ABIDJAN, Oct 31 (AFP) - A panel of UN experts has accused the government of
Liberian President Charles Taylor of violating an arms embargo imposed on
the west African nation more than two years ago, the UN information agency
IRIN said Thursday.
The country received an air delivery of "six cargo aircraft in June,
July and August 2002 containing weapons and ammunition supplies totalling
over 200 tons", the experts said in the report, delivered to the UN
Security Council on October 24.
Through their inquiry, the experts discovered the arms had originated
primarily from old Yugoslav army stock and were supplied by a Belgrade-
based arms dealer.
In order to get around the UN embargo, a series of false documents and
"double documentation" were issued that faked a weapons delivery to
Nigeria, the report said.
The shipments included thousands of automatic rifles, hand grenades and
rounds of ammunition, as well as hundreds of missile launchers and pistols,
it added.
The UN experts also found that weapons continue to reach the rebel group
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which it said
could only have come via the neighboring states of Guinea, the Ivory Coast
or Sierra Leone.
The LURD has been fighting the government since 1999 with the aim of
ousting Taylor, who was elected head of state in 1997, a year after his
forces won a brutal civil war.
The experts strongly criticized the Monrovia government for ignoring a
massive humanitarian crisis in a bid to fund the counter-offensive against
the rebels.
"Nearly all income appears to be used for military operations and this
pattern of spending has contributed towards humanitarian hardship," the
report said, citing multiples instances of raids on border towns by both
rebels and government troops and noting that some 200,000 Liberians have
fled the country to escape the unrest.
The UN Security Council voted last May to renew for another 12 months
the embargo, first imposed in May 2000.
The sanctions also include restrictions on air travel by senior
Liberian government and military officials and their wives. This ban has
been flouted often as well, the experts said.
The UN report recommends that the embargo continue and be extended to
include the LURD and other groups.
It also calls for a more effective end-user certification, with the
regional group ECOWAS overseeing the procedure, to protect the arms
embargo.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Wednesday called on Yugoslavia
to halt weapons sales to Liberia and to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions,
during a meeting in London with his Yugoslav counterpart Goran Svilanovic.
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