Regarding diamond and the conflict, I am not saying ruf/npfl accidentally came across diamonds, they knew diamond were there when they started fighting. I am sure they didn’t start war for diamonds but it became the curse that bogged them down and eventually led to downfall like Taylor. If the ruf/npfl had carry on fightng the way they did in first two weeks daru, kenema and probably Bo would have fallen with very little resistance.

But they didn’t. They pause and sent conscripts from villages who had few days of action.Many were caught and I saw them been interrogated. It took a good part of over two weeks for the guinean to arrive at Daru to give ruf/npfl the jolt that indeed they will have to send me able fighter to continue their advance by then it was too late. Daru had been fortified by the guinean and the only other was to go via Zimmi. I am not going to give a blow by blow account of the war but i do have a very idea about what happen in both Liberia and sierra leone and I spent a good deal of time in buchanan when it was under NPRAG control.

For me Its indeed sad to see a former liberia president in court on these charges but I still maintain that Taylor has questions to answer on sierra leone. Whether he is found guilty or not is for the prosecutions argue their case and for the judges to decide.

Your stop these kinds of insults agaisnt our African intelligence that the RUF just happen to stumble across DIAMONDS fields and so got distracted from overthrowing “the sierra leone govt in 6 months.” It is this same kind of disregard for African intelliegence that led the prosection to bring this false case to this court. I thought one of the reasons that Foday Sankoh said he was fighting a war had to do with the fact that the people of SL were not benefiting from the explotation of these DIAMONDS. So how can Foday Sankoh be fighting for the proper use of these same DIAMONDS and at the same time he is not aware about the DIAMONDS area until “the find of diamond in march/april of 1991.” Were SL not mining DIAMONDS before this time?

These are some of the inconsistent and irrational accusation that makes reasonable people like us to dismiss this case as pure international lycnhing of Charles Taylor, simply because he was bold to speak against the explotation of Africa’s natural resources by multi-national companies. And just to let you know , Liberia has always had very valuable DIAMONDS similar to that of SL. I believe you rely to much on people that have no knowledge about Africa’s rich resources to inform you. This was the same false information that led to the overthrow of President William R. Tolbert of Liberia. Liberians were told that they could not grow rice for themselves on a large national production scale because our soil were not good. Tolbert came to power and declared that Liberia’s soil was good to produce its own food and feed itself. He launch a green revolution and increase the price of Uncle Ben’s rice so that Liberians will be force to grow and feed themselves. Those who were profiting from selling their foreign rice to Liberia was outrage and led to one of the reasons that Tolbert was finally overthrown.

For the record, Liberian grown rice is more nutritional and cheaper than the Uncle Ben’s rice yet those socalled Western Liberians lacking understanding of these things listened to outsiders who told them that Liberian rice were not good for their health although this was the traditional rice that our traditional people had been eating for centuries.

I would think that the judges decision on the prosection case has to do with the fact that they were able to produce some quack evidence and lying witnesses. The judges needed to hear the otherside of the case and I thought it was a wise decision because we are getting a full picture of what is happening.

PREJUDICE seriously rule this case against Mr. Taylor.

Reply to King Gray diamond claims, I will say Liberia has never been a major diamond exporting country but sierra leone is and sierra Leone produces diamond of much better quality than liberia and the industry is much bigger.

Further, diamond is just an add on in the case of Sierra Leone. Taylor did not go to Sierra Leone initially for diamond. His quest was mainly to topple the govt and have a friendly govt there. The diamond have been a double edge sword for Sierra Leone. On one hand it help stop the rapid advance of the NPFL/RUF in 1991 and but it curse eventually came to the hunt sierra leone.

Had it not bee the find of diamond in march/april of 1991, the ruf/npfl would have topple the sierra leone govt in 6 months. I remember this because I was working in eastern part of sierra leone. The diamond find meant rebel soldiers stop their advance and sent conscripts who were less prepare.

This help the sierra leone army which was under resource and unprepare. In a very sad way the diamond did ensure that taylor/ruf alliance did not take sierra leone and it is still hunting him to this day. The curse of the sierra leone diamonds has led to his down fall and probably to him spending the rest of his life in jail. SOME THINGS ARE BETTER LEFT ALONE IN THIS LIFE.

Is there a problem with the live streaming of the trial? I had problems both yesterday and today with it constantly repeating it self. Could you have this checked up because this is too crucial a time for me to miss even an ioata of the testimony.

That said, in his testimony Taylor says he has no such bank account as alleged and I think that should settle the matter until something else comes out. I know it is unthinkable and hard to wrap your mind around the fact that a former African leader will claim he has no bank account anywhere in the world as alleged, however let us take his word for it until otherwise proven.

However, I hope you are not suggesting that Webster dictionary is the only lexicon because there are many others out there.

Also, your brother has been around quite a while to just start learning rudimentary terminology.

Anyway, let us stick to the issue as I am really interested in the testimony of Taylor and how we are dialoguing on the specifics of his testimony. I have been reading your comments and am pleased with a good number of them. Let us keep the spirit of a good intellectual dialogue alive.

Wish you well, Nii.