Annan names audit panel on sanctions compliance

Liberia welcomed on Monday the appointment of a four-member panel by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to verify Monrovia's compliance with a UN resolution to end its support to Sierra Leonean dissidents.

"We welcome the new composition of the panel. We are ready to cooperate with the panel," Robert Lormic, the public affairs officer at the Liberian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told IRIN on Monday.

In a letter to the UN Security Council president, Annan named Atabou Bodian (Senegal), Johan Peleman (Belgium), Harjit Singh Sandhu (India) and Alex Vines (United Kingdom) to constitute the panel. They will compile "a brief independent audit" of the government's adherence to the Council resolution of 2001 and report their findings latest on 8 April.

The resolution calls for Liberia to end its financial and military support to the Sierra Leone dissident movement, the Revolutionary United Front, expel the rebels from Liberia and outlaw their activities in the country. The UN imposed an arms embargo on Liberia, restricted diamond sales and imposed a travel ban on its senior government officials until it complies with the resolution.

Lormic said Liberian wanted the sanctions lifted because the reasons for which they were imposed no longer existed. He said Liberia did not act in any way that warranted sanctions against the government. People, he said, "are suffering" as a result of the sanctions, adding that Liberia had gained a bad name and was losing business. The ban on diamond exports, he added, was hurting local small-time miners, while public hospitals and schools were being inadequately run. Liberia was also unable to defend herself adequately against armed dissidents, he said..

"What little [money] we manage to scrape, we use on defence," he said.