POLITICS: New UN Sanctions on Liberia Automatically in Force

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 7 2001 (IPS) - A rash of new political and economic sanctions against Liberia automatically came into force sharp at 12:01 am Monday threatening to bring the one-time war-ravaged West African nation to a standstill.

The new sanctions would bar UN member states from importing diamonds from Liberia, limit flights by Liberian-registered planes, and place overseas travel restrictions on senior government officials, including President Charles Taylor.

The Security Council, which took the decision in early March to impose new sanctions, gave the Liberian government a two-month deadline to prove that it was not arming and financing the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel movement bent on destabilising and overthrowing the government in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Additionally, it wanted the government to expel all RUF rebels who had sought safe haven in Liberia.

The sanctions – spelled out in a resolution jointly sponsored by the United States and Britain last March – tighten the noose on Liberia which has been under a UN arms embargo since 1992 because of its own civil war.

US Ambassador James Cunningham said Friday that the new sanctions would take effect beginning Monday because the Liberian government continues to support the RUF despite warnings by the Security Council.

Cunningham said the United States was strongly supportive of the new measures because of Liberia’s illegal support for insurgents in Sierra Leone and its use of “one of the world’s most repugnant insurgencies as a proxy”.

The US envoy pointed out that Liberia also continues to illegally exploit the natural wealth of Sierra Leone and promotes instability in the region.

Taylor, who has denied all of the charges, is also accused of providing arms to the RUF in exchange for diamonds extracted by rebels from Sierra Leonean mines.

Following a summit meeting in Nigeria last April, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) established a mediation mission, comprising Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria and Togo to verify Liberia’s compliance with demands set out in the Security Council resolution.

In a report to the Security Council last month, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan said that according to observations made by the ECOWAS team, the government of Liberia was either reluctant or unable to tell the Mission how many RUF members had left Liberian territory, or which border crossing points they used. Liberia also did not provide documentation on their exit, their destination and whether some RUF members had been integrated into Liberian security forces.

“That situation would appear to underscore the lingering suspicion expressed by some of the interviewed sources that some RUF fighters might have simply been relocated to other parts of Liberia,” Annan said.

“Consequently, the Mission found it difficult to discount the speculation that some RUF members are still in Liberia,” he added.

The ECOWAS Mission recommended that (a) the government of Liberia should account for the whereabouts of Sam Bockarie, a former RUF field commander; (b) the United Nations should provide evidence of Liberia’s wrongdoings; and (c) the United Nations should deploy monitors/observers to the Liberian borders with Sierra Leone and to other entry points.

Addressing a UN press conference in January, Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan admitted that Liberia’s relationship with the RUF went back to his own country’s civil war.

“What we have rejected, however, is that that relationship, following our general elections, has been translated into one where active support has been given to the RUF to continue its war efforts in Sierra Leone,” he added.

Captan said his president was really trying to use his influence, based on the past relationship, to encourage the RUF to make that move.

“We recognised that this was an outstanding matter for our own country’s reconstruction since we could not ascertain a good future with a war continuing in a neighbouring state,” he noted.

The seven-year-old civil war in Liberia ended only after Taylor was elected president in August 1997. The war, which claimed more than 150,000 lives in a population of about 2.8 million people, left the economy in shambles.

In his address to the General Assembly two years ago, Captan said that the Taylor administration remains committed to three cardinal principles: national unity, good governance and respect for human rights.

But he also made a strong case for the lifting of the UN arms embargo imposed on Liberia in 1992. “Our request is based on a principled legal stance that the Liberian civil war, which necessitated the imposition of the embargo, effectively ended on Aug. 2, 1997, with the installation of a duly elected civilian government,” he said.

The government of Liberia, he argued, reiterates that the continued refusal by the Security Council to lift the arms embargo is a clear infringement upon Liberia’s national sovereignty, which the UN charter defends.

“Like all member states, Liberia has the unqualified right to defend itself and all those within its borders,” he said. The Security Council, he said, has no right to continue the arms embargo “in perpetuity without any explanation”, he added. (END\IPS\IP\td\da/01)

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