Agenzia Fides REPORT – "It seems like a very spectacular process but that will be hard to get to the bottom of things with such different aspects and such complex information," Fr. Gerardo Caglioni, a Xaverian missionary with extensive experience in Sierra Leone, told Fides in commenting on the hearings of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, in these days the focus of world media because of the testimony of Naomi Campbell. The man under fire is former President of Liberia, Charles Tayloor, accused of having fomented the war in the neighboring state to start a lucrative trade in diamonds (the so-called “blood diamonds”). The civil war erupted in Sierra Leone in 1991 and lasted, intermittently, until January 2002. The conflict was marked by widespread atrocities against civilians: abductions, amputations, rapes, forced recruitment of child soldiers (see Fides missionary testimony - Fides 29/01/2004). The guerrilla group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF, the Group supported by Taylor) has been accused of most of these crimes, which are now being studied by a special tribunal established by the United Nations.
"It's a very slow process, as they're judging situations that began well over 10 years ago. The responsibilities of Charles Taylor, that were already there for all to see since the time of the civil war, clearly emerge, but I fear it will be difficult to bring out the bigger picture on the marketing of so-called blood diamonds," says Fr. Caglioni.
"There are responsibilities that go beyond Sierra Leone and Liberia. Most of Taylor's fighters, apart from locally recruited child soldiers taken by force, were foreign mercenaries in practice. At the time, a lot of talk was made about Bin Laden's providing the weapons in exchange for diamonds illicitly excavated in Sierra Leone. However, these diamonds were placed in the international circuits, managed by gem multinationals. Thus, there are gray areas that I fear will be very difficult to illuminate," says the missionary.
http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=27227&lan=eng
"It's a very slow process, as they're judging situations that began well over 10 years ago. The responsibilities of Charles Taylor, that were already there for all to see since the time of the civil war, clearly emerge, but I fear it will be difficult to bring out the bigger picture on the marketing of so-called blood diamonds," says Fr. Caglioni.
"There are responsibilities that go beyond Sierra Leone and Liberia. Most of Taylor's fighters, apart from locally recruited child soldiers taken by force, were foreign mercenaries in practice. At the time, a lot of talk was made about Bin Laden's providing the weapons in exchange for diamonds illicitly excavated in Sierra Leone. However, these diamonds were placed in the international circuits, managed by gem multinationals. Thus, there are gray areas that I fear will be very difficult to illuminate," says the missionary.
http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=27227&lan=eng
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