Opinion The guerrilla’s best friend

Charles Taylor,in 2003,was indicted with five counts of war crimes,including murder,outrages on personal dignity; five counts of crimes against humanity,including rape,enslavement and on one count of serious violations of international humanitarian law: that of recruiting and using child soldiers for his involvement in neighbouring Sierra Leone’s civil war. The charges brought against him are by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He is the first African leader to be tried for war crimes.

Sierra Leone’s civil war has many components to it. An

attempt to homogenise the civil war with others seen in West Africa may pit it as a conflict between Temme and Mende tribes; the West has generally approached it through the lens of an armed conflict between the government in Freetown and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels; and some have framed it as an expression of regional and corporate strategy for control over precious resources: diamonds. Charles Taylor actively backed the RUF through arms,money and leadership in return for the country’s diamond fortune.

Taylor was indicted on June 4,2003. A man on the run,he sought refuge in Nigeria. The election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the Liberian presidency and her negotiations with Nigeria resulted in Taylor’s handover to Sierra Leone. The court he appears in front of is rare and the first of its kind.

Unlike previous courts such as Slobodan Milosevic’s at The Hague (UN appointed) or Saddam Hussein’s in a Baghdad courtroom (Iraqi appointed),Charles Taylor stands in front of a hybrid national-international court. His judges are both from Sierra Leone and the UN. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is thus an internationally funded court operating under the approval of the UN with the participation of domestic players. Taylor first appeared in court on June 3,2004. Tomorrow his defence presents his case at a rented courtroom in The Hague. He has pleaded not guilty.

Since its inception the court has been a subject of debate. There are some who believe that the court is revolutionary in nature and if it succeeds will alter the nature of military tribunals. Proponents point to the declining costs and time of trial but the Court currently faces monetary constraints. Critics point to the unrealistic time allocations. Taylor’s defence has lined up 256 witnesses; analysts thus believe this could stretch the case by another three to five years,squeezing finances.

There are those who will argue that such courts have traditionally lacked much authority. The recent example of Sudan’s former dictator Omar al-Bashir’s disregard for

international law and justice,despite an arrest warrant,is a case in point. However,these high-profile cases do serve as a mechanism to see if past excesses have now been checked.

The court however fails to address the issue of Taylor’s fortune,allegedly amassed through his involvement with conflict diamonds. The diamond trade provided the rebels — the Revolutionary United Front — with the finances it needed to fight. Hence the apt term “blood diamonds”. The UN in 2000 banned diamonds from Sierra Leone and there has been an on-going debate over reform in the diamond industry based in Antwerp,Belgium.

Belgian statistics and the research project “Heart of the Problem” point towards Liberian involvement through Taylor’s government. At the peak of the civil war Liberia exported “30 million carats worth of diamonds to Antwerp. These are Belgian import statistics. Liberia over that period of time probably did not have the capacity to export more than half a million.” Further,the diamonds sold were of perfect clarity and colour,valued at $200/ carat. Liberian diamonds are “generally low quality diamonds… valued at $25-30/ carat.”

Taylor’s in the dock; but,after 11 years of civil war,thousands dead and 2.5 million displaced people,how has reform proceeded in the industry that gave him sustenance,that De Beers once monopolised?

Slowly. 60 million pieces of diamonds are sold every year,and the task of policing the industry falls as much on Antwerp — through verification of the stones’ origin and careful classification — as it does on the UN. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” they are also,still,the guerrilla’s good friend.

alia.allana@expressindia.com