Africa, Headlines, North America

POLITICS-LIBERIA: U.S. Hails Ceasefire Accord, Pledges Support

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 17 2003 (IPS) - The administration on Tuesday ”applaud(ed)” the cease-fire accord signed in Accra, Ghana that provides for the creation of a new Liberian government, excluding President Charles Taylor who was indicted for war crimes earlier this month, within 30 days.

Several activist groups also hailed the agreement to end 12 years of civil war in the West African nation and said they hoped that the United States would seriously consider committing troops to an international stabilisation force that might be sent to keep the peace.

Noting that President George W Bush is scheduled to make his first trip to Africa, Jul. 7-15, Africa Action Director Salih Booker said his swing through the region ”would be an opportunity to demonstrate a U.S. commitment to peace-building in Africa, and a commitment to Liberia would be the most appropriate place to start”.

But he expressed scepticism that Washington would go further than providing logistical support for any peacekeeping operation, as successive governments have refused to deploy soldiers for peacekeeping or peace-making operations in Africa since the country lost 18 soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993.

”I don’t believe the U.S. is prepared to play a lead role in Liberia despite its colonial ties to the country and the fact that both Britain and France have both recently led peace operations in countries in the region which they colonised,” he said.

Washington sent a ship carrying 3,000 Marines on their way home from the Iraq War to waters off the Liberian coast, but the Pentagon said troops would be deployed only if they were needed to evacuate U.S. and other foreign nationals. French troops led a partial evacuation last week.

Tuesday’s agreement, which was negotiated in Accra under the auspices of the Economic Community of the West Africa States (ECOWAS), came amid an intensification of clashes between Liberian troops and two rebels forces that advanced to the outskirts of the capital, Monrovia, over the past 10 days.

Among other provisions, it provides for ECOWAS to dispatch a joint verification team and monitoring group to Liberia and to prepare for an eventual international stabilisation force that will take over peacekeeping duties.

The rebels, who have been supported by Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire, both countries – along with Sierra Leone – where Taylor has also sponsored insurgencies, made major progress amid growing international moves against Taylor, a warlord who launched his own rebellion against former President Sam Doe in December 1989 and was elected president in 1996.

Last month, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, whose agency is responsible for some 300,000 Liberian refugees scattered around the sub-region, called openly for Taylor to leave office. ”You’re killing your own people,” he said after Taylor stood him up during a visit to Monrovia.

At the same time, the head of the U.N.-backed Special Court on Sierra Leone, David Crane, accused Taylor of harbouring al-Qaeda terrorists, selling them smuggled diamonds, and assassinating a former lieutenant from Sierra Leone whose arrest had been ordered by the Court.

On Jun. 4, the tribunal disclosed that Taylor had been indicted for war crimes, accusing him of ”bearing the greatest responsibility” for more than a decade of wars, murders and rapes that had resulted in the deaths of at least 200,000 people in the sub-region. Taylor was the chief sponsor of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel group in Sierra Leone best known for hacking off the limbs of its victims and of using gang rape to terrify civilians.

The Court’s announcement was made just as cease-fire talks got underway in Accra with Taylor’s announcement that he was prepared to step down by the end of the year.

The president made a quick exit from the conference and returned to Monrovia aboard a Ghanaian government plane, even as global human rights groups pressed for his arrest.

As rebels approached the capital in the days since, tens of thousands of people fled to the countryside, adding to the more than 1.3 million Liberians who have been uprooted over the past 12 years.

Taylor made no public comment after the deal, which was witnessed by observers from the United States, the European Union (EU), Nigeria, and Ghana, but analysts here are worried that he may not comply.

Indeed, there were early hints that Taylor may consider the cease-fire as the only binding part of the accord, according to an Associated Press report that quoted his spokesman as saying that ”resignation, stepping aside, and unity government …will have to be thrashed out”.

The State Department applauded the ceasefire. ”We further applaud the goal of concluding an agreement within 30 days for an interim government that will not include President Taylor,” said spokesman, Andrew Mitchell, who cautioned that ”tough negotiations” were expected.

Analysts said they believe that Taylor is likely to try to ”plea bargain” – that is, to try to leverage his co-operation with the accord’s provisions to gain immunity from prosecution by the Court.

”This will be a real challenge,” said Booker. ”On the one hand, you don’t want to accept plea bargains for perpetrators of crimes against humanity, but, on the other hand, you have Liberian people who want to give priority to restoring peace and rebuilding their lives.”

But Janet Fleischman, director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) here, said she did not see how Taylor could get off. ”Granting someone like that amnesty for his crimes would contravene the basic precepts of international law,” she said.. ”He’s now an indicted war criminal; that’s hard to erase.”

”This is the beginning, rather than the end of the diplomatic challenge,” said John Prendergast, chief Africa specialist for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, ”because Taylor’s track record of eviscerating every agreement he has signed over the last 14 years is such that pressure must continue to be placed on him to comply”.

He stressed that the United States must itself lead with a ”direct operational presence”, if a stabilisation force is to rally the kind of international support that will be necessary to succeed.