By Adolphus Williams in The Hague
The war crimes trial at the Special Court of the former Liberian president Charles
Taylor has entered a crucial stage this week with his former vice president Moses
Blah testifying in court.
Blah detailed the support of Libya, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast to Taylor and
his NPFL rebels in fighting the government of Samuel Doe. He spoke of how
NPFL fighters killed and mistreated Sierra Leonean civilians.
He confirmed the prosecution’s allegations that Taylor supported the RUF rebels.
Hear him: “I drove by a place called New Gbarnga. That was the time I saw
Foday Sankoh that morning. I stopped my car and I alighted and embraced him,
and said I had not seen him for a very long time, since in Libya. [Sankoh] ‘Look, I
am here now. I am a rebel commander. I am no more a small boy and you have
to salute me’. And I saluted him and said, ‘Okay, I know you are my boss now.’
He said, ‘Look, I have come here for a serious matter’, and I asked him what the
matter was. He said, ‘The boys from NPFL, whom the chief sent to help me, they
got involved into a lot of atrocities, raping women, looting people’s property and
killing people, and these are the people I have gone to liberate and I am losing
respect amongst my tribesmen. This was what I have come to consult with the
chief on’."
Blah, who had his back turned to Mr Taylor as he gave evidence of the former
Liberian President’s alleged support to the RUF, had entered the courtroom from
a direction directly facing Taylor. He had a walking stick clutched in his right
hand. He watched his steps, with his eyes drilling the courtroom floor as he
picked his way to the witness seat. Nevertheless, he was calm throughout his
testimony.
Moses Blah said he had told Taylor of the RUF leader’s worry about the crimes
Liberian fighters were committing in Sierra Leone. But he said Taylor brushed
Sankoh’s concerns aside.
Moses Bah again: “It was not really a conversation. He was walking around his
palace where he lived in Gbarnga and I went close to speak to him, to salute him.
In a conversation, he said he didn’t know earlier that Foday Sankoh had talked to
me about this matter. He said, ‘Look, your man Foday Sankoh is here and he is
saying that the people are destroying his people, looting his property.’ He [Mr
Taylor] said ’how could the war be fought? When you talk about a guerrilla war
it is destruction and this type of thing must happen if you are fighting a war. You
are not eating bread and butter, you are fighting. If he continues with such a
report, according to him he will withdraw his men from there.”
He named Christopher Varmoh and Duopoe (Dopo) Mekazon as two of the
commanders Taylor had sent to Sierra Leone to fight alongside Foday Sankoh’s
RUF.
Blah said that at the initial stage there was a small group of Liberian soldiers but
they were a bit more than the RUF fighters. Under cross examination by the
prosecutor Stephen Rapp, he said he knew their number from information from
his soldiers, radio communication and their location. He said his operator would
brief me on what was happening.
He said they were fighting alongside the RUF rebels.
Taylor sat calmly, looking in Blah’s direction and occasionally hanging heads
with his lawyers. He broke the silence at one point when he laughed at the
presiding judge’s inquiry to Blah on who between Agnes and Tupee was
Taylor’s wife in the beginning of the NPFL civil war.
The cross cross examination continues.
Courtesy: BBC World Service Trust / Search for Common Ground
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