So justice in Liberia is always a big joke. To expect justice and common decency from men who engineered mass killings, individuals who led massacres such as the ones at Cowfield and Camp Carter, and other villages during their scramble for power, is to be in denial of the gravity of the terror perpetrated by Taylor and his accomplices. And as certified by the U.S. State Department and other leading human rights organizations, Liberia's judiciary is corrupt and inefficient. Judges operate using instructions from the president, while legislators are nothing more than cheering squad for Mr. Taylor. Treason trials are not a new phenomenon in the political theater of Liberia.
Liberian history is replete with such miscarriages of justice.
Treason and sedition charges are a mechanism used by various Liberian dictators to silence or eliminate political opponents. The epitome of Liberian autocracy, William V. S. Tubman, used the strategy to neutralize his opponents during his 27-year dictatorship. Often manufactured by political operatives, treason charges were also used by William R. Tolbert and Samuel Kanyon Doe to disgrace popular politicians, and deter other aspiring individuals from challenging their absolute leadership. So Taylor is using an old diabolical trick popularized by his predecessors. But this trial propounds some serious problems for Mr. Taylor personally, and for the efficacy of constitutional democracy and the administration of justice in Liberia.