The rise and fall of Charles Taylor
FORMER Liberian leader and war crimes suspect <b>Charles Taylor</b> disappeared from the villa in Nigeria, where he was living in exile, but was later arrested at the border with Cameroon. Nigeria had said he could be handed over to face trial at a UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone. The BBC
FORMER Liberian leader and war crimes suspect Charles Taylor disappeared from the villa in Nigeria, where he was living in exile, but was later arrested at the border with Cameroon. Nigeria had said he could be handed over to face trial at a UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone. The BBC’s Mark Doyle looks back at Charles Taylor’s career.
Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor is a frustrated showman. There is nothing this naturally confident man would like more than to strut the African stage playing the flamboyant statesman.
But he attempted to flee his Nigerian exile and a UN-backed war crimes court wants to put him on trial for alleged war crimes. The charges relate to his role in the war in neighbouring Sierra Leone where he backed RUF rebels, led by the notorious Foday Sankoh, responsible for widespread atrocities.
The showman has been on display many times. When he was a rebel in the early 1990s, controlling most of Liberia apart from the capital, he turned up at a West African regional conference in Burkina Faso in full military combat gear.
Dramatic gestures
His equally well protected bodyguards jogged alongside his car from the airport to the centre of the capital, Ouagadougou, in a show of strength and loyalty.
When, as president in 1999, he faced accusations from the United Nations that he was a gun runner and a diamond smuggler, he addressed a mass prayer meeting clothed from head to foot in angelic white.
The showman, who is also a lay preacher in the Baptist tradition, prostrated himself on the ground and prayed forgiveness before his Lord – although he also denied the charges. And even when he cannot be seen by his public, the showman finds a stage: throughout the 1990s Mr. Taylor conducted a series of dramatic telephone interviews with the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
The first, from the then-relatively unknown warlord, announced his invasion of Liberia. In one famous exchange with Focus on Africa Editor Robin White a few years later, Mr. White suggested that some people thought him little better than a murderer. Mr. Taylor bellowed with a flourish to the effect that “Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time.â€
Charles Taylor was born in 1948 to a family of Americo-Liberians, the elite group that grew out of the freed slaves who founded the country in the 19th century.
For what are suspected to be political reasons - broadening his appeal to the indigenous African majority - Taylor added the African name “Ghankay†in later years, becoming Charles Ghankay Taylor.
Like many Americo-Liberians he studied in the United States. He returned home shortly after Master Sergeant Samuel Doe mounted Liberia’s first successful coup d’etat in 1980.
Rogues’ gallery
Mr. Taylor landed a plum job in Doe’s regime running the General Services Agency, a position that meant controlling much of Liberia’s budget. He later fell out with Doe, who accused him of embezzling almost $1m, and fled back to the US. Mr. Taylor denied the charges, but ended up in the Plymouth County House of Correction in Massachusetts, detained under a Liberian extradition warrant. Some reports say he managed to escape the prison by sawing through the bars; others that there was some collusion in his departure from Americans who wanted him to play the role he then proceeded to carve out for himself - overthrowing the corrupt, violent and generally disastrous regime of Samuel Doe.
Mr. Taylor’s rebellion succeeded partly because of Doe’s incompetence. But it was also the fruit of Mr. Taylor’s building of sometimes surprising alliances.
His friends over the years have included the once-radical Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, the conservative former ruler of Ivory Coast Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the current President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, and a rogues’ gallery of businessmen, local and foreign, prepared to flout UN disapproval to make money in Liberia.
He was one of the warlords that battled it out fiercely for years in Liberia in the 1990s. After winning power militarily, Taylor won elections in 1997.
Although the polls were probably the most democratic the country had seen at the time, Mr. Taylor’s critics say he bullied and bought the electorate. Some people voted for him out of fear that if he lost, the war would re-ignite.
Charles Taylor has been married three times and has several children. His current wife Jewel is an economist who used to work for international institutions. He enjoys table tennis and lawn tennis which he used to play behind the high walls of his Monrovia residence.
In 1999 a group of his former enemies joined forces and launched a rebellion against him from near the border with Ghana and gradually marched to the capital, Monrovia. Military pressure and diplomatic pressure from the US and West Africa forced him to step down in 2003. He went to Nigeria in 2003.
BBC News
Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor is a frustrated showman. There is nothing this naturally confident man would like more than to strut the African stage playing the flamboyant statesman.
But he attempted to flee his Nigerian exile and a UN-backed war crimes court wants to put him on trial for alleged war crimes. The charges relate to his role in the war in neighbouring Sierra Leone where he backed RUF rebels, led by the notorious Foday Sankoh, responsible for widespread atrocities.
The showman has been on display many times. When he was a rebel in the early 1990s, controlling most of Liberia apart from the capital, he turned up at a West African regional conference in Burkina Faso in full military combat gear.
Dramatic gestures
His equally well protected bodyguards jogged alongside his car from the airport to the centre of the capital, Ouagadougou, in a show of strength and loyalty.
When, as president in 1999, he faced accusations from the United Nations that he was a gun runner and a diamond smuggler, he addressed a mass prayer meeting clothed from head to foot in angelic white.
The showman, who is also a lay preacher in the Baptist tradition, prostrated himself on the ground and prayed forgiveness before his Lord – although he also denied the charges. And even when he cannot be seen by his public, the showman finds a stage: throughout the 1990s Mr. Taylor conducted a series of dramatic telephone interviews with the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
The first, from the then-relatively unknown warlord, announced his invasion of Liberia. In one famous exchange with Focus on Africa Editor Robin White a few years later, Mr. White suggested that some people thought him little better than a murderer. Mr. Taylor bellowed with a flourish to the effect that “Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time.â€
Charles Taylor was born in 1948 to a family of Americo-Liberians, the elite group that grew out of the freed slaves who founded the country in the 19th century.
For what are suspected to be political reasons - broadening his appeal to the indigenous African majority - Taylor added the African name “Ghankay†in later years, becoming Charles Ghankay Taylor.
Like many Americo-Liberians he studied in the United States. He returned home shortly after Master Sergeant Samuel Doe mounted Liberia’s first successful coup d’etat in 1980.
Rogues’ gallery
Mr. Taylor landed a plum job in Doe’s regime running the General Services Agency, a position that meant controlling much of Liberia’s budget. He later fell out with Doe, who accused him of embezzling almost $1m, and fled back to the US. Mr. Taylor denied the charges, but ended up in the Plymouth County House of Correction in Massachusetts, detained under a Liberian extradition warrant. Some reports say he managed to escape the prison by sawing through the bars; others that there was some collusion in his departure from Americans who wanted him to play the role he then proceeded to carve out for himself - overthrowing the corrupt, violent and generally disastrous regime of Samuel Doe.
Mr. Taylor’s rebellion succeeded partly because of Doe’s incompetence. But it was also the fruit of Mr. Taylor’s building of sometimes surprising alliances.
His friends over the years have included the once-radical Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, the conservative former ruler of Ivory Coast Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the current President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, and a rogues’ gallery of businessmen, local and foreign, prepared to flout UN disapproval to make money in Liberia.
He was one of the warlords that battled it out fiercely for years in Liberia in the 1990s. After winning power militarily, Taylor won elections in 1997.
Although the polls were probably the most democratic the country had seen at the time, Mr. Taylor’s critics say he bullied and bought the electorate. Some people voted for him out of fear that if he lost, the war would re-ignite.
Charles Taylor has been married three times and has several children. His current wife Jewel is an economist who used to work for international institutions. He enjoys table tennis and lawn tennis which he used to play behind the high walls of his Monrovia residence.
In 1999 a group of his former enemies joined forces and launched a rebellion against him from near the border with Ghana and gradually marched to the capital, Monrovia. Military pressure and diplomatic pressure from the US and West Africa forced him to step down in 2003. He went to Nigeria in 2003.
BBC News