‘Great’ Book Draws Ire from Taylor’s Ex-Wife, Jewel; Ellen Denies ‘Handover’ Deal 04/30/09 - Rodney D. Sieh Monrovia - The former wife of former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor has taken exception to denials expressed by current President Ellen Johnson in her recently-published book, “This Child Will be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President, in which Sirleaf denies ever striking a deal not to turn her ex-husband over to Sierra Leone for prosecution for alleged war crimes commited in that neighboring country  in exchange for Jewel Howard Taylor's endorsement in the November 2005 run-off elections in Liberia. No deal, says Sirleaf; Jewel rubbishes book “We did not have a deal like that. In her mind she thought we had that kind of deal, but I never suggested or agreed to such a thing,” Sirleaf writes. However, in a strong reaction to Sirleaf's claims, Jewel, now divorced from Taylor presently facing trial in The Hague, termed explanations in the recently published book by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that there was no agreement between the two before Madam Taylor  supported her during the run-off presidential elections in November 2005 as complete falsehood. Senator Taylor in an exclusive interview with FrontPageAfrica via phone late Wednesday, said during the 2005 presidential run-off elections, she sat with now President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and they discussed and agreed on two things regarding the issue of Mr. Charles Taylor who was at the time in exile in Calabar, Nigeria. “The fact of the matter is that during the presidential run-off election in 2005, Madam Sirleaf sent several people to talk with me to support her and I said I didn’t want to do so until I meet herself. People came to me over and over to talk for her but I realized that if I wanted to come on board, I needed to clarify certain things, she sent five to six persons to talk with me and I repeated my stance. She even sent Jennie Bernard, her sister and I said I wanted to meet her face to face. She invited me and we met one on one, and I told her, and still hold that between she and George Weah, I would vote for her because I believed she can transform Liberia but I only wanted certain things clarified before taking a decision. I raised the issue about Charles Taylor, and she said when she becomes President, the issue of Charles Taylor will be behind her, her focus will be on the development of the country. I asked suppose the issue become international and there is pressure, what will you do and we agreed that when such time comes, she will inform first and put the issue to the Liberian people to decide what should be done. We agreed that the decision about Taylor must not be unilateral and it must be left with the Liberian people to decide what will happen to Mr. Charles Taylor”, Senator Taylor told FrontPageAfrica. Senator Taylor said the second issue she raised with Madam Sirleaf was why the relationship with Mr. Charles Taylor turned sour and according to her Madam Sirleaf examined two major reason, the death of Samuel Dokie and the lack of control over the fighting men of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) which led to things going out of the way and she than wanted to ensure that Taylor is not elected and later struggle to ensure his government does not succeed. Ellen made promise, Jewel says Senator Taylor said after the explanation by Madam Sirleaf she that her concern or the meeting was mainly the issue concerning Mr. Charles Taylor. “On the issue of the arrest or turnover of Charles Taylor, she told me it was regional and most leaders in the region had asked her to leave it and allow Taylor be in exile. She told me repeatedly that when she wins the election Taylor will not be an issue to her and she will be very much focused on putting Liberia on the right path. Then I said to her what if the time comes and there is international pressure  on you to turn Taylor over. She said to me if that time comes what will you want me to do? And I said what I will want you to do is call me and tell me first and put it in the hands of the Liberian people, it must not be something you will do yourself, not unilateral decision, that was an agreement and we made that and I supported her during the run-off election” Senator Taylor narrated. Senator Taylor said after the election, when Nigeria was being pressured on the issue of Charles Taylor, President Sirleaf wrote a secret letter to Nigerian President Olusegun Obansanjo requesting the turnover of Taylor for trial without informing her about the decision and only got to know through other people. She continued that when she raised the issue of Madam Sirleaf’s letter to Obasanjo, the response was she  was lying. Still on the 2005 elections, Senator Taylor said one day another time, a lady from Ghana came, spoke to her and persuaded her to support Madam Sirleaf and even Nigerian President Obasanjo wanted her involved in the campaign process for Madam Sirleaf. Pleaded with Sirleaf for ‘bygones to be bygones’ “I have no problem with President Sirleaf, it's her conscience that is keeping her away from me and I cannot force myself on somebody because the person is president. Even the last time the lady from Ghana, who spoke with me in 2005 to support Madam Sirleaf died. I told Madam Sirleaf and she promised we were going to go to the lady's funeral but her conscience kept her away from me. I am one person that always says it is good to put the past behind us and think about reconciling our people” Senator Taylor noted. Senator Taylor said she has asked Madam Sirleaf that bygones be bygones, and said let’s put everything behind whatever have happened is now spilled milk but all her efforts have not pleased President Sirleaf to renew the friendship. “She tried to undermine me in my county, you remember the thing that happened with the superintendent, she came up to fight me to make me unpopular, I did not come to position to beg somebody to be friendly with me”, Senator Taylor continued. Another instance Senator Taylor said was the caterpillar invasion in Bong County where she assisted the victims and made pleas for assistance to the people, her effort was not satisfactory to President Sirleaf and the Liberian leader traveled to the affected areas and began making her to appear ugly. “I mean this thing about Taylor if finished, nothing happens out of the power of God’s will, Taylor is there because it is God’s will. Liberia cannot be held hostage for one person, Liberia cannot be held hostage for Charles Taylor, Jewel Taylor, or anybody. Liberia cannot be free if we do not do the right thing, make it look like I am against her, no that is not the case, the issue of Taylor is finished, we must now think on development of people. She is still doing the same things we spoke against yesterday and when you talk people feel you are against her, that is not the case”, Senator Taylor disclosed.   Taylor’s ‘Quiet flight’: Meeting with Obasanjo Sirleaf explains in her memoir that during a meeting with former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian head of state mentioned that Taylor once told him that all he(Obasanjo) had to do was put him on a plane, fly him quietly and secretly to the Liberian bush, and put him down. “I will take it from there,” Sirleaf says Obasanjo quoted Taylor as saying. “Leave it with me. I will take it from there.” Sirleaf says both she and Obasanjo chuckled at the suggestion. Sirleaf acknowledges that during her candidacy for the Presidency, she received support from some of Taylor’s supporters but the most prominent was the former head of state’s wife.  “Among the most prominent of course, was his wife (or former wife, their exact relationship remains unclear), Jewel, who endorsed my candidacy during the run-off. In Taylor’s Shadows: Jewel disagrees with Prez Sirleaf says she received some serious criticisms for accepting Jewel’s support. “Some people asked, how can you possibly work with her? My position, though, was that here was a woman who needed to establish her own identity. Jewel Taylor said she had divorced Charles Taylor, and I took her at her word. I though she needed to walk away from her husband’s shadow and become a person and a leader in her own right. So she supported my candidacy and I accepted.” Nevertheless, Sirleaf explains that the relationship turned sour, because she had felt the support she gave me would be in exchange for saving her husband from being turned over to the Special Court. We did not have a deal like that.” Countering Sirleaf’s claims, Senator Taylor said she would never walk away from the shadows of her estranged husband and took Sirleaf to task for suggesting she tried to walk away from Taylor’s shadows. Said Senator Taylor: “When someone says Jewel will walk away from Taylor shadow it's not true, I will not. We have children in common, there is no way I can stop talking to Charles Taylor because I cannot deprive my children the right to their father. Me and Charles Taylor was married. I met him 27 years ago; I have two children my son is now 25 my daughter 13”, the Senator spoke of her former husband.” The senator said she divorced Mr. Charles Taylor in 2006 because she had a very difficult marriage. “He had plenty women and it got to the point that he put me aside, living different place while I was in a different place and could not bear that and had to put in for divorce” she explained. Nevertheless, Senator Howard said, her former husband will be remembered as a hero in Liberia even if he dies in jail. People’s lives have not changed, in all of the prosperity we are supposed to be enjoying now but let me tell you if Taylor comes today and contest 2011, he will be elected” the Bong County lawmaker stated. Sirleaf said because some of Taylor’s supporters endorsed her candidacy, some of them appeared to believe it gave them carte blanche.” They began to get a bit bold about communicating with Taylor in exile and relaying his words to his younger supporters at home. His favorite statement, the one he had uttered before leaving Monrovia and the one that rang over and over again in the months that followed was, was this: “God willing, I will return.” For the first time, Sirleaf confirmed speculations that she was under pressure from the United States to turn Taylor over to the International Court. “Whenever I met with U.S. officials, the issue of Taylor was on the agenda. Likewise with representatives of the United Nations. By that time, the Special Court had been in session for several months. A great deal of money was being spent to run it. People wanted to know if events were moving forward or not.” Sirleaf said she made a second visit to Nigeria in March 2006 – for another meeting with Obasanjo. Sirleaf writes of her conversation with Obasanjo: “Mr. President,” I said, “This time I am going to ask you officially to release Charles Taylor". He said, “Okay. You must send me a letter to that effect.” Sirleaf said in her letter and in a press conference making her request public, she made it clear that Nigeria was not releasing Taylor to Liberia. The Liberian government did not have case against Taylor. Nigeria was releasing Taylor to Liberia and that the Liberian government did not have a case against Taylor. Nigeria, Sirleaf said, was releasing Charles Taylor to the International community, as represented by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Sirleaf explains that her reason for stressing the issue was due to the fact that Liberia was still fragile and Taylor still had many loyalists on the ground. “It was frustrating to me that the decision about what to do with a regional problem such as Taylor- who had gone into exile under an agreement negotiated by several West African leaders- have been put squarely on the back of Liberia.” Sirleaf further explained that she asked Obasanjo to rally other African leaders to make a joint formal statement requesting that Taylor be tried. I knew that once the request was made public, time would be of the essence in securing Taylor. All in all, it was a risky move.” Sirleaf said once Obasanjo announced that Nigeria would hand Taylor over to Liberia, she asked that Taylor be sent directly to Sierra Leone, but Obasanjo was insistent that he would return Taylor only to Liberian soil. “In releasing his statement, the President said he had consulted with ECOWAS leaders as well as with President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo, then head of the African Union.” Sirleaf says she is not aware of the details of how Taylor was taken into custody but only learned from newspaper reports that Taylor had disappeared. “Whether this was true or part of the plan to distract Taylor and his supporters during the capture, I cannot say.” Sirleaf further writes that on the morning of March 29, her government received a phone call simply saying “Taylor is on his way.” We quickly, and quietly, mobilized the U.N. Peacekeepers and got them to Roberts International Airport. We deliberately did not use any of the African troops but asked for the Irish troops instead. The troops were put on high alert, and the United Nations had a helicopter standing ready. Our plan was to have Taylor land on Liberian soil and be taken immediately into U.N. custody.”  Nevertheless, Sirleaf explains that somehow people in the media got wind of what was happening and raced to the Robertsfield International Airport. “ “To say that I and many others breathed a sigh of relief upon being told that Taylor had left our airspace would be the understatement of the year. Had he escaped while in the country, there would have been big trouble for everyone”. Sirleaf recalls that she stressed in an address to Liberians after the Taylor transfer that his fate was not in the hands of the international court and the United Nations should and would allow him to maintain his dignity and the right to a vigorous self-defense, consistent with the principle that a person is deemed innocent until proven guilty. “I also stressed –because it was important to do so- that no other Liberian had been indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and no one needed to fear for his safety or freedom.” FPA