Opposition fails to attend reconciliation meeting

Liberian opposition leaders and rebels fighting the government of President Charles Taylor on Saturday failed to attend the official opening of a month-long peace and reconciliation conference in the capital, Monrovia. Diplomats said most opposition leaders, who live outside the country, feared to come to the conference because no security guarantees had been given to them. "Their absence means the conference is not likely to achieve any significant peace and reconciliation in this war-torn country," a diplomatic source told IRIN. Taylor told the conference that he was willing to negotiate with "all opposition groups for the sake of peace and reconciliation in Liberia" but insisted that his government would "do anything, everything and all things to defend the country against rebels." Apart from government officials, diplomats accredited to Monrovia, representatives of the African Union and the UN, local civil society, youth and private sector groups attended the conference at the Unity Center, Virginia in the outskirts of the capital. "I am not a wicked man and will keep all doors open," Taylor said. "But I am not a weak man either. They think we will pack up and go, but we are not going anywhere." He referred to the rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) as "terrorists" and to his political opponents as "individuals who continue to cause confusion, believing their powerful friends will install them in the presidency." Apart from highlighting the plight of internally displaced Liberians, the president did not discuss the ongoing war with the LURD rebels in the northern Lofa county, but said: "To those fighting us, I ask you to lay down your arms because you cannot win this war." Analysts in Monrovia said continuing arrests, including that of a humanitarian worker three days before the conference by government forces at Bo waterside, near the Sierra Leone border, and the detention without trial of journalist Hassan Bility for six weeks despite repeated demands from judges that he be produced in court, sent wrong signals to any opposition leaders that may have wanted to come to the conference. Conference chairman, Ronald Massaquoi, said delegates would visit various parts of the country seeking views on lasting peace and reconciliation before reconvening for further consultations. They would also try to identify a national language for Liberia, in accordance with Taylor's wishes that Liberia gets its own national language within 10 years. Those who snubbed the conference included Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, leader of the opposition Unity Party of Liberia, who lives in Cote d’Ivoire; former Interim President Amos Sawyer; lawyer Samuel Kofi Woods of the International Human Rights Law Group in Sierra Leone; Conmany Wesseh, executive director for the Center for Democratic Empowerment also based in Cote d'Ivoire and former senator Charles Brumskine who live in the United States.