The Case Of Liberia’s Charles Taylor: Parallels In Ghana And The Unknown Facts

On July 14th, 2009 a contributor at the “Say It Loud” (SIL) forum of Ghanaweb.com, who goes by the name Amankwaatia posted a comment, captioned “Charles Taylor should not answer for S. Leone”. In the comment, Amankwaatia advocates exonerating Charles Taylor because the incidents for which he is held accountable took place in Sierra Leone, not under Charles Taylor’s administration in Liberia. Charles Taylor is currently either on trial or in incarceration in The Hague.

Amankwaatia is ill-informed and his comments are untrue. I wish to post the core facts in the case for the sake of others who may be as inadequately informed as Amankwaatia. At the beginning of his terrorist campaign against Liberia, Charles Taylor was financed by Libya’s Gaddafi in the same way as Gaddafi financed that bastard called JJ Rawlings to unlawfully and repeatedly overthrow constitutionally elected governments in Ghana.

Somewhere along the line, the financial backing from Libya ceased but Charles Taylor needed another source of financial support and supply of arms. Recall that like JJ Rawlings, Charles Taylor is a dishonest thief, who as a minister in a previous Liberian administration stole huge sums of money from Liberia’s treasury. This stealing earned Charles Taylor, life in exile for a number of years. Thus, even upon severance of the criminal financial backing from Libya’s Gaddafi, Charles still had some of his stolen money left, to fuel his terrorist campaign momentarily.

At some point however, there was little or no money for Taylor’s terrorist campaign and so he struck a deal with the Ukrainians where by they would supply him with massive amounts of arms on credit. His plan was to reimburse the Ukrainian’s with resources from Liberia’s treasury, once he became “president”. To his dismay, when he became “president”, Taylor found out that the long and protracted civil war had depleted Liberia’s treasury so badly that there was nothing left in it. The entire nation was dysfunctional with no meaningful source of national revenue. Notwithstanding, the Ukrainians were heavily at his throat demanding their reimbursement. This is where Charles Taylor would hatch a plot that would make him responsible for the killings, maiming and other war crimes in Sierra Leone, even though he sat in Liberia.

Charles Taylor ordered his compatriots, the Liberian military thugs, to unlawfully seize the diamond fields of Sierra Leone, so that he could harvest the diamonds, to primarily pay back the Ukrainians. Note that Sierra Leone is a sovereign country and the actions by Taylor and his Liberian thugs, by all international norms, constituted illegal aggression on Sierra Leone, let alone the unlawful entry to steal diamonds. This campaign ordered by Taylor, would see the killings, maiming and war crime activities perpetrated by Taylor’s Liberian thugs against countless Sierra Leoneans. THIS IS HOW CHARLES TAYLOR BEARS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR CRIMES IN SIERA LEONE, FOR WHICH HE IS EITHER BEING TRIED OR ALREADY INCARCERATED. This is the reason why those diamonds were called “blood diamonds” and are rendered illegal for trade by the international community. From every perspective, there is a similarity between Charles Taylor and JJ Rawlings. Both men are dishonest and have criminal personality. Both men have aptitude for lawlessness and have senselessly destroyed countless innocent lives in their respective countries. Charles Taylor is a thief, who stole money from the state in the same way as Rawlings did in Ghana. Both men masqueraded as “revolutionaries”, trying to “set things right” in their respective countries, when infact their actual intentions as would be seen later, were to unlawfully enrich themselves by looting state treasury. The killings and maiming perpetrated by Charles Taylor against Liberians and Sierra Leoneans are no different from the violent atrocities and killings perpetrated by Rawlings against innocent people in Ghana. Both men are unintelligent. Both men are state terrorists who had their terrorist training and financing thereof, from Libya’s Gaddafi. The illegal aggression by Taylor and his Liberian thugs on Sierra Leone, is identical to the illegal aggression on Togo by Rawlings and his equals in Ghana namely, thugs and criminals. The only difference is that unlike the case of Sierra Leone, the Togolese gave Rawlings and his Ghanaian thugs, more than what they had bargained for. The Togolese gave the Rawlings’ thugs a formidable resistance and slaughtered a lot of them in self defense. In my opinion, the Togolese response was appropriate. My only disappointment is that the Togolese forces did not march into Ghana to arrest and neutralize that bastard called JJ Rawlings, which would have ended his terrorist campaigns. A legitimate, natural and logical question to ask is why Rawlings is walking around as a free man, when Charles Taylor has been incarcerated or on trial? Conversely, the only defense that Charles Taylor currently has would be to argue that if JJ Rawlings is walking around as a free man then he (Taylor) must also be allowed to walk free. That would sound like a very logical argument to make. Does it sound funny? I hope it does not.

One of the thugs in this notorious gang is the mastermind of the attempted coup d’état in Ivory Coast, a few years back, who was also financed by Libya’s Gaddafi. The West African region used to the most peaceful region in Africa, until the activities of these criminals and terrorists turned most of the region into violent war zones with the financial backing of Libya’s Gaddafi. Many innocent lives in the region have been destroyed, a lot of infra-structure has been destroyed, most of the region has been devastated and still suffer very serious setbacks in development, all because of the activities of these notorious thugs and their mentor, Libya’s Gaddafi. I advocate an arrangement to be put in place by the international community, whereby for about twenty years in a row, the oil revenue from Libya would be used to re-build those countries in West Africa that suffered the devastation financed by Libya’s Gaddafi. This would be identical to the court ordered multi-billion dollar compensation paid by Libya to the surviving victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie (Scotland) by state sponsored Libyan terrorists,

To add insult to injury, this dangerous Fulani idiot, in the person of Libya’s Gaddafi, is coming to Ghana on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009, and among his agenda, to glorify the terrorist and criminal campaigns (“revolutions”) of his bastard protégé JJ Rawlings.

Onipa Ba