Human rights chief supports arrest of Liberian ex-President Charles Taylor

Saying it is time for justice to follow its course, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour today told employees of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone that she supported the arrest of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, now living in exile in Nigeria, and his transfer to the Court.

Ms. Arbour, who is visiting Sierra Leone for four days as part of her fact-finding tour of West Africa, pledged to support the Special Court's efforts to secure Mr. Taylor's arrest and transfer on charges of war crimes in connection with more than a decade of civil war in Sierra Leone.

The Special Court has indicted 11 people on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law and is currently holding nine of them. Mr. Taylor and former Sierra Leonean military leader Johnny Paul Koroma are not in the court's custody.

With amputees and other war victims being of major concern for Ms. Arbour, she visited the Grafton Amputees and War Wounded Camp in eastern Freetown and listened as the Amputation Association chairman Alhaji Jusu Jaka called for the special funds for war victims, medical facilities and a microcredit programme, as well as the credible reparations programme specified in the Lomé Peace Agreement.

Earlier in the day she criticized female genital cutting and other abuses of women’s and children’s rights and appealed for these violations to be made criminal. She also condemned the corruption in the country, especially in administering justice.

In a meeting yesterday with nearly 100 representatives of local human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the Freetown headquarters of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Ms. Arbour urged President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria to hand over Mr. Taylor to the Transitional Justice System in Sierra Leone.

The price of peace could not be the total elimination of justice, she added.

The NGOs told her their human rights work was being impeded by lack of political will, political interference in the administration of justice, and the abuse and violation of the economic, social, political, civil and cultural rights of people by the authorities and by some international mining companies.

Ms. Arbour, accompanied by UNAMSIL chief Daudi Mwakawago, also met President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah yesterday and congratulated him on the country's speedy recovery after almost 11 years of a very destructive civil war.

She said that while ex-combatants had to be resettled and rehabilitated, urgent attention had to be paid to the war victims, especially the amputees who have been permanently incapacitated and are unable to earn a living.

Mr. Kabbah thanked UNAMSIL's Human Rights Section for re-awakening a profound human rights awareness in the country and for helping to draft the Government's White Paper, which he said would soon be issued, giving official plans for implementing recommendations of the October 2004 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.