Trial of Charles Taylor

[ngoshwe]

From 1989 to 1997, Charles Taylor was leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a rebel group that fought in Liberia to overthrow the government of Samuel K. Doe. From 1997 to 2003, Taylor was the democratic president of Liberia. In August 2003, based on an agreement with African Heads of State, Taylor left office after rebel forces had come close to entering the Liberian capital, Monrovia. He was granted political asylum in Nigeria. In March 2006, Taylor was transferred to the custody of the Special Court for Sierra Leone where he now faces trial.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is trying Charles Taylor. Although the trial is being held in The Hague, Mr. Taylor is still being tried by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The trial is taking place on the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

You can follow the trial proceedings LIVE or recorded through the link below:


The Trial of Charles Taylor

 

[Mbu]

From 1989 to 1997, Charles Taylor was leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a rebel group that fought in Liberia to overthrow the government of Samuel K. Doe. From 1997 to 2003, Taylor was the democratic president of Liberia. In August 2003, based on an agreement with African Heads of State, Taylor left office after rebel forces had come close to entering the Liberian capital, Monrovia. He was granted political asylum in Nigeria. In March 2006, Taylor was transferred to the custody of the Special Court for Sierra Leone where he now faces trial.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is trying Charles Taylor. Although the trial is being held in The Hague, Mr. Taylor is still being tried by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The trial is taking place on the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

You can follow the trial proceedings LIVE or recorded through the link below:


The Trial of Charles Taylor

...ohh, kumbe tupo wawili watatu tunaofuatilia hii!...
hii case siku mbili tatu hizi imegeuka slugging match baina ya Naomi, Ms White na Mia Farrow,
wakati huo huo learning a lot madhara ya Blogging, hasa social websites kama Facebook na 'editting' copy & paste!
Maisha mtego!

 

[Masanilo]

Napenda unaanasheria kuna yule jamaa black nadhani upande wa utetezi cross examination of the prosecution wittiness wa Naomi wamekiona cha moto! Pebbles like diamond......jamaa akamwambia those are not Diamond! Lol

 

[ngoshwe]

...ohh, kumbe tupo wawili watatu tunaofuatilia hii!...
hii case siku mbili tatu hizi imegeuka slugging match baina ya Naomi, Ms White na Mia Farrow,
wakati huo huo learning a lot madhara ya Blogging, hasa social websites kama Facebook na 'editting' copy & paste!
Maisha mtego!

Sawia Mkuu.

It has been hard to Ms. Campbell to relate her words in the Trial Chamber vs what people really know on the issue of "blood diamond"..

Inaweza kumpotezea kabisa umaarufu huyu mrembo kwa ujumla, ameonekana mwongo, mnafiki na asiyejali zaidi ya kujuli yeye binafsi na familia yake. Kuna maelezo alikuwa akitoa kana kwamba amefundishwa na Mwanasheria wake akayatoe na hilo ndilo limefanya upande wa mashtaka kujutia kwa nini walimwita.

Upande wa Mashtaka baadae walitaka huyu mrembo achukuliwa kama shahidi aliyeitwa na Mahakama (Trial Chamber) lakini hoja imegonga mwamba kwa kuwa mahakama ilitoa amri ya wito (subpoena) baada ya kuombwa na upande wa Mashtaka kufungua upya mwendelezo wa kesi yao kwa kuongeza mashahidi (Ms. Campbell, Ms. Farrow, and Ms. White (wakala wa zamani wa Campbell) ili kuweza kuthibitsha shtaka la kuwa Taylor alihusuka na vita na mauaji kule Sierra Leone kwa kusaidia waasi kupitia mabadilishano ya silaha na "almasi chafu". Shtraka hili limehusishwa zaidi na ushahdi wa kimazingira na uamuzi wa kuwaita akina Campbell na wenzake ulifuatia uvumi uliotapakaaa baada ya upande wa mashtaka kufunga kesi yao Februari 2009 kuwa wakiwa katika "Dinner" iliyoandaliwa na Mzee Madiba mwaka 1997, Taylor alimtumia Campbell hoteli kupitia watu wawili zawadi ya almasi ghafi ambayo inasemekana kuwa Taylor alipewa na waasi Sierra Leone kwa mabadilishano ya silaha na kuwa mwezi mmoja kabla ya safari yake ya kwenda Afrika ya Kusini kwa mwaliko wa Mandela, alikutana na wakuu wa waasi hao mjini Liberia na bada ya mwezi mmoja kutoka Afrika ya kusini, inasadikika kuwa waasi waliokea shehena ya silaha ambapo upoande wa mashtaka unalenga kuthibitish kuwa zilitokana na mabadilishano ya hiyo "blood diamond".

Ukifuatilia ushahidi wa Campbell na wenzake ambao kwa ujumla unapingana, kuna siri imejificha kuhusu "nani aliyetoa hiyo zawadi ya almasi" kwa Campbell kwa kuwa Campbell hakupinga kupokea hizo "almasi" ambapo anasema aliziacha pale pale Afrika ya Kusini kwa Bosi wa Organization ya Mzee Mandela (Jeremy Ractliffe). Wanachosema wale wanao pingana na Campbell ni kuwa hizo almasi hazikuwa kidogo, bali ni mzigo wa kutosha na wao waliambiwa na Campbell mwenyewe kuwa amepokea huo mzigo toka kwa Taylor (kumuunganisha Taylor hapa ni kimazingira zaidi kwa kuwa alikuwepo siku hiyo ya chakula cha jioni na kuwa alimasi zinazobishaniwa zilipokelewa na Campbell bila kujua nani aliyempa...hii ndio uongo wa Campbell wa kupokea kitu toka kwa mtu asiyemjua tena kwa maelezo ya utata na baadae kukitunza mapka asubuhi na kuwaeleza wenzake, kisha kukiacha kwa Taasisi nyeti ya Mzee Mandela bila kujua thamani yake!!!).

Kuna madai kuwa Labda Campbell anamwaogopa Taylor na watu wake kueleza ukweli kwa kuwa hata wakati akitoa ushahidi wake alirejea zaidi ya mara moja kuwa ana hofia maisha yake na familia yake na ndio maana hakuwa tayari kwenda kutoa ushahidi dhidi ya Taylor (kwake aki maanisha ni kesi sensistive kwa jumuiya za mataifa hasa wa Afrika ambao ndugu zao wameuawa katika vita ya wenyewe kwa wenyewe kule Sierra Leone.

Uchunguzi wa Kipolisi unaendelea na inasemekana kuwa ikiwa Campbell alidanganya kuhusu suala hili, anaweza kuingia matatani kwa kuhusika katika njia moja au nyingine na biashara ya almasi haramu "blood diamond" au kuchochea vita kule Sierra Leone. Aidha, vyanzo vina dadavua pia kuwa uwenda kulikuwa na mahusiano ya karibu ya kibiashara/kijamii kati ya Taylor, Bosi wa Taasisi ya Mandela na Campbell jambo ambalo lilipelekea si Campbell wala Bosi wa Taasisi ya Mandela Jeremy Ractliffe kutotoa siri ya kupokea almasi haramu takribani zaidi ya miaka kumi na tatu tokea siku ya tukio ilihali wakijua kuwa ilikuwa ni kinyume cha sheria kumiliki aina hiyo ya almasi (Campbell alijua na ndio maana aliamua kuikabidhi kwa Jeremy Ractliffe ambaye nae kwa kujua ni kosa alishindwa kutoa taarifa kwa vyombo vya dola mpaka pale uvumi ulipozagaa duniani kote kwa mambo haya machafu yalifanyika siku ya chakula cha jioni kilichoandaliwa na Mzee Madiba mwaka 1997.)

..........................................................

Naomi Campbell: I had nothing to gain by lying to Charles Taylor trial
Model fights back after suggestions by her former agent that she had misled trial over blood diamonds


Supermodel tells how she received 'dirty stones' gift in the middle of the night during her testimony at The Hague in the trial of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor Link to this video

Naomi Campbell came out fighting last night against suggestions that she had lied during her testimony to the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, insisting that she had "nothing to gain" from telling anything other than the truth.

"I've no motive here. Nothing to gain. I am a black woman who has and will always support good causes especially relating to Africa," the supermodel said, in a statement that was released after her former agent Carole White and the actress Mia Farrow finished giving their evidence.

Both women contradicted Campbell's account that she did not know who gave her the pouch of diamonds after a party hosted by Nelson Mandela in September 1997. Five days after she had told the court in the Hague that her appearance under subpoena as a witness for the prosecution of the former Liberian warlord was "a big inconvenience", Campbell also said she had accepted that her choice of language had been unfortunate. But, she insisted, it had been a misleading indication of her attitude towards the trial.
"Campbell accepts the use of the word 'inconvenient' was a poor choice of word but it was made off the cuff and was taken massively out of context," said a statement from her management. It added that the model, from south London, had "fears for her family" after she read about Taylor's alleged crimes on the internet.

In her evidence to the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) on Thursday, the 40-year-old model admitted that, when she met the former Liberian president at a charity dinner held by Nelson Mandela, she had never heard of his country and had only that evening been told who Taylor was.

But any impression of nonchalance or ignorance was misleading, said Campbell's spokespeople last night. "The suggestion that Campbell in some way doesn't care about the plight of those suffering in Africa is ridiculous and hurtful," they said in a statement, mentioning the model's fundraising and charity work in Tanzania and South Africa. The supermodel was yesterday photographed in Sardinia with her Russian partner, accompanied by Leonardo DiCaprio, the Hollywood star of the 2006 film Blood Diamond.

While Campbell was holidaying, White, her former agent was facing a bruising cross-examination from Taylor's defence lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths QC. Asked whether, as she had previously told prosecutors in May, the agent had heard the former warlord tell Campbell during the dinner that he was going to "send her diamonds", White eventually admitted that she had not.
"I can't recall those words," she said. She had interpreted a nod from Taylor to Campbell as a sign of "acquiescence" from the warlord to the model, she said.

After picking holes in other parts of her testimony, Griffiths branded her account "a complete pack of lies" and alleged she had "made it up" to further her own case in a separate lawsuit against Campbell being fought in the United States over a contract dispute.
"Put bluntly," he added, appearing to quote from a song by veteran hip-hop star Grandmaster Flash, "this is all about the money. There ain't nothing funny."
White, the former so-called "mother-agent" of Campbell, rejected those accusations. Her decision to testify at the Hague had nothing to do with the other case, she insisted, and she vehemently denied bending the truth to suit her own purposes. "Well, I can tell you, your honour, it's not a lie. This happened," she said, sticking by her claims that Campbell had known all along that the diamonds had come from Taylor.
The model told the court the gift had come with no explanation and she had no inkling that it could have come from the Liberian until breakfast the next day.

 

[ngoshwe]

HII KItu inawanasa waliomo na wasio kuwemo:


Nelson Mandela's charity boss kept 'blood diamonds': Police seize 'Naomi Campbell's dirty pebbles'

• Jeremy Ractliffe: I did receive three diamonds from Naomi Campbell <LI style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Charity boss says he has now handed uncut stones to authorities
  
• But police say they seized illegal stones from his safe on Tuesday
  

Three ‘blood diamonds’ given to supermodel Naomi Campbell are at the centre of a second criminal investigation, police said yesterday.

Detectives in South Africa seized the stones from the home of Nelson Mandela charity trustee Jeremy Ractliffe and have opened a criminal case against him.
The unpolished gems were allegedly given to Miss Campbell by former Liberian president Charles Taylor after the pair met at a star-studded dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997.

Admission: Jeremy Ractliffe (left) said he had received the diamonds from Naomi Campbell and had recently handed them to police

Miss Campbell told a war crimes tribunal this week she gave the uncut diamonds to Mr Ractliffe, then a director of Mandela’s children’s foundation, with instructions to use them to help impoverished children.
But it was disclosed yesterday that police had seized them from a safe at Mr Ractliffe’s home in Johannesburg. It came as the South African businessman admitted
he had kept the fact secret for 13 years. Three officers from The Hawks, the South African police’s elite investigations unit, picked up the stones from Mr Ractliffe’s home on Tuesday night.

They took statements from the businessman and his wife Gail, and have launched a formal criminal investigation.
Mr Ractliffe was not arrested.

His lawyer had contacted the National Prosecuting Authority earlier in the day – just 48 hours before the supermodel took to the stand at The Hague – to ask for advice on how his client could surrender the stones.

The NPA passed the information to The Hawks.

Residence: The diamonds had been in the safe at Jeremy Ratcliffe's home in Johannesburg

In a statement yesterday, Mr Ractliffe said he had not known what to do with the stones after he received them from Miss Campbell.
‘I took them because I thought it might well be illegal for her to take uncut diamonds out of the country,’ he said.

‘But I told her I would not involve the NMCF in anything that could possibly be illegal. In the end I decided I should just keep them.’
Mr Ractliffe said he did not report the stones to the authorities, or tell the fund about them, ‘to protect the reputation of the NMCF, Mr Mandela himself and Naomi Campbell, none of whom were benefiting in any way’.

He insisted he had ‘handed over’ the diamonds to police.

Celebrity guests: Campbell (right) talks with Jemima and Imran Khan as they await the arrival of the Blue Train in Cape Town in 1997. The Khans were also guests at the dinner

The world's 'most luxurious' train: Jeremy Ratcliffe said Campbell had handed him the diamonds on South Africa's Blue Train after the dinner in 1997

The South African Diamond Board yesterday confirmed the three stones were uncut diamonds
and were being held by police as evidence. Possessing unpolished diamonds is illegal in South Africa following a clampdown on the jewel trade.

South African politician Patricia de Lille, another trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, said she was ‘very, very sad and disappointed’ that Mr Ractliffe had not reported the rough diamonds
to the charity.

Trustees will discuss later this month if it is appropriate for the businessman to continue to work with the fund, she said, adding: ‘Mr Mandela continues to be very closely involved with the charity and he, like all of us, will feel sad to find out that this news has been kept quiet for such a long time.’

Under oath: Campbell swears on the Bible before giving evidence at the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone

Gift: The supermodel told the court she was given some 'dirty pebbles' in the middle of the night








Miss Campbell was among several celebrities at the 1997 dinner hosted by Mr Mandela.
South African detectives now want to take statements from actress Mia Farrow and Miss Campbell’s former agent Carole White, who also attended the function.

They are both due to give evidence next week at the war crimes trial in the Netherlands.
On Thursday, Miss Campbell told the hearing she had received some ‘small dirty looking pebbles’ from two men who had knocked on her bedroom door late at night.

Hidden: Campbell swept into court in a blacked-out van
However, the supermodel insisted the idea that the mysterious present had come from Mr Taylor was only suggested by Miss Farrow the next day.
She also said she did not recognise them as diamonds, adding: ‘I’m used to seeing diamonds shiny and in a box.’
She gave them to Mr Ractliffe six hours later. As he was then a director of Mr Mandela’s children’s charity, Miss Campbell said she told him to use them to help African children.
Miss White has previously claimed she was with the supermodel when two men gave her six rough diamonds in a scrubby piece of paper. Miss Campbell denied her former agent’s version of events.
Former dictator Charles Taylor is accused of fuelling a civil war by selling weapons to rebels in Sierra Leone in exchange for so-called blood diamonds.
Mr Ractliffe is now also expected to be called as a witness at the hearing, where Taylor is charged with 11 counts of war crimes, including rape and murder.
Under a deal with Tony Blair’s government in 2006 to show the UK’s ‘commitment to international justice’, Taylor will serve any prison sentence in a British jail.
CANNIBALISM, TYRANNY AND A CURSED LAND


By Sam Greenhill

The image he liked to project was of a flamboyant showman, strutting around Africa in his trademark outfit of spotless white suit and walking cane.

But these affectations were no more than a grotesque charade.
Even in the bloodstained recent history of Liberia, Charles Taylor stands out as monster, committing and directing the most appalling atrocities during his own country’s civil war and later exporting his gruesome methods to the ‘Blood Diamond’ conflict in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
He forced a generation of Liberian children into military service, often after murdering their parents, and made them address him as ‘Pappy’.

Two faces of Charles Taylor: At his trial, left, and as a gun-toting rebel in Liberia in 1990


Fed on a diet of cannabis and amphetamines, and led by drug-crazed, machine-gun toting generals named ‘Bad Boy’ and ‘Butt Naked’, boys as young as eight were made to murder, maim and mutilate anyone who stood in their way.
Accused of being a cannibal with a particular penchant for eating the hearts and livers of his enemies, Taylor emerged victorious from a hideous civil war that claimed 250,000 lives and in 1997 was elected president of Liberia.
The campaign was infamous for violence, intimidation and the macabre and ironic unofficial slogan: ‘You killed my ma, you killed my pa, so you get my vote.’
He went on to bankroll the loathsome rebel army in Sierra Leone, providing them with weapons in return for looted diamonds.
It is this issue which goes to the heart of Naomi Campbell’s appearance in court yesterday.
When Taylor, once a Baptist lay preacher, was asked in a BBC interview why some people thought he was little better than a murderer, the warlord replied: ‘Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time.’
Taylor was born in January 1948 to a family descended from the freed American slaves who founded the West African country of Liberia in 1847. He studied in the U.S. but was noted during his student days only for his passion for tennis.
Enlarge Dinner: A photograph taken on the night shows (left to right) Jemima Khan, Imran Khan, Campbell, Charles Taylor, Nelson Mandela, Gracha Machel, Quincy Jones, Mia Farrow and Tony Leung

WHO'S WHO AT THE DINNER


CHARLES TAYLOR
Started Liberia's civil war as a warlord in 1989, became president in 1997. Rules for six years before going into exile in Nigeria.
He was arrested and sent to Sierra Leone in 2006 and charged with war crimes. His trial started in 2007.

NAOMI CAMPBELL
Supermodel from south London. She was at a dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa in 1997.

Campbell says she was handed a pouch of gems by two men that night. Other guests told her they must have been from Taylor. Prosecutors claim it was a large blood diamond.
IMRAN KHAN
Former Pakistani cricket captain turned politician. Married Jemima Goldsmith in 1995. They have two sons but divorced in 2004.

JEMIMA KHAN
Daughter of Lady Annabel and James Goldsmith. Mother-of-two and charity campaigner. Divorced, ex-girlfriend of Hugh Grant. Sister of newly-elected Tory MP Zac Goldsmith

NELSON MANDELA
Anti-apartheid activist, prisoner on Robben Island for 27 years, South African president from 1994-1999. Nobel Peace Prize winner and campaigner.

GRACA MICHAL
Mandela's third wife. They married in 1998 on his 80th birthday. Widow of Samora Machel, former Mozambican president.

QUINCY JONES
American musician and producer, charity campaigner. Best known for producing Michael Jackson's hit album Thriller.

MIA FARROW
American actress, singer and former model. UNICEF ambassador and extensive charity campaigner. Married to Frank Sinatra in the 60s. Ex-girlfriend of Woody Allen.

She has called Campbell a liar, claiming the model admitted accepting the blood diamond from Taylor. Sparked the 'blood diamond' scandal by contacting the trial last June claiming she had vital evidence.

CAROL WHITE (not pictured)
Campbell's former manager and owner of Premier Model Management.
Claims Campbell flirted with Taylor over dinner and talked about diamonds. Then claims she facilitated the gem drop that night. She says she let Taylor's men in and the model was given six small diamonds wrapped in some paper. She claims Campbell invited the men inside and gave them Coca-Cola. The model was allegedly disappointed it was not a 'big shiny diamond'.

Side-by-side: Naomi Campbell next to Liberian dictator Charles Taylor in South Africa in 1997. It is claimed he sent her diamonds after the dinner

He returned to Liberia after Master Sergeant Samuel Doe led Liberia’s first coup in 1980. Doe had the incumbent president William Tolbert disembowelled and his entire cabinet lined up on the beach, tied to wooden stakes and shot.

Taylor landed a plum job in Doe’s regime, controlling the budget.

But in 1983 Doe accused him of embezzling more than $1million and he fled back to the U.S.

MANDELA AND HIS CHARITY


Nelson Mandela set up his Children’s Fund in 1995, soon after becoming South African president, and it soon began to receive generous support from donors across the world, including Oprah Winfrey and John Travolta.

Jeremy Ractliffe, the man named in court by Naomi Campbell as the person to whom she gave the diamonds, was among the first chief executive officers of the fund.

Yesterday he said he could not comment beyond confirming the fund’s statement to The Hague trial – that it was never in receipt of diamonds from Miss Campbell – by saying ‘that is quite correct’.


The Liberians demanded he be extradited and he was arrested and confined to a Massachusetts jail.

In 1985 he made, by his own account, a dramatic escape after sawing through prison bars. Others,
however, believed the U.S. authorities colluded with his escape plan in the hope he would return to Liberia to overthrow Doe.

That is precisely what he did, resurfacing in 1989 to launch a rebellion which quickly became infamous for the savagery of the rebels and the use of child soldiers.

Backed by Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi, Taylor’s brutal regime was feared for the signature
use of the hacking off of limbs as a terror tactic and he was even said to have ordered human sacrifice.

But it was the use of child soldiers which horrified the world when pictures emerged of baby-faced young boys with AK-47s slung over their tiny shoulders.

Taylor’s men would indiscriminately murder parents and tell the children they would suffer the same fate unless they proved their loyalty by carrying out ever-more sickening atrocities.

Pregnant women had their wombs slashed open with machetes and their unborn children
ripped out.

Thousands of young girls were kept as sex slaves by the older boys, the tendons in their feet slashed so they were unable to run away.

Doe was himself captured, tortured and murdered by ‘Prince’ Johnson, then one of Taylor’s most ruthless lieutenants and now an elected Liberian senator.

Johnson had a video made and distributed of Doe’s grisly end, showing Johnson sipping Budweiser
beer while his men cut off Doe’s ear.

After a brief attempt by Johnson to seize power for himself, Taylor took over and by the 1997 elections was firmly installed in the presidential palace in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
Almost immediately he fomented insurrection in Sierra Leone, while also pretending to be a great African statesman.

When he faced UN accusations of being a gun-runner and diamond-smuggler, he responded by addressing a mass prayer meeting in Monrovia clad from head to toe in angelic white.

Taylor’s ambition was to control Sierra Leone’s diamond mines and destabilise its government to boost his regional influence. He stands accused of acts of terrorism, murder, rape, enslavement, conscripting child soldiers, sexual slavery, pillage and outrages upon personal dignity.

Two years into his presidency, his foes in Liberia began a fresh rebellion.

The war intensified, and in 2003, under mounting pressure from the U.S. and the international community over the UN charges, he agreed to step down as rebels entered his capital.

Taylor, who has been married three times and has numerous children, agreed to go into exile in Nigeria. But later Nigeria said Liberia could seek his extradition, so he went on the run.

He was arrested in 2006 on the Nigeria-Cameroon border after a dramatic chase, in a disguised diplomatic car which was full of sacks stuffed with cash.

Taylor was moved to The Hague, standing trial there because of fears that a trial in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia. If convicted, he would serve his jail sentence in Britain under a deal done by the then Blair government.

Taylor himself has told the court accusations of cannibalism were ‘total nonsense’, despite a witness who was a former aide recalling how he and Taylor had eaten human flesh together.

He admitted that some of his countrymen did have a taste for human flesh but assured the court: ‘I never ordered any combatant to eat anyone.’

FROM CATWALK TO COURTROOM

She may be more accustomed to the catwalk but Naomi Campbell is no stranger to the courtroom.

In 2000 in Toronto, Canada, Campbell pleaded guilty to an assault charge after beating an assistant on the head with a mobile phone.

In 2007 she spent five days mopping floors and scrubbing toilets after she was given a community service sentence in New York for throwing a mobile phone at her housekeeper during an argument over a pair of jeans.

She was also ordered to attend anger management classes.

In 2008 she was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service for kicking and spitting at police officers after going ‘berserk’ on an aircraft.

The model screamed foul-mouthed abuse at the captain of a British Airways flight waiting to take off from Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 when one of her bags went missing.

In March this year she was facing another assault charge after being accused of hitting her driver in New York but the driver later dropped the matter, saying it had been 'blown out of proportion'.
Being questioned over Taylor’s alleged gift has also sparked her anger.

Asked about the diamond by ABC News earlier this year, Campbell stormed out of the interview and lashed out at a camera.


Campbell has said her anger was down to 'an abandonment issue' stemming from childhood.

She never met her father, and her mother, a ballerina, left her behind to travel the world.

Campbell was just 15 years old when she was discovered by an Elite talent scout during a shopping trip to London’s Covent Garden.
She became one of the original supermodels, alongside the likes of Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista.

She was also the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue magazine.

She appeared in music videos with Michael Jackson and George Michael and was romantically linked to celebrities, such as actor Robert De Niro, boxer Mike Tyson and musician Usher.

Campbell is now living in Moscow with Russian real estate mogul Vladislav Doronin (pictured in St Tropez above), who she met at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008.


Read more: Nelson Mandela's charity boss kept 'blood diamonds': Police seize 'Naomi Campbell's dirty pebbles' | Mail Online

 

[Masanilo]

Huyu Naomi ni balaa kubwa inabidi aandike kitabu kuhusu K yake, Ameisha date zaidi ya wanaume 50 wanaojulikana, akiwemo Mzee Hugo Chevez! its seems Naomi can sleep with anything which can give her money

check hii link

Naomi Campbell Photos | Who is Naomi Campbell dating? Boyfriend, Husband

 

[ngoshwe]

Huyu Naomi ni balaa kubwa inabidi aandike kitabu kuhusu K yake, Ameisha date zaidi ya wanaume 50 wanaojulikana, akiwemo Mzee Hugo Chevez! its seems Naomi can sleep with anything which can give her money

check hii link

Naomi Campbell Photos | Who is Naomi Campbell dating? Boyfriend, Husband

Put U.S. and British imperialism and the diamond corporations on trial, not Naomi Campbell

Luwezi Kinshasa
Published Aug 10, 2010

st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } Who is Charles Taylor?

From 1989 to 1997, Charles Taylor, who escaped mysteriously from a U.S. prison, was the leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a rebel group that fought in Liberia to overthrow the government of Samuel K. Doe.

From 1997 to 2003, Taylor was the neocolonial democratic president of Liberia. In August 2003, based on an agreement with African heads of state, Taylor left office after rebel forces had come close to entering the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

He was granted political asylum in Nigeria. In March 2006, Taylor was betrayed by Obasanjo of Nigeria, who transferred him to the white people's Special Court in Sierra Leone, on the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Now, Naomi Campbell, an African woman and fashion supermodel, who is not even part of the structured neocolonial leadership, is being asked to testify at a war crimes tribunal against Charles Taylor, a neocolonial stooge, who was put in power by the United States in 1994. This is cynicism raised to its highest level.

According to The Observer newspaper "The former dictator is accused of selling diamonds to fund a bloodthirsty war that cost thousands of lives." It was one of these uncut diamonds that Taylor is alleged to have given the supermodel.

Why Naomi Campbell? Why don't they go after the hundreds of big time blood diamonds traders?

First of all, Naomi Campbell does not have a power base. She does not have an ideological and analytical critique of imperialism. Naomi's struggle has always been against racism - the right to work on an equal basis with or to be treated like white models. On a personal level that is a struggle she has experienced.

The issue of diamonds goes deeper than the struggle against racism. It is the struggle against parasitic capitalism, the foundation of modern capitalism. In parasitic capitalism, Europe and other imperialist entities neither pay for the real value of African labor or the real value of our raw materials.

The actress Mia Farrow was a guest at the same dinner party where Taylor allegedly gave diamonds to Campbell. Farrow has claimed that Campbell told her she was interrupted in the middle of the night by some men saying they were representatives of Taylor before handing over a "huge diamond."

According to the July 4, 2010 edition of The Observer, Carole White, Campbell's agent at the time, says that she witnessed the event. "I was there," she says, speaking from the London headquarters of Premier Model Management, the company that she founded and that represented Campbell for 17 years. "He did give it to her. It was a small, uncut diamond. I am totally surprised that Naomi hasn't admitted it."

Some members of the press have always had disdain and contempt for African people. They never liked any African who exposed and fought racism. This is an opportunity for them to vilify Naomi Campbell.

Steve Pope, editor of The Voice, the weekly newspaper aimed at Britain's black community, says that Campbell is a pioneer. "It has always been an unspoken rule that if you're a fashion magazine editor and you put a black model on the cover, you lose sales. Naomi turned that around and showed that, if you put her on the cover, if anything it would boost sales. Unlike some other models who have kept quiet about discrimination, she has actually started speaking out about it."

Whether Taylor gave Naomi a rough diamond or not, the truth is that no diamond from Africa has been bought or sold for its real value.

The workers who mined that diamond have not been paid the real value of their labour, and African diamonds have never been exported with the consent of African people, because Africans have not been free anytime during the last 500 years.

We have to be free in order to have legitimate trade in diamonds and other minerals in Africa.

Using Naomi Campbell and other black clerks and judges gives this court a semblance of legitimacy and fairness.

The reality is that it is a white court, a colonial court to coerce and dissuade the African petty bourgeoisie to be loyal to the Western imperialist agenda. Colonialism is a crime against humanity.

So is neocolonialism. Imperialism knows it. They can bring any Negro to their court.

They do not need to go to Naomi to find out where the blood diamonds are.

All diamonds that have come out of Africa since the time of Cecil Rhodes up to the present time are blood diamonds! Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Congo, Liberia, Guinea and Zimbabwe are all blood diamonds.

All of them are obtained at the expense of African lives, liberty, dignity and our future.

If the tribunal was serious and legitimate, they should be after the big imperialist companies that legally exploit African diamonds.

De Beers should be the first to stand trial for blood diamonds. De Beers is the continuation of Cecil Rhodes, the British imperialist who initiated the "trade" in blood diamonds by massively killing Africans before stealing our land.

Where does the African diamond go?

Diamond companies in Israel that exploit our resources include: Waldman Diamond Company WDC Group; Ubex Diamonds; M. Schnitzer & Co.; Lustig Brothers Ltd.; G.N.N. Diamonds; Gembel Ltd.; Moti Ganz Diamonds; Flanders Diamond (Israel); Espeka Israel Ltd.; Belisdiam Ltd.; Avnit Diamonds and Apple Diamonds Ltd.

At the Belgium Diamond centre, you will find our diamonds at: Diamex Manufacturing N.V.; K. Einhorn Diamonds; Gembel N.V.; Kay Diamonds N.V.; Lustig Brothers Belgium N.V.; Shivani Gems Inc and Ubex Diamonds.[1]

The African diamond also ends up in China, Japan, India, Canada, the U.S. and other imperialist centers.

De Beers, which has a near monopoly of the diamond trade, was involved in the war in Sierra Leone.

The tribunal should be after the British government that armed African children, known as "child soldiers," in the war in Sierra Leone.

They should be after Tony Blair who sent mercenaries into Sierra Leone. Of course, they should be after the United States, who put Taylor in power in Liberia, in the first place.

Taylor is a U.S. mercenary, who allegedly escaped from U.S. prisons and was put in power in Liberia to advance U.S. interests. "I am calling it my release because I didn't break out," Taylor, 61, told the Special Court for Sierra Leone of the episode that has long been alleged to have been orchestrated by the US government. "I did not pay any money. I did not know the guys who picked me up. I was not hiding (afterwards)," Taylor testified in The Hague.[2]

Taylor was allowed to do things that imperialism does to Africans - kill, rape, mutilate, etc...

Why don't we assume from the picture taken at a dinner party hosted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa that Taylor gave diamonds to everyone, not just Naomi Campbell. This would include Mia Farrow and Nelson Mandela too!

According to Global Witness, a British charity that played some role in establishing the "Kimberley Process" - which is nothing less than another free pass for parasitic capitalism in the diamond trade - "From our point of view, the link between diamonds and the conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia is irrefutable," said Amy Barry, Executive Director of Global Witness.

"Hopefully today's testimony will strengthen the case against Taylor and move us one step closer to justice and some sort of reparation for the victims of his violence."

This is madness! What about the link between British, American, Israeli and Belgium imperialism, that has committed massacres of African people and lootings of diamonds and other minerals in Africa?

We need to build our own International Tribunal to bring imperialism and their African collaborators to our trial.

This is a call to Naomi Campbell. If she hates being in those white colonial courts, she should consider supporting the court of the oppressed, the court of the African working class, which is the only court of people of integrity. No one from the African petty bourgeoisie will come to her defense.

[1] Diamond Key International "Mutual Success Through Teamwork With Customers"

[2] CIA Brought Me To Power - Charles Taylor - Nairaland
Put U.S. and British imperialism and the diamond corporations on trial, not Naomi Campbell

 

[Kanyafu Nkanwa]

Taylor lazima alikula mzigo ule. Naomi. Mpaka siku ya ushahidi wake week iliyopita, sikuweza fikiria kuwa kama Campbell anaweza kuwa kagawa zali kwa jamaa. Mwanamke alitia huruma sana. Anajaribu kuidanganya duniani isiamini kwamba jamaa alipakua zali kwenye plate ya diamonds,, lakini wapi! Ila kwa kweli, ukiwa na hela, mwanamke yoyote unakula duniani hapa. Utafanya kila kitu utakacho duniani hapa.

 

[Utingo]

Huyu Naomi ni balaa kubwa inabidi aandike kitabu kuhusu K yake, Ameisha date zaidi ya wanaume 50 wanaojulikana, akiwemo Mzee Hugo Chevez! its seems Naomi can sleep with anything which can give her money

check hii link

Naomi Campbell Photos | Who is Naomi Campbell dating? Boyfriend, Husband

!!!!!!!??????????????

 

[MLATIE]

dah huyu demu ni noma hiyo K yake inaonekana imetanuka sana maana wanaume wote hao kila mtu ana size yake duh hv ni kwa nn lakini watu wanakua hivyo?

 

[N-handsome]

Malaya Class kama Mange na mwenzake Mboni etc.....

 

[Masanilo]

!!!!!!!??????????????

Mkuu Drogba hawezi chukua hii kitu!

 

[Aza]

tuko pamoja sana hii kesi,,,si mchezo kwakwel