Peace supremo rejects EU demand to hand over Taylor

It is still too early for Liberia’s freshly-elected authorities to hand over the country’s controversial former president Charles Taylor for judgement, according to Liberia’s peace mediator and former Nigerian leader Abdulsalami Abubakar. While president-in-waiting Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has yet to comment on the issue, officials close to the former World Bank economist concur that Taylor is not their top priority. Rejecting a European Union request for the new government to call for the transfer of Taylor, currently exiled in Nigeria, to a Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, Abubakar also implied that the issue was none of Europe’s business. “It is too early for the EU to demand the turning over of Taylor and this issue is beyond the scope of the European Union. This request does not meet the support of ECOWAS”, Abubakar told reporters on Wednesday. The Nigerian general was appointed special mediator in Liberia by the 15-nation West African regional group ECOWAS. The EU reiterated that Taylor must go to trial in a statement released in Monrovia early this week in the wake of the country’s landmark 8 November run-off ballot for the presidency. Preliminary results show Sirleaf won 59 percent of the vote against football star George Weah. “The European Union also takes this opportunity to reiterate the importance of the new government, Senate and House of Representatives co-operating fully with the international community in ensuring that former President Charles Taylor is brought before the Special Court for Sierra Leone,” the EU said. But an aide close to Sirleaf told IRIN that it was unlikely that the government expected to be sworn in in mid-January would immediately heed to the demands of the EU, which has been a major development partner in Liberia’s recovery programme. “The Taylor issue is not an immediate priority of us right now,” the aide said. “This country has a lot to do in terms of reconciliating our divided people after years of brutal war, economic recovery programmes, and especially, in tackling corruption.” The UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone has repeatedly called on Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to hand Taylor over for trial. But he has declined unless an elected Liberian president asks him to do so, or Taylor breaks the terms of his asylum deal. Taylor has been served 17 indictments for crimes against humanity for his involvement and support to the Revolutionary United Front rebel faction in Sierra Leone, known for hacking off hands, feet, lips and ears of civilians during the 1991-2002 civil war. He led a brutal bush war against the government of Samuel Doe from 1989 until he was elected president during a break in the fighting in 1997. Liberians voted for Taylor in the belief that the war would only end once the rebel leader had taken control of the presidency. But within months, more and new rebel movements were beating a path to the capital Monrovia, wanting to see Taylor toppled. Under international pressure, Taylor stepped down from office in August 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria as part of a peace deal. He now lives in a luxury mansion in the coastal town of Calabar.