Government complains to UN about Lofa invasion

Liberia has called on the United Nations to investigate ongoing attacks on its soil by Guinea-based insurgents and said it has a right to defend itself, despite a UN arms embargo. In a 10 May letter to the UN Secretary-General, Foreign Minister Monie Captan said the embargo had impaired Liberia’s ability to defend itself. He said Guinea was “openly, blatantly and with impunity” allowing Liberian dissidents to invade the northern county of Lofa in an effort to unseat the government of President Charles Taylor. He accused the Guinean army of supporting the dissidents, mostly former fighters of the United Liberian Movement for Democracy (ULIMO). The war in Lofa, he said, had displaced over 450,000 persons and destroyed infrastructure such as schools and hospitals that had been rehabilitated after Liberia’s seven-year civil war. That war pitted several factions against each other, including ULIMO and Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). Captan said the war in Lofa involved Sierra Leonean Kamajors, one of whom was recently captured by Liberian troops. The Kamajors are a pro-government militia that supported the Sierra Leonean Army against Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, whom Freetown accused Monrovia of aiding. That alleged support and a UN report on Liberia’s diamond and arms dealings with the RUF, resulted in new UN Security Council sanctions against senior Liberian government officials and diamond exports from Liberia. “The government of Liberia hopes that the United Nations will not use double standards in its dealings with the different members of the Mano River Union,” Captan said. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone comprise the Mano River Union, which was established to foster economic integration.