The United States demanded that Liberian president Charles Taylor leave the country before they agreed on the deployment of a UN international force. The Liberian president, who has been indicted by war crimes prosecutor David Crane, another of those retired US army men, agrees to go, but insists the UN force be deployed to Liberia first.
The United States, echoed by LURD “rebels” (Liberian United for Reconstruction and Democracy), demand that Taylor leave before the UN force is sent in. Taylor’s position is supported by France, Ghana and Nigeria.
US strategy could not be clearer, nor more dangerous.
Washington is blocking the UN so its LURD allies win a decisive military victory. It will then say that Liberia was liberated from that man Charles Taylor, who happens to have been elected in 1997 with 75 percent support in a free vote that Jimmy Carter as rigorously democratic. LURD “rebels” attack Liberia from the diamond area in neighbouring Guinea. Their arms are delivered secretly to Conakry in night flights from the Washington’s close ally the Ukraine (source: Africa international, June 2003).
These events sadly recall Rwanda.
Former UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali declared that “the Rwandan genocide was 100 percent American responsibility.” He was referring to Washington’s determined and successful effort to prevent the UN from sending an international force to Rwanda during the Rwandan crisis, which enabled its Rwandan Patriotic Front allies to win a decisive military victory in Rwanda. The impact of that US foreign policy, implemented through a proxy African “rebel” army like the one in Liberia, has been devastating: millions dead in Rwanda and in the Congo and a war that never ends.
History doesn’t repeat itself, it just stutters! ROBIN PHILPOT recently published the book in French “Ça ne s’est pas passé comme ça à Kigali” (Les intouchables, Montreal) . An English version will be published soon. He can be reached at: rphilpot@sympatico.ca