Liberia's Blah Sworn in as New President

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Liberia's Blah Sworn in as New President

Moses Blah, who served as Liberian vice president for years, was sworn in as president of Liberia on Monday in Monrovia, taking over from Charles Taylor.

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Moses Blah, who served as Liberian vice president for years, was sworn in as president of Liberia on Monday in Monrovia, taking over from Charles Taylor.

Blah took office at a ceremony in the Liberian capital under the gaze of African leaders including Ghanaian, Mozambican and South African presidents.

Placing his left hand on the Bible and his right hand in the air, Blah pledged to "faithfully, conscientiously and impartially discharge the duties and functions of the Republic of Liberia."

Then the new president called on rebel factions who rose up to overthrow Taylor to join talks with the government to end civil war after the departure of Taylor on Monday, saying "You have no further excuse not to join the peace wagon."

Blah will stay until October and then hand over to an transitional administration picked by warring factions and political parties at talks in Ghana, said Ghanaian President John Kufuor, head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

"Today's ceremony marks the end of an era in Liberia,'' said Kufuor while addressing about 300 Liberian and other dignitaries on the ceremony, adding "It is our expectation that today the war in Liberia has ended."

He also said South Africa would be contributing troops to the West African force, which started deploying last week.

"It is indeed a shameful thing that as Africans we have killed ourselves for such a long time,'' said South African President Thabo Mbeki, who received a standing ovation. ``It is indeed time that this war should come to an end.''

However, commanders of the major rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) say they will accept the results of the Ghana talks, but also that they oppose Blah and will relaunch fighting if a more neutral civilian is not found to replace him.

Currently, hundreds of Nigerian peacekeepers, who are the vanguard of a much larger force being deployed by ECOWAS, are patrolling the war-torn capital of Monrovia from last week.

Blah and his predecessor Taylor entered a military college in Tajura, Libya, from 1985 to 1989, and returned from Libya in 1989 as part of a 200-strong group dubbed the Special Forces Commandos,the military vanguard of Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia.

They immediately took up arms against Liberia's government, launching a civil war in which some 200,000 people were killed andregional powers were dragged into the conflict.

Seven years of failed peace deals followed, until Taylor was elected president in 1997 after threatening to restart the fighting.

During the first three years of Taylor's reign, Blah returned to Libya as Liberian ambassador, before coming home in July 2000 to become vice president, a month after Taylor lost his vice president Enoch Dogolea, and now he replaced Taylor who was forced to leave power under mounting pressures.

He was born on April 18, 1947 in Toweh Town, a Gio-speaking hamlet in north-eastern Nimba County, close to the border with Cote d' Ivoire.

He had his secondary education at Tappeta Public school in 1967and got his further education in Hamburg, Germany.

Blah was married to Nettie and has 14 children. Fluent in German, French and Arabic, he has traveled widely in Africa, Europe and Asia with hobbies of sport and photography.

The Liberian civil war, which lasted more than 14 years and claimed at least 200,000 lives, flared up again in 1998 following attacks launched by the rebel LURD in northern Liberia.

Civil war over the past decade has made Liberia among the most miserable places in the world and the latest unrest since 1998 has forced some 300,000 Liberians to flee to neighboring countries and left thousands more dead.

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