ECOWAS verification team in Monrovia

A six-member team from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has arrived in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, for a week-long mission to verify Liberia's compliance with UN Security Council demands. Among other things, the mission aims to ascertain whether Liberia still maintains links with Sierra Leone's former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. Ending such links is one of the conditions the UN Security Council set for lifting sanctions against Liberia. The team met on Monday with diplomatic missions in Liberia before meeting President Charles Taylor, officials of the Liberian government, political parties, civil society, interest groups, prominent individuals in the private sector and representatives of UN agencies. The mission, whose members are from Ghana, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Nigeria and Togo, will determine whether Liberia is still linked to the trade in illicit diamonds from Sierra Leone - used to bankroll the RUF during Sierra Leone's war - and whether it hosts ex-RUF fighters. Its other mandates are to: verify whether Liberia receives arms from other states; investigate whether Liberian territory is used by armed groups or individuals to attack neigbouring countries; assess the overall humanitarian, political and social impact of the UN sanctions on Liberia and assess peace prospects in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The team will report to the UN Secretary General, and the Security Council will discuss its findings in May when it reviews the sanctions, imposed in May 2001. The sanctions include a travel ban on Taylor, his immediate family, associates and selected Liberian government officials; a ban on the export of Liberia's rough diamonds and an embargo on the import of arms into Liberia. On imposing the sanctions, the Council had called on the Liberian government to stop all support to the RUF, expel its members from Liberian territory and institute a certification regime for the export of rough diamonds from Liberia. The government maintains that it has complied with the Council's demands and has called for the lifting of the sanctions, saying the conflict in Sierra Leone for which they were imposed has since ended.