Taylor Leaves the Country, US Warships Approach

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
August 11, 2003
Posted to the web August 11, 2003
Monrovia

Charles Taylor ended his bloody six-year rule of Liberia on Monday by
handing over the green presidential sash of office to his deputy Moses Zeh
Blah and flying out to exile in Nigeria. Shortly afterwards US warships
appeared off the coast and three helicopters flew into the US embassy
compound.

Taylor left on the presidential jet of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo
who did not come personally to attend the hand-over ceremony. However, it
was witnessed by the presidents of South Africa, Ghana and Mozambique, who
flew in to guarantee Taylor's personal security as he and has family
departed.

Some of Taylor's ministers wept openly as the plane took off, but a crowd
of civilians at the airport cheered. Thousands of bedraggled civilians
lined the roadside in stony silence as Taylor's motorcade sped to the
airport.

Reuters reported that in the rebel-held sector of Monrovia, jubilant
fighters whooped for joy, fired their guns into the air and sang "No more
monkey."

Taylor complained in a farewell speech at the presidential palace which had
no fuel left to run its electricity generators, that he had been forced out
of office by US pressure. He warned other African leaders that they too
might suffer the same fate if they were not careful.

"I want to be the sacrificial lamb, I will be the whipping boy," said
Taylor, a warlord who plunged Liberia into 14 years of civil war.

Dressed in his trademark white safari suit, he was sombre, but defiant. "I
leave you with these parting words," he concluded, "God willing, I will be
back."

President John Kufuor of Ghana said Blah, a friend and comrade in arms of
Taylor for nearly 20 years, would rule this war-torn West African country
until 2 October. Blah would then hand over to an interim president chosen
by a Liberian peace conference that is under way in Accra, he added.

But the two rebel movements who have seized most of the country and half of
the capital Monrovia, said they were unwilling to let Blah remain in power
for a further seven weeks.

The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel
movement, which controls all of northern Liberia and half of Monrovia, said
this was a much longer stretch than the two week transition period which
had previously been suggested at peace talks in Ghana brokered by the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Moses Jarbo, a senior LURD representative at the peace talks in Accra
complained: "ECOWAS is now saying things that are far removed from what we
previously discussed. This is a new development which we will have to talk
over."

But he described Taylor's resignation and departure as "a step in the right
direction." He also left open the possibility that LURD might still
withdraw its forces from Monrovia with Blah as temporary head of state,
providing the new president also pulled his gunmen out of the city.

"We have told the international community and ECOWAS that to let the
peacekeepers secure Monrovia, the Freeport and make the whole area an arms-
free zone," Jarbo told IRIN. "Once that is done there will be no need for
LURD to continue its hold on these areas."

The Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), a rebel group which controls
the south and east of the country, was sceptical that much would change in
the country while Taylor's right-hand man remained in power.

MODEL chairman Thomas Nimely told the BBC that Liberian government forces
were still attacking MODEL positions and there was no reason why Blah
should be any different from Taylor.

And Tiah Slanger, the head of the MODEL delegation at the peace talks in
Accra was sceptical that Taylor , who was elected president in 1997, would
stop meddling in the nation's affairs. "Taylor says he will leave and that
he will be back. We want to know if he is really sincere about leaving
Liberia for good," he told IRIN.

An uneasy calm has fallen over the main battle fronts since Nigerian
soldiers began arriving in Monrovia as the vanguard of a West African
peacekeeping force that is due to number 3,250 men by the end of August.

However, less than 800 Nigerian troops have arrived in the country so far
and their commanders say privately that the force is not yet strong enough
to take full control of security in the capital and wrest its strategic
port from rebel control so that relief operations can resume to assist the
city's one million beleaguered residents.

Diplomats and relief workers were hoping that following Taylor's departure,
US troops would come ashore from the naval task force that has been lying
just over the horizon for the past week. They want them to help the
Nigerian peacekeepers maintain order in Monrovia and reopen its port for
the importation of badly needed food, fuel and medical supplies.

The United Nations estimates that up to 450,000 people in the capital have
been forced out of their homes by three rebel attacks on the city over the
past two months. Many of these displaced people are starving, since aid
agencies have been unable to access food supplies at warehouses in the
rebel-held port for the past three weeks.

With large numbers of US troops bogged down in Iraq and Afghanisan,
President George Bush, has been reluctant to commit more soldiers to an
open-ended peacekeeping operation in Liberia. And he publicly ruled out any
US military intervention in Liberia until Taylor had left the country.

But now Taylor has gone and Bush must decide what to do with the 2,300
marines standing by on three assault ships that are only a few minutes
flying time from Monrovia by helicopter.

Blah urged Washington to put these troops on the ground to help the West
African peacekeepers and "give additional guarantees of security."

He and Taylor both urged the rebel movements and political parties who have
been discussing a comprehensive peace settlement in Accra for the past two
months to come home and continue their discussions in Monrovia.

"Let us now smoke the peace pipe and forget the war," Blah said.

LURD and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), another rebel group
which controls most of southern and eastern Liberia, have both said they
are willing to see a civilian appointed as interim president for a period
of up to two years to rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure and
organise fresh elections.

However, there is still no consensus over who should take on this role.

The six names currently circulating at the peace talks in Accra are George
Toe Washington, a retired army officer who was military chief of staff in
the 1960s, Togba Na Tipoteh of the Liberian People's Party, Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf, a former UN official who was defeated by Taylor in the 1997
presidential election, Marcus Jones, president of the Liberia Bar
Association, Judith Browne and Roosevelt Kuya.

Johnson Sirleaf said recently she was withdrawing her candidature, but LURD
and MODEL representatives both said that her name was still under
discussion.

ECOWAS had been expected to present both rebel movements with a final draft
of a comprehensive peace agreement over the weekend with a view to signing
it this week, but LURD and MODEL said they had yet to see the document.




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