/ 29 June 2001

THE COLONEL COMES TO THE RESCUE

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gaddafi offered on Wednesday to help end a regional conflict in West Africa which has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes, Liberian authorities said. Liberia, under United Nations sanctions for fuelling civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, is fighting an insurgency on its northern border for which it blames Guinea. Guinea in turn accuses Monrovia of backing Guinean rebels. Ali Abdesselam Triki, Libya’s minister for African unity, met Liberian President Charles Taylor on Wednesday in Monrovia and said Gaddafi had expressed his readiness within the spirit of African unity and solidarity to mediate and reconcile the current situation prevailing in the Mano River Union countries”. The latest conflict has forced tens of thousands to flee Liberia, some into rebel-held parts of Sierra Leone, where UN peacekeepers are trying to help end a decade of war which Taylor is accused of fuelling in exchange for diamonds. – Reuters