SIERRA LEONE: Donors pledge less than half funds needed for war crimes court

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

DAKAR, 3 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - International donors have pledged nearly US $10 million for the final stretch of Sierra Leone’s Special Court – far short of the $25 million the court says is needed to complete its work of trying those suspected of atrocities in the country’s decade–long brutal war.

Court officials and advocates said donors must not let the court falter after years of what a human rights coalition called groundbreaking work.

“We are determined that the Court, after three years of important achievements and with trials at an advanced stage, must not now fail due to lack of resources,” UN Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette said on Friday at a donor conference at UN headquarters in New York.

At the meeting 14 countries and the EU pledged some US $9.8 million to cover the court’s operating costs in 2006. The court is expected to wrap up its work in early to mid-2007.

The United States, which has been a major contributor to the Special Court over the years, did not announce a pledge on Friday.

The UN will continue to work with member states to reach the court’s $25-million target, according to a UN statement.

The Special Court was set up to punish those bearing the “greatest responsibility” for the murders, rapes and other atrocities during Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 war.

Human Rights Watch and a group of other human rights NGOs attending the donor meeting urged member countries to do their part to sustain the court.

“It would be shameful if at this point something as important as the Special Court’s work were compromised for lack of funding at this late stage,” Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch International Justice Programme told IRIN from New York.

The question of Charles Taylor looms

Still dominating any discussion about Sierra Leone’s Special Court is the fate of former Liberian president Charles Taylor and whether he will stand before the court. The court has indicted Taylor on 17 counts of war crimes, but the deposed warlord-turned-president has been in exile in Nigeria since he fled Liberia and his presidential post in 2003.

On Friday the Special Court’s chief prosecutor told reporters the court was trying to persuade Nigeria to turn Taylor over for the “terrible crimes committed against the people of Sierra Leone.”

Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo told the UN General Assembly last month that it would be best that Taylor remain in exile in Nigeria for the time being.

Nigeria has repeatedly said that it will not hand over Taylor unless he breaks the terms of his exile or an elected government of Liberia requests he be handed to the Special Court for trial. Liberians are due to go to the polls on the 11 October for the first time since Taylor left office.

The court is also still hunting Johnny Paul Koroma, the leader of a military junta that briefly overthrew Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in 1997.

The Special Court was funded by voluntary member contributions through 2004. In mid-2005 the UN General Assembly appropriated a supplemental $20 million for the court and authorised another $13 million for the rest of 2005. But the court will revert to solely voluntary contributions as of 1 January 2006, according to the UN statement.

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