Outcry as Taylor goes missing

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is wanted for war crimes in Sierra Leone, has disappeared from the luxury mansion where he lives in exile in Nigeria, the president’s office said on Tuesday. Taylor’s disappearance comes less than three days after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo told the new government of Liberia that it was “free to take” Taylor, wanted on 17 counts of war crimes by a UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone. As Nigeria announced it was investigating the disappearance, human rights groups slammed Abuja for failing to hold onto him and called on the international community to work towards his arrest. In the Liberian capital Monrovia, residents expressed fears he could try to destabilise a country only recently at peace. A statement from Obasanjo’s office on Tuesday said the presidency had launched an inquiry into the “disappearance on Monday night ... of Mr. Charles Taylor, former Liberian president, from his residence in Calabar.” The government had established a five-member panel to investigate Taylor's vanishing act and will begin work on Thursday, government secretary Ufoti Ekaette said in the statement. The panel has two weeks to submit its report It was not clear whether Nigerian security forces had been dispatched to hunt for Taylor. Charles Taylor stepped down from the Liberian presidency in August 2003 to make way for a peace deal that brought 14 years of on-off civil war to an end. Obasanjo offered him exile to facilitate an end to the war, and the former Liberian leader since then has lived in a seafront mansion in the southern Nigerian town of Calabar. “International fugitive” Human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement on Tuesday that Taylor should now be considered an “international fugitive”, and that “any country in which he is found has a responsibility to arrest and surrender Charles Taylor immediately to the Special Court in Sierra Leone.” Taylor is subject to UN sanctions that date from his time as president that include an international travel ban. According to Nigerian government sources, Taylor was at home on Friday when he was counted by census enumerators. But suspicions are high that he could have escaped by sea. Taylor, who is in his mid-50s, is thought to have amassed a tremendous personal wealth during his years in office. Earlier this month on her first official visit to the United States, newly elected Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf formally requested that Nigeria hand Taylor over. It was Washington that in 2003 had applied the most pressure on Taylor to step down. Also on Tuesday, the UN-backed Special Court in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown said it was preparing a formal reaction to the news of Taylor’s evanescence. Special Court officials and human rights groups had previously urged Nigeria to tighten security at the Calabar mansion amid fears that Taylor would use a delay in working out the logistics of his handover, to make good his escape. On Monday, the US said it was Nigeria’s responsibility to see Taylor was handed over to the Special Court. Hours later, Nigerian authorities discovered he was missing. Obasanjo is due to meet with President George Bush in the US on Wednesday. Human Rights Watch's West Africa representative, Corrine Dufka, told IRIN that Nigeria would be judged harshly for allowing Taylor to slip the noose. “This brings into question Nigeria’s commitment not only to stability in Liberia but more importantly to the establishment of law and justice in Africa,” said Dufka. “History will judge Nigeria very harshly for this.” Anxiety in Monrovia In the Liberian capital Monrovia, still blackened and battered by mortar shells and gunfire, residents were uneasy on hearing of Taylor’s disappearance. “This man is very dangerous and power drunk. He still wants to ascend to power no matter how. The only thing that Taylor is good at is stirring up confusion and we Liberians know him for that,” Mary Harmon, a Monrovia resident told IRIN. “With his disappearance, I don’t think there may be total peace in Liberia,” Harmon added. Taylor launched his anti-government rebellion from Cote d’Ivoire in 1989 and captured international media attention by calling from the lush Liberian forests by satellite telephone. Liberia’s Information Minister Johnny McClain said he had not received an official communication from the Nigerian government on the disappearance of Taylor. “We cannot dwell on speculation or media reports, and there has been no communication from the Nigerian government to Liberia on this matter,” McClain told IRIN. However, Sirleaf is expected to hold a special news conference on Wednesday.