And like all the despots and criminals, Taylor proved equally coward when the noose got tightened around him. He escaped from his mansion in Nigeria, thanks to the mix of incompetence and bribery by Nigerian security personnel, and went into hiding. But his doom was nearer and the Special Forces were able to spot and arrest him within two days. His cash-stocked jeep was intercepted on a tip off while he was trying to sneak out to neighbouring Cameroon on a bumpy potholed road. The television footages showed him as cutting a sorry figure, face bedraggled and hands handcuffed. But he was a different figure when he was produced in the International Court for War Crimes, the following morning. He started shouting at the judges and questioned the court’s jurisdiction to try him. Notice the similarities with Solobodan Milosovic and Saddam Hussein both of whom were caught without daring to offer resistance “like rats”, as they say, but after landing at rather cosy air conditioned cells of war crime courts, they suddenly got the courage to act as clowns in the courts, shouting at judges and resorting to meaningless jingoism. The luxury of generous accommodation and fair trial was something that the victims of these tyrants had never enjoyed.

Coming back to the case of Sierra Leone, it had its first truly democratic government after the electoral triumph of President Mohammad Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in 1996. He was overthrown within a year by a coup but the West African community did not accept it and a multinational action forced out the coup plotters and in 1997, President Kabbah made a triumphant re0entry into Freetown from exile. He came to office but never came to power as not only the activities of the rebels but those of his own security forces were beyond his control. The power continued to change hands but under international pressure elections were held again in 2002, where Ahmad Kabbah again won a landslide victory, became President again and got overthrown again. The civil war ended in 2003 after a deal brokered by international community.

The atrocities that have been committed in the Sierra Leone, appear to dwarf the ones in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia in recent history. The cruelty perpetrated by militiamen was not restricted to mass murder, but outright cannibalism, not rape but systematic sexual slavery, not child abuse but endemic child conscription. The militiamen loyal to various warlords, not excluding the ones loyal to President Taylor, would rip open the bellies of pregnant women upon betting with each other whether the foetus was that of a boy or a girl, painfully killing both the mother and the unborn in the process. Tens of thousands of people had their both arms amputated, and the militiamen would first ask them whether they wanted full sleeves of half sleeves, and then sadistically cutting away both their upper arms, or as the case may be, from below the elbows. This hacking of limbs was the trademark of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), but as noted above all sides were guilty of heinous war crimes.

The streets are full of handicapped people who not only beg for food but also beg to be fed as they have no arms and hands left to eat with, to work with, to clean themselves with. Recently, Western journalists reported seeing a four year old girl innocently asking her mother, both of them with their both arms amputated, “mama, when will my arms grow again?” Chilling, isn’t it? But more terrifying is the world community’s inaction when not only all this barbarity was taking place but was being reported on the electronic media the word over. One is tempted to believe that Charles Taylor is not the only one culpable, many of the world leaders are guilty of “complicity by omission”. And this is why the impending trial of Taylor gets enhanced significance as certain unique questions of the international law and morality are involved. It must be mentioned that the head of the RUF, Foday Sankoh, got arrested in May 2000 but met his death in a prison cell in July 2003, before the international court could complete war crimes case against him. The start of trial of Taylor on eleven counts of crimes against humanity brings into the net another of big fish in the world of crime.

This is by far the end, it is the beginning of a prolonged legal process as the world courts are careful to convict anyone before sufficient proof is at hand, which is difficult in war torn nations, due to fears about personal safety by potential witnesses.

Hence long trials! In any case, Sierra Leone is too poor to afford the $25 million annual costs of running the war crimes tribunal on Sierra Leone civil war, and this money comes from international donations which are fluid and unpredictable. With Sierra Leone security forces being notoriously corrupt and with Taylor’s history of twin escapes once from a US jail and then from his guarded mansion in Nigeria, little wonder that fearing further instability if a rescue attempt for him is successful in Freetown, President Sirleaf requested Netherlands to hold the trial at Hague. The latter belatedly and reluctantly agreed if another country comes forward to take him once the trial was over. No country was willing to host Taylor even in its jails. Sweden has now agreed that it would take the prisoner to serve jail sentence there, once the trial in Hague is over. Taylor has, however, requested that his trial be held in Sierra Leone and so have many bereaved families of his victims. But his transfer to Hague now appears imminent.

The arrest of Charles Taylor marks the end of head-of-state immunity from trials on crimes against humanity in Africa as he is the first leader to be indicted for such offences in the continent. His arrest has raised hopes that Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Qaddafi of Libya, Mubarak of Egypt and Mugabe of Zimbabwe will too have their days of reckoning in this world.

The writer is the Middle East Editor of Cambridge Review of International Affairs and a widely read analyst on politics, governance and human rights in the Muslim world. Views/Comments of the esteemed readers are welcome at Saad.S.Khan1@gmail.com

SAAD S. KHAN University of Cambridge St. Edmund’s College Mount Pleasant Cambridge, CB3 0BN, UK +44-(0)7771- 968 978 Saad.S.Khan1@gmail.com