Johannesburg — President Charles Taylor of Liberia confirmed Saturday that he would hand over power on August 11 and leave his embattled country. After almost weekly pledges dating back to June 4 that he was ready to leave office for the sake of peace in Liberia, Taylor told senior West African envoys in the capital, Monrovia, that he is prepared to go.
On Friday, he appeared to have stood up the foreign ministerial delegation sent to Liberia by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). The foreign ministers of Ghana, Nigeria and Togo, as well as the Ecowas chief, had flown in especially to brief Taylor on the outcome of a regional summit in Ghana on Thursday, where heads of state agreed he should leave, three days after the scheduled arrival of West African peacekeepers in Monrovia on Monday.
Asked by reporters whether the handover would happen in nine days, on August 11, Taylor responded: "That is correct." He did not say if and when he intended to leave Liberia or whether his destination would be Nigeria, which has offered him political asylum. He said a session of Liberia's two-house legislature would be convened next week to finalise handover plans.
After a 24-hour wait, a smiling Taylor received the West African envoys in Monrovia on Saturday. Just one day earlier, his aides claimed the Liberian leader had gone to the battlefront, commanding his troops, in Liberia's second city, Buchanan, which is home to its second most important port after Monrovia. Buchanan captured by rebels from the Movement of Democracy in Liberia (Model) earlier this week.
"At 11.59 on Monday (August 11) I'll step down and a new guy must be sworn in by midday on that Monday. The most important thing is that everything we have said about resigning and leaving will happen," was all Taylor was prepared to say on Saturday.
The promised departure comes later than was planned by regional leaders, who had said that he must leave the country on Thursday, after the arrival of the initial contingent of the West African peacekeeping force. Asked why next Thursday's deadline would not be respected, Ghana's foreign minister, Nana Akufo-Addo told reporters: "President Taylor has agreed to leave the political scene in Liberia. It's unprecedented what President Taylor is doing. He had to be congratulated."
Also keen to smooth Taylor's passage, the Ecowas executive secretary, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said: "Let's take one thing at a time. I have no misgivings. I feel the process has started that will bring about durable peace. We will stay the course."
Although Taylor has vowed to go, and appears to have bowed to intense international pressure for him to step down, analysts predict that this master of political manipulation and manoeuvring could have another joker up his sleeve and may yet have the last hurrah.
Taylor is well aware that there is an international warrant out for his arrest as a war crimes' suspect across the border in Sierra Leone and is, no doubt, using this as political leverage to bargain. It is likely that he would have turned up the pressure on his West African colleagues to try to convince them to get the indictment quashed - by way of a guarantee that he will not be detained once he leaves Liberian soil.
The Special Court in Sierra Leone has reiterated that Taylor's indictment is not negotiable and that impunity is not an option for the outgoing Liberian leader.
At the risk of the Liberian civil war further destabilising West Africa, regional leaders may be forced to make some compromise. They are all aware that not only has Taylor brought his own country to the brink of collapse but he is also alleged to have masterminded conflicts in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea.
West African heads of state are keen to see Taylor relinquish power and quit Liberia, in the hope that this will open the way for a possible return to regional peace and stability and end the past two weeks of bitter fighting in which hundreds of civilians have been killed in Liberia. The two rebel groups fighting Taylor's forces have made his ouster their prime objective.
As Taylor made his announcement on Saturday, Reuters reported that loyalist forces launched a blistering counter offensive on rebel positions in Monrovia, pushing fighters of the main faction, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd), back from three key bridges in the city centre. Terrified residents were said to be cowering under their beds at home, praying the onslaught would end.
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Lurd first launched its rebellion in late 1999, 10 years after Taylor invaded Liberia leading to the country's first bloody civil war. He was elected president in 1997 and has overseen the steady deterioration of the situation in Liberia and the lives of the people he said he had come to liberate.
Humanitarian agencies have appealed for an end to the battles so that the capital, increasingly starved of food and water, can be re-supplied. On Friday, the United Nations' Security Council authorised a multinational force to replace the West African peacekeepers in Liberia by October 1.
The United States, with close historical ties to Liberia, has sent warships carrying Marines and naval personnel to the coast off Liberia. But Washington has made Taylor's departure a condition to any US military or other intervention to help halt the war in Liberia.
