Liberian President Charles Taylor on Thursday skipped a planned resignation speech to parliament as west African peacekeepers began patrolling the war-riven capital Monrovia.
Taylor’s spokesperson Vanii Passewe said that the beleaguered leader would not address the emergency parliament session but underlined that he would hand over power on Monday, as promised to west African mediators seeking to end the west African country’s second civil war in little more than a decade.
”He’s not going to the Capitol, but the legislators are meeting,” Passewe said, adding: ”For sure he’ll hand over power on Monday.”
However, scepticism abounded over whether Taylor — who controls only a fifth of his ravaged west African country after nearly five years of war — would keep to his word.
”Taylor’s promises aren’t worth anything. He will only go by force,” said rebel leader Sekou Damate Conneh, head of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd), in an interview with Radio France Internationale.
”Today, he is still fighting. That means he isn’t ready for peace. I do not even want to negotiate with a man who has massacred the people and devastated the country.”
Meanwhile Nigerian General Festus Okonkwo, the commander of the west African peacekeeping force, told AFP the troops were ”coming into town” from Monrovia’s Robertsfield international airport, where they deployed after long delays on Monday.
”Now they are patrolling,” he said, adding that for the time being the patrols would be staged only in the government-held southern and eastern zones of the seaside capital, besieged by rebels for over two months.
He said the force would start patrols in the rebel-held northern area next week.
War-battered Monrovia is now home to a quarter of a million displaced people living in appalling conditions amid an acute shortage of food, potable water and medicines.
Taylor, who sparked Liberia’s last civil war in 1989, appears to be playing for time as he seeks to duck war crimes charges for his role in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
His government has asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to intervene over an indictment for war crimes committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war, which ended in 2001, an ICJ statement said on Wednesday.
Earlier Thursday a senior official from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) said on condition of anonymity that the parliament session could degenerate into a ”theatre of the absurd.”
”But no matter what, we will keep up the pressure,” he said.
”It’s crystal clear that Taylor has to stick to his word.”
South African President Thabo Mbeki has said however that he was confident Taylor would exit as pledged.
His spokesperson, Bheki Khumalo, said Mbeki would visit Liberia next week to attend a ceremony at which Taylor is expected to hand over power to Vice President Moses Blah.
Also Thursday, west African peacekeepers blocked a cache of arms apparently ordered by the Taylor government, which is under a UN arms embargo, said a military source.
The source, who requested anonymity, said the soldiers apprehended two trucks at the airport filled with arms including rocket launchers, automatic weapons and ammunition.
They arrived on an unidentified plane at around 2am.
Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea visited the airport later on Thursday and inspected the arms with General Okonkwo.
The vanguard of the west African peacekeeping force — some 450 mechanised infantry and special forces, all Nigerian — have been positioned at Monrovia airport along with five armoured personnel carriers before deploying into the city.
The United States, which has 2 500 Marines on ships off the coast, moved closer to sending soldiers ashore when the first members of a liaison team of up to 20 troops were choppered in to the US embassy in Monrovia.
The team will set up communications between the ships and peacekeepers on the ground to prepare for a possible US deployment, if President George Bush gives his final approval, officials said in Washington. – Sapa-AFP