----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Mensah" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:31 PM
Subject: [unioNews] Charles Taylor: Exiled, but still pulling strings


> 12 October 2003 08:48
> <H3>Charles Taylor: Exiled, but still pulling strings</H3>
> Monrovia
>
> When Liberia's new leaders gather on Tuesday to take the next step on
> the path towards peace in their shattered country, one man's long
> shadow will hang ominously over proceedings.
>
> Former president Charles Taylor may have been forced into exile by a
> combination of diplomatic arm-twisting and a rebel assault on his
> capital, but he may not have played his last part in Liberia's bloody
> drama.
>
> Gyude Bryant will take power on Tuesday as the chairperson of a
> Liberian transitional authority, with the support of the United
> Nations and the west African leaders who persuaded Taylor to go into
> exile.
>
> But fears remain that after almost two decades at the centre of the
> power struggles that tore Liberia apart, 56-year-old Taylor and his
> remaining supporters may still attempt to manipulate events back
> home.
>
> Jacques Klein, the chief UN envoy to Liberia, has alleged that Taylor
> is still pulling strings from Calabar, the southeastern Nigerian city
> where he is living in some splendour in a villa overlooking the
> harbour.
>
> <B>"Taylor still has a cellphone and calls the (Liberian interim)
> government two or three times a day," Klein alleged last month. "He
> still continues to undermine the political process. Government
> officials and businessmen go to Nigeria to meet him," he said.</B>
>
> Klein's claim, which was backed last week by Washington's UN
> ambassador John Negroponte, caused Nigeria's President Olusegun
> Obasanjo to issue a stern warning to Taylor not to abuse his asylum
> privileges.
>
> Obasanjo issued a statement declaring Taylor was banned "from
> engaging in active communications with anyone engaged in political,
> illegal or governmental activities in Liberia."
>
> Taylor has been accused of sponsoring atrocities committed by rebels
> in Liberia's neighbour Sierra Leone in the 1990s and if he loses his
> asylum could face prosecution in the UN war crimes court.
> Nevertheless, he remains defiant.
>
> His spokesperson Vaanii Paasewe said on Saturday that Taylor saw
> nothing wrong in calling the caretaker government of Moses Blah, his
> former vice-president.
>
> "Our calls were not intended to undermine the peace process. We would
> have expected the incoming president to have wanted some advice, and
> we also had some ideas," he said by telephone from Calabar.
>
> Paasewe also said that Taylor wished Bryant nothing but success. "We
> want to assure you from Calabar that the president will do nothing to
> derail the peace process," Paasewe said, perhaps unconsciously
> referring to Taylor by his former title.
>
> "We want to say that we welcome the interim arrangement and that the
> former president particularly supports Gyude Bryant and wishes him
> well in trying to bring Liberians together for development and
> reconstruction."
>
> A US-educated civil servant, Taylor was trained as a guerrilla
> fighter in Libya and in 1985 formed the National Patriotic Front of
> Liberia. He fought his way into Monrovia and declared himself
> president in 1990. His rule was later confirmed by an election, but
> he proved unable to hold his tiny west African country together.
>
> By the time he left on August 11 two rebel groups had taken most of
> the country and hundreds of thousands of refugees were trapped in the
> besieged capital Monrovia on the brink of starvation. Under his rule
> Liberia became seen as a source of instability in the wider region,
> with gangs linked to Taylor's allies and enemies alike sparking
> unrest in Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast.
>
> The ranks of the militia he left behind -- and the rebels who opposed
> him -- are stuffed with children and former child soldiers,
> brutalised by war and massacres, and with a record of rape, torture
> and plunder. Now the flamboyant leader, a Baptist preacher known for
> his impeccable white safari suits and jaunty cane, is living in
> luxury in Calabar, surrounded by a substantial court and a wall of
> Nigerian police guards.
>
> But he may not be there for ever. "We look forward to him coming back
> but we've no plan or no intention of wanting a revolution or wanting
> anything terrible against the peace process," Paasewe said.
> - Sapa-AFP
>
> All material copyright Mail&Guardian.
>
>
>
>
>
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