Word: taylorisms
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...after 11 years of fighting marked by some of the most brutal human-rights abuses in history, much of that fueled by competition over the country's diamond fields, the leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and other militias, as well as their sponsor, Liberian President Charles Taylor, negotiated themselves an amnesty...
...Leaders of other militias have already been convicted. The court's last case is the trial of Taylor, who initially fled to Nigeria under his amnesty agreement but is now being held in the Hague. Taylor's trial was moved there for security reasons. After Wednesday's judgment, the prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Stephen Rapp, spoke to TIME's Africa bureau chief Alex Perry by phone from the court's offices in Freetown...
...That's why the President asked us to establish a court. And what happened was kind of a grand experiment. We're different from what happened in Rwanda or Yugoslavia. We are in-country. We are a partnership between the country and the U.N. Except for Taylor, all the trials are being held at the scene of the crime. The judges and the court staff are mixed between international and Sierra Leonean. And we keep people informed of what's going on. Surveys show 90% of the country is aware of what's happening at the court...
...What are the wider implications of today's judgment? It sends the message to heads of state around the world that impunity has ended. The biggest example of that is Charles Taylor on trial in the Hague. Taylor was a chief of state and a big power in West Africa. When he was indicted in 2003, he was allowed to go into exile. That was the solution of choice in the past, for leaders like Idi Amin [the Ugandan dictator who found exile in Saudi Arabia...
...longer possible. The world had changed. Now we knew that we could put these people on trial and do it fairly. And all over the world, people expected the same action to be taken against their leaders. And we had to do it. You know, when we indicted Taylor, we had no idea of how we were going to get him arrested. Now, since he has been arrested - and despite an amnesty - when you are indicted, you know that day, that arrest will come. It's not a question of if, but when. The symbolism of it is immense...