Taylor, George Bush;
Are Moral Equivalents!
By
Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer@msn.com
New York, United States
Articles by Pamela Adegbesan and Kenneth Roth regarding the Charles
Taylor asylum in Nigeria appeared in The Guardian Opinion Page on
August 15, 2005, these articles were bereft of the essence of asylum,
as currently enjoyed by Mr. Taylor in Nigeria and worse, they left too
many questions unanswered.
Such questions for instance must include these: Is Nigeria entitled to
grant asylum status to anyone? Must such a person be the Pope or an
Angel? And what makes President Charles Taylor a war criminal, if
President George W. Bush himself is not war criminal? What is the
objective standard of measuring responsibility of war-waging
commanders-in-chief? Notwithstanding national population size or
wealth of nation that foists war atrocities, brutalities and horrors,
whether as in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan or Iraq
Both writers, also, happily ignored the diplomatic implications for
President Obasanjo, and Nigeria, who granted the protective shield of
asylum to the former President of Liberia, in the name of Nigeria, a
point which is amply conceded by Ms. Adegbesan, to the effect that,
the asylum was granted by Nigeria’s president, only after extensive
consultations were made, these were necessary and proper, given the
circumstances, to wit, crises ridden Liberia with nexus to the crises
in Sierra Leone, and by extrapolation, the entire West African region.
Charles Taylor’s removal and departure from Liberia was a sorely
needed impetus, for ending decades of war, a needed respite for West
Africa, in search of peace and development, Charles Taylor’s surgical
removal from Liberia was at the behest of Nigeria, leaders of other
African countries and sundry interested parties with full knowledge of
the negotiation’s specifics.
What is being sought by Ms. Adegbesan, Mr. Roth and their so-called
Coalition, for the “Campaign Against Impunity” and many others unseen
and in disguises, is clearly unprecedented and unknown, in the annals
of diplomacy, law and even common sense!
President Obasanjo, properly granted asylum to Mr. Taylor, as he took
into considerations, the exigent circumstances at the time, severally,
in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and the entire West African
sub-region. Now, all of a sudden, some local elements with perpetual
axe to grind with President Obasanjo, have excelled in mixing local
political resentments towards him, with their foreign cohorts, in
demanding that President Obasanjo summarily abandon all time honored
diplomatic finesse, conventions, treaties and known protocols, and
just handover Charles Taylor?
It quite amazing! How do Ms. Adegbesan and Mr. Roth make such
arguments with a straight face? What is and where is the legal or
diplomatic precedent for seeking and demanding, that a country
(Nigeria) after properly granting political asylum, in compliance with
her local laws and constitution, and after adequate and extensive
consultations with all concerned were made, such a country, would,
volte face, turnover the asylum beneficiary to certain death? Just
because NGOs and some others with agendas contrary to Nigeria’s
national interests chose to malign, blackmail and threaten Nigeria?
Are these demand being made of Nigeria, because it is Nigeria this
time? I strongly believe it unthinkable, that anyone would have been
making these demands of another country, say the United States! The
United States routinely grants asylum statuses to persons worse than
Charles Taylor in many ways! Imagine anyone demanding that the US
deliver an asylum beneficiary, to another country for judicial
proceedings! This makes me want to ask, what exactly is the purpose of
asylums? Who is entitled to asylum and why? And by who sets the
parameters for politically independent countries?
President Bush and President Taylor are both warmongers! They both
subscribe to the Clauswitzian theory or mantra, to the effect that war
is the pursuit of public policy by other means, violent means, one
might add.
War is an inherently violent activity! Whether it is in Iraq, Vietnam,
Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Gettysburg, the Potomac, and or in Biafra! War is
not friendly! War must therefore be avoided at all costs! But that is
not what we have learnt from President George W. Bush in the preceding
four years of heading America’s helms of affairs.
The world has come to learn of the use cluster bombs, bunker busting
bombs, nuclear and atomic bombs, agent orange, napalm bombs, shock and
awe, etc, all not from Charles Taylor and Liberia, but from George
Bush’s America, in which resides, Dr. Rice, the Secretary of State,
who preaches the use of force, as instrument of policy, with retorts
like, what is the use of having a strong military, if you are not
willing to use it? I guess it more like, eager to use military might,
as far as the Bush administration is concerned?
Here lies a mother lode of contradictions! America is currently waging
wars against real and imagined enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq, where
thousands of uncountable civilians have been killed and continue to
get killed, in what America euphemistically calls collateral damage,
in order to sanitize the horrors and death being visited on civilian
populations in Afghanistan and Iraq! For America and the rest of the
world, this is justified as a cost of conducting the business of war?
Who counts dead Iraqi civilians?
All of these, despite the fact that the false premise for the
invasion, occupation and needless war by the Americans in Iraq, a war
that was fraudulently concocted by the President Bush! Why then, in
God’s holy name, is President Bush not wanted for crimes against
humanity and war crimes etc? Where is the so-called, much vouched
“international community”?
Why is it, that the organs of the United Nations that slept, when Mr.
Bush invaded and occupied Iraq, in complete disregard for the UN
itself, and in complete disregard for international law, rules of
sovereignty, territory integrity, as it invaded and occupied Iraq, now
provides for the speedy trial of Charles Taylor for who is two of a
kind with George Bush?
Why is the much touted “international community” only efficacious and
potent, when Charles Taylor, and other issues African, are concerned?
Where has the profound power of reward and punishment repost in the
“international community” been, as Mr. Bush assaulted the UN, invaded
and colonized a sovereign Iraq, under false pretexts? Or in the raging
genocide in Darfur Sudan, or its cousin-in-horrors-genocide in Rwanda
10 years ago? Where is the all-knowing, all-powerful ‘international
community” when Israel built its apartheid walls against Palestinians,
kill, maim and brutalize them in high numbers, as Israel also add
daily humiliations of the Arabs as bargain/sweetener?
Those demanding that President Obasanjo surrenders or delivers Charles
Taylor to a UN court should similarly demand the indictment of George
Bush to a UN court for trial for the death and horrors occurring in
Iraq, even as I write this! As whatever befits Mr. Taylor, also fits
Mr. Bush perfectly, for his warmongering efforts!
The issues of Charles Taylor asylum, has of course assumed a
proportionally bigger picture than the individual merits and lack of
merits, of Mr. Taylor, this is now about whether Nigeria’s political
and legal systems are respected by Nigerians and others, outside our
borders. Who decides our national dignity, integrity, national and
international respect? And Nigeria’s pride of place in the global
scheme of things.
And why the double standards in ascertaining or determining who is a
war criminal? Charles Taylor was a commander-in-chief, just as George
Bush is a commander-in-chief, both commanding war efforts, where
things do go terribly wrong, and have in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and
conversely, in Abu Gharib Prisons in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan. And
neither Charles Taylor nor George Bush personally participated in
those foot-soldier atrocities, except that Mr. Bush, like Mr. Taylor,
war mongers both, set asinine war policies, based on
self-preservations of the Machiavellian genre, and both, had no public
good in their calculations! Then, if Charles Taylor be adjudged a war
criminal, so should George Bush! Or is it one set of rules, for the
Africans? And special rules for others?
Some questions remain to be asked, such as; what exactly are
yardsticks or parameters for granting asylum statuses and who is so
entitled? Must Nigeria be intimidated into handing over Charles
Taylor, and then Nigeria looses diplomatic and international
credibility, now and for ever? Neither President Obasanjo nor Nigeria
should yield to any of these blackmails, threats and intimidations
over Charles Taylor, he is now de-individualized, as this debate has
assumed a higher magnitude in implications, more than a mere single
asylum seeker called Taylor. What is Nigeria’s word worth? All our
weight!
Nigeria’s honor, integrity and credibility are now at stake!