-As the President invites ICC chief to Liberia
By William Selmah, wselmah@gmail.com
If the writings on the wall are anything to go by, Liberia might just well be gravitating towards acceptance of the establishment of an economic and war crimes court to try those implicated in gross human rights violations, violations of international humanitarian laws, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and abuse of state resources and funds.
The latest clue is the official invitation recently extended by President Weah to the President of the International Criminal Court Chile Eboe-Osuji, for a state visit.
Before now, the former Liberian international footballer-turned politician has not embraced suggestions for him to approve the setting up of a war and economic crimes court.
Like the government of his predecessor, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the government of President Weah include some former top warlords and financiers of the brutal civil war who caused the slaughtering of thousands and the pillaging of the country’s resources for 14 years.
President Weah is “seeking to elevate the discussion on the establishment of a war and economic crimes court in Liberia”, President Press Secretary Smith Toby is quoted as saying.
Liberia’s civil war was labeled as one of the most barbaric conflicts in Africa, and caused the death of at least quarter of a million of the country’s population between December 1989 and August 2003.
Weah, the Press Secretary said, believes that issues surrounding investigating wartime abuses “require broad consultation with the three branches of government”.
A further suggestion that ensuring accountability for wartime atrocities in Liberia is in sight, is a recent recommendation to the President from an unlikely source – the National Council of Chiefs and Elders, calling on him to ensure the establishment of the proposed court.
The Liberian Civil War was one of the 20th Century’s bloodiest civil wars, which claimed the lives of some 250,000 people and wounded thousands of others. Though the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommended in 2009 in its report that people who bore the greatest responsibilities for human rights violations during the crisis be prosecuted, that is yet to happen a decade on.
The UN has given Liberia up to July 2020 to take concrete steps towards addressing year gave Liberia up to July next year to address its wartime atrocities, but President George Weah who enjoys political block with Senator Prince Johnson of Nimba County, one of the civil war’s “most notorious perpetrators”, has demonstrated.
The newly established, Secretariat for the Establishment of War Crimes Court in Liberia (SEWACCOL), has warned that Liberia risks being punished by the United Nations and the rest of the international community if it refuses to set up a war crimes court to prosecute atrocities committed during its civil war (1989 – 2003).