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Moving from Impunity to Accountability in Post-War Liberia: Possibilities, Cautions, and Challenges
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2019
Abstract
Liberia has become the quintessential example of an African failed state. Though Liberia's civil war is officially over, war criminals are free and some are even helping run the transitional government under the authority of Liberia's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). This peace agreement calls for the consideration of a general amnesty for those involved in the Liberian civil war alongside the parceling of governmental functions among members of various rebel groups. The drafters of the agreement claim that this was the only viable solution for sustainable peace in Liberia. Meanwhile, Charles Taylor relaxes in Nigeria's resort city of Calabar.
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457 Id. Google Scholar
458 Id. at 209.Google Scholar
459 Id. at 209.Google Scholar
460 In the midst of the second Liberian civil war, Charles Taylor attempted to invoke the sympathy of the United States and President George Bush by drawing upon the historical relationship between the two countries: “Our capital is named after your President Monroe. Our flag is a replica of yours. Our laws are patterned after your laws. We in Liberia have always considered ourselves ‘stepchildren’ of the United States. We implore you to come help your stepchildren who are in danger of losing their lives and their freedom.” Pham, supra note 1, at 100.Google Scholar
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462 Open Petition to the United States Government, perspective, July 24, 2003, at http://www.theperspective.org/openpetitionus.htrm.Google Scholar
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466 U.S. Policy Toward Liberia, supra note 7, at 5 (statement of Donald Payne).Google Scholar
467 Id. at 8 (statement of Walter H. Kansteiner).Google Scholar
468 Id. at 7.Google Scholar
469 Id. Google Scholar
470 Id. at 12 (statement of Theresa Whelan)Google Scholar
471 Id. Google Scholar
472 Id. at 11.Google Scholar
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474 Id. at 18 (statement of Donald M. Payne). Yet Payne expressed his frustration with the Department of Defense's dual policy foreign policy: “We have our hands full in Iraq, there is no question about it, but I think it is absolutely disgraceful that Secretary Rumsfeld continually arguing against deploying a single person in Liberia. It is disgraceful, it is unconscionable, and it just makes me feel that if it is a black person dying in Africa, Rumsfeld doesn't think they are worth our men on the ground.”Google Scholar
475 Id. at 21 (statement of Gregory Meeks).Google Scholar
476 See, generally U.S. Policy Toward Liberia, supra note 7.Google Scholar
477 Id. at 21 (statement of Gregory Meeks).Google Scholar
478 Bravin, supra note 273, at A1.Google Scholar
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480 Id. at 207, 208.Google Scholar
481 Id. at 208.Google Scholar
482 Id. Google Scholar
483 Id. at 244.Google Scholar
484 Id. (citing Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook, An Update 8 (2003)).Google Scholar
485 Rotberg, supra note 108, at 4.Google Scholar
486 Abbott, supra note 425, at 376.Google Scholar
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