LIBERIA: Taylor ‘Uncovers’ Plot To Topple His Government

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Aug 7 1998 (IPS) - Liberian security forces have been placed on alert after president Charles Taylor accused ECOMOG, the West African peacekeeping force, of trying to overthrow his administration.

Taylor said he had in his possession documents to substantiate his allegations against the ECOMOG which had stayed in his country for eight years and who helped bring the bloody civil war in Liberia to an end last year.

“We intend to raise the issue with the ECOMOG High Command because we cannot allow any attempt at destabilising our country,” Liberia’s defence minister, Daniel Cheah, said this week.

The ECOMOG High Command is based in the Liberian capital of Monrovia where it has its headquarters. But, with tension mounting between the peacekeepers and the Liberian government, ECOMOG has decided to move its operational headquarters to neighbouring Sierra Leone, the sub-region’s current troubled spot.

Even before the Liberian authorities formally presented their complaints to ECOMOG, the peacekeeping force had responded to the allegations, through its chief of staff, General Abdul Wan Mohamed.

“These allegations are preposterous. How could ECOMOG shatter the peace it helped build in Liberia by supporting a coup against Taylor’s government? That is ridiculous”.

In his address to commemorate his one year in office recently, President Taylor said ECOMOG was posing a security threat to his administration.

Taylor said over 200 Guinea troops (part of ECOMOG) have crossed into Liberian territory to carry out the plot.

His statement was echoed by Philip Brown, Liberia’s defence spokesman. “We know for sure that the People’s Republic of China is funding the coup plot and we are aware of a recent meeting in Freetown (Sierra Leone) between the conspirators and former Liberian rebel faction leaders to carry out the plot,” he told journalists on Wednesday.

He said the dissidents were already in Monrovia waiting for orders and arms to strike. But, the Liberian authorities excluded the Nigerian and Ghanian contingents in ECOMOG, from the alleged plot, leaving mainly Guineans as the conspirators.

Soon after Brown’s briefing, the Guinea embassy in Monrovia issued a press statement denying any Guinean involvement in alleged plots to topple Taylor.

“Guinea has never been and would never take part in any plot to destabilise Liberia, given our traditional ties of brotherhood and good neighbourliness,” said the statement.

Political observers here believe the Taylor administration is bitter over China’s withdrawal of economic assistance to the war- ravaged West African nation for Liberia’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which is considered by Beijing as a renegade province of China.

Some say Taylor had invented the coup story to divert attention from his country’s economic woes and his government’s inability to meet its pre-election promises.

Since assuming the mantle of leadership, Taylor’s main rivals, former presidential aspirants, ex-rebels Roosevelt Johnson and Alhaji Kromah and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, have all fled the country, in the face of intimidation and threats on their lives.

Said Liberia’s political commentator John Vamboi: “Taylor’s Special Security Services (SSS) have been hounding opponents and systematically eliminating those whom they perceive constitute a threat to the Taylor administration.”

One such political opponent, Samuel Dokey, was assassinated by alleged SSS agents, together with members of his family, earlier this year.

The coup claim is bound to affect Liberia’s relations with Sierra Leone. Already, there is a feeling of mistrust, with the majority of Sierra Leoneans blaming Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) of backing remnants of the ousted Sierra Leone’s military junta which is battling ECOMOG forces in the northeast of the country.