This May brings to an end the UN Security Council deadline for Charles Taylor to comply with its preconditions or face sanctions. Whether the Council will reward a man it describes as "the single most destabilizing force in West Africa," and thus vindicate him for his regional destabilization plots, is left to conjecture in this world of political wheeling and dealing.
On the one hand, more than any single actor in this tragedy, Taylor has focused world attention on Sierra Leone's mayhem and has exposed his criminal links with the country's ruthless rebels, making the likelihood of a redeeming solution just possible.
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