lennart
01-03-03, 13:15
Liberia's Taylor accuses Guinea of arming rebels
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Liberian President Charles Taylor has complained to the United Nations that West African neighbor Guinea is backing rebels trying to topple his government, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday.
The charge that Guinea was providing "military and other support" to Liberia's main armed opposition group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, came in a letter from Taylor to the United Nations, Annan reported to the 15-nation Security Council.
Taylor's letter was not immediately made public.
Annan said it appeared LURD was determined to seize power by force in the impoverished nation of 3 million people and added it was "also clear that the rebel group enjoys some external military support."
"The international community should discourage such support, whose only achievement so far has been the massive displacement of innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly, the deaths of thousands of persons and the wanton destruction of infrastructure and personal property," he said.
"If decisive action is not taken to put an end to this tragedy, a generalized humanitarian and economic crisis could engulf the entire West African region," he said.
Ivory Coast, Liberia's neighbor to the east, has been embroiled in conflict for five months while Sierra Leone to the northwest is still recovering from a long civil war.
"The subregional dimensions of the Liberian conflict have now clearly come to the fore with reports of the involvement of Liberian armed groups on both sides of the fighting in the Ivory Coast conflict," Annan reported.
"The movement of Liberian refugees and incursions by armed groups into Sierra Leone have also been recorded recently, rendering that country vulnerable to destabilization."
Taylor, a former warlord who won power in a brutal seven-year civil war in the 1990s and was elected president in 1997, is under U.N. sanctions for fueling instability in Sierra Leone whose 10-year civil war officially ended just over a year ago.
His government is also under a U.N. arms embargo, which the government has pushed hard to have lifted, arguing it needs weapons to fend off the LURD rebels.
The rebel uprising began in 2000 and has waxed and waned since then but intensified this month.
Opmerkingen: Guinea is nu hoofd van de veiligheidsraad en de VS heeft de stem nodig van Guinea inzake Iraq. Kortom ik verwacht dat Liberia Guinea preventief gaat aanvallen wanneer blijkt dat de VS militaire steun toezegt aan Guinea.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Liberian President Charles Taylor has complained to the United Nations that West African neighbor Guinea is backing rebels trying to topple his government, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday.
The charge that Guinea was providing "military and other support" to Liberia's main armed opposition group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, came in a letter from Taylor to the United Nations, Annan reported to the 15-nation Security Council.
Taylor's letter was not immediately made public.
Annan said it appeared LURD was determined to seize power by force in the impoverished nation of 3 million people and added it was "also clear that the rebel group enjoys some external military support."
"The international community should discourage such support, whose only achievement so far has been the massive displacement of innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly, the deaths of thousands of persons and the wanton destruction of infrastructure and personal property," he said.
"If decisive action is not taken to put an end to this tragedy, a generalized humanitarian and economic crisis could engulf the entire West African region," he said.
Ivory Coast, Liberia's neighbor to the east, has been embroiled in conflict for five months while Sierra Leone to the northwest is still recovering from a long civil war.
"The subregional dimensions of the Liberian conflict have now clearly come to the fore with reports of the involvement of Liberian armed groups on both sides of the fighting in the Ivory Coast conflict," Annan reported.
"The movement of Liberian refugees and incursions by armed groups into Sierra Leone have also been recorded recently, rendering that country vulnerable to destabilization."
Taylor, a former warlord who won power in a brutal seven-year civil war in the 1990s and was elected president in 1997, is under U.N. sanctions for fueling instability in Sierra Leone whose 10-year civil war officially ended just over a year ago.
His government is also under a U.N. arms embargo, which the government has pushed hard to have lifted, arguing it needs weapons to fend off the LURD rebels.
The rebel uprising began in 2000 and has waxed and waned since then but intensified this month.
Opmerkingen: Guinea is nu hoofd van de veiligheidsraad en de VS heeft de stem nodig van Guinea inzake Iraq. Kortom ik verwacht dat Liberia Guinea preventief gaat aanvallen wanneer blijkt dat de VS militaire steun toezegt aan Guinea.