Bryant visits Conakry to discuss security

Liberia's transitional leader, Gyude Bryant, flew to Guinea on Friday to discuss security-related issues with President Lansana Conte, the main backer of Liberia's LURD rebel movement. The one-day official visit was Bryant's first trip abroad since he took office on 14 October at the head of a broad-based government that is due to organise elections in in 2005. Bryant met Conte for one hour and twenty minutes, but the ailing Guinean president left his prime minister, Lamine Sidime, to read out a joint communique afterwards. This said Guinea and Liberia had pledged to work together for the achievement of political and social stability in the West African sub-region and in the Mano River Basin, which comprises Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The statement said Bryant had thanked the government of Guinea for "its contribution to the attainment of peace in that country." Conte meanwhile "gave an undertaking to continue to be at the disposal of the Liberian interim government for any help or advice." LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy) and two other warring factions signed a peace agreement in August and agreed to join Bryant's coalition government. However, LURD threatened to pull out of the new administration last week after Bryant vetoed the appointment of three LURD nominees to senior government posts. Conte was on very bad terms with former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who stepped down in August under strong international pressure and went into exile in Nigeria. However, signaling the start of new era of warmer relations between the two countries, the communique said the Guinean leader had agreed to visit Liberia at a date to determined. Diplomats said Guinea was the main supporter of LURD, whose leader, Sekou Conneh, lived in exile in Conakry until his return to Liberia earlier this month. Conneh's wife is a daughter of Conte's soothsayer and the two men have close personal ties. Relations between Guinea and Liberia turned sour after LURD launched a bush war against Taylor in 1999 by attacking Voinjama, a town near the Guinean border. A year later, armed Guinean dissidents, backed by Liberian fighters, attacked southeastern Guinea, but were driven back. Diplomats said Conte retaliated by increasing Guinea's support for the LURD, which is the larger of Liberia's two rebel movements and occupies most of the north and west of the country. Bryant was accompanied to Guinea by acting Foreign Minister George Wallace and Kabineh Ja'aneh, a senior LURD official who has been nominated by the rebel movement to serve as Justice Minister. Ja'aneh was head of the LURD delegation at talks in Accra which led to the peace agreement between the rump of Taylor's government, LURD and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), a smaller rebel group. The 18 August peace accord ended 14 years of civil war and paved the way for the deployment of 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Liberia.