By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Sep 11 1998 (IPS)

Liberia has accused a top Sierra Leonean official of plotting to murder President Charles Taylor and destabilise the West African country.

State-owned Radio Liberia quoted defence ministry spokesman, Philip Brown, Thursday as saying, “the plot to assassinate President Taylor involves Sierra Leone’s defence minister, Sam Hinga Norman and ECOMOG’s commander in Sierra Leone, Brigadier Maxwell Khobe.”

ECOMOG, the West African Peacekeeping Force, played the leading role in overthrowing the military junta that ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998.

Brown claimed that the plotters held a meeting, chaired by Norman, at the Wilberforce Military barracks in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown recently.

Former Liberian faction leader Al Haji Kromah, who is now living in exile in neighbouring Guinea, was also present at the parley, according to Brown.

He said another Liberian ex-faction leader, Roosevelt Johnson, who was in the United States, contacted Sierra Leone’s ambassador in Washington, John Leigh, to persuade President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to support the rebellion. Johnson has since returned to Liberia.

“The request was turned down, but the coup plotters contacted Guinean leader Lansana Conte, who in turn contacted his Nigerian counterpart to back the plot,” Brown added.

He said his government was in possession of, and will publish, the invitation sent to the Nigerian leader, Gen Abdulsalaam Abubakar, by Conte.

This is not the first time that the Liberian government is complaining of plots by dissidents and perceived foreign enemies to topple it.

Last month, Taylor claimed that the funding to carry out the plot was provided by China, following a meeting by the plotters in Freetown.

But Less than 24 hours after the announcement on the state radio, Johnson said he had nothing to do with the “imaginary coup theory.”

He told journalists in Monrovia: “The claims are preposterous…I have better things to think about and cannot see myself getting involved with a plot to destabilise my country.”

Both Norman and Khobe also denied the claims. “I am preoccupied with how to get our forces to flush out rebel remnants from this country,” Norman told IPS on Friday.

“We want more troops in Sierra Leone to conclude the rebellion; how should anyone imagine that we would stretch ourselves further to invade another country? This is silly,” he said.

Khobe, who served with the ECOMOG contingent in Liberia before Taylor became President last year, said the Liberian leader was up to a mischievous game.

“Each time Charles Taylor complains that someone is out to get him, he means exactly the opposite. He is trying to eliminate someone he perceives as a threat,” he said.

He told IPS that Taylor was trying to divert public attention away from the compounding political crisis at home. “Everyone in that country is afraid; there is no thriving business in Liberia and fewer people now live in Monrovia than during the war,” he said.

In August, a gun battle erupted between Roosevelt’s and Taylor’s security forces, resulting in injuries of some of their fighters.

Taylor and Johnson don’t see eye-to-eye. All the other opposition leaders have fled the country, except Johnson. “Charles Taylor wants to eliminate me by any means, but I can’t run away from my country,” he said, after the August shooting.

In a move widely regarded in Monrovia as being pleasing to Taylor, ECOMOG announced that it would be moving its headquarters to Sierra Leone, after eight years of operation in Liberia.

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