Global Policy Forum

By Glenn McKenzie

Nigeria will surrender ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor to face a war crimes trial if Liberia asks, President Olusegun Obasanjo said Tuesday. Obasanjo's comments marked the first time he has publicly shown willingness to yield Taylor for trial. The Nigerian president has strongly resisted U.S. congressional pressure to turn Taylor over to face a war crimes indictment by a U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone. Liberia has not yet pressed for Taylor's return. Liberia's interim leader, Gyude Bryant, appointed under an Aug. 18 peace deal, has said he fears war-crimes trials would harm reconciliation in his war-battered country. Obasanjo, speaking to foreign reporters, also said Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe — under international sanctions for human rights violations — would not be invited to an upcoming British Commonwealth summit in Nigeria.

Liberia's Taylor has lived in exile in southern Nigeria since he fled Monrovia in early August, with rebels besieging the capital and international officials pressing him to go to allow a peace deal to be reached. The former warlord and Libyan-trained guerrilla launched Liberia into conflict in 1989, when he led an initially small insurgency to overthrow the government. The 14 years of fighting that followed killed an estimated 250,000 Liberians. Taylor is also blamed in much of the bloodshed in West Africa in recent years, and the U.N. indictment accuses him of backing rebels in a vicious 10-year terror campaign in neighboring Sierra Leone. If Liberia's new interim government decides it wants him to face charges there, "then I believe he will understand sufficiently the need to go home," Obasanjo said, speaking in an interview at his farm north of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital. Asked what he would do if Taylor resisted, Obasanjo responded, "I would persuade him."

The Bush administration has disavowed moves by the U.S. Congress to create a $2 million reward for Taylor's capture and to sanction Nigeria for offering him asylum. But the congressional effort angered the Obasanjo administration, which said any attempt to capture Taylor would threaten Nigeria's sovereignty. There were "elements in the United States who were well-meaning but misguided, misdirected and misinformed," Obasanjo said Tuesday, referring to the U.S. push to capture Taylor. Also Tuesday, Obasanjo appeared to rule out Mugabe's attendance at the Dec. 5-8 summit of heads of state of the British Commonwealth. The summit is to be held in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. Mugabe has said he expects to attend, raising the threat of a boycott by Britain's Queen Elizabeth and by prime ministers of Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Pacific nations. "He will not have an invitation," Obasanjo said. "He can come on a bilateral basis, but not during" the summit. Obasanjo also said he hoped conflict over Mugabe would not overshadow other issues at the summit. Zimbabwe was suspended by the Commonwealth after Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002. Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon and Australian Prime Minister John Howard have repeatedly criticized Mugabe for human rights violations in Zimbabwe. They also have called for a restoration of the rule of law before the suspension could be lifted. Some members of the 54-nation Commonwealth have warned Mugabe's presence could split the organization.

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