The charges against Charles Taylor
Former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor is in detention in the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, facing 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He is accused of funding Sierra Leone's former rebels, the Revolutionary United Front by selling diamonds on their behalf and buying weapons for them.
RUF fighters were notorious for hacking off the arms and legs of the civilian population with machetes, as well as killing, raping and robbing them.
Here are the charges:
• CAH = Crimes Against Humanity
• WC = Violation of Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II (war crimes)
• VIHL = Other serious violation of international humanitarian law
Terrorising the civilian population and collective punishments
1 Acts of terrorism (WC)
Unlawful killings
2 Murder (CAH)
3 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder (WC)
Sexual violence
4 Rape (CAH)
5 Sexual slavery and any other form of sexual violence (CAH)
6 Outrages upon personal dignity (WC)
Physical violence
7 Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular cruel treatment (WC)
8 Other inhumane acts (CAH)
Use of child soldiers
9 Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities (VIHL)
Abductions and forced labour
10 Enslavement (CAH)
Looting
11 Pillage (WC)
Tasting the Bitterness of War.
Charles Taylor once said Sierra Leoneans would taste the bitterness of war, declared one of the thousands of people who lost one or more limbs in the war the former Liberian president is said to have sponsored.
And now it is his turn to taste that bitterness, he said, standing on his one leg and supporting himself on a table at his house at an amputees camp outside Sierra Leone's capital Freetown.
Sahr Momodu Tarawally, 39, said he remembered seeing Taylor in real life when he visited a diamond mine in the company of Sam Bokary, a former rebel commander.
"That time I was still standing on my two legs working at the diamond mine in Yengema (an eastern diamond mining town). He should be tried here, and if he is convicted should be jailed here so he can also taste the bitterness of the war," said Tarawally.
Kadiatu Fofonah, 46, who was amputated from the thighs down, cannot dance like others attending a Sunday mass. She sits in a wheelchair raising her hands and praising God for an answered prayer, the arrest of Taylor.
"This is my month of success," she joins others repeating in chorus after the youthful pastor leading the mass, at the New Life church at Grafton village, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from Freetown.
"I find this to be the best place to try Taylor. The special court here was built to try perpetrators of the rebel war in Sierra Leone, so why try him away from here?" she said in an interview with AFP.
She said fears about the destabilisation of the country by Taylor's supporters could be overcome by boosting security with international support.
"But as for us there is nothing more to fear, we don't have a life to talk about after Taylor did this to us, it doesn't matter what happens anymore," she said.
Her legs were chopped off with an axe by four young rebels, young enough to be her children, when she and a group of about 100 others sought refuge at Kissy psychiatric hospital in Freetown.
The rebels arrived there and lined up the men on one side and shot them all dead, before turning to the women with axes and machetes.
"I was carrying my seven-month old baby, who is now eight, when they sat me down and cut my legs up saying 'go get your legs from President (Ahmad Tejan) Kabbah'," she said, battling to hold back tears.
A pastor with the New Life ministries church, David Fofana said his sermon on Sunday was on reconciliation, forgiveness and giving his congregation, which has been affected by the war in one way or another, a positive view of the world.
The UN estimates that at least 7,000 Sierra Leoneans lost a limb or other parts of their bodies such as noses or ears in the war that Taylor is accused of having sponsored for 10 years in return for so called "blood diamonds".
Many survive on handouts while non-governmental organisations have built some houses and the government gives their dependants free education. The amputees also travel free on any form of transport across the west African country.
The Norwegian Refugee Foundation has built houses for about a dozen families of amputees and war wounded at Grafton.
A former rice farmer, Tamba Ngowoge, 46, who had both hands hacked off, says he survives by begging.
"I am just thankful that I am still alive," said the father of five.
Taylor who faces charges including murder, sexual violence and unlawful use of child soldiers, will appear in court Monday for the first time since his indictment in 2003.
The 58-year-old former rebel chieftain will have the 11 counts read to him and will be asked to enter his plea.
Taylor is considered the single most powerful figure behind a series of civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003, which between them left around 400,000 people dead.
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Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 09:48:30
