Charles Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia and flew into exile last night as three US warships neared the country’s coast, boosting hopes that US marines would join Nigerian-led peacekeepers enforcing a fragile ceasefire.
Waving a white handkerchief to wailing supporters, Taylor boarded a plane for Nigeria, leaving a country ravaged by 14 years of war and chaos but relieved that he had kept his promise to go. The warlord turned president bowed to intense pressure from western and African leaders as well as the rebels who control most of the countryside and much of the capital, Monrovia.
His luxury vehicles and other belongings loaded on to an aircraft, Taylor (55) left with relatives for Calabar, in south-eastern Nigeria where three houses have been set aside for what is supposed to be a quiet retirement.
Since launching a bush rebellion in 1989 and becoming president in 1997, Taylor has been accused of deepening Liberia’s chaos and fomenting conflicts in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
Besieged in his capital, and indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone, the former Boston security guard had little choice but to accept the haven offered by Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo.
At a ceremonial handover of power in Monrovia, he asked the international community to help Liberia and said history would be kind to him. ”I have fulfilled my duties. I have accepted this role as the sacrificial lamb.” The leaders of South Africa, Ghana and Mozambique attended the ceremony in what was regarded as an attempt to help Taylor save face.
The vice president, Moses Blah, was sworn in. After placing his left hand on the Bible and raising his right, he began his presidency with a moment of silence for all those have died in Liberia’s wars.
Rebels have rejected him as a Taylor crony whose strings could be pulled from Calabar, but their guns and mortars stayed silent. Mediators yesterday announced a plan for Blah to give way in October to a transitional government to be agreed by both warring sides at talks in Ghana.
A Nigerian-led peacekeeping force took command of checkpoints in Monrovia and was soon expected to take over the city’s rebel-held port, opening the city to aid shipments.
President George Bush promised to help once Taylor left and on cue a US marines task force steamed over the horizon, raising cheers from thousands of ecstatic Liberians. – Guardian Unlimited Â