The government’s case against Cindor Reeves stinks

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 4:50 PM - 0 Comments

Since beginning four years ago to dig into the story of Cindor Reeves — the man who helped bring former Liberian president and warlord Charles Taylor to trial in The Hague, and whom Canada is now deporting — I have occasionally worried that there might be some missing piece of the puzzle that I didn’t have. Perhaps the government has information about Reeves that would explain its determination to send him back to Liberia, where he faces murder, other than incompetence, malice, and a perverted sense of justice. Continue…

Update on Cindor Reeves

By Michael Petrou - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 2:29 PM - 6 Comments

Cindor Reeves, the Canadian refugee claimant who risked his life to help build the legal case against his brother-in-law, the former Liberian warlord and president Charles Taylor, has received a removal order from the Canada Border Services Agency and may shortly be deported.  Continue…

Deporting Cindor Reeves "morally questionable": IRB tribunal officer

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 1:10 PM - 17 Comments

The tribunal officer assigned by the Immigration and Refugee Board to the case of Cindor Reeves, former brother-in-law of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, judged him to be a credible witness whose exclusion from refugee protection in Canada would be “morally questionable.”

A tribunal officer is an IRB employee whose role “is not to oppose, or to support, the refugee claim, but to help ensure that all relevant information is before the member to decide the claim.” In his written observations of the case, Richard Henderson argued against excluding Reeves from refugee protection because of his alleged involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity:

“A restrictive or narrow interpretation of the exclusion clauses is particularly warranted in this case, not just because, as I will suggest in the next section, Mr. Reeves would be in extreme danger should he return to Liberia, but also because it is precisely Mr. Reeves’ involuntary and minor involvement in the weapons for diamonds trade that allowed him to gather the kind of ‘high value’ intelligence that played a key role in ultimately bringing down Charles Taylor. To exclude him because of this involvement would seem to be both morally questionable, a sentiment expressed in the Maclean’s articles, and inconsistent with the intent of the exclusion clauses, i.e. they were surely not meant to exclude individuals who were, in effect, acting as double agent.”

Reeves’ refugee case is different than most because the Canadian government — through the minister for public safety — intervened to argue against his appeal for refugee protection. Continue…

'You know the price for snitching'

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 2:10 PM - 28 Comments

In the last three weeks, Cindor Reeves’ relatives in Liberia have been attacked by men looking for him and his wife. They abducted four children who are still missing. The following email is from his mother-in-law:

I don’t know if I will be alive before this message reach you. Last night some arm man came to my house,and toke my four ( 4) children away. They came and met some people in the house and wanted to know where C.R and [...] are,when they could’nt get good result then they ask for me and make a statement  saying we will kill those ungratful people starting with that socall mother in law [...] .Atthat moment, I wos able to recongnize the voice of one.This follow came to the house as asympthizer, He repeated we will kill them know matter what. By the grace of God I was able run through the bathroom window with alappl and a T shirt,Leaving my children behind dont know their where about now.If  Ishould survie  it will be by the grace of God.You people force me to come back to Liberia saying Liberia was save for me now see what is happening to me? now where will I run to or find my kids

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Canada on verge of deporting man who brought a tyrant to justice

By Michael Petrou - Friday, January 28, 2011 at 11:44 AM - 40 Comments

Cindor Reeves, a man largely responsible for bringing to justice one of the most blood-soaked tyrants in recent history, has had his refugee case rejected by Canada and may soon be deported to his native Liberia, where he runs a high risk of being murdered.

Reeves was the brother-in-law of Charles Taylor, who in 1989 launched a civil war in Liberia that killed more than 200,000 and left Taylor in charge of much of the country. Taylor was elected president during a brief lull in the fighting in 1997. Taylor also created a proxy army in neighbouring Sierra Leone that called itself the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. The RUF’s child soldiers terrorized Sierra Leone for years. Taylor used them to obtain diamonds. He sent the RUF weapons; they sent him gems. Thousands died as a result.

It is for these crimes the Taylor is now on trial in The Hague. He’s there in large part because Cindor Reeves — of his own volition, without receiving anything, and at enormous risk to himself — helped the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone build its case against Taylor.

“I am willing to go on the record and confirm that CR provided invaluable information that led to the indictment of Charles Taylor and others who were ultimately convicted,” Alan White, chief of investigations for the court from 2002 to 2005, said in a 2009 email that was published in Maclean’s. He further explained Reeves’ help in a 2009 affidavit: “I could always rely on the information and support provided by Mr. Reeves. In his effort to bring peace and security to the region he endangered himself and his family, yet he did so willingly without asking anything in return but for protection for his family. The court owes Mr. Reeves a debt of gratitude for his support and service.”

Continue…

"[People were] begging him while the executions were going on. It's a horrible thing to talk about."

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:58 PM - 5 Comments

My story about Bill Horace, a Toronto man who has been accused by multiple witnesses and sources of war crimes and crimes against humanity, has been posted on our website.

Safe haven for an alleged killer

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 11:33 AM - 19 Comments

Photograph by Patrick Robert/ Sygma/ Corbis

A former commander in a rebel Liberian army who has been accused by multiple witnesses and former associates of war crimes and crimes against humanity is living freely in Toronto.

Bill Horace was a general in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, a militia that gathered in neighbouring Ivory Coast and invaded Liberia in 1989, plunging the country into more than a decade of intermittent war. That conflict killed tens of thousands and featured the widespread use of child soldiers and mass atrocities against civilians—including sexual slavery, cannibalism, and indiscriminate slaughter. Charles Taylor, who led that army and was eventually elected president before being forced from office in 2003, is now on trial in The Hague on war crimes charges.

Maclean’s spoke with Bill Horace in early 2009. “Yes, I was with NPFL. Of course I was NPFL,” he said during a brief telephone conversation, referring to the National Patriotic Front of Liberia by its initials. Horace said he would speak about his time in the NPFL at a later date, but then ignored numerous messages left on his phone or with his former wife. Reached by phone this January, he refused to discuss his past and said his lawyer would call.

Continue…

A tyrant on trial

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:37 AM - 8 Comments

It can be lonely writing about and covering wars and humans rights atrocities in Africa. Nobody really cares – at least not as much as they might had the victims been from almost anywhere else on the planet.

Consider the coverage afforded to the civil wars in Liberia and in the former Yugoslavia. They happened at around the same time. More died in Liberia. How many reading this even know that Liberia was consumed by a horrific, anarchic conflict for much of the 1990s?

It was, and so was next door Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor – first a warlord and then president of Liberia – is now on trial in The Hague for his role in the latter conflict. He’s on the stand now. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is posting daily transcripts. They’re worth reading.

The world's first analog blogger

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 4:20 PM - 1 Comment

Every day at 7 a.m., you can find Alfred Sirleaf working inside a small shack on a busy street corner in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. He reads the papers, consults with his small staff of reporters, and checks text messages from tipsters around the country. Then he picks up a piece of chalk, goes outside, and writes the day’s news headlines in large, clear letters on a blackboard facing the street. He may be the world’s only analog blogger.

Sirleaf’s been running his blackboard newspaper, called “The Daily Talk,” since 2000. Back then, the media was heavily censored under Charles Taylor’s repressive regime. “We had a system in Liberia where a few people reigned and made decisions for the masses,” Sirleaf says. “That’s what inspired me to figure out how to communicate with the people.” The government wasn’t happy with him. The blackboard was destroyed—twice—and Sirleaf was thrown in jail and eventually forced into exile. When a media-friendly government replaced Taylor in 2003, Sirleaf returned to rebuild his news empire. Continue…

Canada spends millions on the court that's prosecuting Charles Taylor-but doesn't want to protect the man who risked his life to bring the tyrant to justice

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 10:16 PM - 1 Comment

From this week’s print magazine. The story, in a nutshell, is this:

Charles Taylor’s brother-in-law, Cindor Reeves, risked his life to help the Special Court for Sierra Leone build a case against Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president who controlled an army of murderous, drug-crazed child soldiers in next door Sierra Leone. Reeves is now a refugee claimant in Canada. Canada appears poised to kick him out.

The man who brought down a tyrant

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 11 Comments

It was June 2002 when Cindor Reeves was first tipped off that his brother-in-law, the president of Liberia, had sent a team of assassins to murder him.

At 30 years of age, Reeves was already a seasoned gunrunner and diamond smuggler. His brother-in-law was Charles Taylor, who in 1989 had launched a long-running civil war with his rebel fighters in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia that killed more than 200,000 but left Taylor in charge of much of the country. (He was elected president during a brief lull in the fighting in 1997.) The Liberian war also spilled over its borders. Taylor had created a proxy army next door in Sierra Leone that called itself the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. Since 1991, the RUF and its legions of drug-crazed child soldiers had terrorized Sierra Leone, killing and hacking off the limbs of tens of thousands of civilians, and enslaving thousands more to mine for diamonds. Continue…

And Pearson's wartime commander thought "Lester" was too mild…

By Michael Petrou - Friday, February 6, 2009 at 2:15 PM - 1 Comment

My normally restrained and sober colleague John Geddes fears that I’m depriving readers of a window into the lyrical creativity of Liberian warlords and child soldiers by not posting a full list of the names of all those wanted by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 

My favourites are “Dead Body Bone,” “Bullet Bounce, ” and “Lucky Boy Kallay.” Given the unspeakable  horrors of Liberia’s wars, “Bad Child” seems, I don’t know, a little redundant. 

Suggestions for Canadian politicians and journalists are welcome. In the meantime, here’s the full list: 

ABRAHAM DORLEY
ABU KEITA aka SMALL SOLDIER
ALEX TOLBERT ALIAS GEN YOUNG DEVIL 
ALEX TOWAH ALIAS I MEAN IT
Continue…

Paging General Satan and Dirty Prick

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 12:55 PM - 2 Comments

A Liberian newspaper is calling on those who played a role in the country’s long and bloody civil wars to testify before its Truth and Reconciliation Commission.