War-weary Liberians gave west African peacekeepers a warm and tumultuous welcome to the beleaguered city of Monrovia as their parliament approved a plan for President Charles Taylor to resign.
| "Oh, gosh, golly! Do you have to? Well, g'bye!" |
But as the Nigerian advance guard of the regional ECOMIL force made its first, largely symbolic, foray into the town centre, a mysterious arms shipment raised new questions about Taylor's commitment to stand aside.
Taylor — who now controls only a fifth of his country and has struggled to defend Monrovia — shunned a key joint session of parliament debating his pledge to step down, but the motion was approved by 46 votes to one. In line with the constitution, Taylor, who has been been offered asylum by Nigeria, will hand over power to his deputy, Vice President Moses Blah.
Taylor, who stands indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed court in neighbouring Sierra Leone, sent a message to parliament which insisted he was the victim of an "international conspiracy."
| "Dat's right. Dem guyz is pickin' on me!" |
"They have prevented me from carrying out my constitutional responsibility of defending the country, providing essential social services to the people," he said, referring to UN sanctions and an arms embargo in place since 2001.
| "For instance, my Amputations for the Children program has been set back severely..." |
New evidence of Taylor's determination to breach that embargo emerged with the news that a Boeing 707 jet had deposited enough arms and ammunition to fill two trucks at Monrovia's main airport overnight. Sources close to the ECOMIL force said Taylor's Defence Minister Daniel Chea had arrived at 2:00 am to retrieve the cargo, but that ECOMIL peacekeepers based at the airport had prevented him from doing so.
"I've come to pick up my shipment."
"And what might be in that shipment, Mr. Minister of Defense?"
"It's, ummm... toys for the kiddies."
"These toys?"
"The bitch set me up." |
Two shipping containers guarded by Nigerian forces could be seen on the tarmac later Thursday. Airport staff said they contained weapons brought in by Arabic-speaking pilots. Taylor is thought to have links to Libya. According to web sites consulted by AFP, the aircraft's number 9G-LAD is assigned to Johnsons Air, a Ghana-based company which has links with First International Airlines, a Belgium-based firm with reported Libyan links.
| Hoo, boy! Muammar's hands are really red! |
Both firms and the plane in question have been cited in several reports as being suspected of trafficking in arms from the Belgian city of Ostend.
| Hey, that's fairly close to Brussels, ain't it? |
But despite the illicit shipment, an irritable Taylor insisted that he has no intention of changing his decision to step down on Monday, at 11.59 am, however much he resents the massive international pressure on him to leave Liberia. "Why are people in so much of a hurry for me to leave my homeland?" Taylor told CNN television, adding: "We are not here to play games. The vice president will be sworn in on Monday."
| "Then I'll overthrow him and torture him to death and things'll be back to normal..." |
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