Posted on 05/19/2003 2:43:47 AM PDT by Clive
CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) - The United Nations refugee chief Sunday blamed Liberia and warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor for the conflicts and refugee crises roiling West Africa and said in unusually blunt terms that Taylor should be forced out.
Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, also urged the United States to act on what he said was its responsibility toward Liberia, a timber-rich country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. Internationally, "Saddam Hussein had more stature than Taylor. (Slobodan) Milosevic did too. But it's too selective" for the world to act against the Iraqi and Yugoslav dictators and do nothing against Taylor, Lubbers said.
"If you're serious about democracy in the rest of the world, then you should be serious about democracy in West Africa as well," he said.
"My preference is that one would force Taylor to step down," he said.
Lubbers, the former Dutch prime minister, spoke at the end of a five-nation tour visiting the capitals and refugee camps of West Africa.
As he closed the trip, Taylor's forces were battling rebels on Liberia's border with Guinea. Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea also accused Guinea on Sunday of sending troops directly into Liberia to fight alongside the anti-Taylor forces.
Liberia's internal conflicts have displaced one million people inside the country, and sent 300,000 fleeing to neighbouring countries, including Ivory Coast, itself wracked by a civil war.
With pressure on him growing externally and internally, Taylor was a no-show last week for a scheduled meeting with the UN official in Monrovia, Liberia's capital.
In Taylor's absence, Lubbers bluntly criticized Taylor's officials over the refugee crisis, telling them: "You're killing your own people."
Lubbers' words Sunday, and throughout the tour, marked some of the most public and sweeping condemnation of Taylor yet by an international figure.
However, the UN and human rights groups for years have accused Taylor's regime of rights abuses and fomenting instability in the region. Taylor has denied any wrongdoing.
A former Boston, Mass.-area gas station attendant and U.S. prison escapee, Taylor has led Liberia since 1997, winning elections one year after the end of Liberia's devastating seven-year civil war. Taylor launched that war with a failed coup attempt in 1989.
Taylor and regime figures stand today under sanctions for what the UN says are years of gunrunning and other trafficking with the militia groups crossing back and forth across West African borders.
Mercenaries and militias long have slipped back and forth across the Liberian border, spurring insurgencies and wars in neighbouring Guinea, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.
Recent reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere have quoted intelligence sources linking Taylor's Liberia to alleged trafficking with al-Qaida.
Asked if he agreed with those who identified Liberia as the centre of West Africa's problems, Lubbers said: "Not only the centre, but the icon of the problem."
Taylor is battling two rebel groups pushing in from the north and east to try to oust him.
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