Sanctions being considered against Taylor

Nigerian policy on Liberia under a new civilian government is likely to stress international sanctions in an attempt to "ring fence" President Charles Taylor, regarded as a source of regional instability, policy analysts told IRIN. "Nigeria has to show Taylor one way or another that Liberia can be punished," said Oche Ogaba, a research fellow at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, a government advisory body. "If it can be established that Taylor is providing arms and funding the rebels in Sierra Leone, sanctions can be employed punitively." Nigeria, Britain and the United States have accused Taylor of directly supporting the Revolutionary United Front rebels. He thus represents a direct challenge to Nigeria, the regional superpower, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who back Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. "Taylor has been capitalising on changes in Nigeria - the death of General Sani Abacha and the more inwardly looking transitional government of [Abdulsalami] Abubakar," Ogaba says. "But I think Nigeria can still put pressure through the international community on Liberia" - marking a more collaborative approach than the years of isolation under the Abacha regime, and his maverick foreign policy style. Nigeria's peacekeeping role in Liberia and Sierra Leone has been unpopular at home, regarded as a waste of lives and scarce resources. During the presidential campaign earlier this year, all candidates called for the withdrawal of Nigerian troops who make up the bulk of the West African peacekeepers. But President-elect Olusegun Obasanjo has since called for a continued Nigerian peacekeeping presence in Sierra Leone. According to Ogaba, the troops would provide a "stabilising military presence". However, he said, rather than further troop deployements, sanctions backed by a Nigerian sea blockade as operated by ECOWAS during Liberia's civil war, would "force Taylor to realise that it is in his interests to bring Liberia back to a proper footing".