Two noteworthy excerpts from a New York Times Week in Review article on the Naomi Campbell testimony. (Hat tip to Amanda.)
It’s September 1997. Charles Taylor, who has been known as a violent warlord for the past few years, has just been chosen president of Liberia in a technically free and fair election. He’s invited to a charity event hosted by Nelson Mandela. Some say Taylor was not supposed to stay on for the dinner, but he did. Some say Mandela’s soon-to-be wife was uncomfortable with his presence. But he was invited, nonetheless. The Times article says:
So, in a way, the presence of Ms. Campbell, Ms. Farrow and Ms. White was not a distraction at the trial, as Mr. Taylor’s defense team sough to suggest. Rather, their recall of events illuminated the ambiguities of the continent’s diplomacy.
Hmm. Maybe.
This second quote, as a friend points out, is a bit hypocritical. As the Times is part of “The Media” and has ignored the trial almost as much as any other large news outlet.
For all its importance, his trial had been relatively obscure until the testimony this month of Ms. Campbell, Ms. Farrow and Ms. Campbell’s former agent, Carole White. It was an incongruous blend of diamonds, brutality and fame: People magazine meets “Heart of Darkness.”
The Times piece could benefit from a historical perspective of U.S. policy on Taylor.
Whatever “ambiguities” there may have been in Mandela’s invitation were not “African” in nature. One month earlier, Charles Taylor received an invitation from Representative John Conyers to attend the annual meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Taylor didn’t make it. Not out of lack of interest. There was a little matter in Massachusetts that complicated things…
Very good point.