Liberian stand-off
Nigerian peace-keepers have returned to Liberia after a five-year absence, writes Gamal Nkrumah
The diplomatic dance of United States President George W Bush with his Liberian counterpart is quickening. Three US warships are anchored off the coast of Liberia with more than 2,000 US Marines aboard. Liberian President Charles Taylor said that he would step down on 11 August but the Bush administration insists that Taylor must leave the country before US troops step ashore. With 150,000 troops bogged down in Iraq Washington remains reluctant to deploy it forces in West Africa preferring, it would seem, to use psychological pressure instead to force Taylor out.
"[Taylor] needs to leave the country. That's what our focus is," said White House Spokesman Scott McClellan. US State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher concurred, saying that the main condition for US intervention is Taylor's unconditional departure. Meanwhile, the US has pledged $10 million to assist the West African peace-keeping force in Liberia.
The US not only wants Taylor out of Liberia, it wants to see him prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Last month a Sierra Leone-based UN- sponsored war crimes tribunal issued an international warrant for his arrest. The Sierra Leone special court is supported by the US, Britain and other Western powers.
Taylor stands accused of backing the former armed Sierra Leonean opposition group the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), an organisation that Western governments and international human rights organisations claim committed gross human rights violations in a ruthless quest for power.
But unlike Saddam Hussein, who flatly rejected offers of asylum from neighbouring Arab countries, Taylor has reluctantly accepted an offer of asylum from Nigeria. Even so, his acceptance remains conditional. He wants international peace-keepers to move into Liberia before he leaves the country and he insists on immunity from prosecution. His government has officially asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to cancel the war crime warrant issued against him.
Taylor argues that if the former Chilean dictator Pinochet was allowed to go free, he too should not be prosecuted. He was, after all, democratically elected, and does not want to share the fate of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
West African leaders are scheduled to fly to Liberia next week for peace talks with representatives of the Liberian government and armed opposition forces. Taylor has not yet named his successor and the constitutional process for succession in Liberia is unclear, though many commentators expect Mose Blah to take over.
Peace talks taking place in Ghana between the Liberian government and armed opposition forces suggest that the transitional government set up after Taylor's ouster would be led by an independent civilian and not by armed groups, neither the Liberian government nor opposition forces.
As the guns fall silent in Liberia's divided capital, Monrovia, humanitarian relief agencies are assessing the civilian cost. The UN has made an urgent appeal for $70 million and supplies of food, water and medicine are beginning to trickle in to Monrovia.
The main Liberian armed opposition groups -- Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) -- are both ethnic- based organisations with a terrible record of gross human rights violations. LURD, which has taken control of the port of Monrovia, is distributing food stocked in port warehouses in an attempt to curry favour with the local population.
Television footage of civilian casualties have fanned international humanitarian concern. With more than one million Liberians in need of urgent medical care and food, aid relief agencies are stepping up their activities, taking advantage of the lull in fighting and the presence in Liberia of the West African peace- keeping force.
Mohamed Ibn Chambas, secretary- general of the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), told Al-Ahram Weekly that "the intervention of African peace-keeping forces in Liberia was a good example of finding African solutions to African problems." He added that the chances for lasting peace in Liberia are closer than ever before.
Liberian government forces are now restricted to the city centre. Robertfield International Airport, 50kms to the east of the capital, the country's main gateway, is in the hands of West African peace-keeping troops.
The first batch of Nigerian peace- keeping troops arrived in Liberia on Monday. Two battalions from Nigeria, with an estimated 1,500 men, are to be supported by additional troops from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Mali, Senegal and Gambia. By the end of the month a total of 3,250 West African troops will be stationed in Liberia.
Ibn Chambas, a Ghanaian national and the chief mediator at the Liberian peace talks, stressed that ECOWAS is collaborating closely with the UN.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement in New York praising ECOWAS's efforts and adding that he hoped the Ghana talks would "expediate the conclusion of a comprehensive peace agreement and facilitate a smooth transition" of power in Liberia.
