Maputo — The top official in charge of security for West African states, Cheikh Oumar Diarra, says Liberian President Charles Taylor is ready, under certain "conditions", to talk to members of the armed rebel group that is trying to topple his government in the capital, Monrovia.
Until now, Taylor has refused to meet the group, known as LURD -- Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, who control an estimated one third of the country.
But the situation is changing, said Diarra, the deputy executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States [Ecowas] and a key player in regional conflict management. Interviewed in Maputo, Mozambique, Diarra said: "I think the situation has evolved. The last information I have is that President Taylor is ready to meet with the rebels under some conditions and we are working on these conditions to facilitate the dialogue."
Diarra, an army general from Mali, commanded a contingent of West African peacekeepers troops during the Ecowas-led peace process to end the civil war in Liberia in the 1990s. In the interview, he added that a number of "Liberian civil society organizations, political parties" were also involved in moves towards talks and said he believed a meeting would take place "very soon".
West African leaders at a summit in May decided to press for a ceasefire in Liberia, followed by a political dialogue between the government, the rebels and civil society organizations.
During the meeting in Yamoussoukro, Cote dIvoire, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal were mandated to broker the talks and find a political solution to the crisis.
But Taylor's foreign minister in Monrovia said the government was unhappy that Ecowas could equate an elected government with armed rebels and insurgents and rejected any suggestion of political or military intervention proposed by the regional community.
Diarra said an Ecowas military mission sent to Liberia to assess the situation had submitted its report to the organisations Mediation and Security Council, which is scheduled to meet in extraordinary session during the upcoming Organization of African Unity/African Union summit in Durban, South Africa.
Diarra said that the Ecowas military delegation's findings confirmed that the rebels were receiving external support -- a clear breach of the regional community's moratorium on the importation, exportation and manufacture of light weapons. The report concluded that the rebels were well equipped and better resourced than Liberian government forces.
He said the regional review team had not been able to identify the source of the support for the rebels, though neighbouring Guinea is widely believed to be backing Lurd. "The mission could not have any evidence that this equipment and support were coming from Guinea or another country...but it will be known later. I am sure we will have to investigate later. What we are trying to do now is to have a ceasefire," Diarra stressed.
However, Diarra seemed to hint at a Guinean role in the crisis, in a reference to the "Rabat process", involving meetings in Morocco of the leaders of the three neighbouring countries -- Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. "We think that there is also need for dialogue between the three heads of state", he said. "This political dialogue, if it is established, if it creates room for exchanges between the three governments, will also be a means to overcome the project of the [Lurd] rebels".
Asked what Ecowas would do if the rebels succeeded in capturing Monrovia -- Lurd's often stated objective -- Diarra echoed the views of the Ecowas executive secretary, Mohamed ibn Chambas, insisting that the region would under no circumstances accept a violent transfer of power anywhere in West Africa. "We will use any means, including force, to re-establish the democratically elected government", said Diarra, "and we made it clear to Lurd". He concluded that the situation was unlikely to reach such a point, "but if it is necessary, we will do it".
In an unprecedented move by Ecowas in 1997/1998, West African peacekeepers -- mandated by regional heads of state and spearheaded by military-ruled Nigeria -- stepped in to reinstate the constitutionally elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone after he had been deposed. To a chorus of international condemnation, Kabbah had been overthrown in a military coup nine months' earlier and fled across the border to Guinea.
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Diarra acknowledged that, in a change from the past, Ecowas member states such as Nigeria now had elected governments, which might make it difficult to persuade regional politicians again to commit peacekeepers to Liberia.
But, he said: I dont think there will be opposition from these various parliaments because it is a commitment of [Ecowas] member states to provide the troops when peace is threatened in a state it is one of the obligations of a member state.
Diarra warned that the disparity between the resources of the two rival sides in Liberia was aggravating the problem. We are facing a situation where we have rebels receiving support on the one side and, on the other side, the government, under embargo, is receiving no support. This is why we decided that we will appeal to the international community to support the peace strategy of Ecowas We need the support of the [UN] Security Council to understand that this support that the rebels are receiving will not cease and the rebels will be encouraged to continue their action.
