Tearful Taylor breaks silence
2004-04-13 20:26
Lagos - Liberia's former leader Charles Taylor broke his long silence on Tuesday, in his first interview since he was exiled to Nigeria, lashing the international community over the war crimes charges against him.
Taylor stood down as president and fled to Nigeria in August last year as rebel forces closed in on Monrovia, clearing the way for the United Nations and west African mediators to install a peace-building interim government.
The former warlord was given a luxury villa overlooking the harbour in the southeastern city of Calabar, and after issuing a handful of provocative press releases was told to keep quiet by Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo.
But as international prosecutors in Liberia's neighbour Sierra Leone stepped up calls for him to face a UN-backed war crimes tribunal and amid moves to freeze his alleged foreign assets, a tearful Taylor hit back.
In an interview with Nigeria's privately-owned Channels Television, the 56-year-old Libyan-trained guerrilla chieftain dismissed allegations that he had been responsible for the atrocities carried out by Sierra Leonean rebels.
He also attacked a recent UN resolution seeking to freeze the assets he allegedly holds around the world, which are said to be the profits from the systematic looting of his small, war-torn west African nation.
"I would like to be held accountable for everything I did when I was head of state in Liberia. I own no foreign bank account anywhere and I want the United Nations and the international community to prove me wrong," he said.
On the war crimes charges which have been lodged at the UN-backed Special Court probing abuses during Sierra Leone's civil war, he insisted he had been asked to intervene in Liberia by the west African regional bloc Ecowas.
"My involvement in Sierra Leone was approved by Ecowas. This bizarre scenario (of his sponsoring war crimes in that country) was put together to get at Charles Taylor," he told his Nigerian television interviewer.
Taylor has been accused of backing Sierra Leone's rebel Revolutionary United Front which was guilty of many human rights abuses, including the maiming of civilian prisoners, during its 1992-2002 conflict with the elected government.
Taylor was speaking as Liberia's new interim leader, Gyude Bryant, arrived in Nigeria for talks with Obasanjo.
Bryant has said he is not seeking Taylor's extradition, but Sierra Leone's special court, human rights groups and several foreign governments including the United States have called for him to face justice.
Obasanjo has said that he will not allow Taylor to face the Sierra Leonean court, but would return him to a "legitimate" Liberian government.
Taylor broke down in tears when the television interviewer asked him if he missed Liberia, saying: "I did not squander the wealth of my people. Mr Taylor did his best in Liberia."