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Liberia Disappointed at Tighter UN Sanctions: Statement
A Liberian government statement said here Monday that Monrovia is disappointed at a UN Security Council decision to mount sanctions against Liberia's diamond exports and a travel ban on its leaders.
The statement came as the UN sanctions went into force as of midnight on Monday to punish Liberia for fueling a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone through a gems-for-guns trade.
The statement, read here by Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan at the start of his press conference, said, "The Government of Liberia notes with disappointment the outcome" of the closed- door consultations by the Security Council that took place last Friday.
"The Government of Liberia further regrets that the decision taken by the council was not based on any verifiable evidence of Liberia's noncompliance" with the relevant council resolution asking Liberia to dispel Sierra Leonean rebels from its soil.
During his stay here in New York, the foreign minister has met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the president of the Security Council, James Cunningham of the United States, and Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, who chairs the council' s Liberia Sanctions Committee.
The 15-member Security Council imposed the ban on March 7, with a two-month delay to give Liberia time to cut ties with Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, accused of killing, raping and mutilating civilians over the last decade.
But on Friday last week, council members made no move to stop the sanctions from taking effect, despite last-minute appeals from Liberian President Charles Taylor, held personally responsible for fomenting the war by supplying the rebels with guns in exchange for Sierra Leone's diamonds.
The decision was based on a report last week from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said information indicated Liberia had not yet cut ties with the rebels, closed their bank accounts and expelled their leaders as the council demanded.
The embargoes, which include an arms ban that went into force in March, stay in place until May 2002 unless the council decides to lift them earlier or votes to extend them.
In Sierra Leone, the United Nations has fielded its largest current peacekeeping operation of more than 12,000 troops. The rebels last year broke a 1999 peace agreement and captured 500 U.N. peacekeepers, who were then released through Taylor's mediation.
A cease-fire negotiated in November has generally held and U.N. officials are speaking to the rebels on a regular basis. But the Sierra Leonean Government still does not have control of rebel territory, including the diamond-rich areas in the West African country.
Taylor's ties with RUF leader Foday Sankoh, now in jail in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown, go back 10 years, when they trained in Liberia. Sankoh helped Taylor seize power in the military coup, and they both helped Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore do the same, the panel said.
"Liberian President Charles Taylor is actively involved in fueling the violence in Sierra Leone and many businessmen close to his inner circle operate on an international scale," it said.
The panel's report said that the value of diamonds Liberia smuggled from Sierra Leone ranged from 25 million U.S. dollars to as much as 125 million dollars a year, more than enough to sustain the RUF. Liberia, the report said, was exporting far more diamonds than its own mines yielded.
However, Captan denied the charges by the panel, saying that " the Liberian Government is not even in a position to provide financial assistance to the RUF."
He challenged the Security Council to show "facts (of) concrete evidence of the allegations. We must be confronted with the facts, and we must be able to scrutinize the fact that we are confronted with."
But "we have been indicted with the secrete evidence or evidence that we cannot see," he said. "I cannot see how this can be considered fair or transparent."
Sanctions Against Liberia Take EffectA tighter UN sanctions against Liberia go into force Monday due to its failure to demonstrate compliance with the Council's demands.
"(The sanctions) will automatically take effect next week because Monrovia has not demonstrated compliance with the council' s demands," U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham, president of the U.N. Security Council, said last Friday in a presidential statement following closed-door consultations on the Secretary-General's latest report on Liberia and a briefing by Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, who chairs the council's Liberia sanctions committee.
The president told reporters that council members had concluded that the information available on steps taken by the Government of Liberia was "not sufficient for the council to conclude that sanctions under resolution 1343 should be postponed."
Under resolution 1343, Liberia should immediately stop supporting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone and other armed groups in the region. It also stated that in the absence of compliance with the resolution's demands, additional sanctions would take effect on May 7, including a ban on the direct or indirect import of all rough diamonds from Liberia, and measures to prevent travel by senior members of the country's government or their spouses.
The president noted that the sanctions were targeted to address the leadership of Liberia and not cause harm to the country's people.
"They are designed to limit any impact on the humanitarian situation in the country and in fact, there was a great deal of expression of concern about the humanitarian situation in Liberia, " he said.
"The sanctions are intended to encourage performance, and to achieve the goal of the resolution which is to have the Government of Liberia break its links with the RUF and to end its support for it, and the council has no desire to impact the situation of the people of Liberia," the Council President concluded.
President Vows to Respect UN SanctionLiberian President Charles Taylor Monday pledged to respect the ongoing sanctions imposed by the United Nations on his country, according to reports reaching here from the country's capital Monrovia.
Taylor was quoted as saying that he will mark Friday, the day the sanctions decision was announced by the U.N, as a "bloody Friday in the history of this nation", adding that the international community has conspired against the west African small country.
However, Taylor told his cabinet "to respect the sanctions" and pledged to "continue to provide good leadership" when he addressed an emergency cabinet meeting.
At the meeting, the president also directed his cabinet to set up two special committees, including one to check inflation in the wake of the sanctions and the other to "handle foreign affairs relating to the sanctions."
Earlier on Monday, some 3,000 protesters, most of them women, marched in Monrovia and headed for the resident office of the U.N., to hand over a petition calling for an end to sanctions.
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council held a close-door meeting and discussed the latest U.N. report on Liberia.
At the end of the meeting, President of the Security Council James Cunningham announced that the U.N. additional sanctions on Liberia should take into force on May 7, saying that Liberia has not entirely cut ties with Sierra Leone's rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
However, the Liberian government insists that it has expulsed the members of Sierra Leone's rebels from its territory, frozen their financial assets and banned its trade of diamonds, arguing that the sanctions against his country are "unjust and illegitimate".
The security council alleges Liberia is involved in gun-running and diamond smuggling with rebels of the RUF in Sierra Leone that has been fueling war in that country for a decade. Liberia, however, denies the allegations.
Protest at UN SanctionsThousands of Liberians Monday paraded through the streets of the capital Monrovia again to protest the ongoing sanctions imposed by the United Nations on their country, according to reports reaching here from Monrovia.
The fresh sanctions by the U.N. on the ban of importing diamonds from the west African country and restrictions on travel by its senior officials came into force on Monday after the U.N. imposed an arms embargo on the country on March 7.
"We are going to present a resolution to the U.N. special representative to Liberia," the parade organizer, Julie Endee- Tarpeh, was quoted as saying, adding that Monday's peaceful demonstration was planned to conclude in front of the Guinean Embassy.
Earlier on Saturday, thousands of Liberians including President Charles Taylor's wife marched in Monrovia to protest the sanctions, urging international mediation to end conflict between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Taylor Sunday urged the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to back his position against the additional sanctions on his country, claiming that the U.N. sanctions could have a negative impact on the west African sub-region.
Taylor, who has been accused by the U.N. of fomenting the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone for "blood diamonds", complained that the sanctions were imposed without "taking into consideration the views" of the OAU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council held a close-door meeting and discussed the latest U.N. report on Liberia. At the end of the meeting, President of the Security Council James Cunningham announced that the U.N. additional sanctions on Liberia should take effect starting May 7 since Liberia had not entirely cut its ties with Sierra Leone's rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
The 12-month sanctions were imposed to compel the Liberian government to terminate its support for the RUF in a bid to foster the end of the civil war in Sierra Leone, which has claimed at least 200,000 lives since it erupted in March 1991.
However, the Liberian government insisted that it had expulsed the members of Sierra Leone's rebels from its territory, frozen their financial assets and banned its trade in diamonds, arguing that the sanctions against his country are "unjust and illegitimate".
In March this year, the U.N. Security Council stayed the imposition of sanctions on Liberia following a plea from the ECOWAS for Liberia to be given 60 days to address concerns of the Security Council. The deadline expires on May 7.
The Security Council alleges Liberia is involved in gun-running and diamond smuggling with rebels of the RUF in Sierra Leone that has been fueling war in that country for a decade. Liberia, however, denies the allegations.
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