Nigeria Moves to Protect Taylor
By Douglas Farah
Well, Nigerian president Obasanjo has come up with an interesting way of dealing with legitimate, recognized human rights workers who are peacefully campaigning to have former Liberian president Charles Taylor turned over to face justice: he has them summarily arrested, has their offices ransacked and defends Taylor. The crime of the groups lobbying for Taylor to be turned over to international justice was printing posters that simply replicated INTERPOL's "Wanted" poster of Taylor. It is available on the net. Supposedly, one can speak freely and protest in Nigeria. That is what Obasanjo has repeatedly told the world. Yet Taylor, a wanted fugitive indicted on 17 counts of crimes against humanity, cannot be disturbed.
I have become somewhat cynical on Nigeria's much-touted road to democracy and Obasajo's role in that. But this is over the top for a country that wants to be admitted as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has aspirations to be taken seriously on the world stage. Ironically, Obasanjo dennounced the military coup in Mauritania by saying Africa would no longer tolerate any retreat from democracy. And then, of course, he routed democratic activists.
It is a sad day for Nigeria when, to protect an international fugitive who brought death and destruction to hundreds of thousands of people and aided and abetted terrorists, human rights workers are thrown in prison without charges and without having committed a crime. The three lawyers have already spent more time in jail than Taylor. For printing posters! It would be nice if the Bush administration at least went through the pretext of pretending to care about this, but it does not seem to be. One small step for Taylor, one huge setback for human rights in Nigeria.
For articles on the arrests, you can go here and for the statement by Amensty International and the Open Society Justice Initiative, go here.
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