Charles Taylor war crimes trial gets mixed reviews in Liberia

Those who do follow the trial want to know if Taylor will ever face justice for crimes he committed at home, where he won a democratic election (after nearly 10 years of brutal fighting) with the slogan, "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I vote for him."

"I don't want to know about Sierra Leone. What about Liberia?" says Kollie Dwanah, taking shelter from a morning rain under the umbrella of a roadside shop in the shadow of Taylor's former home.

"I would like to see him brought to Liberia in handcuffs, to be tried here," says Richmond Kaydea, who studies communications and works at a gas station. But he'll be content, he says, with any guilty verdict at all. "I would like to see Charles Taylor go to jail. It [would be] a poetic justice."

Others refuse to weigh in on Taylor's guilt or innocence. Instead, they accuse the tribunal – and international justice in general – of bias against African leaders. "A number of Liberians believe that Charles Taylor will not be acquitted," says Allen, "because they believe this is a kind of big power play against Taylor."

(Many Africans see the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in a similar light )

As evidence of that conspiracy, Liberians compare Taylor's alleged involvement in Sierra Leone to George Bush's invasion of Iraq. "If there is transparency in justice, and if Taylor is in the Hague, let George Bush follow," says Michael Wehdah, a sociology student.

WHY SOME LIBERIANS MISS TAYLOR

But Elisha Johnson, a history teacher and a soccer referee, says there's no alternative to international justice. He says that Taylor should be tried, but he would never face justice in Liberia. Despite the devastation he wrought, he simply has too much support, especially from young men willing to take up arms to free him, Johnson says. "Children love him. They love him. When Taylor was here, there was cash floating [around], and now times are hard," Mr. Johnson says. Young people "believe Taylor made that happen, that he made free money float."

In Taylor's old neighborhood, called Congo Town, it's not clear if Taylor could do any wrong. Most men and women milling about on a recent Saturday morning say they miss Taylor. "If even there's an election in Liberia today, Charles Taylor will win. People love him," says Maria Bappu, who was born in Sierra Leone but grew up in Liberia. She's not convinced of his guilt.

"He opened our eyes to things hidden from us, things we never knew about. Now we're thinking about education: Everybody should go to school. About human rights – we never knew about human rights," Bappu says. The small crowd gathered around her hums in agreement. "If the war had not entered here, we would never know these things."

This article was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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