Taylor And Son: An African Tragedy
BY CHRIS ONUORAH-(AFRICAMESSAGE)-These are rough days indeed for the Charles Taylor family. One, the father sits in jail
somewhere in Europe as he begins his trial on war crimes charges. Worse still, news just arrived that his 31-year old son had just
been sentenced to ninety-seven years in prison for crimes similar to those of his father. The rest of the family is left in tears.
The tale of the senior and junior Charles Taylor will no doubt make for a best-selling book. It will also make perfect script for a
Hollywood blockbuster. Yet it is so true that it can only amount to another African tragedy. It is one more painful page in the sad
tale of a long-suffering continent.
If anything, it is the severity of the charges against Charles Ghankay Taylor and his son Charles “Chuckie” Taylor that sets the
skin crawling. As one of Africa’s most brutal rebel leaders, Taylor was accused of contributing in large part to the outcome of a
Liberian conflict that left over 600,000 dead, raped or mutilated. And what about the allegations of cannibalism? And the million
plus still scattered around the world in refugee camps or still searching for their lives. The war raged for more than a decade and
went down as one of the world’s bloodiest.
Funny enough, it is not for the Liberian war that Charles Taylor is now on trial. He is accused of exporting the mayhem to the
neighboring Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leonean war has already been captured on film and shown to the world in the movie “Blood
Diamonds”. Taylor’s accusers allege that he sponsored and armed the rebels in that country in exchange for diamonds, charges
he strongly denies. Yet what may not be denied is the fact that thousands of child soldiers were recruited, drugged and unleashed
on the populace. Many more were killed, raped, tortured or simply had their limbs amputated just for sport. Even so, prosecutors
have added that they have been able to trace five billion dollars belonging to Charles Taylor stashed away in two American banks.
Most of it is thought to be proceeds from diamond sales.
It is not often that fortune smiles twice on mortals . But for Charles Taylor, it did. He not only reigned supreme as a rebel leader,
he was also elected Liberia’s first post-war president. His power loomed so large that Liberian youths campaigned for him with the
slogan, “He killed my pa; he killed my ma but I will vote for him.” That for a man who once said he, just like Jesus Christ, was
being accused wrongly.
If the presidency was Taylor’s Second Coming, how did it fare for him? Reports said he was further emboldened as a statesman
and even more suspicious of those around him, lengthening the list of his enemies. Many of those enemies picked up their guns
and took to the bushes, from where they unleashed their own guerilla attacks against his administration.
Chuckie the American citizen whom Taylor had with his long, live-in lover soon joined his father in Liberia. At age twenty-five,
President Taylor did what many dictators do. He carved out a piece of the action for his heir-apparent. He made Chuckie, a naïve
and untrained young man the head of the crack Anti Terrorist Unit (ATU). His brief was to sniff out enemies of the state and
execute them, an assignment witnesses testified Chuckie pursued with glee. He was said to have even had generals under his
command. But did he cross the line?
One of the witnesses told the American court that convicted Chuckie a particularly gory tale. Chuckie’s driver once ran over a dog
on the streets of Monrovia and was in turn killed by his boss. But the driver was not executed for cruelty against animals. He was
killed for soiling his master’s vehicle with the blood of the canine. At thirty-one, Chuckie Taylor was convicted last week for
torture, murder and conspiracy abroad. He is the first American citizen to be so convicted.
History is rich with stories of bloody machinations of despots and their sons. Remember the Duvaliers of Haiti? Papa and Baby
Doc engaged in the secret and open executions of their real and imagined enemies. There were stories of human sacrifices meant
to protect the first family of one of the poorest countries in the world. Remember the vicious reign of General Sani Abacha and his
sons? The blood of Nigerian citizens flowed as they struggled to entrench democracy and human rights in their country. And what
about the great Saddam Hussein of Iraq and his two blood-thirsty heirs? Did they really use chemical weapons against their own
people? All these men had their days of absolute power. Days when they made human beings disappear from the face of the
earth!
It is often said that the evil that men do lives long after them. But to be sure, many of these men paid for their evils before they
died. This, it appears, is proving to be the case with the Taylors. Chuckie is only thirty one years old. He was handed ninety-seven
years in prison. That surely will be a very long time for soul-searching and possible remission of sin.
Will Charles Taylor be convicted? No one knows for sure. There are hot arguments for and against it. Some of them are factual.
Most of them are very emotional. It is early days to tell if the man will go down or walk free. After all when he left power under
international pressure a few years back, he said, with a hint of a threat, “God willing, I shall return.” Maybe. Maybe not.
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