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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
50-year sentence
The 50-year sentence levelled against one of the world's most infamous traders in blood diamonds, Charles Taylor, shocked many in the international community. The jail term imposed Wednesday by the International Criminal Court effectively declares you don't have to personally co-ordinate a gun-running supply line to be very, very guilty of the carnage wrought by the rebels or regimes that buy them.
Most were betting Taylor, the former president of Liberia who fed the murderous rebels of Sierra Leone, would see some jail time, but the five decades he now has to contemplate his misdeeds is amongst the heaviest for war crimes convictions. The ICC's first conviction of a former warlord holds real implication for the many other brutes the court is waiting to call to account. That includes, most immediately, Thomas Lubanga, the convicted former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also Saif Gadhafi, the son of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who led summary executions of civilians as protestors rallied courageously in the streets, eventually deposing the 42-year Gadhafi regime.
Saif Gadhafi is not likely to meet the ICC's judge any time soon -- the new rulers in his country want him to meet justice Libyan-style -- but the remarkable conviction of Taylor and the jail term are powerful warnings of international reckoning for dictators and warlords who carry out atrocities against civilians. Mr. Taylor's conviction has given new relevance to the international war crimes tribunal; his sentence is a clarion, reverberating loudest for those in Syria, Darfur and similarly brutal, repressive states.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 1, 2012 A12
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