Mungo Soggot
The United States evacuated Liberia’s leading opposition politician from its embassy in Monrovia last week, ending a confrontation with President Charles Taylor, who had demanded the US hand over his rival to his troops.
The rival politician, Roosevelt Johnson, sought refuge in the embassy two weeks ago after a shoot-out on the pavement outside the embassy gate in which Taylor’s security forces gunned down three of Johnson’s supporters.
The US charg d’affaires in Liberia, John Bauman, confirmed this week that Johnson had been flown to Sierra Leone in a helicopter chartered by the West African peacekeeping force, settling a tense round of diplomatic negotiations between the US and Liberia.
The US has insisted that Johnson was an “uninvited guest”, having fled Taylor’s security forces.
Bauman said that when the troops saw Johnson and his supporters at the embassy gate “they started screaming wildly. They lowered their barrels and opened fire.”
Johnson is expected to remain outside Liberia while he is tried in absentia for treason – along with 22 other politicians who were rounded up after a battle two weeks ago that left at least 35 people dead. There were reports that at least 50 corpses weretaken to Monrovia’s public hospital.
It was the first serious fighting in Monrovia since the country’s six-year civil war ended with Taylor’s election in July 1997. In the wake of the clashes, Taylor’s troops embarked on looting sprees, encouraging many residents to flee the capital. Many of Taylor’s troops do not receive fixed salaries, but instead receive handouts from the president himself, or are encouraged to raise their own money at roadblocks.
By the middle of last week, Monrovia had returned to normal. But Bauman said that his mission, which was being defended by extra US troops flown in from Europe, was operating on a skeleton staff. Americans assigned to the US embassy were wounded in the shooting.
A confrontation between Taylor and Johnson has been on the cards for some months. Taylor and Johnson were rival warlords during the civil war, which left between 150 000 and 200 000 dead and thousands others displaced. One senior diplomat in Liberia said that although it was unlikely that Johnson had any solid plans for a coup, he had certainly fuelled Taylor’s paranoia with his activities.
On coming to power last year, Taylor tried to co-opt Johnson with a ministerial portfolio and then a diplomatic posting to India.
The US has an ambiguous relationship with Taylor, who escaped from an American prison where he was jailed for embezzling about $1-million while serving in the government of former Liberian despot Samuel Doe.
Taylor has failed to secure aid or investment to rebuild the country’s shattered economy. He has effectively been shunned by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
l Taylor and 15 officials arranged a trip to Paris this week to discuss investment possibilities. He arrived with an entourage of more than 30 officials, including some of Monrovia’s most notorious kleptocrats. His team included Emanuel Shaw II, under investigation for corruption in South Africa, and the chair of Liberia’s National Investment Commission, Cyril Allen.