In the heat of the crisis Wednesday following the indictment of Charles Taylor, Concord Times authoritatively gathered that African leaders Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo, Laurent Gbagbo and John Kufuor had an emergency session and told Taylor "to relax." President Tejan Kabbah was at the meeting. Though he did not utter any word of support, Concord Times gathered Kabbah actually wanted Taylor arrested.
African leaders urged Kufuor to disregard the indictment and promised to offer support should his stance provoke any international furore.
"In fact they saw it as an insult," a source told Concord Times adding they equally saw it as an attempt to bring African leaders into disrepute.
Their argument was, according to a source in Ghana, it was untimely for the Special Court to be asking for the arrest of a President of a country when he is with his colleagues.
Mbeki was said to have been particularly furious and hinted they would be taking up the matter with the UN.
This means, according to pundits, the let-go of Taylor was more out of a reaction of African leaders than the non-receipt of communications from the Special Court as alleged by the Ghanaian government.
Taylor yesterday in Monrovia formally thanked the African leaders who stood by him. It is not known whether such thanks can be extended to President Kabbah. The Ghanaian Foreign Minister on seeing off Taylor at the airport sarcastically remarked, "Where do you think Taylor is going? Freetown?" when he was asked where Taylor was going.
