based in The Hague, Netherlands.
Related Links:
Charles Taylor Indictment
Case Information: Prosecutor v. Charles Ghankay Taylor
Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
Website: The Trial of Charles Taylor
Video: Ex-Liberian Leader Testifies at War Crimes Trial
The Associated Press
Charles Taylor Testifies against War Crimes Charges
How do we comprehend what happened in Sierra Leone? Before the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor began in January 2008 the world only knew part of the story: photographs and media reports of amputations, butchery, widespread rape, blood diamonds, child soldiers. Ugly images of brutality and viciousness that came to be associated with a decade-long conflict that crippled the West African state and killed over 100,000.
And even after months of hearings before the Special Court for Sierra Leone (sitting for this case only in The Hague), during which the testimony of over 90 prosecution witnesses was heard, and as Charles Taylor took the witness stand for the first time last week, there is a sense that still only part of the story has been told.
The defence does not deny that these crimes occurred. Indeed the evidence of their commission is overwhelming. Previous SCSL trials held in Freetown left little doubt that rebels hacked off arms and legs, gouged out eyes, chopped off ears. That girls and women were systematically enslaved and sexually violated. That the diamond resources of Sierra Leone were used not to improve the lot of its people, but to maim and kill.
What remains unclear is the role of Charles Taylor, who is charged with ordering these crimes from the comfort of his Liberian presidential mansion, who never set foot in Sierra Leone but nonetheless, in the words of the Prosecutor, “stamped his mark indelibly on the whole country.”
The Prosecution has set out to prove that Taylor is responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes carried out by the Sierra Leone rebel groups the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The Prosecution alleges that all of the crimes were carried out as part of a sub-plan to control and terrorise the population of Sierra Leone in order to prevent resistance to the attempt at seizing power. The key question is: what is the link between Charles Taylor and the RUF, and to what extent was he controlling or supporting their activities?
To this end, the prosecution has first sought to demonstrate a connection back to Liberia: that the RUF fighters were either from Liberia or were controlled from there. Witness TF1-189, who like other witnesses testified without giving names to prevent reprisals, was raped and enslaved by rebels. She told the court that while accompanying a female rebel on a shopping errand, they met a rebel who was eating something in a bowl. The rebel told them that he was eating the heart of a Kamajor, a member of an ethnic tribe whose fighters fought against the AFRC and RUF after the invasion of Freetown in 1999. The rebel, she said, had a Liberian accent. Other witnesses who testified to having heard soldiers speak Liberian English specifically described foreign accents, poorly spoken Krio, or fighters using unfamiliar phrases such as “mah mei.” The prosecution also tried to elicit from witnesses descriptions of clothing worn by members of armed groups. The AFRC usually wore military fatigues, the RUF did not.
The defence, through cross examination, sought to challenge the conviction on the part of the witnesses that the rebels were speaking Liberian English. The defence may possibly seek to prove through its own witnesses or documentary evidence in the months ahead that the involvement of fighters speaking Liberian English, or being of Liberian origin, is not conclusive evidence of Taylor’s involvement.
The second basis on which the prosecution sought to establish Taylor’s connection to war crimes in Sierra Leone was the supply of resources that fuelled the war, such as ammunition, communications equipment and finance. Witness TF1-045, who was captured by the RUF and forced to join their ranks, testified that in 1991, he saw RUF leader Foday Sankoh bringing arms, ammunition and medicines into Sierra Leone from Liberia for use by the RUF. Some witnesses testified that Sankoh had a close connection to Taylor that could be traced back to their respective military training in Libya in the early 1980s, a relationship that lasted throughout the war years in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In his testimony, Taylor denied meeting Sankoh in Libya: “Foday Sankoh was nothing when it comes to revolutionaries that were in Libya. Nothing. We didn’t know him and there was no need to know him.”
If his testimony is accepted, it would cast considerable doubt on the prosecution’s theory that the criminal plan was hatched in Libya. Taylor described his relationship with Sankoh, who was leading the revolution in Sierra Leone, as one based on mutual security interests: fighting the rebel group called ULIMO (The United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy) which had invaded Liberia, and a common enemy to both men.
During the first day of his testimony, Taylor denied that he “knowingly assisted Foday Sankoh in the invasion of Sierra Leone” or that he provided the RUF with any military assistance to invade. He did however admit that in 1991 to 1992 that he provided “small amounts” of arms and ammunition to the RUF in the interests of protecting the Liberian border.
The issue of ‘blood diamonds’ is central to the allegation that Taylor was aiding and abetting RUF crimes, and is a core aspect of the Prosecution claim that Taylor was part of a Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) that was formed well before the beginning of the indictment period (1996) to take political power and control of Sierra Leone in order to exploit its abundant natural resources. The Indictment alleges that Taylor provided financial support, military training, personnel, arms and ammunition to the RUF in order to obtain access to the mineral wealth of Sierra Leone, in particular its diamond wealth, and to destabilize the State. In turn, the diamonds were allegedly provided to those outside Sierra Leone as payment for assistance in carrying out the joint criminal enterprise.
During testimony, Taylor’s counsel presented a Press Release that had been issued in 1994 from an RUF office in Accra, Ghana. “To say that the RUF is an agent for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor is not only false and misleading but also outrageous,” it declared.
“Were you conspiring with the RUF?”, asked Taylor’s counsel. “No. Impossible. We are just so far divided, so far apart that I could have never been associated with this.”
As evidence of aiding and abetting, a focal point for the Prosecution is Taylor’s alleged involvement with mining, and his supply of arms and ammunition to the RUF in exchange for diamonds. Witness TF1-174, who had worked with children, said that children told him that they had accompanied their commanders to Liberia where they exchanged diamonds for new guns and clothing.
Evidence was also presented to seek to prove that RUF (and AFRC) commanders were subordinate to Taylor, and that he was also responsible on the basis of ‘command responsibility’ for knowing or having reason to know that crimes were being committed and failing to punish or prevent those crimes. For example, Witness Karmoh Kanneh testified that there was regular communication between Taylor and RUF Commanders Sam Bockarie and Issa Sesay, whom the prosecution alleges provide the key link between Taylor and the RUF/AFRC alliance. The Prosecution alleges that Taylor received diamonds from these commanders, knowing that civilians, including children, were used as forced labour in the diamond mines of Sierra Leone. And Witness Samuel Kargbo testified that the AFRC and RUF referred to Taylor as their ‘Godfather’ and followed Taylor’s advice to attack the town of Kono in 1998 because it was strategic for the mining of diamonds, which would be used to purchase much-needed combat supplies.
Asked by his counsel during his testimony whether he ever dealt in diamonds with the RUF in exchange for arms, Taylor replied, “Never. There is not one human who believes in the truth [who] can say that I, Charles Ghankay Taylor, dealt with the RUF or anyone in the RUF taking diamonds for arms or taking diamonds for anything. Never ever did I receive, whether it is mayonnaise or coffee or whatever jar, never receive any diamonds from the RUF. It’s a lie, it’s a diabolical lie. Never.” Referring to a letter tendered by the prosecution that Sankoh sent to Taylor thanking him for supplying a small quantity of arms and ammunition, Taylor said, “Sankoh never gave me any diamonds for any arms and if he did then he got a very, very bad deal because I didn’t have the arms to give him.”
The trademark atrocity of the conflict in Sierra Leone was amputations. Mohamed Sesay lost both of his hands after being captured by rebels a week after the invasion of Freetown on January 6, 1999, allegedly ordered by Taylor. Sesay was ordered to queue along with 24 other men. The commander told the first man in line to put his arm down to be amputated. He refused, and was shot in face. Five others were killed with axes to the head. Sesay pleaded to be shot, but in a twisted irony, the rebels cut off his hands instead.
“It is impossible for that [amputations] to have ever been ordered by me”, insisted Taylor. “It never happened in Liberia … and we would never have encouraged it in Sierra Leone.”
Witness TF1-143, who was a child at the time, was taken from a house during the night at gunpoint and kept prisoner along with 150 others, including 50 children. The following morning, rebels came to ‘mark’ the children. “They carved AFRC on the forehead of a boy and RUF on his chest using a razor blade”, said the witness, testifying under protective measures. “All the boys and girls were marked this way. They marked me as well.”
The Prosecution alleged that this barbaric practice had a strategic purpose. “The AFRC/RUF fighters were of the view that carving their letters into their captives would result in them being identified by other free civilians as RUF or AFRC fighters. Consequently, the scarred captives would be unwelcome in civilian villages and back in their own homes. This practice was part of an overall strategy to terrorize civilians, thus holding a large population of people throughout the country in a state of physical and psychological captivity.” Taylor has not addressed this accusation during his account so far.
TF1-143, who became a child soldier fighting on the side of the rebels, also told the court that they gave him ‘blue pills,’ emboldening him to carry out their orders. After taking the pills, he was told kill a group of villagers. One of the rebels known as ‘Kabila’ “demonstrated to us how to do it and hacked the first man on his neck.” The witness then killed a woman in the same way, and decapitated a child. “One of them begged me not to do it but Kabila told me to do it or he would kill me”, said the witness, “so I hacked him as well and cut off his head.” The witness was also ordered by Kabila to rape an old woman, but he refused. As punishment, he was forced to eat the commander’s faeces.
Indeed rape, and forced marriages, were the only choices open to Sierra Leonean women captured by the RUF or the AFRC. These women would prefer an attachment a single fighter as a “bush wife” because this was the best way to limit the abuse they would suffer. The alternative was that, in the words of one witness, “to be treated like a football in the field,” being exposed to gang rape and other forms of violence, often murder.
“We heard that people were getting killed, women were getting raped and different things, and we couldn’t understand it,” said Taylor during the first day of his testimony. In his defence he drew attention to the fact that several generals were tried and executed in Liberia for committing rape, a fact that also constituted evidence rebutting the accusation that the phenomenon of ‘bush wives’ existed in Liberia, which he denied.
“Why would anyone believe or bring themselves so low to believe that what I was not permitting in Liberia, even if I had control in Sierra Leone, I would permit in Sierra Leone?,” he asked.
Despite addressing some allegations in relation to Sierra Leone, most of Taylor’s testimony during the first week focused on events in Liberia in the 1980s and early 1990s. The reason for addressing these events is that during the presentation of its case, the Prosecution submitted evidence about ‘similar acts’ or ‘evidence of a consistent pattern of conduct’ in relation to Taylor’s conduct during the Liberian Civil War which began in 1989. According to the Prosecutor Stephen Rapp, “such evidence is relevant to question of intent and plan in terms of the crimes that we are alleging” as having occurred in Sierra Leone.
During the second day of his testimony, Taylor was asked by his counsel Courtenay Griffiths QC whether - during the training period in Libya in preparation for the ‘revolution’ and overthrow of Samuel Doe in Liberia - a plan was hatched to terrorise the civilian population. Taylor replied that it would be “silly and really stupid for anyone wanting to launch a revolution using civilians to want to terrorise them.”
Taylor is also alleged to have openly recruited child soldiers in Liberia, even deploying a special ‘Small Boys’ Unit’ in battle. But when questioned by his counsel on July 22, Taylor denied that they were soldiers, saying “these are individuals that are going along with their brothers, that have had their families killed and there is this revenge attitude going on … we did not encourage or recruit or train children.” During testimony last week, he confirmed the veracity of accounts of children carrying rifles but added, “what the reports don’t say is this: that the men that they see carrying those rifles are young men walking with their family, but [who] never entered combat.” According to Taylor, their role was limited to fetching water, cutting wood and washing clothes. He denied instructing Sankoh or the RUF to use child soldiers. “How can I instruct a leader of another country almost?,” he asked rhetorically.
The court had previously heard evidence of Liberian roadblocks festooned with human entrails and human heads. They were “Skulls, not human heads,” Taylor pointed out emphatically during his third day of testimony. “Skulls were used as symbols of death.” Asked by his counsel if the practice was employed to instil fear, Taylor agreed that of course it could have that effect, explaining that “a skull, even in fraternal organisations, is used also to say: ‘if you do wrong, this is the result’.”
Taylor’s testimony is expected to continue for several weeks.
Katherine Iliopoulos is an international lawyer based in The Hague, Netherlands.
Related Links:
Charles Taylor Indictment
Case Information: Prosecutor v. Charles Ghankay Taylor
Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
Website: The Trial of Charles Taylor
Video: Ex-Liberian Leader Testifies at War Crimes Trial
The Associated Press
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