Charles Taylor on the Lam
28 March 2006 12:29 pm by Taylor Marsh
Charles Taylor on the Lam –updated–
Why should we care that Charles Taylor has disappeared? Oh, besides
the fact that he was on his way to being tried for war crimes, after having
backed butchers in the war in Sierra Leone.
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| Where is Charles Taylor now? |
The announcement of Taylor's disappearance
came the day before Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo was to meet with President
Bush at the White House.That visit was supposed to occur on a high note after
Obasanjo resolved two issues of concern to his U.S. allies — Monday's
release of kidnapped American oil workers and last week's deal to hand over
Africa's most infamous warlord.But Taylor vanished Monday night from his villa in
the southern town of Calabar, the government said. A presidential spokeswoman
said members of Taylor's Nigerian security detail had been arrested.(snip)
While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer
only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of starting civil war
in Liberia and of harboring al-Qaeda suicide bombers who attacked the U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing 12 Americans and more than
200 Africans. …
Bush lost bin Laden and now another al Qaeda aiding thug has disappeared.
What next? Iran's Ahmadinejad shows up for lunch in Iraq.
A notorious diamond smuggler, Charles Taylor is a “showman”
preacher who has been indicted on 17 counts of war crimes. This includes “crimes
against humanity, including terrorizing the civilian population, unlawful killings,
sexual violence, physical violence, forced conscription of child soldiers, abductions,
forced labour, looting and burning, and attacks on UN peacekeeping personnel,”
to take a passage straight from Amnesty
International.
Legend has it that after he fled Liberia, accused of embezzling
$1 million, he ended up back in Massachusetts, where he was detained through
a Liberian extradition warrant. This is where it gets good. Taylor is said to
have sawed through prison bars to escape, with help from some sympathetic Americans
who wanted to help Taylor take down another dictator back in Africa, which he eventually did.
The question is how did this thug escape? Was he abducted? What?
And was Nigeria's Obasanjo involved? He's now putting together an investigation, but I'm
not impressed. He didn't want to hand his pal over in the first place, but begrudgingly
agreed. Now Taylor's a fugitive.
This former gas attendant and graduate of Bentley College in Massachusetts
is a barbarous murderer. Catch him, incarcerate him, or kill him if we have
to, but capture him now. He's making a laughing stock out of the world, as his
soldiers still roam free on the Ivory Coast. Where will he end up next, New York?
UPDATE: Taylor arrested.
