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Author: Anthony Stephens
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has included Liberia on a list of 36 countries whose citizens could be banned from traveling to the US according to a draft memo obtained by The Washington Post, a U.S. media outlet.
A criminal court in Switzerland has found Alan White, an American war crimes investigator with a long history of involvement in Liberia’s politics, guilty of defaming Alain Werner, the head of Civitas Maxima, which has led efforts to bring prosecutions against more than a dozen perpetrators in Liberia’s civil conflicts. The Criminal Division of the Jura-Bernois-Seeland regional court of the Swiss canton of Berne agreed with an August 2024 ruling by the public prosecutor’s office that White, an ex-investigator for Sierra Leone’s Special Court, had defamed the reputations of Werner.
More than three quarters of Liberians have openly backed a war and economic crimes court for their country, according to a new survey released this month by Afrobarometer, an Accra based Pan African non-profit research organization. The survey is a big jump in confidence of citizens for the court from 2021, which was at 41 percent.
Joseph Boakai, Liberia’s President, has renewed the mandate of the Office of War and Economic Crimes Court of Liberia and given the court a six fold increase in annual budget, quieting growing concern about the government’s commitment to the court after numerous funding delays. The president’s action will give new wind to court advocates who were fearful of the court’s future after the US government’s decision to cut almost all international aid. The US was expected to be a major funder of the court.
Leading local and international human rights organizations have joined together to issue a statement urging Liberian President Joseph Boakai to renew an executive order for the Office of War and Economics Crimes Court set to expire tomorrow, May 1.
Human rights advocates working on transitional justice and human trafficking in Liberia say they are shocked by this week’s announcement by Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, that the US government will shut down the Office of Global Criminal Justice and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, both of which have played significant roles in Liberia in recent years.
The Independent National Commission on Human Rights, Liberia’s independent human rights body, has condemned the government for what it calls “the snail pace of support” to the Office of War and Economic Crimes Court of Liberia.