While Liberians can now hope for some justice, the process of holding African leaders to account for human rights violations has yet to take hold, writes Eva Dadrian Charles Ghankay Taylor, the former president of Liberia, is on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in The Netherlands. The trial is expected to last between a year and 18 months and if convicted Taylor will serve his prison sentence in Britain, giving it a colonial aftertaste. This is the first time that a former African head of state has faced such a trial and Taylor faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, not in his own country but in neighbouring Sierra Leone. The charges include: terrorising the civilian population, collective punishments of civilians, unlawful killings, sexual violence, physical violence, use of child soldiers, abductions and forced labour, enslavement and looting. Strange as it may sound, the prosecution will not ask whether Taylor committed these acts himself, but whether he ordered, supported or condoned such acts. In fact, the civil war in Sierra Leone was one of the most vicious proxy wars Africa has ever witnessed and witnesses, who took the stand last week in the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), have already testified to "savage rapes, murders and mutilations carried out in neighbouring Sierra Leone by militias allegedly led by Mr Taylor in the 1990s". These are not mere allegations, as legal experts and researchers have, on various occasions, proved that Taylor funded Sierra Leone's former rebels, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) by selling diamonds on their behalf -- rightly labelled blood diamonds -- and buying weapons for them. Furthermore, the leader of RUF, Foday Sankoh, was an old friend of Taylor and a number of Taylor's Liberian fighters joined the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front. Needless to remember here the gruesome methods used by the rag-tag army of the Revolutionary United Front and their savage attacks on the civilian population, hacking off the arms and legs with machetes, as well as killing, raping and robbing them. Adding to these accusations, it should be said that Taylor was the initiator of a new phenomenon: warlords. This concept existed already with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA (Angola) and to some extends with John Garang of the SPLA (in southern Sudan) but both men were more guerrilla fighters than warlords. Following in the footsteps of Taylor, we could name Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda and also Thomas Lubanga, the former leader of a militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For a large majority of Africans, the trial of Taylor is a welcome development. Voicing their opinion on the Internet and on air, some Africans are saying that Charles Taylor's trial "sends a clear signal to present and future criminals". "All African dictators should be brought to justice in The Hague" and, "it is time these despots pay for the misery they have brought to millions of people on the African continent." The sad reality is that for centuries, justice has eluded Africa. Before and after their independence, most African countries have been at the mercy of ruthless, rogue and racist dictators who took over from the colonial powers, dictating their will to their own people. Unfortunately, in the euphoria of liberation from the colonial regimes, Africans accepted these dictators because they were native born and because they had stood against Western colonialism and fought the wars of independence. On the other hand, the principle of non-interference in each other's internal affair -- one of the numerous controversial articles embodied in the charter of the now defunct Organisation of African Unity (1961) -- gave African dictators carte blanche, not only to plunder their own respective countries and stockpile huge fortunes stashed away in Western banks, but also to imprison, torture and murder their own citizens. Mismanagement, corruption, repression and nepotism ruled the continent and from Idi Amin of Uganda to Sese Seko Mobutu of Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo) these so-called African leaders terrorised entire populations with impunity. Even the pan- Africanists of those days were reluctant to condemn these ruthless dictators, who rhetorically rebuffed and mocked calls from human rights activists as mere colonial and imperialist principles. Today, African leaders like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe continue to use such arguments. After 27 years of blood-soaked rule, President Mugabe refuses to step down, fearing, like all ruthless dictators, that he may end up in The Hague. For years, these dictators were beyond the reach of national and international law, but today, "impunity is not allowed anymore," say the analysts at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria who monitor governance issues across Africa. Indeed, since the mass trials of the Rwandan genocide, national courts in African countries have become increasingly active and even aggressive when they come to dealing with former government officials. No matter the position held by the accused, be it former presidents like Frederick Chiluba of Zambia, accused of corruption, or aspiring ones, like Jacob Zuma, the recently elected president of the ANC who faces corruption allegations, these courts' actions are important landmarks for the beginning of a new era for justice in Africa. Many human rights activists believe that the trial of Charles Taylor is not only unfair, but also illegal. They argue that the human rights violations Taylor stands accused of have taken place mainly in Sierra Leone. They also claim that when Taylor stepped down in 2003 and agreed to go into exile in southern Nigeria, it was in exchange for immunity. However, immunity has been washed away by the very actions of Taylor himself. Absconding from house-arrest he violated the condition for staying in Nigeria and hence the Nigerian government was no longer bound by guarantees of protection which they had given to their notorious prisoner. On the other hand, conflict mediators, such as Peter Kagwanja, president of the Africa Policy Institute in Nairobi, strongly believe that if Taylor had been tried by the new African human-rights court in Mauritius, that it would have been an "immense boost to African institutions" and would have given backbone to those who believe in and fight for the implementation of the Africa Charter for Human Rights. The mantra "African solutions to African problems" can work both ways. African autocratic leaders -- Mugabe, Al-Bashir, Faure Gnassinge or Paul Biya -- to name just a few, have misused it to tell the world it has no business criticising their human rights violations, rigged elections and the culture of corruption they nurture. In this context, important as Taylor's trial is, it is still tainted by it not being held by Africans. Hissène Habré, the former dictator of Chad, however, is facing prosecution through the African Union, and indeed if and when his trial takes place it will mark the beginning of real independence for Africa.
