KEY POINTS:
FREETOWN - The grown-up child soldiers of Sierra Leone will be riveted to their radios today as the war crimes trial begins in The Hague of one of the most-feared men in Africa, former Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Taylor faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly backing the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group that killed, maimed and raped thousands of Sierra Leoneans during a war that lasted 11 years and ended in 2002 after British military intervention.
The RUF was notorious for its mass recruitment of child soldiers who were trained to cut off their victims' limbs with machetes. Taylor is being tried in The Hague by the Special Court for Sierra Leone because both the Liberian and Sierra Leonean governments fear that a court case in West Africa might create instability by rousing Taylor's supporters, many of whom are unruly, now drifting, former child soldiers.
But the case, which will be relayed live by satellite to a Freetown courtroom, has inspired less passion in Sierra Leone than had been expected. Those who were directly involved in the 11-year war - whether as combatants or because they are maimed civilians - are showing a keen interest. For the vast majority of the former British colony's estimated 5 million population, the trial is a non-event.
"The Special Court's work has not succeeded in touching the lives of the majority of Sierra Leoneans," said Morlay Kamara of the good-governance watchdog the Network Movement for Justice and Development.
"To move forward, people want to see concrete initiatives that change their lives. There is still no clean water, still no electricity. Once again foreigners are making money from diamonds. The Special Court is seen as expensive, full of expats."
Taylor is the most high-profile of the indicted alleged war criminals at the Special Court, which is largely European Union-funded and sits behind double concrete walls on a hill above Freetown. The other eight prisoners - whose trials are deemed less likely to arouse passions - are being tried in Sierra Leone's capital.
Charles Ghankay (The Warrior) Taylor was born around 1948 in Arthington near the Liberian capital Monrovia. Schooled in the United States, he was a civil servant in Liberia in the 1970s where he gained the nickname "Superglue" because money stuck to his hands. In 1983 President Samuel Doe sacked him for an alleged theft of US$900,000 ($1.2 million). He fled to the US, was imprisoned and escaped from jail there.
When he returned to Liberia in 1989 it was to launch a savage war - first in his own country, whose leaders are still too frightened to press charges against him, and then in neighbouring diamond-rich Sierra Leone.
In Sierra Leone, his ally was Foday Sankoh, leader of the RUF, a movement initially launched to press for the empowerment for the impoverished rural masses. At the trial which opens today in The Hague and will be adjourned until June 25 to give the defence more time to prepare its case, the Special Court will hear that Sankoh was enlisted by Taylor to provide diamonds in return for arms.
Sankoh, who died in Special Court custody in 2003, was inspired by Taylor's tactics in the Liberian war of rape and savage killing. So brutal was the warfare that when Taylor organised an election in 1997 to have himself elected president, he used the slogan: "I killed your ma, I killed your pa, You will vote for me."
Sankoh added an extra layer to brutality, recruiting children to the RUF ranks and deploying them to kill their families or cut off their limbs. Girls were taken as sex slaves.
Among the victims was El Hadj Lamin Jusu Jarka, now the 51-year-old chairman of the country's amputees' association. He lost both hands by machete on January 6, 1999, when the RUF descended on Freetown.
He believes the truth commission approach - confession without retribution - might have been more constructive for Sierra Leone than a Special Court.
"We had a Truth Commission but it was limited in scope because of the Special Court's existence. Nevertheless, it really got people talking. The trouble is the Government has just ignored its findings."
If Taylor is found guilty, Britain has offered to jail him. But the trial in The Hague is expected to last a year and a half. The prosecution alone is calling 169 witnesses, many of whom will be flown to the Netherlands. Last week, Special Court representatives travelled to Brussels to call for a further US$89 million in funding.
There is a fear Taylor could walk free if Britain and other international donors fail to increase their funding.
Many Sierra Leoneans say donor money - both the Special Court's funding and the country's US$280 million annual foreign aid income - is now being either misspent or squandered. Judging from the continuing lack of infrastructure, very little of that money is devolved to grassroots projects. In a report last month, DFID suggested the local Anti-Corruption Commission was not worthy of its name.
Sierra Leoneans were disappointed that when British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the country last week he did not appear to have raised the issue of corruption with President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.
At a press conference, Blair simply looked on the bright side and said "things are a darn sight better than they were five years ago".
"Kabbah's Government and many of the paramount chiefs are corrupt. They do not care about the simple people," said a senior Sierra Leonean civil servant. "That neglect of the rural people, and especially those in the diamond areas, was what led to the war in the first place. Britain should spend its money more carefully."
- INDEPENDENT
Court first of its kind
* The Special Court is an international body independent of any government or organisation with a staff including Sierra Leoneans and foreigners.
* It was established on January 16, 2002, days before the war in Sierra Leone was declared over, to try those bearing the greatest responsibility for crimes during the conflict.
* Although the war started in 1991, the court's mandate is only for crimes committed since November 30, 1996, the date of a failed peace deal.
* Some 50,000 people died in the war, notorious for amputations and the use of drugged-up child soldiers.
* It is the first mixed tribunal of its kind, with judges appointed by the United Nations and Sierra Leone. Stephen Rapp, an American, became chief prosecutor this year.
* It was the first court of its kind set up with the agreement of the country concerned and to sit where the crimes were committed.
* Ten people currently stand indicted, including rebel leaders and loyalist militia leaders as well as Charles Taylor.
* The court holds all except former army ruler Johnny Paul Koroma, whose death was reported in 2003 but who is still classed as missing.
* Three other key indictees are definitely dead. They are Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front rebels, who died in custody in 2003, his lieutenant Sam Bockarie, who was shot dead in Liberia in 2003, and Sam Hinga Norman, a leader of a pro-government militia, who died in February this year.
* Taylor was sent to a special sitting of the court in The Hague due to fears a trial in Freetown could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia.
- REUTERS
