President Blah tells Liberian exiles to stop meddling

President Moses Blah has told Liberians living outside the country to stop meddling in the country's affairs and barred top officials from traveling abroad without his permission. His strongly worded statement, issued at the weekend, was an implicit warning to former president Charles Taylor to stop interfering from exile in Nigeria. "Anyone trying to run the country from outside will be engaging in a fruitless exercise as the present administration will not allow that to happen," Blah said. "There is only one government and one president in Liberia. This government will not be run by remote control from outside of the country," he added. Jacques Klein, the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative in Liberia, has repeatedly accused Taylor of trying to still run Liberia from exile. He told reporters in New York last week: "Taylor is still meddling in the politics of Liberia. As we have always said, Taylor with a cell phone is a government in exile. The evidence is that several ministers have visited him in Nigeria, that three or four businessmen have visited him." "We know from sources within Monrovia, that he is on the telephone to people in Monrovia threatening them, demanding pay offs," Klein added. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also alluded to Taylor's continuing involvement in the affairs of Liberia in a report to the Security Council last week. He said: "I call upon Taylor to abide by the terms of the agreement reached with Nigeria regarding his exile and to disengage completely from Liberian politics." Taylor was forced by rapid rebel gains on the battlefield and strong international pressure to step down and went into exile in Nigeria on 11 August. But allegations that he was continuing to meddle in Liberian affairs prompted Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to issue a public warning that Taylor should behave himself and keep his nose out of Liberian affairs or risk having his asylum revoked. However, the government in Monrovia which Taylor led for six years remains fully intact. Not one minister or senior military commander has been sacked by Blah, who served Taylor as vice-president. All the same, Blah said he was now in charge. "Anyone taking instructions from anyone else will be dismissed as some officials unceremoniously departed the country only to return and attempt to implement instructions from outside," he said. Diplomats in Monrovia have privately accused Taylor of provoking renewed conflict in the interior of Liberia in breach of an 18 August peace agreement between Blah's administration and two rebel movements. Blah, who is due to hand over power to a broad-based transitional government on 14 October, directed that none of the Liberian government's overseas properties, including embassies, residences and vehicles should be sold. And he ordered an end to illegal transfers of money outside the country by some government officials. Reports have emerged that Taylor's confidants were attempting to sell off some overseas properties, including the Liberian embassy in Pretoria, South Africa. International media have reported that Taylor left for exile, taking at least US $100 million from the Liberian treasury in diverted government funds and in illicit payments from private businessmen. Diplomatic sources in Monrovia told IRIN on Monday that Blah was himself believed to have received some calls from Taylor, but had come under pressure from the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ghanaian President John Kufour, to stop taking instructions from his former boss. Last week, Blah, was flown to Accra in a Ghanaian government aircraft to meet President Kufuor. Taylor has been indicted on war crimes by a Special Court in Sierra Leone for backing the brutal Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement in that country's 1991-2001 civil war and could find himself facing the court in Freetown if Nigeria revokes his asylum. Obasanjo's office said in a statement last week: "Nigeria forbids him from engaging in active communication with anyone engaged in political, illegal or governmental activities." ECOWAS has more 3,500 peacekeepers deployed in Liberia to try and restore stability after 14 years of civil war. The force, half of which consists of Nigerian soldiers, is due to be replaced by a 15,000 strong UN military mission (UNMIL) on 1 October. Diplomats said through contacts with loyal field commanders, Taylor had continued to orchestrate clashes with rebel forces in the interior in violation of last month's peace agreement. They said they believed that many of Taylor's field commanders in remote areas of the interior still answered to him directly.