Obasanjo-Bush tango over Taylor's sins

[struggle4progress]

NDUKA UZUAKPUNDU
Posted to the Web: Sunday, May 15, 2005

<snip> It may have come to Obasanjo as an irritating attempt to twist the fate of Taylor as United States President George W. Bush tried at their brief summit some days back. Bush is pressing that Taylor should – in what has heartened a tribe of rights activists and victims of the regional wars – especially the Sierra Leonean war – those who lost loved ones or had their limbs crudely hacked or have been set back by the violent ambitions of a few – be brought to trial. At a time when they seem relatively voiceless, they are beginning to find some renewed hope in the politics of Taylor’s asylum as would be played out by Bush and Obasanjo.

Their hope is tinged with some caution to the degree that Bush – whatever he professes now – is certainly not a good agent of the law, as the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib may have shown. Bush is coming into the Taylor arena against the backdrop of some allegations that have been made lately against former Liberia leader: plotting to disrupt the October elections in Liberia; the brain behind the failed assassination attempt, in January, of President Lansana Conte of Guinea; and meeting in Burkina Faso with a political protege.

These allegations were made by Washington-based writers. And until they are substantiated, Obasanjo is less likely to believe them. He’s most likely to retort: "Where is the evidence in support of all that? I want to see it." Worse still, Obasanjo remembers the false allegations of possession of weapons of mass destruction levelled against ex-president Saddam Hussein! <snip>

http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/world/w115052005.html