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Monrovia decries accusations of helping RUF

    ABIDJAN

    President Charles Taylor Liberia has denied that his government has been dealing in diamond with and selling guns to RUF rebels.

    “Liberia has never been involved in gunrunning in Sierra Leone, or even been involved in buying, selling, smuggling, aiding and abetting diamond sales in that country”, Taylor’s private radio quoted him as telling The Reverend Jesse Jackson on Friday.

    Jackson, the special envoy of President Bill Clinton to Africa, is in West Africa in connection with attempts to end the current crisis in Sierra Leone.

    PANA reported Taylor as acknowledging that businessmen, traders and merchants may well sneak someone through the bushes to buy diamonds but that: “Liberia will never acquiesce in the subjection of the Sierra Leonean people to war and destruction because of diamonds.”

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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