Tuesday, March 28, 2006
reading your own reviews
Former Liberian president/dictator Charles Taylor has disappeared from his compound in Nigeria, where he's lived in exile since 2003. Over the weekend Nigeria agreed to hand him over to Libera so he could face a war crimes tribunal. This all comes hot on the heels of Jon Lee Anderson's recent New Yorker profile of Liberia's recently elected president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who, at the time of Anderson's writing, had yet to call for Taylor's extradition back to Liberia.
From Anderson's article in last week's New Yorker:
Makes you wonder: if Anderson hadn't mentioned this aspect of the commission's charge, would Taylor have fled extradition to Liberia? Do deposed African despots regularly read the New Yorker, or only their own notices?
Former Liberian president/dictator Charles Taylor has disappeared from his compound in Nigeria, where he's lived in exile since 2003. Over the weekend Nigeria agreed to hand him over to Libera so he could face a war crimes tribunal. This all comes hot on the heels of Jon Lee Anderson's recent New Yorker profile of Liberia's recently elected president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who, at the time of Anderson's writing, had yet to call for Taylor's extradition back to Liberia.
From Anderson's article in last week's New Yorker:
"The ceasefire agreement provided for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to look into war crimes. When Johnson Sirleaf speaks about the commission, she conspicuously avoids mentioning that it has the power to recommend criminal prosecutions - a fact that is not yet widely known in Libera. When I talk to politicians with ties to Taylor, it was clear that they believed the commission would instead amount to a kind of public exorcism, in which people would own up to what they had done and be pardoned."
Makes you wonder: if Anderson hadn't mentioned this aspect of the commission's charge, would Taylor have fled extradition to Liberia? Do deposed African despots regularly read the New Yorker, or only their own notices?
