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Annan Proposes Panel to Probe Liberia's Sanctions Violations
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday proposed a five-member panel of experts to investigate any violations of the UN sanctions against Liberia, a UN spokesman said.
The UN spokesman, Fred Eckhard, told a press conference said Annan made the proposal in his letter to the president of the UN Security Council, which was released Monday.
"That panel was to be established for six months, and would investigate any violations of the sanctions, as well as possible links between the exploitation of natural resources and the fueling of the conflict in the region," he said.
The U.N. chief appointed Martin Chungong Ayafor of Cameroon, who had chaired an earlier panel of experts that dealt with violations of the sanctions in Sierra Leone, to head the Liberia panel of experts, he said.
Annan also appointed Atabou Bodian of Senegal, an expert from the International Civil Aviation Organization, Johan Pelemam, an expert on arms and transportation from Belgium, Harjit Singh Sandhu of India, an expert from the International Criminal Police Commission (Interpol), and Alex Vines, a diamond expert from the United Kingdom, he said.
The U.N. Security Council imposed the sanctions on Liberia earlier this month on the ground that Monrovia has bought diamonds mined illegally by Sierra Leonean rebels in exchange for arms and the 15-nation body has given the Liberian government until May to prove it has stopped or face sanctions on its own diamond sales and travel by officials.
Liberia earlier this month halted diamond exports for three months to give it time to put its own certification system in place.
Sierra Leone introduced a certification system last October to make it easier for the international community to enforce a ban on the so-called "conflict diamonds" sold to fund rebels' fighting.
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