As Liberia’s former leader Charles Taylor settled into his Calabar hilltop mansion exile in Nigeria, the ravaged country he left behind breathed a sigh of relief. Liberia now has a chance for peace, though no one should delude themselves that peace will be easy. All wars leave unstable vacuums when they end. Over and above many widows and orphans, there is the often catastrophic dislocation of civilian life. Even discharged soldiers from well-disciplined armies can pose a threat to the resumption of normal law and order. The instinct is still strong to settle differences with simple force.
With African wars, the problem is greater because rarely do the rag-tag fighters on both sides acknowledge traditional disciplines. In a time of chaos, the man, or obscenely, the boy with a Kalashnikov is king. When he is told that the fighting is over, he faces an uncertain future away from his comrades. The temptation to banditry and lawlessness is considerable. This is the legacy of African dictators such as Taylor and his predecessor Master Sergeant Samuel Doe.
The question now is what will happen to Taylor? It is not an idle query since not only will Taylor’s ultimate fate impact on the behavior of other African despots, but it could have a profound effect on the future of Liberia itself. Any lingering doubts about the ouster of Taylor under pressure from fellow African leaders and from Washington, three of whose heavily armed warships appeared off the Liberian coast on the day of his departure, must have been dispelled by the dictator’s disturbing farewell speech. While accepting not an ounce of responsibility for the horrors that have been visited on his people, nor acknowledging his clear role in the atrocities that took place in neighboring Sierra Leone, Taylor compared himself to Jesus Christ and ended his sickeningly self-serving address with the sinister promise that he would be back. If the Nigerians welsh on their asylum promise to Taylor, it will be harder to persuade other bloodthirsty despots to give up power in return for refuge. Yet if Taylor is not brought before the war crimes tribunal investigating the savagery that took place in Sierra Leone, international justice will have been thwarted.
The United Nations special court that indicted Taylor on 17 counts is demanding that he be handed over to it, and Amnesty International has joined in the call, saying Nigeria must arrest Taylor and either hand him over or investigate him independently. But Nigeria, however morally ambiguous its offer of asylum may seem to such high-minded organizations as Amnesty International, has in its small way saved the day. Taylor made it clear that he would not go anywhere else, and at least a part of the Liberians’ nightmare has thanks to Nigeria gone away.
