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Liberian President Denounces Threat From US Delegation
Liberian President Charles Taylor declared Wednesday that his country will not respond to threats from any country, "no matter how big or how powerful" the country is.
Reports reaching here from Monrovia, capital of Liberia, quoted the president as saying that "we refuse to accept and (we) reject efforts on the part of any nation to muffle this country".
A US State Department delegation, led by Undersecretary for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering, Monday met with Taylor in Monrovia, and expressed displeasure over Liberia's alleged negative role in the war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Pickering said the US was "satisfied with the evidence it has seen" regarding Liberia's involvement in Sierra Leone and that if Liberia failed to act positively it would mean "severe consequences" for bilateral relations between Monrovia and Washington, and possibly the entire international community.
"We want to ask those that purport to have evidence (of Liberia's involvement in Sierra Leone) to please bring them forward...They have told us they are satisfied with what evidence they have, but 1 have said what you have is a diabolical 1ie," Taylor said.
He said his administration "will not condone anyone speaking down at us as a government".
"We don't intend to challenge any world power, but we will stand for what is right. We are entitled to fight for our rights and we don't intend to surrender an inch of it," the president said.
Taylor said Liberia was open to bilateral discussion on the Sierra Leone crisis and welcomed the country's "traditional friend, the US, in this process because Liberia respects the US as a great, powerful nation."
Taylor reiterated that Monrovia would not act unilaterally in any form or shape on matters regarding Sierra Leone as requested by some countries.
Taylor admitted having contacts with the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which, he said, were constructive and should be used in a positive way as in the case of the release of over 500 UN personnel taken hostage by the rebels.
He restated Liberia's condemnation of the rebels taking the UN personnel hostage. "I have always told the RUF that next to God is the United Nations. It is terribly stupid to take UN personnel hostages," he added.
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