UN enforces travel ban on newly elected lawmakers

Four just-elected members of Liberia's parliament were barred from leaving the country for Ghana on Monday because of their past association with notorious former president Charles Taylor. The four were to attend a forum on parliamentary work sponsored by the World Bank but were barred from taking off because they were included in a UN Security Council travel ban more than a year ago. Among those forced to stay home were close associates of the exiled former president, including his wife Jewel Howard Taylor and his former son-in-law Edwin Snowe, managing director of Liberia's Petroleum Refinery Corporation in the current power-sharing transitional government. Also banned from travel were General Kai Farley, a former rebel commander, and pro-Taylor militia commander General Adolphus Dolo, widely accused of brutality during the war and known as "General Peanut Butter.” But Snowe for one says the time has come to put the past behind. "Our denial is quite frustrating; it's beyond our own imagination,” he told reporters on Tuesday. "I've been accused by the UN for almost two years now. I was married to Mr. Taylor's daughter and we have a child. So if that's an ongoing tie, then it's unfortunate. There's nothing I can do about it. I have no regrets.” Snowe, who won one of the seats in the lower house of parliament as an independent, is a candidate for the position of Speaker of Parliament, the third most senior government job after the president and vice president. The 64-member lower house is expected to elect its speaker and deputy before the 16 January inauguration of Liberia's newly elected president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Snowe told IRIN in an interview last October that Taylor would have no influence over him in his post as a parliamentarian and denied maintaining an ongoing link with his former father-in-law. Apart from these four, two other key figures from Liberia's violent past made their way into parliament in last October’s elections. Prince Johnson, warlord-turned-evangelist, who is linked to the hacking death of former president Samuel Doe in the early days of the civil war in September 1990, and Saah Gbollie, an ex-deputy police chief accused of abuses under Taylor's regime, both won seats.