Filed in by Olando Testimony Zeongar – 0776819983/0880-361116/life2short4some@yahoo.com
Monrovia – The United Nations, through its arm of independent experts responsible to monitor the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) by its state parties, the UN Human Rights Committee, has called on the Liberian government to speedily establish a process that will ensure those bearing greater responsibility for war crimes in Liberia account for same.
The UN Human Rights Committee recently issued a rather strong concluding observations on what it views as the continued impunity for past crimes and human rights violations in the country and therefore, is urging that the George Weah led government makes it the administration’s top priority, the establishment of a war crimes court.
“Justice for war crimes must be one of the cardinal points of the President’s new agenda, otherwise there will be no lasting peace in Liberia,“ the Committee warned.
The Committee has tasked the government to among others: “ensure that all alleged perpetrators of gross human rights violations and war crimes are impartially prosecuted and, if found guilty, convicted and punished in accordance with the gravity of the acts committed.”
The Committee also wants the new government under Weah to: “remove any persons who have been proven to be involved in gross human rights violations and war crimes from official positions”; take “all measures necessary to implement the TRC recommendations”; and develop and implement reparations for wartime victims.
The international human rights body’s call to the Liberian government comes at a time President Weah told the world in a recent meeting with opposition party leaders that prosecuting war criminals for atrocities committed in Liberia would prove an uphill battle for his administration.
Weah, in a meeting Thursday, with members of the country’s opposition bloc, intimated that some of those bearing the greater responsibility for the perpetration of heinous crimes in Liberia are in top decision-making positions, with some being officials of his administration, stressing that in his mind this makes it difficult to initiate any process that will bring such individuals to justice.
But The UN Human Rights Committee, on July 26 this year, following the first ever review of the human rights situation by the Committee, which included a dialogue with the Liberian government, expressed “concern that none of the alleged perpetrators of gross human rights violations and war crimes mentioned in Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, has been brought to justice, and that some of those individuals are or have been holding official executive positions, including in the government.”
The Committee concluded that it “regrets the very few steps taken to implement the bulk of the TRC recommendations of 2009.”
Impunity for past crimes in Liberia is now one of three priority issues before the Committee, making accountability for civil war era abuses one of the most pressing matters that Liberia faces under its ICCPR review.
The Weah led government is now tasked with responding to the UN’s call to implement measures to provide justice, truth, and reparations for civil war victims, with observers weighing in opining that with the president’s latest assertions, it looks likely he might pay a deaf ear to the world body’s call.
Howbeit, the UN wants Weah and his government to provide a follow-up report on matters contained in the UN Human Rights Committee’s report by 2020, two years to the regularly scheduled periodic report, and exactly three years before the country’s next general elections are held.
