"This is a big inconvenience for me."
posted by Sybil Vane
May be that nothing brings me out of blog hiding quite like the opportunity to shame a celebrity. Naomi Campbell, you might be the worst person alive this week.
Decent background on the whole thing here.
To sum up: Naomi Campbell, whom you might be familiar with as a supermodel who abuses staff, had dinner in the late 90's with Charles Taylor, whom you might be familiar with as a mass-murderer responsible for war crimes, mass rape, and crimes against humanity. Taylor, it seems, was smitten with Campbell and sent his men with "blood diamonds" to her room in the middle of the night. This event is confirmed by Campbell's assistant and her companions, to whom she desribed the encounter and the diamonds.
As it happens, this event is one of the few verifiable links between Taylor and the diamonds, a necessary link for the prosecution at the Hague. And yet Campbell has been unwilling to testify, going so far as to claim the whole thing never happened, until she was subpoenaed. [To be as generous as I can, I will note that her excuse was actually as follows: "This is someone that I read up on the Internet that's killed thousands of people, supposedly," she said. "And I don't want my family in any danger in any way."]
In her testimony this week, she noted that she was extremely "inconvenienced" by having to be there and went on to disavow any knowledge that the "dirty stones" she received were either diamonds or from Taylor (claims that is contradicted by both her assistant and Mia Farrow). She further claims that when she got wind of the possibility that they might be diamonds, she immediately gave them to Nelson Mandela's charity (a claim that Mandela has proven demonstrably false).
To recap: you are the person capable of providing the testimony that convicts Charles Taylor of war crimes and for years you refuse to appear, nominally out of safety concerns but, let's be serious, because of the bad PR associated with your having received a blood diamond. When you are forced to show up, you note your status as inconvenienced and you claim total ignorance of the origination of the stones as well as of their precious nature and further claim to have given the stones to Nelson Mandela when you really didn't? You both demur from giving decisive evidence against Charles Taylor *and* throw Nelson Mandela under the bus? Worst person alive.
(apologies for the silence. have moved. unpacking, prepping for new job, orienting, feeling mostly really happy.)
Decent background on the whole thing here.
To sum up: Naomi Campbell, whom you might be familiar with as a supermodel who abuses staff, had dinner in the late 90's with Charles Taylor, whom you might be familiar with as a mass-murderer responsible for war crimes, mass rape, and crimes against humanity. Taylor, it seems, was smitten with Campbell and sent his men with "blood diamonds" to her room in the middle of the night. This event is confirmed by Campbell's assistant and her companions, to whom she desribed the encounter and the diamonds.
As it happens, this event is one of the few verifiable links between Taylor and the diamonds, a necessary link for the prosecution at the Hague. And yet Campbell has been unwilling to testify, going so far as to claim the whole thing never happened, until she was subpoenaed. [To be as generous as I can, I will note that her excuse was actually as follows: "This is someone that I read up on the Internet that's killed thousands of people, supposedly," she said. "And I don't want my family in any danger in any way."]
In her testimony this week, she noted that she was extremely "inconvenienced" by having to be there and went on to disavow any knowledge that the "dirty stones" she received were either diamonds or from Taylor (claims that is contradicted by both her assistant and Mia Farrow). She further claims that when she got wind of the possibility that they might be diamonds, she immediately gave them to Nelson Mandela's charity (a claim that Mandela has proven demonstrably false).
To recap: you are the person capable of providing the testimony that convicts Charles Taylor of war crimes and for years you refuse to appear, nominally out of safety concerns but, let's be serious, because of the bad PR associated with your having received a blood diamond. When you are forced to show up, you note your status as inconvenienced and you claim total ignorance of the origination of the stones as well as of their precious nature and further claim to have given the stones to Nelson Mandela when you really didn't? You both demur from giving decisive evidence against Charles Taylor *and* throw Nelson Mandela under the bus? Worst person alive.
(apologies for the silence. have moved. unpacking, prepping for new job, orienting, feeling mostly really happy.)
Labels: Charles Taylor, war crimes
Posted at 3:36 PM
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