Global Policy Forum

By Jonathan Paye-Layleh

Liberia's interim justice minister on Wednesday rejected the idea of a war-crimes court for the West African nation, saying it would do nothing to promote reconciliation after 14 years of bloodletting. Justice Minister Kabinah Janneh's refusal is significant in part because Nigeria has indicated it might turn over ousted Liberian President Charles Taylor, now living there in exile, if Liberia had such a court. A war-crimes court "will not help peace in the country; it will not foster the kind of reconciliation we need," Janneh, a former rebel leader, told The Associated Press. He insisted the best thing for Liberia was to drop the idea, saying, "the earlier we recognize that as a people and as a nation, the better it will be for us." Taylor's forces and rebels in Liberia carried out massacres, rapes, kidnapping and torture over years of power struggles here. Taylor went into exile in Nigeria on Aug. 11, as rebels laid siege to his capital and after multinational peacekeepers moved in. An Aug. 18 peace deal brought his former government, rebels and others into a temporary power-sharing government. Liberia's leading human rights group, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, is among those calling now for a Liberian war-crimes court. Taylor is already under indictment by a United Nations-backed war-crimes court in neighboring Sierra Leone on accusations he backed a vicious rebel movement there. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said Nigeria would persuade Taylor to return to Liberia to face trial if Liberians set up a war-crimes court. Liberia's interim government leader, Gyude Bryant, has said Taylor should go to Sierra Leone for trial.

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