West African officials called on Tuesday for a convention to elect a leader for Liberia’s main rebel group, aiming to quell rising dissent within their ranks that could destabilise the nascent peace in the war-torn state.
”This will be a free, fair and democratic election that will determine who is to be the leader of Lurd [Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy],” said Francis Blaine, the representative of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).
A leadership crisis within the rebel group that launched an uprising against then-president Charles Taylor in 1999 has hamstrung efforts to extend the Liberian central government into Lurd territory for months.
The tussle has also manifested itself violently, which has produced unease within the United Nations Mission in Liberia (Unmil), mindful that much of Lurd’s territory remains volatile with its young fighters still armed.
Sekou Damateh Conneh has been chairperson of Lurd since it was formed in October 1997 in the wake of Taylor’s election and remained so through the savage conflict that ended in August of last year with a peace pact and power-sharing agreement.
But shortly after the pact was signed, Conneh’s personal travails threatened his political career. His estranged wife Aisha, known popularly as the ”Iron Lady”, announced in November that she was taking over leadership of the rebel group, backed by a consortium of military officers known as the executive committee.
Both factions of Lurd were represented at talks last week in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, aiming to restore relations not only within the rebel group, which at one point controlled two-thirds of the Atlantic coastal state, but also with the transitional government led by Gyude Bryant.
”I cannot tell you that we recognise or we don’t recognise this or that party, but I can say that both parties were invited to Accra,” Blaine said.
Supporters of the two factions clashed on Monday night in Monrovia, causing an unknown number of injuries.
Lurd chief of staff General Oforie Diah said on Tuesday that the street fight may have been provoked by followers of Aisha Conneh, who he claimed in remarks to local media has been pressuring him into staging a coup d’état against Bryant.
”It is Aisha Conneh and [parliamentary] Speaker George Dweh who told me to stage a coup,” Oforie told a reporter of the Liberian daily Analyst. — Sapa-AFP