|
Taylor blames us for liberia woe Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.fox11az.com/news/other/stories/KTVKNNews20030810.117456486.htmlhttp://www.fox11az.com/news/other/stories/KTVKNNews20030810.117456486.html
Taylor blames U.S. for Liberia woe
08/10/2003
CNN Report
MONROVIA, Liberia -- A day before his promised resignation, Liberian President Charles Taylor has delivered a strongly worded taped message to his people in which he blamed the United States and United Nations for contributing to the current conflict through sanctions and embargoes.
He said U.S. President George W. Bush must now help the country to recover.
The speech, which lasted about 20 minutes, was taped at Taylor's home in the capital Monrovia and broadcast Sunday night.
"I can say I am being forced into exile by the world's superpower," he said.
The Liberian president has said he plans to step down Monday and will leave the country soon afterward.
A ceremony is planned with a handful of heads of state, including South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Taylor has accepted Nigeria's offer of political asylum, but he has refused to say on what day he would leave for Nigeria.
"I have decided to leave because, for the first time in the history all over the world, the United States is using food and other things as a weapon against the Liberian people," Taylor said.
"If the administration of President Bush says that they will not step on this soil and will do nothing as long as I'm here, this further threatens your survival as a people. And as I have said, I can no longer see you suffer."
Taylor left open the door for his eventual return to Liberia, saying to his people, "I will always remember you wherever I am. I say to you God willing, I will be back."
At a church service in South Africa Sunday, Mbeki said he's been urged not to attend Monday's ceremony because the trip would be dangerous.
"I've said no," Mbeki said. "It's precisely because it is dangerous that we should go."
A South African advance team rolled into Monrovia in Humvees and jeeps to prepare for Mbeki's arrival. Ghana's president, John Kufuor, and Mozambique's president, Joaquim Chissano, who is the chairman of the African Union, are also expected.
In 1989, Taylor led a rebellion that resulted in the execution of the president and triggered a civil war. An estimated 200,000 people died over the next seven years as various factions fought for power.
"I led a people's revolution that was justified," Taylor said in his speech. "Our revolution was one to bring about change."
Taylor's faction emerged as a dominant force in the following years, and when special elections were held in 1997, he and his National Patriotic Party won an overwhelming victory. Opponents claimed corruption marred the vote.
In 2000, rebels launched a new struggle, saying they wanted to a return to democracy. Taylor's forces have worked to crush the rebellion.
Thousands have died in the past three years, and more than a million people -- close to a third of the country's population -- are homeless. Starvation and illness run rampant.
A U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone last month charged Taylor with war crimes for allegedly aiding and training rebels in that neighboring country in exchange for diamonds. The rebels engaged in torture, rape and abduction and killed thousands of civilians.
Taylor denies the charges against him, and said Saturday he and his government became helpless as the violence raged.
"Our greatest friend and ally, the United States, refused to acknowledge the existence of a war in Liberia for so many years as death, murder and mayhem raged in the country," he said.
He said his government found British weapons in the countryside where the rebels fought and had arrested combatants who said the United States had financed their training.
When the international community finally acknowledged the conflict's existence, Taylor said, the United States and other members of the U.N. Security Council tried to prevent the lifting of the arms embargo on Liberia, which kept the government from defending itself against rebel fighters.
"It did not stop there," Taylor said. With economic sanctions and a travel ban on him and members of his government, Liberian leaders could not visit various world leaders to plead its case.
Sanctions were then placed on diamonds, further isolating the country and stripping Liberia of its ability to pay for food and medicine, and sanctions on Liberia's timber industry put half a million people out of work, he said.
All was part of a "grand scheme of propaganda," he said. He accused Washington of backing the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).
"This is an American war against this republic," Taylor said. "LURD is a surrogate force."
Taylor said he must now step down to save the lives of his citizens. "You, the people, should count. For me it is no longer important that I fight. What is most important is that you live."
Rebuilding funds needed
The United States, he said, should now spend money in Liberia to help the nation recover and rebuild, after it spent so many billions of dollars on the war in Iraq.
"We only need a few (billion) here," he said.
"I challenge George Bush, with all due respect Mr. President, please. You are a man of God. Do something for our people ... that they will say that something good was done.
"This must not -- please -- and should not be a publicity stunt. It must be for real now. Liberia is bleeding. Liberia has been raped by foreigners."
The rebels from nearby countries such as Guinea and Sierra Leone, Taylor said, "are cutting the breasts of women. They're cutting the hearts out of people and eating them on camera, Mr. President. You must help Liberia now."
Taylor urged the U.S. administration and the West African community not to tamper with Liberia's constitution, which holds that the vice president takes over when the president resigns.
Vice President Moses Blah told CNN he is "100 percent sure" he can make the country peaceful when Taylor steps down.
Call for unity
"I'm calling on the rebels, because I'm a unifier," Blah told CNN. "I'm calling them to reunite us. Let them come here, lay down their arms and join me to run this government. I have no interest (in) becoming president of this country. I just want to reunite them."
The first elements of a Nigerian peacekeeping force flew into Liberia last week and were greated with a heroes' welcome by the nation's war-weary citizens.
In addition to the nearly 800 West African troops, the United States has 2,300 Marines on ships anchored offshore but has not said it will commit itself to more than a back-up role for the regional peacekeepers.
But there is also little sign of a let-up in the dire humanitarian crisis in Monrovia, where the United Nations estimates that at least 450,000 people are displaced -- many of them hungry and sick.
Aid agencies say the situation might ease if LURD rebels reopened the port, where they have already pillaged supplies of food aid.
But the rebels have been reluctant to relinquish their hold on ground captured in recent fighting while they say they are still unsure Taylor will fulfil his pledge to step down and leave the country.
This article is courtesy of CNN.
|
|
