Despot hero

James Sackie would make a good frontman for a campaign to help ex-child soldiers. At the age of 17, he was press-ganged into one of Charles Taylor’s juvenile militias. Twenty years on, he talks movingly, in his matter-of-fact pidgin English, about the dreadful things he saw, including the day he had to stop his own baby son, JR, being whisked away as lunch for a general called Eat Human Being.

But ask Sackie about Taylor himself and he changes. Taylor is a war hero, not a war criminal, James insists. And if he were freed from his jail cell in Britain, where he’s currently serving 50 years for war crimes, James would welcome him back as leader of Liberia. Not the kind of talk that gets donors reaching for their chequebooks.

‘Pa Taylor’ remains a big talking point ahead of next week’s Liberian elections, where voters will choose a successor to donor darling Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has been president since 2006.