Corporate media coverage in early August of British model Naomi Campbell’s testimony at the Special War Crimes Court on Sierra Leone doesn’t provide a clue to the background of this trial against former Liberian President Charles Taylor. The ongoing tribunal, which is taking place in The Hague, Netherlands, charges Taylor with utilizing diamonds to fund the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group in Sierra Leone. Campbell’s testimony centered around whether or not she had received diamonds from Taylor during a 1997 visit to the Republic of South Africa to support the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Yet the questions asked of Campbell, who was forced into testifying, and the content of her testimony revealed nothing about the origins of the political crises in Liberia and Sierra Leone — or of the historic role of the United States, Britain and other imperialist states that have used their influence to control the marketing and distribution of African diamonds. This sensational angle in Taylor’s trial also conceals what was really at stake during the Liberian civil war.
See http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=24161.