By: Michael Rubin, Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
On May 2, 2024, President Joseph Boakai signed an executive order to establish the long-delayed War and Economic Crimes Court. He appointed Jonathan Massaquoi, a prominent Liberian lawyer who previously represented Agnes Reeves Taylor, the wife of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. In 2019, the Central Criminal Court in London dismissed charges against Reeves Taylor after determining that Civitas Maxima, a Swiss-based non-governmental organization, corrupted evidence.
Many human rights groups sacrifice to shine light on human rights abusers or to bring justice to those who seek to escape accountability for their actions. Too many others, however, seek to shroud themselves in human rights advocacy to advance unrelated political agendas or to profit.
This was the center of a scheme allegedly crafted by Swiss lawyer Alain Werner who left the Special Court for Sierra Leone under a shadow but then proceeded to seek to profit from it through Civitas Maxima and its Liberian partner, Hassan Bility’s Global Justice and Research Project. The scheme is simple: Show effectiveness and cash in with grants from international donors like the Calfornia-based Center for Justice and Accountability, foundations like the Open Society Foundation, and partners like Human Rights Watch.
The difference between Civitas Maxima and many other groups, however, is Civitas Maxima got caught. Consider the case of Gibril Massaquoi, a former commander and spokesman for the Sierra Leone-based Revolutionary United Front (who has no relation to Jonathan Massaquoi despite the same last name). Werner and Bility’s groups provided statements and evidence to the Finnish court trying him, including personal statements by Bility alleging to have witnessed Gibril torture him.
The case fell apart, however, when it emerged that Gibril was not in Liberia at the time, but was rather under protective United Nations custody in Sierra Leone. Witnesses admitted that Werner, Bility, and their organizations offered money, scholarships, asylum and relocation to Europe in exchange for testimony against Gibril Massaquoi and Agnes Reeves Taylor.
At the time the scheme unfolded, Beth Van Schaack was the acting executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, a major funder of Civitas Maxima and Global Justice and Research Project. She may not have known that Werner and Bility were basing their grant applications on fraud. Upon discovering the deception, a more honest administrator would have admitted the era, closed the loopholes, and sought to make amends.
Not so Van Schaack. A Democratic Party activist, she catapulted multiple donations to Democrats into a Biden political appointment as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, and has since used her position there to cover up Werner and Bility’s apparent crimes and perversion of justice on three continents.
Despite court dismissals and evidence raising the possibility that Werner and Bility might themselves end up in prison, Van Schaack uses her position in the State Department to pervert justice and further her previous organization’s interests in escaping accountability. Most recently, she has sought to leverage her State Department position, friends in the human rights community, and contacts in Congress in an attempt to strong arm Jonathan Massaquoi into either stepping down or appointing associates of the very same groups who sought to profit in the name of justice. Call it what it is: corruption.
Boakai and Jonathan Massaquoi should ignore Van Schaack and any threats she and her associates make.
First, the State Department often prioritizes its own interests over human rights. Behind-the-scenes, U.S. diplomats sought to prevent the Special Court for Sierra Leone from indicting former Liberian President Charles Taylor because they feared the precedent. That the Court nevertheless did so over the wishes of the State Department showed that justice could prevail. Today, Charles Taylor is a convict, serving his sentence in at Frankland Prison in the United Kingdom.
Second, the broader human rights community puts its collective political interests over justice Human Rights Watch has a history of prioritizing political advocacy over justice. In 2006, for example, the group refused to provide evidence it had gathered decades earlier of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Kurds to Iraq’s special court because Iraqi justices would not agree to forswear capital punishment. Human Rights Watch’s leader Ken Roth essentially acted like a colonial officer extorting the natives. Recognizing the racism and condescension inherent in Roth’s position, the Iraqis told Human Rights Watch they would work
without them. If it is a choice between justice and appeasing Western human rights organizations, Boakai and Jonathan Massaquoi should choose the former.
Third, Van Schaack and even the US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield might threaten, but likely will be out of office in January 2025 as President Joe Biden’s campaign collapses. Both Boakai and Jonathan Massaquoi should recognize Van Schaack is more likely searching for a golden parachute among the very organizations for which she now lobbies rather than prioritizing justice for Liberia’s human rights victims.
Liberia’s long-overdue War and Economic Crimes Court now faces its first crucial test: Telling Van Schaack, Werner, Bility, and their coterie of grifters that their days of profiting off Liberian victims of human rights abuses are over.
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
