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   Liberia's President Seeking Asylum

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Topic: Liberia's President Seeking Asylum (Read 290 times)

Rhune
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Liberia's President Seeking Asylum
« on: Jul 6^th, 2003, 8:45am »

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Liberia's Taylor seeking asylum
On eve of African tour, Bush considers U.S. deployment
Sunday, July 6, 2003 Posted: 9:10 AM EDT (1310 GMT)

MONROVIA, Liberia (CNN) -- Liberia's embattled President Charles Taylor planned to meet Sunday with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to discuss an offer of temporary asylum, a Liberian official told CNN.

Taylor said he would consider the offer to relinquish power and go to neighboring Nigeria for what he termed a "soft landing."

But he has refused to leave his war-torn country until an international peacekeeping force is in place to prevent further chaos in the nation's 3-year-old rebellion.

The White House is considering whether to send U.S. troops to Liberia to help other West African soldiers in peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts.

An assessment team of about a dozen people -- including military and civilian experts -- was scheduled Sunday to arrive in Liberia from Europe to determine what U.S. forces may do in the region and how troops from other West African countries may contribute, military officials said.

President Bush has said Taylor's departure is necessary for peace in the region.

Bush is scheduled to depart on five-nation African tour on Monday night with stops in Senegal and Nigeria. In addition, Bush is expected to discuss Liberia with officials at the three remaining stops: South Africa, Botswana and Uganda.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke Friday with Obasanjo and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan about efforts to get Taylor to step down as soon as possible, a senior State Department official said.

Based on the information they have received from the region, the men agreed that Taylor has "started to accept the fact that he has to go at the earliest date," the official said.

Other West African officials were also working to let Taylor know he is no longer wanted in the region, the official added.

Taylor was indicted in June by a U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone on charges that in exchange for diamonds he armed and trained rebels there that killed thousands of civilians and abducted and tortured others. A special prosecutor with the court said offering Taylor asylum from the charges would violate international law.

The U.S. State Department official said the war crimes issue was now "on the back burner" and the focus is on getting Taylor out of Liberia.

In 1989, Taylor led a revolt against the Liberian dictator Samuel Doe that triggered seven years of civil war during which an estimated 200,000 people died, according to the U.S. government.

Taylor's faction emerged from the fighting as the dominant force, and following a peace settlement in 1996, he won a 1997 special election that opponents said was marred by corruption and intimidation.

Fighting resumed in 2000 when Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy revolted against Taylor, saying they wanted a return to democracy.

Since then, there has been no end to the violence. LURD and its allies now hold 60 percent of the country, but the economy is in disarray and the infrastructure is in ruins. Thousands have died and illness runs rampant. Much of the 3.3 million population is homeless and starving.

A cease-fire agreement was officially reached June 17 but failed to stop the fighting. A senior State Department official said Saturday the United States was trying to get commitments from both sides of the conflict to accept terms of a new cease-fire.

Bush has spoken publicly about Liberia's plight in recent days, citing "special ties" with the country, founded by the American Colonization Society in 1822 as a refuge for freed slaves.

One military option includes deploying 2,000 Marines -- either a unit on the U.S. East Coast or a unit aboard the USS Iwo Jima, on its way back from the Persian Gulf, a senior State Department official said.

It could take as long as two weeks to deploy a group of Marines now in the United States, military officials said.

If troops are sent, one primary goal would be to return nongovernmental organizations to Liberia as soon as possible to alleviate suffering, according to the military officials. Nearly all NGOs have fled the country in recent days.

CNN Correspondent Jeff Koinange in Monrovia, Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr and State Department Producer Elise Labott contributed to this report.

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MzWings
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Re: Liberia's President Seeking Asylum
« Reply #1 on: Jul 6^th, 2003, 9:18am »

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Thanks for this update, Rhune. CBS Sunday Morning devoted a long and informative segment on this situation.

I just pray that the US Pres doesn't see fit to put us into another war in seeking peace-keeping duties.

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Rhune
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Re: Liberia's President Seeking Asylum
« Reply #2 on: Jul 15^th, 2003, 8:17am »

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Prison horrors of Taylor's regime
Tuesday, July 15, 2003 Posted: 7:12 AM EDT (1112 GMT)

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- They staggered out of jail as scarred stick figures. A few slumped on the pavement in exhaustion -- too ill to show any emotion about their newfound freedom. One was so traumatized he no longer recognized his sister.

The men and boys, some as young as 13, were among 51 political prisoners unexpectedly released Friday from three jails in Monrovia -- bearing witness to a brutal system of punishment and terror meted out by President Charles Taylor, whose regime now appears to be crumbling.

"My people must think that I am dead," Junior Mulbah, 13, said weakly as he gazed around him, looking vainly for signs of a familiar face among the crowd outside the jail.

The sudden and unexplained release comes amid growing international pressure for Taylor to step down after years of sanctions against his regime.

The government of the former warlord-turned-president, who launched Liberia's 1989-96 civil war, is besieged by rebels trying to oust him. Taylor was isolated further by a war crimes indictment issued against him last month by an international court in Sierra Leone, where Taylor supported a brutal rebel movement known for cutting off people's limbs and facial features.

Liberians tell of equally brutal treatment.

Emaciated from dysentery and hunger, Mulbah said he was detained for a time in a basement room in the president's sprawling executive mansion. He was later thrown into a crowded, dark and dank cell called "Kampala." Newcomers and youngsters like Mulbah slept in a corner of the room where the prisoners urinated and defecated on the floor

Some prisoners died and were wrapped up by their fellow inmates in cloth and carried away by prison guards.

"Only we survived," said Mulbah, who said Taylor's government accused him of being a dissident.

Robert Johnson, a 24-year-old rebel prisoner of war, emerged from one month in detention with gaping sores on his lips and cheeks, wounds that he said were caused by his captors who stuffed flaming brands into his mouth.

Alaja Sherriff's 19-year-old brother Mohammed was so traumatized that he didn't recognize her when he left the jail and asked a policeman if he could go back inside.

Abu Dolley, with long matted hair, said he was seized by officials nearly a year ago while the 30-year-old man was selling music cassettes on the streets of Liberia's war-torn capital, Monrovia.

Others told of being rounded up randomly in the street because they are members of the Mandingo tribe accused by Taylor's government of supporting the country's rebel insurgency.

As unexplained as their arrests were, so too was their sudden release.

Information Minister Reginald Goodrich told journalists the prisoners were being freed because "we are committed to the peace process" involving talks between Liberian rebel and government negotiators in neighboring Ghana.

Other observers said it was a further sign of Taylor's weakening hold on power in this West African nation founded 150 years ago by freed American slaves.

Since the war crimes charges were first revealed, calls for Taylor to step down have intensified. Taylor has repeatedly promised to resign, but has demanded international peacekeepers be deployed first to avoid a chaotic transition.

Since last week, an American military team has been touring airstrips, refugee camps and other Liberian facilities to gather logistical information ahead of a possible U.S. peacekeeping or humanitarian effort.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who also has called for Taylor's resignation, has said he has not decided yet whether to send U.S. forces.

Many Liberians would welcome the move.

Sheik Sackor, an employee of a local charity, spent a year behind bars after being arrested, blindfolded and thrown into a cell for writing reports on the kind of human rights abuses he would personally endure. Police accused him of "trying to overthrow the government."

"It was astonishing," Sackor said of his time in jail. "It is hard to imagine the personal trauma."

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