Gamal Nkrumah talks with the Liberian President Charles Taylor about the prospects for peace in the war-torn West African country "More than 80 per cent of the population of this country voted for me in free and fair elections. My critics cannot discount the facts. They know that if presidential elections are to be held in October as originally scheduled that I will win again," Liberian President Charles Taylor told Al- Ahram Weekly. Depicted by the Western media as a silver-tongued villain, the cheekiest robber and most bloodthirsty murderer in West Africa for masterminding regional wars and scooping fat profits from feuding, the Liberian President protested his innocence and told the Weekly that he is prepared to sacrifice everything for peace, even if it means relinquishing office. President Taylor, democratically- elected in 1997 when his ruling National Patriotic Party was swept to power in a landslide victory to the chagrin of Western powers, has recently made overtures to his Liberian protagonists and appealed to Western powers to stop their relentless campaign to topple his government. He says that he is willing to give up power to keep the peace in Liberia. "Action speaks louder than words," Taylor said. Negotiators working on his behalf signed a cease-fire agreement with armed Liberian opposition groups in neighbouring Ghana on Tuesday 17 June. Under the agreement aimed at ending Liberia's civil war, President Taylor pledged to relinquish power. A transitional government of national unity would accordingly be set up within 30 days. Britain and the United States are particularly suspicious of Taylor's links and impressive networks with insurgency groups throughout West Africa and his close ties with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Two years ago, the United Nations, prompted by the US and Britain, imposed stringent economic sanctions on Liberia, a West African nation of 3.5 million people, 80 per cent of whom live in abject poverty. The UN sanctions have exacerbated the economic woes of the war- torn country, further aggravating the poverty problem and intensified the desperate scramble for fast-shrinking development funds and meagre resources. To compound matters, last month the UN extended the trade embargo to include Liberian timber, primarily because of Taylor's alleged involvement in this lucrative sector of the Liberian economy. Wood constitutes a major export earner for the impoverished West African nation. The Liberian president warned that the UN timber ban will intensify the "great humanitarian and economic hardships [resulting from] previous UN sanctions". Especially galling for the Liberians is a feeling that the country has been singled out for retribution. "There are many military dictators in Africa and leaders who have stayed in office for decades and yet the West is not interested in ousting them. The Western powers perhaps dislike my outspoken criticism of some of their policies and practices in Africa," Taylor said. Two years ago, Britain forcibly restored a modicum of peace in its former colony Sierra Leone. Taylor's support for armed opposition groups against the Sierra Leonean government antagonised Britain. Taylor is accused of backing the former armed Sierra Leonean opposition group the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), an organisation that Western governments and human rights groups say committed gross human rights violations in its ruthless quest for power. France, not to be outdone by the British, is currently trying hard to keep the peace between the Ivorian government and armed opposition groups in its own former West African colony. Again, Taylor is said to back armed opposition groups in western Ivory Coast adjacent to Liberia. The British-based human rights campaign group Global Witness accused the Liberian government of arming the two main armed Ivorian opposition groups based in the southwestern part of the country -- the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO) and Justice and Peace Movement (MJP). "The Liberian government is actively involved in the illegal arms trade, and is the driving force behind the training, arming and deployment of MPIGO and MJP, with Liberian President Charles Taylor calling the shots from Monrovia," claimed Global Witness campaigner Alice Blondel. The group also claims that Liberian assets worth $3.8 billion are deposited in Swiss bank accounts and that "blood diamonds", "logging" and "arms trafficking" are the main sources of these funds, a charge Taylor hotly denies. The Liberian president maintains there is a vicious Western campaign to discredit him and his government. Such claims, he warns, are made to justify the ruinous UN-imposed sanctions on Liberia. "These are all lies. Big lies to discredit me. My detractors have no concrete evidence whatsoever," the Liberian president told the Weekly. "Their accusations are politically motivated. They have a political and economic agenda and they feel that I must be removed to advance their interests in the West African region." The United States, the creator of Liberia -- a war-torn country sandwiched between Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast -- appears to be curiously disinterested in separating Liberia's warring groups. But like London, Washington appears bent on throwing Taylor out of office, pointedly rejecting his repeated requests for a rapprochement. Taylor says that the West is fighting a war by proxy, aiding and abetting armed opposition groups operating from neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone. The Liberian president pointed out that in spite of massive Western backing for the rebels, he was winning the war against Liberian armed opposition groups. "Right now, even as we are talking, Liberian government troops are securing the border area between Guinea and Liberia. The rebels are in retreat, but as long as they are propped up by powerful backers, they will no doubt return." On 4 June, President Taylor was indicted and a warrant issued for his arrest by the Sierra Leone Special Court supported by the UN, the US, Britain and other Western powers. Taylor was at the time on an official visit to neighbouring Ghana for peace talks with Liberian armed opposition groups. The Ghanaian government pointedly ignored the Sierra Leonean court's ruling. Taylor, understandably, cut short his visit to Ghana, and flew back to his besieged capital, Monrovia, encircled by armed opposition forces. There are tens of thousands of Ghanaians in Liberia. Had the Ghanaian government complied with the Sierra Leonean court decree, the lives of Ghanaians in Liberia would have been at risk. "Ghana acted cleverly," Taylor told the Weekly. "Ghana followed the rules of international law and acted according to well-established rules of international relations. [US President George W] Bush and [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon were indicted for war crimes by a court in Belgium. Few, if any, countries took the charge seriously. Why do people expect otherwise, as far as we are concerned, in Liberia," Taylor protested. "The indictment was politically motivated. Why do Western powers want to see me tried by my very enemies," Taylor asked rhetorically. Taylor in return warned that there will be no peace in Liberia unless his indictment was lifted. "We hope that our traditional allies led by the US do not engage in destabilising Liberia," he added. The UN-backed war crimes court investigating the brutal 10-year civil war in Sierra Leone insists that Taylor must be arrested for his role in the Sierra Leonean civil war. Liberian armed opposition groups also demand that Taylor renounce office as a precondition for signing a peace agreement in Ghana to end the four-year Liberian civil war. LURD and MODEL insist that Taylor step down before a peace deal is clinched. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the secretary-general of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), is heading a mediating effort. He wants to see opposition figures who do not command armed militias included in the Liberian national reconciliation process. "The political future of Liberia should not be determined only by those factions which are armed, but by all Liberians," ECOWAS Secretary-General Mohamed Ibn Chambas, a Ghanaian national and the chief mediator in the Liberian peace talks told reporters in Ghana recently. Ibn Chambas wants to see Liberian civilian opposition figures such as investment banker and former Liberian Finance Minister Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the former leader of the Liberian Senate and a one-time close friend and associate of Taylor, Charles Walker Brumskine, included in the Liberian peace process. Sirleaf, a former top UN officer, lost the 1997 elections to Taylor but was his chief opponent. There has been a dangerous historical precedent for ECOWAS intervention in Liberia. In 1990, the late Liberian President Samuel Doe was captured, tortured and assassinated by rebel leader Prince Johnson after Doe was talked into disarming by the ECOWAS peace-keeping force ECOMOG. Doe set the cycle of Liberian political violence in motion. He staged a military coup in 1980 killing the then President William Tolbert, the last in a long line of presidents hailing from Liberia's African-American elite. Doe became the first indigenous Liberian to rule the country. Political parties were promptly banned, but under intense US pressure, Doe relented and in 1984 Liberia returned to multi-party and political pluralism. Doe won the presidential elections held a year later, but opposition groups accused him of rigging the elections. As a result, armed opposition groups were formed to challenge Doe's government. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Taylor, a former cabinet minister in Doe's government, spearheaded the struggle to topple the Doe regime. The roots of the current Liberian civil war go back to the first Liberian civil war which erupted after Doe's demise. Doe's coup d'état ended the monopoly of political and economic power of the African American- Liberian elite that had ruled the country since its creation as a safe haven for freed slaves in 1847, and its constitution was modelled on that of the US. Today, the chief Liberian armed opposition groups are the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). Both LURD and MODEL are ethnic- based organisations with a terrible record of gross human rights violations and violence against innocent civilians. LURD draws heavily on the support and backing of the mainly Muslim Mandingo ethnic group. MODEL, on the other hand, has its support base among the ethnic Krahn. Taylor insists that his government does not exclude or discriminate against any particular Liberian ethnic group. All ethnic groups are represented in his government. He said that mercenaries and foreigners account for 70 per cent of the armed opposition groups forces. "Only 30 per cent of their fighting men are local Liberians," Taylor stressed. "They have no constituency in Liberia and have no popular support," he added. Links with the turbulent past persist. LURD's vice-president is none other than Chayee Doe, the younger brother of the late Liberian president. Cruel acts of revenge are prevalent in Liberia. More than 30,000 Liberians were killed in the last six months, and more than a million Liberians rendered homeless. The Liberian economy quickly collapsed and a state of socio- political chaos ensued. The Liberian civil war only intensified after the assassination of Doe. There are now concerns in Liberia and West Africa that Taylor's forcible removal might trigger a bloody chain reaction of revenge and retribution. It remains to be seen precisely how the details of the agreement are to work out in practice. One can only speculate what will happen, in Liberia and the entire West African region, if the Liberian president is forced out.
