The 1990s and early 2000s were a bloody time in Africa. Civil wars raged in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Hollywood focused attention on the war’s human toll in films such as Blood Diamond and Beasts of No Nation. Fighting in Liberia spanned borders and civil wars overlapped, especially between neighbors Liberia and Sierra Leone.
War in Sierra Leone ended in 2002 when Liberian President Charles Taylor stopped supporting the Revolutionary United Front and its blood diamond trade. The United Nations (UN) Mission in Sierra Leone continued for another three years before, with the country stabilized, it disbanded. Two smaller economic and peacebuilding missions followed, and these, too, succeeded. They did not operate in isolation, however. What greased their success was an UN-sponsored effort to bring justice to those who had perpetrated war crimes in Sierra Leone. In 2006, the Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted Taylor for his war crimes; Nigerian border guards apprehended him as he tried to flee, and he was ultimately returned to Sierra Leone to face justice.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone whose operations 40 different countries underwrote, was both the world’s first “hybrid” international criminal tribunal and the first international tribunal to sit in the country where crimes took place. This was important to sidestep the colonial undertones that undercut operations in the Hague.
While Liberia, too, emerged from civil war after Taylor left the country, it did not undertake the same cathartic judicial process. While its Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia recommended that Liberia establish a tribunal largely based on the Sierra Leone model, first the Ebola crisis and then Liberian President George Weah’s cynical attempts to cultivate war criminals delayed implementation.
Weah was not a competent leader. Corruption accelerated. Weah used perks of the presidency to travel the world, but did little to address problems back home. The massive fraud in Liberia’s first-round vote was Weah’s undoing. Both Liberians and the international community awoke, and Liberians ousted the incumbent in the second round against Joseph Boakai, whom Weah never believed a threat. That the World Bank on November 15, 2023 informed Finance Minister Samuel Tweah that it would suspend all disbursement of aid to Liberia signals widespread suspicion that Weah’s team plans to loot the treasury on its way out.
That Weah will soon be gone from power is good for Liberia; Africa does not need another dictator. Boakai will have little honeymoon given the mess that Weah leaves behind, though.
The incoming Liberian leader can prove his seriousness in two ways. First, he should empower rival Alexander Cummings, an experienced executive and philanthropist, to reform the economy and attract foreign direct investment to jumpstart Liberia’s economy. That Liberia for too long has failed to reach its potential is a tragedy that must end.
Second, to demonstrate that Liberia will no longer tolerate corruption, Boakai should stand up to the War and Economic Crimes Court and direct it to act on existing referrals. Prince Johnson, the warlord who executed President Samuel Doe in 1990, should face justice regardless of his tenure as senator. So too should Jefferson Koijee, whom Weah appointed mayor of Monrovia for his own alleged corruption and human right abuses. Tweah may also be in legal peril given how he controlled the purse strings as tens of millions of dollars went missing. The US Treasury Department has also sanctioned former Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Nathaniel F. McGill for his role in public corruption.
Not only ethnic hatred and political rivalries fuel civil wars; economic opportunism does as well. While some Liberian war criminals have faced justice, those who profited from the deaths of perhaps a quarter million people, many women and children, have for too long walked free. Weah violated his pre-presidency promise to stand up the War and Economic Crimes Court. Boakai should not. The United States, Europe, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Sierra Leone should unite to make clear: the War and Economic Crimes Court is not about political retribution; it is about accountability and signaling that political power does not allow anyone to sidestep the law.
