Charles Taylor's fall is a reminder of the perils of absolute power, writes Gamal Nkrumah I sat back and watched Liberian ex-president and former Baptist preacher Charles Ghanakay Taylor handcuffed, visibly shaken and dishevelled, taken prisoner in a United Nations aircraft surrounded by UN peace- keeping troops, popularly known as the blue berets. The scene seemed somewhat incredulous. Still, I had the strange feeling that I had seen it all before. A pervasive sense of déjà-vu engulfed me. It was a typical cloak- and-dagger drama with its characteristic mix of whim and menace. The Taylor drama has all the hallmarks of the Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic sagas -- the witch trials, the paranoia, the conspiracy theories and the exacting personal price of power. For a drama so full of protents and omens, the signs are not good. Many African leaders started out as anti-corruption advocates. And invariably, it was not long before their quest for power resulted in murder and mayhem. Taylor is no exception, but why was he singled out? Like Saddam and Milosevic, he will no doubt be subjected to methodical and almost ritual degradation. In an interrupted telephone interview, Liberian ex-president told Al-Ahram Weekly that behind his fall were machinations and betrayals that he did not foresee. "I was betrayed by the Nigerian authorities," he said. And despite his ordeal, he stressed that he was in "comfortable surroundings" and that he was being handled by "very professional people". Immediately afterwards, our conversation came to an abrupt end. But, internationally speaking, there must have been a reason why, of all African leaders, he has been singled out as the sacrificial lamb. Observers say that Taylor's adventures, above all else, have left a thick red smear of blood across the war-torn West African countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia. No doubt this is true. But below the stormy surface of international politics is a concerted attempt to reshape this corner of West Africa in America's image and likeness. "History is the chronicle of the victor," Akyaaba Addai Sebo, independent consultant on preventive diplomacy and conflict transformation, and formerly special envoy of International Alert, told Weekly. He also helped broker peace negotiations between the fighting groups in Liberia and Sierra Leone. "They desperately needed a trophy," he explained. "They cannot tolerate a civilian who took up arms against a military dictatorship and won free and fair democratic elections in spite of the onslaught of the United States, Britain and the powers that be." He went on: "They have had their way, their pound of flesh. Taylor is most likely to go the way of Milosevic or even Sankoh for that matter." Taylor is currently held by a special UN court set up for Sierra Leone in 2002. The UN already runs a tribunal in The Hague to prosecute war crimes suspects connected with conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, and Taylor is scheduled to be flown in to the Netherlands in due course. The Dutch government has no qualms about hosting the trial of Taylor, but it wants clearance from the UN first. "His presence in the custody of the special court sends out a clear message that no matter how powerful or feared people may be, the law is above them," explained Desmond de Silva, chief UN prosecutor. Taylor plans to assemble a team of international lawyers for future hearings. Among the lawyers who were mentioned by the international media are Alan Dershowitz, law professor at Harvard, and Karim Khan, a British lawyer who represented Taylor when he challenged the jurisdiction of the war crimes tribunal in 2003. The Ghanaian solicitor Kofi Akainyah was also approached to defend Taylor. Meanwhile, Vincent Nmehielle, the UN special court-appointed defence lawyer, is defending the former president in Sierra Leone. The accusations of unfair treatment have already begun. Taylor's sister Louise Edna Taylor-Carter, who heads a delegation of six family members in Sierra Leone, said the family was denied access to Taylor. "He'll never get a fair trial here," she said. And she has a point: it is undoubtedly the case that Taylor will not receive a fair trial in Sierra Leone. But it is not clear whether he will receive a fair trial in The Hague either. Taylor is not charged with crimes he committed in his country, but rather in Sierra Leone. James Bleeton, editor of Liberia's New Standard newspaper, told the BBC that had Taylor contested the presidential elections that brought Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to power, he would easily have won as he did in the 1997 polls. To this day, Taylor remains tremendously popular in Liberia, which explains why the Liberian government was reluctant to receive him. For his presence in the country would have caused something of a commotion. "Are the people stupid then? Taylor is popular for a reason. And his captors realise that all too well. Indeed, the victims [of Taylor] are much more humane than the elite in power," Addai-Sebo explained. Indeed even in Sierra Leone, where he has many enemies, most people do not particularly seek revenge -- rather justice. "Many of the amputees themselves do not seek revenge. The responsibility of the carnage cannot be restricted to a single person." Behind all the commotion, perhaps oil is one of the reasons that the US in particular is interested in Liberia. West Africa has emerged as a new source of oil for the West, which is uneasy about dependence on the unstable Middle East. Liberia is rich in offshore oil reserves, and in fact Taylor was seeking to invite the Chinese, who have deep sea oil technology, to develop the Liberian oil industry. "The idea behind Taylor's trial is the continued denigration of the stereotypical African they say has a chip on his shoulder. The West wants 'yes men', not African leaders who have their own opinions," Addai- Sebo said. "They cannot accept African solutions that are not a result of pressures from outside."
