Pat Robertson, 2003, on Charles Taylor of Liberia:
So we’re undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country. And how dare the president of the United States say to the duly elected president of another country, ‘You’ve got to step down.’
Pat Robertson, some time later:
In terms of Liberia, I was accused of being an associate of Charles Taylor. I never met Charles Taylor in my life. I’ve never met him once. I spoke to him once on the telephone, but he called me, but I’ve never seen him in my life. So be it the Washington Post indicated that I had some business dealings with Charles Taylor, but it just wasn’t true. It is my feeling that the best help you can give to people is to enable them to have economic progress, not just handouts, but to have industry that will give jobs.
The second quote is from an interview called “The Life of Dr. M.G. Pat Robertson- Part 2”, from CBN’s Turning Point series; no date is given, but other sites suggest it was broadcast in 2009.
As Christianity Today notes:
Robertson’s critics noted his financial interest in Liberia; at the time, Robertson had a four-year-old, $8 million agreement with Taylor to mine gold in the country. Robertson told the Washington Post that the mining operation, called Freedom Gold, was meant to fund humanitarian and evangelical efforts in Liberia.
Last year, Robertson’s CBN also came out heavily in support of Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast; the station declared that the Christian Gbagbo had lost an election due to voter fraud orchestrated by Saudi Arabia and “Muslims in France”. When Gbagbo announced a military curfew, CBN noted with satisfaction that the “timing is perfect” for the evening broadcast of CBN programmes in the evenings.
Support from CBN and Pat Robertson is perhaps something of a bad omen: Taylor was just a few days ago convicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, while Gbagbo is currently himself facing charges at the International Criminal Court. Also currently facing trial is Robertson’s old friend Rios Montt.
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