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Lubbers Returns in Fulfilled Prophesy
UNHCR High Commissioner, the former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, is now touring West Africa barely over a year after he diagnosed the subregional cancer. At the time, he wondered why the international community was so buried in double standards—chasing Iraq’s Saddam Hussein while patting a man, he said, had lower status than the Iraqi dictator. That man was Charles Taylor, the favourite amongst American politicians of the Clinton era and some Republican archconservatives like Pat Robinson. Saddam has since been arrested, humiliated and detained. His two sons (and a grandson), accused of crimes, were chased and shot in the name of democracy and for the Iraqi people. On the other hand, as a mark of international "justice", Charles Taylor remains in freedom, giving interviews on Nigerian television and challenging the UN to prove that he is a thief and a mass murderer. His son, an American citizen, is inviting international business people to do business with the Taylor clan not in Africa, which men like his father have destroyed, but elsewhere. Efforts to get Charles Taylor to stand trial for his alleged and enormous crimes have hit a dead-end, and for very good reasons. He ensured that his eggs of evil would fester, so his comrades in the transitional regime are resisting every demand to have him extradited, using the Ghana peace agreement as their shield. Moreover, many of those in the government are accomplished killers and thieves. Therefore, to hang Charles Taylor is to tie their own hanging ropes. The Speaker of the rebel packed parliament has declared that after all, Charles Taylor is not to blame for the horrors that have elevated men like him (also accused of several crimes) to national prominence. Thus it is almost impossible for the current Liberian regime to demand Taylor’s extradition, a precondition the Nigerians have set perhaps in full knowledge that it cannot be implemented now, and depending on who wins the 2005 elections, never. But the good news is that Lubbers is returning to a region beaming with hope. Thousands of refugees have since returned home as the cancer he diagnosed was sliced. The improved subregional security environment (despite the Ivorian chaos) has prompted him to announce that the repatriation of Liberian refuges will commence this year, and that aid to refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberian will end, and justifiably so. If the subregion is to begin recovering from the horrors Charles Taylor decreed for it, there must a departure from relief to development, from charity to investment. But this is possible only in a safe environment in which people have confidence in their political institutions and leaders. This is why all efforts must be applied to ensure that Charles Taylor and other warlords face justice. Without this, the lure of violence for crude personal economic gains will continue to make killers and thieves national models for the young to emulate and follow. Men like Lubbers are rare in today’s world of doubletalk and double standards. When he arrived in Liberia and saw the sad situation, he did not issue a statement calling on “all sides to respect human rights.” He saw the bacteria in the region and identified it, helping to focus international attention on the catastrophic problems. That was the real beginning of Charles Taylor’s fall. What remains now is to ensure that he stands trial fro his final and deserved fall. Indeed, one can be proud of global humanity with men like Lubbers, prepared to defy international norms of silence in respect of national sovereignty, even if that sovereignty leads crimes against humanity. That men like him can challenge duplicity and win is source of comfort. All is not lost. --Tom
Kamara
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