Chucky T is 369; NOW WHAT Ya Cannibal ?

This is a waste of a good vest. he doesn’t need it. remember he said he could bounce bullets. This for those of you who have forgotten – This is the punk formerly known as Chucky T.

this hizz-ooh used to run shit into the ground in Liberia. he single-handedly started the wars that caused the rush on Blood Diamonds.. Yeah That Biaaaa-otch, with the emphasis on Biatch.

Inside Story-Charles Taylor – 03 June 07 – Part 1

If we had it our way, we’d be stewin his head right now and feedin phiranahs all over the amazon. he is too nasty to be fed back to the earth. because surely he would be toxic to anything he touches for at least a million years.

Inside Story-Charles Taylor – 03 June 07 – Part 2

this is the one person in the world; that if allowed, I would personally trade places with the guards for just 5 minutes, to let him have all my pent up sexual rage. I would fuck him up, let alone Kill His Remains.

I would send his DNA Back to L. Ron Howard and John Travolta, because he is 1000% Certified DEMON. (nuff respect scientologist, y’all know how to deal with ya demons; which is why I’d send his ass back to y’all, cause I know ya lookin for his demonic ass.)

There is no one on this earth, I think I dislike more than Chucky T.
as far as I am concerned he is the Devils Poodle; and needs to be Pit Bull Fucked. this man doesn’t deserve a trial. shoot him now. use one bullet and make it from a 50′ caliber positioned exactly 13 feet east of his head. let him begin to run so it would resemble what he did to millions of west africans.

Victims remember Taylor’s brutal rule – 14 Jul 09

It’s Time for this Farce of a Trial to be over – deliver him to My House and I’ll call my friends. believe me, we can feed this lil Cannibal; – back to the masses. no fava beans required.

Charles Taylor to Speak at War Crimes Trial

THE HAGUE — For months, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, has watched in silence as witnesses have passed through the courtroom, telling stories of mind-boggling violence, even cannibalism. His face remained blank, eyes hidden behind tinted glasses, as women spoke of rape and villagers told how their hands or their arms had been severed with axes.

Only when longtime allies appeared has Mr. Taylor seemed agitated, passing messages to his defense team, demanding to challenge the accounts.

On Tuesday, Mr. Taylor, the first African leader to be tried for war crimes, will break his silence as he takes the stand to defend himself. His lawyers say that his testimony may go on for weeks, given the wide range of the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The prosecution, which has rested its case, has charged that he armed and commanded rebel groups to bolster his influence in West Africa and to seize a swath of neighboring Sierra Leone, in particular its diamond-mining areas.

His indictment holds him accountable for the rebels’ barbaric methods as they pillaged, killed, raped, used drug-crazed children as soldiers and hacked off limbs, ears or noses to subdue civilians.

Opening the defense case on Monday, Courtenay Griffiths, the lead lawyer, said that Mr. Taylor was not “an African Napoleon” bent on taking over a region, but a broker of peace who would exonerate himself when he gave his account.

As many as 200,000 people died in the decade of fighting, and Mr. Taylor’s war strategies are said to have affected many more in Liberia, his home country, but only crimes in Sierra Leone between 1996 and 2002 are within the mandate of the court.

For Mr. Taylor’s trial, the international judges of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone are sitting in The Hague to avoid potential unrest in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, where the court is based. The prosecution has brought 91 witnesses, many of whom made a 7,000-mile round trip to The Netherlands.

“We didn’t have documents and orders signed by Taylor, so we needed much circumstantial evidence,” said Stephen J. Rapp, the court’s chief prosecutor. “But key players close to Taylor have testified and painted the complex picture. Taylor was in another country, it was not his country’s army, he was not at the scene of the crimes. But we have direct evidence of his orders and communications.”

Mr. Rapp said that about a dozen “insiders” — witnesses once close to Mr. Taylor, whose testimony had been crucial — had been moved to other countries and given new identities. Several important witnesses had declined to testify because they had been threatened, he said.

The horrors of the Sierra Leone war have frequently perturbed the solemn setting of The Hague courtroom, with its officers in black robes with neatly starched white bibs and its crimson-robed judges high on the dais. At times, witnesses on the stand gesticulated with amputated limbs, swaddled in bandages. Or take the small but awkward incident on the day when Mustapha Mansary, a villager, came to testify. Rebel gangs had hacked off both of his hands.

The defense lawyer began: “Mr. Witness, can I ask you, can you read and write English?” Mr. Mansary listened to the translation, and then he held up his two stumps. “I have no hands to write anything,” he said.

“I appreciate that; my apologies,” the lawyer said.

At other times, witnesses described scenes of incomprehensible cruelty.

A rape victim who testified under the name “064” described the day a gang of rebels mutilated and killed many adults and children in the village of Foendor, among them members of her family, including her two children. After nine children and the adults had been decapitated, Tamba Joe, the gang leader, ordered her to look for her people. Their severed heads were put in a sack.

“They gave me the heads to carry,” the woman said. “But at first I couldn’t.”

A man was told to help her carry the sack, dripping with blood. When they got to Tombudu, the next village, the rebels ordered all the heads thrown into a pond. The heads of her two children were among them, she said.

No one knows exactly how many people were killed or maimed in the civil war of the 1990s. Human rights groups have said that close to 4,000 amputees have not survived. Up to 3,500 amputees are believed to be still alive. Numerous former child soldiers are still in rehabilitation homes.

During the trial, the magnitude of the atrocities has not been in dispute. But the prosecution and the defense have described the case as legally complicated. The defense lawyer, Mr. Griffiths, said that the prosecution must prove Mr. Taylor’s effective control over the rebel groups and that demonstrating influence or assistance was insufficient. “The case is all about linking the crimes to Mr. Taylor, but the evidence has been riddled with inconsistencies,” Mr. Griffiths said.

Mr. Rapp, the chief prosecutor, insists that Mr. Taylor’s criminal responsibility has been more than demonstrated with the insider witnesses. These included radio operators, describing orders given from the secret communications center in Mr. Taylor’s mansion, and members of the president’s security force who said they witnessed the movement of arms and ammunition to the rebels and attended high-level strategy sessions.

One of the most dramatic accounts came from Joseph Marzah, a longtime associate of Mr. Taylor’s. He described himself as Mr. Taylor’s onetime chief of operations and head of a death squad, now an affluent businessman. He said that African peacekeepers were killed and eaten by Mr. Taylor’s militiamen and that weapons were easily smuggled. Four other witnesses also referred to the ritualistic eating of enemy flesh by Liberian combatants.

Mr. Marzah, known as Zigzag, spoke of the ease with which weapons were moved to Sierra Leone from Liberia during the Taylor government, despite an arms embargo. He said that Nigerian peacekeepers at the airport in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, were bribed and the weapons were transported in the peacekeepers’ vehicles.

He became angry as the defense lawyer repeatedly insisted that he had no close contact with Mr. Taylor. Stung, Mr. Marzah blurted out that he and Mr. Taylor belonged to the same secret society and had together eaten human hearts. With that he nervously crossed himself.

When the lawyer asked if he crossed himself because he had just lied under oath, Mr. Marzah said he had just broken the secrecy laws of his society.

Profile: Charles Taylor
July 14, 2009

By Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar

Jul. 14–DOHA, Qatar — Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader, is considered by some in Africa to be a man of many faces.

To his supporters, he is a Baptist lay preacher who drifted into nationalist politics while studying economics in the US. To others, he is a rebel leader who later became president in Liberia’s first democratic elections.

But he is most likely to be remembered as the first former African head of state to face an international tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity.

In 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), an independent judicial body established with United Nations Security Council backing, issued a 17-count war crimes indictment against Taylor for his role in the 1996-2002 civil war which took place there.

The indictment charges that Taylor had used his power and influence in Liberia to support rebel groups who committed atrocities against civilian populations in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

The charges include knowingly supporting, directing and effectively commanding rebel factions, such as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who committed “acts of terror, murder, sexual violence, including rape and sexual slavery, physical violence, including amputations, the conscription of child soldiers, enslavement and pillage”.

Prosecutors say that Taylor used the so-called “blood diamonds” trade in Sierra Leone to arm the rebel factions, destabilise its government and boost his regional influence.

The UN estimates that about 120,000 people were killed during the civil war.

Taylor has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery.

His defence team has argued that the case against their client is “political” and that the SCSL is “a political institution controlled by states opposed to Taylor’s policies”.

Rise to power

The US-educated Taylor entered the world of politics when he led a demonstration in front of the Liberian Mission to the UN in New York City and publicly debated William Tolbert, the then-president of Liberia, in 1979.

In 1980, Taylor returned to Monrovia, the Liberian capital, after a bloody coup d’etat led by Samuel K Doe, an indigenous army sergeant, deposed and killed Tolbert.

Doe appointed Taylor, who is of mixed indigenous and freed American slave (known as Americo-Liberian) heritage, to the post of director of the General Services Agency, a body which controlled much of the state budget.

But in 1983, Taylor fled Liberia for the US after being accused of embezzling nearly $1m of state funds. In 1984, he was arrested and jailed in the US, but while fighting an extradition order, he managed to escape with four other inmates.

Although they were later caught, he disappeared only to resurface in 1985 in the Ivory Coast, where he had begun to amass men, material and money to return and unseat Doe from power in Monrovia.

In late 1989, he slipped back into Liberia with a token force of 100 men, known then as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). His mixed heritage allowed him to appeal to both Americo and indigenous Liberians.

Taylor also made use of long-harboured animosity between Doe and neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast, who supplied the rebel leader with arms and funding.

Targeting Monrovia

By July 2, 1990, Taylor’s 10,000-strong army surrounded Monrovia. As the conflict dragged on, the NPFL splintered into several breakaway groups which led to factional fighting and all-out civil war.

It was during this time that news of widespread slaughter and massacres against ethnic groups began to surface.

As the fighting intensified, Nigeria proposed the creation of an armed peace-keeping force, Ecomog, which despite several setbacks was able to broker a ceasefire that led to the country’s first democratic elections.

Taylor was elected president in free and fair elections, though he was accused of intimidating voters.

However, the country had already become fragmented. According to the UN, some 200,000 people had been killed and 800,000 been made refugees in nearly eight years of civil war.

Losing control

In 1999, war broke out again as opposition to his rule mounted and Taylor began to lose control of the country.

Things worsened for the embattled leader when Nigeria led the chorus of neighbouring states who accused Taylor of fomenting the civil war in Sierra Leone by selling weapons to rebel groups in exchange for diamonds smuggled out of the war-torn country.

In March 2003, the SCSL charged Taylor with crimes against humanity.

As he began to lose more control in Liberia, Taylor agreed to resign his post as president in exchange for the deployment of US peacekeepers in Monrovia.

He was then granted asylum in Nigeria. It would be another three years before he was handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.

Although it is the first such international tribunal to be established in the same country where the crimes were committed, Taylor has been on trial at The Hague since June 2007 for fear that his presence in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, could destabilise the region.

His defence team is expected to open their case in The Hague on July 13, 2009.

Taylor will take the stand as the first witness for the defence.

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Congo’s Kids Get Support From Angelina Jolie at the ICC

Angelina Jolie Attends Trial At The Hague.

Now I’m not gonna say she’s one of my favorite stars, but one thing is for certain, she is one of my favorite child activists. she puts her money and her face where she knows it will help. she’s not a grandstander with an entourage; she’s an effective face for those who need to be heard, and seen. this is her second appearance at the court; and we applaud her for making it a priority.
btw, this is what she’s doing instead of staying at Cannes Film Festival.
Isn’t it refreshing to see a spiritual connection to the planet from the superficial industry. Who whether we like it or not,  help to publicize these problems;  Mostly with movies like Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond.

Thanks Angelina – We Know You Care Baby,

In this image released by the International Criminal Court, movie star and activist Angelina Jolie, left, is seen with chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, right, during a visit to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday May 19 2009.
Jolie attended the trial of a Congolese warlord charged with using child soldiers. Jolie says in a statement released by the court Tuesday that the case against Thomas Lubanga is a “landmark trial for children” and pays tribute to the former child soldiers who travel to the court’s seat in The Hague to testify. Lubanga, founder and former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots political movement and its armed wing, has pleaded innocent to charges of recruiting and using child soldiers in tribal conflicts in 2002-2003.
His is the first international trial to focus solely on child soldiers. The United Nations estimates up to 250,000 child soldiers still fight in more than a dozen countries. (AP Photo/Kim Vermaat/ICC HO)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Angelina Jolie sat in a courtside booth Tuesday at the International Criminal Court and watched the trial of a Congolese warlord charged with using child soldiers.

In a statement released by the court, Jolie, a mother of six, said the case against Thomas Lubanga is a “landmark trial for children” and paid tribute to the former child soldiers who travel to the court’s seat in The Hague to testify.

“After watching the proceedings from the viewing booth, I stood up and found Thomas Lubanga Dyilo looking at me,” Jolie said. “I imagined how difficult it must be for all the brave young children who have come to testify against him.”

Tuesday’s visit was Jolie’s second to the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal in less than two years. The goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said children deserve special protection during wars.

“Using children in conflict is a heinous crime and destroys the very fabric of a society,” she said.

Jolie also met with the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, during her private visit to the court.

Lubanga, founder and former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots political movement and its armed wing, has pleaded innocent to charges of recruiting and using child soldiers in tribal conflicts in 2002-2003.

His is the first international trial to focus solely on child soldiers. It started in January and is expected to continue throughout this year.

The United Nations estimates up to 250,000 child soldiers still fight in more than a dozen countries.

Congo war crimes trial ‘unfair’

bbcnews 27 January 2009

Thomas Lubanga at the ICC, 26 Jan 2009 (image courtesy of the ICC)

Thomas Lubanga insists he was trying to bring peace to the Ituri region

The war crimes trial against former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga is “prejudicial”, his lawyer has told day two of the case at The Hague.

She claimed the prosecution’s use of anonymous witnesses and secrecy clauses for the International Criminal Court (ICC) trial would hamper the defence.

Mr Lubanga, 48, denies using hundreds of child soldiers in DR Congo’s five-year conflict, which ended in 2003.

The case is the first to come before the ICC.

Mr Lubanga was the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and its armed wing at the time of the alleged crimes in 2002-2003, and still has strong support among his Hema community in Ituri.

‘Political trial’

Defence counsel Catherine Mabille told the court: “How can we have a fair trial under [these] conditions?

“There has been a wholesale abuse of the rules by the office of the prosecutor. The [situation] is prejudicial and detrimental to the defence.”

THOMAS LUBANGA
Thomas Lubanga in 2003
Leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, an ethnic Hema militia
Accused of recruiting children under 15 as soldiers
Arrested in Kinshasa in March 2005
Held by the ICC at The Hague since 2006
Born in 1960, has a degree in psychology

She complained that the majority of alleged victims represented at the trial are anonymous and many prosecution witnesses will testify behind closed doors.

Claiming the defence and the public had been excluded from about half of pre-trial hearings, Ms Mabille also said this prevented her client from defending himself adequately.

“If we do things this way, international criminal justice will become very secretive,” Ms Mabille told the three presiding judges, according to the AFP news agency.

Her colleague Jean-Marie Biju-Duval said the trial was political and that government forces had recruited child soldiers.

“The prosecution has chosen to spare those who bear the highest responsibility and rather focus on somebody there is a desire to eliminate for political reasons,” he said.

Mr Lubanga insists he was trying to bring peace to Ituri, a region in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo wracked by years of conflict between rival groups seeking to control its vast mineral wealth.

Seeking a sentence of up to 30 years, prosecutors say child soldiers enlisted for Mr Lubanga’s Hema militia were used to kill members of the rival Lendu ethnic group, or as his bodyguards.

Children were allegedly abducted on their way to school or to sports fields and young girls were taken as sexual slaves by militia commanders as soon as they reached puberty.

The UN says more than 30,000 children were recruited during the fighting, which saw some 60,000 people lose their lives.

Congolese Warlord on Trial for Using Child Soldiers

Congolese former militia leader Thomas Lubanga pleaded not guilty to using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 1998-2003 civil war, as the International Criminal Court’s historic first trial opened Monday.

Former militia leader Thomas Lubanga in court; AP

The case is the first for the ICC at The Hague in the Netherlands, and the first international criminal prosecution to focus solely on child soldiers, according to human rights groups.

Lubanga showed no emotion as his lawyer said he pleaded not guilty to sending children under age 15 to fight in the armed wing of his Union of Congolese Patriots political party in 2002-03, reported the Associated Press.

Lubanga, 48, says he was trying to keep foreign fighters from taking Congo’s vast mineral reserves from the eastern Ituri region.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he would seek a sentence “close to the maximum” of 30 years, according to the BBC.

Lubanga’s trial is a defining moment both in the history of Congo’s internal armed conflict and in the ICC’s history, laying legal precedents for future trials. The ICC officially opened in 2002 as the first permanent war crimes court.

Lubanga was arrested in early 2006, and his trial was initially set for June 23, 2008. But a dispute over the use of classified information delayed the proceedings.

The United Nations gave the prosecution information that could have helped prove Lubanga’s innocence, but the prosecutor did not share the information with the defense, believing it was classified.

ICC judges then ruled that the prosecution was obligated to share any evidence that may benefit Lubanga. A new trial date was set for Jan. 26.

The court’s delays and the cumbersome evidence-gathering process raised questions about the ICC’s efficiency and effectiveness, though analysts say there are no shortcuts in navigating international criminal trials like Lubanga’s.

“There have been delays in the Lubanga trial that have come about as a result of the court leaning over backwards to protect Lubanga’s rights,” said David Scheffer, director of the Center for International Human Rights at the Northwestern University School of Law. According to Scheffer, prosecutors in war crimes tribunals often receive classified information from governments or organizations called “lead evidence” that is inadmissible in court but that prosecutors can use to gather other evidence for trial, pointing them in the right direction.

Scheffer said he believes speed bumps such as delays over the U.N. information are natural in a young institution like the ICC. “The delay is fodder to a lot of critics who think the justice is too slow and wonder why the trial hasn’t been jump-started,” Scheffer said. “But often these first trials trigger a lot of new issues … and the defense throws a lot of things at the judges to see if they stick, because there’s no precedent for it,” he said.

Richard Dicker, director for International Justice at Human Rights Watch, said other hurdles come into play in war crimes trials. “Investigating widespread, systematic crimes in the context of ongoing armed conflicts — many of which unfold in very remote regions with little infrastructure and transport — is very difficult,” he said.

Witness intimidation and prolonged instability also appeared to be obstacles to the Lubanga investigation because the militia leader still has strong pockets of support in the Ituri region that could have led to the spread of misinformation about the case, said Dicker.

Lubanga’s supporters capitalized on the pre-trial complications last year, when the court considered halting the trial and releasing Lubanga, to spread rumors intended to frighten his former victims and their families, he said.

Dicker said the ICC’s success will depend ultimately on how the information released during the trial is conveyed to the communities affected by the alleged crimes.

ICC public information and outreach coordinator Paul Madidi is organizing the court’s efforts to ensure people in Ituri can follow Lubanga’s case, but he said he has run into some obstacles, including the underlying ethnic tensions shading people’s perceptions of the case in the region.

“There are a lot of people who still support Thomas Lubanga,” Madidi said. “And we have some difficulty in keeping up dialogue with these people.”

Madidi and his team have tried to improve their communication network in Ituri’s communities, including arranging for a large screen TV to be put up in a main gathering area in Bunia, Ituri’s capital, so people can watch the trial live. Several Congolese journalists will attend the trial and run radio reports through the national broadcaster.

“We’ll also organize some meetings with people who have questions about the trial,” Madidi said. “We have to continue to talk and bring views and good information to the people.”

– By Anne Stopper, Online NewsHour

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Bloody Sierra Leone punks GUILTY – Charles Taylors’ Balls Roll Next;

FINALLY !


This gives you a short view of what Charled Taylor Caused to Happen in Sierra Leone; he cost them an entire Generation.

He btw, is on trial in the Hague for his crimes, and as of yet has not been found guilty. we are sure that after all the testimony, he is convicted. who will kill him is yet to be decided. there is no need for a lottery, because his heart will collapse under the weight in little to no time.

he is a walking dead man

Global Witness Says Charles Taylor Received 1M to Harbor Al Qaeda Operatives in Liberia

New Liberian Mambu James Kpargoi, Jr.,Monrovia

Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor received a US$1 million payment for arranging to harbor two al Qaeda operatives in Liberia soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Global Witness said.


The men, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, both of whom were on the FBI’s Most Wanted List of Terrorists, Global Witness said, were hidden at the Gbartala Base in Bong County.


Testifying Friday at the Economic Crimes Hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia (TRC), Patrick Alley, one of the directors of Global Witness said Al Qaeda’s interest in Liberia and Sierra Leone goes back to the late 1990s, when the Taylor-backed RUF rebels were in control of the lucrative diamond fields of Sierra Leone.

Global Witness said in 1998, soon after the attacks on US missions in Africa, a senior al Qaeda financial officer, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, arrived in Monrovia. The group said that Abdullah was introduced to RUF leaders including Sam “Maskita” Bockarie, by Ibrahim Bah.


According to Mr. Alley, the same two al Qaeda operatives traveled to Liberia in March 1999 in order to establish a diamonds for arms deal and spent a few days scouting the RUF diamond fields in Sierra Leone, as well as meeting with Bockarie and giving him US$100,000 in cash for a parcel of diamonds.


“By January 2001, employees of Aziz Nassour, who is associated with the Antwerp based diamond trading company ASA Diam, had established control over RUF diamonds in exchange for arms, and his control continued until November 2001.”


Mr. Alley said Nassour along with his business associate and cousin Samih Osailly, were named in international criminal investigations as being involved in dealing in diamonds for al Qaeda but all three men denied the allegations. But he said that Nassour, though denying any illegal wrongdoing, admitted to being involved in the diamond trade in Sierra Leone and elsewhere and also admitted to attempting to do other business deals with President Taylor.


“In fact Nassour and Taylor are quite well acquainted. Eyewitnesses put Nassour and Taylor together for a July 2001 meeting at Harper Port in Maryland County near the border with Cote d’I voire, where much of Liberia’s illicit weaponry arrives. There Nassour allegedly gave Taylor US$200,00 to ensure his support for the ongoing diamond dealing,” he said.


He said Global Witness research and investigations found that since 1993, al Qaeda was buying diamonds to make money and to commodify its assets, shifting them away from traditional bank accounts that are subjected to surveillance by financial authorities and are under threat of being frozen to less traceable commodities such as diamonds.


Under the theme: “Economic Crimes, Corruption and the Conflict in Liberia: Policy Options for an Emerging Democracy and sustainable peace,” the weeklong hearing addressed the contribution of economic crimes to the conflict including corruption and the illicit exploitation of natural resources.


The hearing also discussed the correlation between the extractive industry and the fueling of the conflict and appropriate policies aimed at reversing the unauthorized exploitation of the natural resources by individuals, groups and the government for purposes external to the national good.


Pursuant to the TRC Act of 2005, the commission is mandated to investigate gross human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law as well as abuses that occurred, including massacres, sexual violations, murder, extra-judicial killings and economic crimes, such as the exploitation of natural or public resources to perpetuate armed conflicts during the period January 1979 to October 14, 2003.


The commission is mandated to determine whether these were isolated incidents or part of a systematic pattern; establishing the antecedents, circumstances, factors and context of such violations and abuses; and determining those responsible for the commission of the violations and abuses and their motives as well as their impact on victims.


we will be watching this trial and reporting on it’s outcome, when there is one.

we commanded him out of Liberia and we will not rest until he is put to rest, as his victims were – bludgeoned and limbs hacked off; dismembered and disembowled; he will die and we will live to see it. there is justice, and God Shall Deliver it, soon.

This is the Video of Salma Hayek Breastfeeding a hungry malnourished Baby in Sierra Leone, on her recent fact finding trip

She says her baby would be proud to have her mom share her milk with another hungry baby. We Applaud Salma because this is the essence of healing – a Mothers Milk to Soothe the Cries of a Hungry Nation…

From left to right: Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao at the court in Freetown

The RUF trio committed atrocities during the 1991-2001 civil war

An international tribunal has found three Sierra Leone rebels guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

RUF leaders Issa Sesay, 38, and Morris Kallon, 45, were convicted of 16 of the 18 charges, while Augustine Gbao, 60, was found guilty on 14 of the counts.

The Freetown trial of the RUF rebel leaders, related to Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, began in mid-2004.

Many RUF victims in the court sighed with relief at the verdicts. Sentences will be decided at a later date.

The BBC’s Umaru Fofana at the court in Freetown said that as the verdicts were delivered, Sesay looked very serious and Kallon, clad in a smart light green suit, could have been mistaken for one of the lawyers, while Gbao buried his face in his hands and looked very dejected.

The last case to be held at the special court had heard how the rebel leaders were involved in the rape, mutilation and killings of civilians.

Sierra Leone child amputee

Tens of thousands of civilians had limbs, noses or ears chopped off

The three committed atrocities during the 1991-2001 civil war as senior commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

On Wednesday the judges concluded the rebel chiefs “significantly contributed” to a joint criminal enterprise with former Liberian President Charles Taylor to control the diamond fields of Sierra Leone to finance their warfare.

They were also found guilty of forced marriage – the enslavement that countless young girls suffered when their villages were raided and they were forced to “marry” a rebel.

‘Horrors’

The convictions mark the first time the forced marriage charge has been successfully handed down in an international court of law.

The trial heard harrowing tales from 75 prosecution witnesses of rapes and killings at the hands of the RUF.

FROM THE BBC WORLD SERVICE

The three rebels chiefs were initially indicted along with RUF founder Foday Sankoh, a close ally of Mr Taylor. But Sankoh died in custody before the case ever came to trial.

Tactics favoured by the rebels included amputating hands and arms or carving the initials RUF into the bodies of their victims.

The RUF was notorious for using the so-called Small Boys Units – child soldiers forcibly recruited and issued with AK-47 assault rifles – who had a reputation for particular cruelty among the civilian population.

By the time the conflict ended, some 120,000 people had been killed while tens of thousands were left mutilated, their arms, legs, noses or ears cut off.

Sierra Leone expert Gregory Gordon, a US law professor who has worked as a prosecutor in Africa, told the BBC’s Network Africa programme: “When we think about blood diamonds, when we think about people having their hands chopped off, when we think about child soldiers and sexual slavery and forced marriages – all the horrors of the civil war in Sierra Leone, we think about the Revolutionary United Front.”

The only trial still ongoing before the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone is that of Mr Taylor, whose case has been moved to The Hague for security reasons.

He faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Sierra Leone conflict was depicted in the 2006 film Blood Diamond, starring Djimon Hounsou, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly.

Prosecutor Says Former Liberian President Charles Taylor May Go Free


24 February 2009

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor sits courtroom prior to hearing of witnesses in trial against Taylor in The Hague, 08 Jan 2008
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor sits in courtroom prior to hearing of witnesses in trial in The Hague, 08 Jan 2008

The chief prosecutor in the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor says Taylor may go free because of a funding shortage at the court trying him for war crimes.

Reuters news agency quotes prosecutor Stephen Rapp as saying donations to the Special Court for Sierra Leone are down because of the worldwide economic recession.

Rapp says if the court runs out of money, it is possible judges will have to release Taylor.

The former Liberian leader is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for alleged actions in Sierra Leone during that country’s civil war.

Prosecutors say Taylor’s forces murdered or mutilated thousands of civilians, and kidnapped children for use as soldiers and sex slaves.

Taylor has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He is being tried at The Hague, in the Netherlands, because of fears that Taylor’s presence in Sierra Leone could spark unrest in West Africa.

The prosecution concluded its case against Taylor last month.

The U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up to try alleged war criminals from Sierra Leone’s 1991 to 2002 civil war.

The Reuters report quotes the tribunal’s registrar, Herman von Hebel, as saying important donors such as Ireland, France and Germany have cut their contributions this year.

He says the court is seeking out other donors in the Middle East in hopes of raising $30 million to continue operating through 2010.

A Film About Liberian Women “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” Premieres in Minnesota

Feb 26, 2009 – The Liberian

Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN (February 26, 2009) – The award-winning film Pray the Devil Back to Hell opens for a limited engagement in Minneapolis at the Lagoon Cinema beginning this weekend.
As at the national premiere in New York, The Advocates will moderate post-film Q&A sessions at the 7:10 p.m. showings on Saturday, February 28th and Wednesday, March 4th to discuss the documentary and issues of women’s rights, truth and reconciliation in post-war societies.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a brilliant film chronicling the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country. After nearly 20 years of egregious violations of human rights, including arbitrary killing, torture, use of child combatants, sexual violence, and destruction of property, a peace movement emerged.
Thousands of women – ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim – began to come together to pray for peace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace and demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions became a critical element in bringing about an agreement during the stalled peace talks.

A story of sacrifice, unity, and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverance of these women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations. The film has won several awards, including Best Documentary in the Tribeca Film Festival. It has received praise from movie critics from Los Angeles to Boston, including an excellent review in The New York Times (See Review).

This story is especially pertinent to Minnesota, home to the largest population of Liberians outside of West Africa (See Flyer with Detailed info.).

Based in Minneapolis, The Advocates for Human Rights has worked with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia for more than two years to engage the Liberian Diaspora in the United States, the United Kingdom, and West Africa in the TRC process.
The film is also being screened in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in March, 2009.
Moderated by Advocates’ Deputy Director, Jennifer Prestholdt, the post-screening panel will include Ahmed K. Sirleaf of the Advocates, and two other Liberian women in Minnesota.
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Congrats Emmanuel Jal – Wins with “War Child”; opens Tribeca2008 Fest

Emmanuel Jal has won a bunch of awards since we started following him a couple years ago.

we’re so proud that his film has made it to the international stage. this is the way to help Sudan. this is the way to free the rest of the Sudanese War Children.

Please Enjoy and Support – “War Child”; a musical step in time that bridges the african american hiphop art to the passions of the war in sudan. This is a film well worth seeing if it comes to your area. we believe the dvd will be available for sale on amazon soon. make sure to add it to your holiday gift list.

Like Emmanuel Says – Support Amnesty International
A Luta Continua !

~RE

“War Child” — 2008 Winner of TriBeCa Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award to Premiere in New York City November 14, 2008

Emmanuel Jal Joins Reel U Films to Premiere the Acclaimed Documentary That Chronicles His Life From Sudanese Child Soldier to Emerging International

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – November 11, 2008) – Reel U Films announced today that the award-winning film “War Child” will make its cinematic debut in New York City on November 14th and Washington D.C. on December 5th. “War Child” documents the tumultuous and inspiring tale of Emmanuel Jal — a child soldier and victim of Sudan’s brutal civil war turned rising hip-hop star and MTVu Woodie Award nominee.

YouTube – Sudan child soldier turned rapper – 11_APR_08

The directorial debut for C. Karim Chrobog, “War Child” integrates a powerful narrative, interviews and musical performances with astonishing footage retrieved from National Geographic, featuring Jal as an eight-year-old boy soldier in Sudan.

YouTube – National Geographic World Music Spotlight Emmanuel Jal

“We spent the last three years traveling Kenya, across the U.S. and from the slums of Nairobi to the contested oil fields in Sudan to share Emmanuel’s story through this film,” said “War Child” Director Karim Chrobog. “The overwhelming response we’ve received at festivals around the globe certainly validates our long journey and hard work but I am anxious to share this film with the world. Emmanuel’s story is one of the greatest tales of survival and hope of our time and is to inspire people from of all walks of life.”

YouTube – EMMANUEL JAL – Lost Boy Rapper – VAO News Washington

EMMANUEL JAL – Lost Boy Rapper – VAO News Washington

The winner of Truly Moving Pictures Film Festival’s 2008 Crystal Heart, Tribeca International Film Festival Audience Choice Award, Maui International Film Festival Audience Choice Award, “War Child” was also named ‘Best Documentary’ at both the Norway Bergen and Bologna International Film Festivals.

“War Child” will be shown in New York from November 14th to the 20th at the Village East Cinema, Washington D.C.’s E Street Cinema from December 5th to the 11th and is available for purchase online November 14th at www.warchildmovie.com.

To purchase advance tickets, watch the trailer, learn more about Reel U Films, the documentary’s producers or distribution sponsors Yelp, Webs.com and Afropop Worldwide visit www.warchildmovie.com.

About Reel U Films & “War Child”

Founded by “War Child” Executive Producer Dal LaMagna in August of 2008, Reel U Films was created as a new paradigm for message-driven, documentary film distribution with a philanthropic mission. 25% of the “War Child” distribution fees will benefit non-profit, Gua Africa to build schools, housing, and medical facilities in Leer, Sudan. For more information visit www.reelufilms.com
For media passes to today’s press screening at 2.00 pm, the premiere event
on November 14th or for interview opportunities with Emmanuel Jal, C. Karim
Chrobog or Reel U Film’s Dal LaMagna, contact:

Matthew Dornic
President
3 Dog Agency
(m) +1 443.414.1393
(o) +1 202.787.1807
matt@3dogagency.com

Emmanuel Jal – One on One – Part One of Two

Emmanuel Jal – One on One – Part Two of Two

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It’s Sunday – Welcome to Chuuch Babies..

We preach Every Sunday with the hope that some of it truly reaches someone. if just one person feels me, I’m good.

Today we’re addressing something we know personally. as a victim.  this is the lowest of crimes and the fact that it continues to this day, is totally sickening.

Women are just a piece of the war crime still victimizing Congo Everyday. Hundreds of Thousands of Rapes.. Yes I said

Hundreds of Thousands of RAPES..

Still Going on. at such an astounding rate that the UN has declared that it as an act is GENOCIDE. Yes Genocide.

So Why is it being ignored ?

I hate to think that it’s because it’s happening to women;

this thought makes me sick, and to get over this feeling – I want to have hope..

I remember when Barack Obama ran a commercial, of his statement that he wants his Girls to have what the Boys have now – an equal chance at life and success.  how does this help the sisters in the Congo who suffer this slaughter on a daily basis ?

I don’t really know, but I’m getting tired of “Waiting on the World to Change”.

all I gotta say is, I know this Change is Gotta Happen, so Please Support Human Rights for ALL Globally. forget this nonsense of racism, because race is inconsequential; but we know SEX is the Real Battle.

So If I touched Ya, Feel Free to Grace Me with Your Comments – cause this database is hungry,

Love to All My Brothas, especially Brother Barack in this trying time.

Make Peace and One Love – Today People,

~RE

URL: Tears and cheers as Congo rape victims end their decades of silent hell

Published Date: 26 October 2008

HONORATA Kizende looked out at the audience and began with a simple, declarative sentence.

“There was no dinner,” she said. “It was me who was dinner. Me, because they kicked me roughly to the ground, and they ripped off all my clothes, and between the two of

One took my left foot, one took my right,and the same with my arms, and between the two of them they proceeded to rape me. Then all five of them raped me.”

The audience, which had been called together by local and international aid groups and included everyone from high-ranking politicians to street children with no shoes, stared at her in disbelief.

Congo, it seems, is finally facing its horrific rape problem, which UN officials have called the worst sexual violence in the world. Tens of thousands of women, possibly hundreds of thousands, have been raped in the past few years in this hilly, incongruously beautiful land, and many of these rapes have been marked by a level of brutality that is shocking even by the twisted standards of a place haunted by warlords and drug-crazed child soldiers.

After years of denial and shame, the silence is being broken. Because of increased efforts in the past nine months by international organisations and the Congolese government, rapists are no longer able to count on a culture of impunity. Of course, countless men still get away with assaulting women. But more and more are being caught, prosecuted and put behind bars.

European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago.

The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court. So far the work has resulted in eight convictions. In Bukavu, one of the largest cities in the country, a special unit of Congolese police officers has filed 103 rape cases since the beginning of this year, more than any year in recent memory.

In Bunia, a town farther north, rape prosecutions are up 600% compared to five years ago. Congolese investigators have even been flown to Europe to learn CSI-style forensic techniques. The police have arrested some of the most violent offenders, often young militiamen, most likely psychologically traumatised themselves, who have thrust sticks, rocks, knives and assault rifles inside women.

“We’re starting to see results,” said Pernille Ironside, a UN official in eastern Congo.

The number of those arrested is still tiny compared to the perpetrators on the loose, and often the worst offenders are not caught because they are marauding bandits who attack villages in the night, victimise women and then escape into the forests.

This is all happening in a society where women tend to be beaten down anyway. Congolese women do most of the work – at home, in the fields and in the market, where they carry enormous loads of bananas on their bent backs – and yet they are often powerless. Many women who are raped are told to keep quiet. Often, it is a shame for the entire family, and many victims have been kicked out of their villages and find themselves reduced to begging to survive.

Grassroots groups are trying to change this culture, and they have started by encouraging women who have been raped to speak out in open forums.

At the event in Bukavu, Kizende drew tears – and cheers. It seems the taboo against talking about rape is beginning to lift. Many women in the audience wore T-shirts that read in Kiswahili: “I refuse to be raped. What about you?”

Dozens of activists are travelling to villages on foot and by bicycle to deliver a simple but often novel message: rape is wrong.

But these improvements are simply the first, tentative steps of progress in a very troubled country.

UN officials said the number of rapes had appeared to be decreasing over the past year. But the recent upsurge of fighting between the Congolese government and rebel groups, and all the violence and predation that goes with it, is jeopardising those gains.

“It’s safer today than it was,” said Euphrasie Mirinidi, a woman who was raped in 2006. “But it’s still not safe.”

Poverty, chaos, disease and war. These are the constants of eastern Congo. Many people believe the rape problem will not be solved until the area tastes peace. But that might not be anytime soon.

Laurent Nkunda, a well-armed Tutsi warlord, or a saviour of his people, depending on whom you ask, recently threatened to wage war across the country. Clashes between his troops, many of them child soldiers, and government forces have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in the past few months. His forces, along with those from the dozens of other rebel groups hiding out in the hills, are thought to be mainly responsible for the epidemic of brutal rapes.

UN officials say that the most sadistic rapes are committed by depraved killers who participated in Rwanda’s genocide in 1994, and then escaped into Congo.

These attacks have left thousands of women with their insides destroyed. But the Congolese National Army, a ragtag undisciplined force of teenage troops who sport wraparound sunglasses and rusty rifles, has also been blamed.

The government has been slow to punish its own, but Congolese generals recently announced they would set up new military tribunals to prosecute government soldiers accused of rape.

No one – doctors, aid workers, Congolese and Western researchers – can explain exactly why Congo’s rape problem is the worst in the world.

The attacks continue despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force, with more than 17,000 troops. Impunity is thought to be a big factor, which is why there is now so much effort on bolstering Congo’s creaky and often corrupt justice system. The sheer number of armed groups spread over thousands of miles of thickly forested territory, fighting over Congo’s rich mineral spoils, also makes it incredibly difficult to protect civilians.

Activists from overseas have been pouring in. Few are more passionate than Eve Ensler, the American playwright who wrote The Vagina Monologues, which has been performed in more than 100 countries. She came to Congo last month to work with rape victims.

“I have spent the past 10 years of my life in the rape mines of the world,” she said. “But I have never seen anything like this.”

She calls it “femicide”, a systematic campaign to destroy women.

Ensler is helping to open a centre in Bukavu called the City of Joy, which will provide counselling to rape victims as well as teach leadership skills and self-defence. Her hope is to build an army of rape survivors who will push with an urgency – that has so far been absent – for a solution to end Congo’s ceaseless wars.

The City of Joy is rising behind Panzi Hospital, where the worst of the worst rape cases are treated. But even this refuge has come under attack. Last month, an irate mob stormed the hospital. They demanded that the doctors give them the body of a thief so it could be burned.

When the doctors refused, several angry young men members of the mob proceeded to beat up nurses and smash windows. But it was not clear if the body was the only thing that had set them off.

“They don’t like our work,” said Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist. “Maybe what we’re doing is disturbing people.”

The stories of these rapes are clearly disturbing. But that is the point, to shake people up and grab their attention.

“The details are the scariest part,” Ensler said.

At the event in Bukavu, many people in the audience covered their mouths in astonishment as they listened. Some could not bear what they heard and burst out of the room in tears.

One speaker, Claudine Mwabachizi, told how she was kidnapped by bandits in the forest, strapped to a tree and repeatedly gang-raped. The bandits did unspeakable things, she said, like disembowelling a pregnant woman right in front of her.

“A lot of us keep these secrets to ourselves,” she said. She was going public, she added, “to free my sisters”.

But Congo, if anything, is a land of contrasts. The soil is rich, but the people are starving. The minerals are limitless, but the government is broke.

After the speaking-out event was over, Mwabachizi said she was exhausted. But, she added: “I feel strong.”

She was given a pink shawl with a message printed on it.

“I have survived,” it read. “I can do anything.”

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