Charles Taylor (Liberian politician)

Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor (born 28 January 1948) is a former Liberian politician and convicted warlord who served as the 22nd president of Liberia from 2 August 1997 until his resignation on 11 August 2003, as a result of the Second Liberian Civil War and growing international pressure.

Born in Arthington, Montserrado County, Liberia, Taylor earned a degree at Bentley College in the United States before returning to Liberia to work in the government of Samuel Doe. After being removed for embezzlement and imprisoned in Massachusetts by President Doe, Taylor would escape prison in 1989. He eventually arrived in Libya, where he was trained as a guerrilla fighter. He returned to Liberia in 1989 as the head of a Libyan-backed rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, to overthrow the Doe government, initiating the First Liberian Civil War (1989–1996). Following Doe's execution, Taylor gained control of a large portion of the country and became one of the most prominent warlords in Africa. Following a peace deal that ended the war, Taylor was elected president in the 1997 general election.

During his term of office, Taylor was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). Domestically, opposition to his government grew, culminating in the outbreak of the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003). By 2003, Taylor had lost control of much of the countryside and was formally indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. That year, he resigned, as a result of growing international pressure; he went into exile in Nigeria. In 2006, the newly elected President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, formally requested his extradition. He was detained by UN authorities in Sierra Leone and then at the Hague Penitentiary Institution, Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden in The Hague, awaiting trial by the Special Court. He was found guilty in April 2012 of all eleven charges levied by the Special Court, including terror, murder and rape.

In May 2012, Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Reading the sentencing statement, Presiding Judge Richard Lussick said: "The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in recorded human history."

Early life

Taylor was born in Arthington, a town near the capital of Monrovia, Liberia, on 28 January 1948, to Nelson and Yassa Zoe (Louise) Taylor. He attended The Newman School in his early years. He took the name "Ghankay" later on, possibly to please and gain favor with indigenous Liberians. His mother was a member of the Gola ethnic group, part of the 95% of the people who are indigenous to Liberia. According to most reports, his father was an Americo-Liberian who worked as a teacher, sharecropper, lawyer and judge.

In 1977, Taylor earned a degree at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States.

Government, imprisonment and escape

Taylor supported the 12 April 1980 coup led by Samuel Doe, which resulted in the murder of President William R. Tolbert Jr. and seizure of power by Doe. Taylor was appointed to the position of Director General of the General Services Agency (GSA), a position that left him in charge of purchasing for the Liberian government. He was sacked in May 1983 for embezzling an estimated $1,000,000 and sending the funds to another bank account.

Taylor fled to the United States but was arrested on 21 May 1984 by two US Deputy Marshals in Somerville, Massachusetts, on a warrant for extradition to face charges of embezzling $1 million of government funds while he was the GSA boss."How Charles Taylor Escaped from Jail". [Monrovia] ''Daily Star'', 1985-10-05: 10. Taylor fought extradition with the help of a legal team led by former Attorney General of the United States, US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. His lawyers' primary arguments before US District Magistrate Robert J. DeGiacomo stated that his alleged acts of lawbreaking in Liberia were political rather than criminal in nature and that the extradition treaty between the two republics had lapsed. Assistant United States Attorney Richard G. Stearns argued that Liberia wished to charge Taylor with theft in office, rather than with political crimes. Stearns' arguments were reinforced by Liberian Justice Minister Jenkins Scott, who flew to the United States to testify at the proceedings. Taylor was detained in the Plymouth County Correctional Facility.

On 15 September 1985, Taylor and four other inmates escaped from the jail. Two days later, ''The Boston Globe'' reported that they sawed through a bar covering a window in a dormitory room, after which they lowered themselves on knotted sheets and escaped into nearby woods by climbing a fence. Shortly thereafter, Taylor and two other escapees were met at nearby Jordan Hospital by Taylor's wife, Enid, and Taylor's sister-in-law, Lucia Holmes Toweh. They drove a getaway car to Staten Island in New York, where Taylor disappeared. All four of Taylor's fellow escapees, as well as Enid and Toweh, were later apprehended.

In July 2009, Taylor claimed at his trial that US CIA agents had helped him escape from the maximum security prison in Boston in 1985. This was during his trial by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. The US Defense Intelligence Agency confirmed that Taylor first started working with US intelligence in the 1980s but refused to give details of his role or US actions, citing national security.

Civil war

Taylor escaped the United States without issue. He then resurfaced in Libya where he took part in militia training under Muammar Gaddafi, becoming Gaddafi's protégé. He later left Libya and travelled to the Ivory Coast, where he founded the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).

In December 1989, Taylor launched a Gaddafi-funded armed uprising from the Ivory Coast into Liberia to overthrow the Doe regime, leading to the First Liberian Civil War. By 1990, his forces controlled most of the country. That same year, Prince Johnson, a senior commander of Taylor's NPFL, broke away and formed the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL).

In September 1990, Johnson captured Monrovia, depriving Taylor of outright victory. Johnson and his forces captured and tortured Doe to death, instigating a violent political fragmentation of the country. The civil war turned into an ethnic conflict, with seven factions among indigenous peoples and the Americo-Liberians fighting for control of Liberia's resources (especially iron ore, diamonds, timber, and rubber).

Amos Sawyer alleges that Taylor's aims extended beyond Liberia—that he wanted to re-establish the country as a regional power player. Taylor's ambitions, which were held from the civil war period into his presidency, not only resulted in the domestic Liberian conflict, they also triggered regional instability which manifested itself in the forms of the Sierra Leone Civil War and unrest in the forest region of Guinea.

Presidency

After the official end of the civil war in 1996, Taylor ran for president in the 1997 general election. He campaigned on the notorious slogan "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him."

The elections were overseen by the United Nations' peacekeeping mission, United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia, along with a contingent from the Economic Community of West African States. Taylor won the election in a landslide, garnering 75 percent of the vote. Although the election was generally regarded as free and fair by international observers, Taylor had a significant advantage from the outset. During the civil war, he had seized virtually all of the country's radio stations and used his control over the Liberian airwaves to spread propaganda and bolster his image. Additionally, there was widespread fear in the country that Taylor would resume the war if he lost.

During his time in office, Taylor cut the size of the Armed Forces of Liberia, dismissing 2,400–2,600 former personnel, many of whom were ethnic Krahn brought in by former President Doe to give advantage to his people. In 1998, Taylor attempted to murder one of his political opponents, the former warlord Roosevelt Johnson, causing clashes in Monrovia, during and after which hundreds of Krahn were massacred and hundreds more fled Liberia. This event was one of the factors that led to the outbreak of the Second Liberian Civil War.

In 2003, members of the Krahn tribe founded a rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), opposing Taylor. The group disbanded as part of the peace agreement at the end of the second civil war. In its place, Taylor installed the Anti-Terrorist Unit, the Special Operations Division of the Liberian National Police (LNP), which he used as his own private army.

During his presidency, Taylor was alleged to have been involved directly in the Sierra Leone Civil War. He was accused of aiding the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) through weapon sales in exchange for blood diamonds. Due to a UN embargo against arms sales to Liberia at the time, these weapons were largely purchased on the black market through arms smugglers such as Viktor Bout. Taylor was charged with aiding and abetting RUF atrocities against civilians, which left many thousands dead or mutilated, with unknown numbers of people abducted and tortured. He was also accused of assisting the RUF in the recruitment of child soldiers. In addition to aiding the RUF in these acts, Taylor reportedly personally directed RUF operations in Sierra Leone.

Taylor obtained spiritual and other advice from the evangelist Kilari Anand Paul. As president, he was known for his flamboyant style. Upon being charged by the UN of being a gunrunner and diamond smuggler during his presidency, Taylor appeared in all-white robes and begged God for forgiveness, while denying the charges. He was reported to have said that "Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time."

During the last four years of Taylor's presidency, he is believed to have stolen and diverted nearly $100 million, amounting to roughly half of total government revenue.

Rebellion and indictment

In 1999, a rebellion against Taylor began in northern Liberia, led by a group calling itself Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). This group was frequently accused of atrocities, and is thought to have been backed by the government of neighboring Guinea. This uprising signaled the beginning of the Second Liberian Civil War.

By early 2003, LURD had gained control of northern Liberia. That year, a second Ivorian-backed rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), emerged in southern Liberia and achieved rapid successes. By the summer, Taylor's government controlled only about a third of Liberia: Monrovia and the central part of the country. More than one-third of the total population lived in this area.

On 7 March 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) issued a sealed indictment for Taylor. Earlier that year, Liberian forces had killed Sam Bockarie, a leading member of the RUF in Sierra Leone, in a shootout under Taylor's orders. Some have claimed that Taylor ordered Bockarie killed in order to prevent the leader from testifying against him at the SCSL.

In June 2003, Alan White, the Prosecutor to the Special Court unsealed the indictment and announced publicly that Taylor was charged with war crimes. The indictment asserted that Taylor created and backed the RUF rebels in Sierra Leone, who were accused of a range of atrocities, including the use of child soldiers. The Prosecutor also said that Taylor's administration had harbored members of Al-Qaeda sought in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The indictment was unsealed during Taylor's official visit to Ghana, where he was participating in peace talks with MODEL and LURD officials. As result, the possibility arose that Taylor might be arrested by Ghanaian authorities; in response, Taylor's chief bodyguard and military commander Benjamin Yeaten threatened to execute Ghanaians who lived in Liberia, deterring Ghana's government from taking action. With the backing of South African president Thabo Mbeki and against the urging of Sierra Leone president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, Ghana consequently declined to detain Taylor, who returned to Monrovia.

Resignation

During Taylor's absence for the peace talks in Ghana, the U.S. government was alleged to have urged Vice President Moses Blah to seize power. Upon his return, Taylor briefly dismissed Blah from his post, only to reinstate him a few days later.

In July 2003, LURD initiated a siege of Monrovia, and several bloody battles were fought as Taylor's forces halted rebel attempts to capture the city. The pressure on Taylor increased as U.S. President George W. Bush twice that month stated that Taylor "must leave Liberia". On 9 July, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo offered Taylor exile in his country on the condition that Taylor stay out of Liberian politics.

Taylor insisted that he would resign only if U.S. peacekeeping troops were deployed to Liberia. Bush publicly called upon Taylor to resign and leave the country in order for any American involvement to be considered. Meanwhile, several African states, in particular the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the leadership of Nigeria, sent troops under the banner of ECOMIL to Liberia.

Logistical support was provided by a California company called PAE Government Services Inc., which was given a $10 million contract by the U.S. State Department. On 6 August, a 32-member U.S. military assessment team were deployed as a liaison with the ECOWAS troops, landing from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit

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