Pressure mounts despite government’s denial of links to RUF

Pressure has been mounting on the government of Liberian President Charles Taylor in connection with its alleged diamonds-for-guns deals and other forms of support for Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) despite claims by Monrovia that it has severed all ties with the rebel group. Canada announced on Monday that it had implemented regulations putting sanctions against Liberia into effect in keeping with the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1343 on Liberia. The resolution, adopted on 7 March, came into effect on 7 May. It bans all trade in diamonds with Liberia, prohibits top Liberian government officials, their spouses and their associates from travelling, and reconducts an existing arms embargo. Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley said Liberia’s government had not complied with the Security Council’s demands. Also on Monday, three European NGOs published an open letter to the DLH Group, a Danish trading company, calling on it to stop selling Liberian timber to Europe. DLH imports into Europe logs from the Liberia-based Oriental Timber Company and the Royal Timber Corporation. Greenpeace, Global Witness and Nepenthes noted that a UN panel had found last year that the Liberian logging industry was playing a key role in helping arms trafficking. Logging companies have also been accused of stripping Liberia’s forests while providing few benefits to the areas in which they operate. Jacob Andersen, president of Nepenthes, a Danish environmental group, said DLH should live up to its own environmental policies and its commitments as a corporate member of Amnesty International in Denmark. It “must stop dealing with Liberian companies immediately,” Andersen said. However, in a letter to the Security Council dated 28 June, Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan said his government had severed all links with the RUF. He said it had done so since 12 January 2001 because its contacts with the RUF and other parties to Sierra Leone’s conflict had been misunderstood. Captan added that these contacts had been opened and maintained under the mandate of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the “sole objective of promoting regional peace and stability”. He said Liberia’s authorities had closed its land border with Sierra Leone since March 2001. Liberian security personnel have been patrolling the border daily, he said, adding that Monrovia had also asked the United Nations and ECOWAS to patrol and monitor its frontier.