Cameroonian to head UN panel on Liberia

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has named Martin Chungong Ayafor as head of a five-member panel to monitor Liberia’s compliance with Security Council measures aimed at ending Monrovia’s support for rebels in Sierra Leone. Other panel members are Atabou Bodian of Senegal, from the International Civil Aviation Organization; Johan Peleman, an expert on arms and transportation from Belgium; Harjit Singh Sandhu of India, an expert from Interpol; and Alex Vines, a diamond expert from the United Kingdom. Ayafor, who comes from Cameroon, had chaired an earlier panel of experts that dealt with violations of the sanctions in Sierra Leone, the UN reported. The panel will sit for six months during which it will investigate violations of the sanctions, as well as links between the exploitation of natural resources and the fuelling of the conflict in the region, the UN reported. Annan nominations to the Council on Friday came the week Liberian President Charles Taylor informed Annan that Monrovia had taken steps to comply with the Council’s sanctions on diamond dealings and support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). In addition, Taylor renewed on Monday his demand that UN peacekeepers be deployed to Liberia to verify it was not supplying the RUF with arms, Reuters reported.