Meaningless UN Sanctions As Liberia Is Pardoned (final)

Tuesday, 04 December 2012 13:43

Written by ND Staff

West Africans, now faced with the fact that criminal syndicates are entrenching themselves in the region’s economies and politics, must resign themselves to the fact that the position of the Administration on Africa, will be seen through the eyes of men like Rev. Jackson who, the belief goes, holds the key the African-American votes as the elections approach. Already, top Democrats like Donald Payne, with close links to Taylor through various connections, have shown their tenacity to back Taylor despite abundant evidence that Liberia is now transformed into a criminal state. Rev. Jackson has made it clear his tenacious determination in backing the Taylors of Africa when he announced in Monrovia that he “will not rest” until Liberia take its “rightful place” among respected nations.

But what baffles the mind about African-Americans’ marriage with the Liberian regime (beyond the new battle cry of a nebulous common ancestry) is that despite evidence of Taylor’s links with neo-Nazis and fascists elements, men like Payne and Jackson remain steadfast in his defense. How African-Americans, themselves victims of racism which still plagues American society, renowned anti-racist activists, and declared white supremacists who organized the death of so many African patriots in South African, icons like Steve Biko, Chris Hani, among the hundreds, have become comrades in Africa tells us something about today’s politics and its financial dimensions. The London-based publication Africa Confidential recently unearthed more evidence of how known racists have converged in Africa to shift their plunder since the South Africa terrain is now less profitable and more problematical:

“The RUF has been in continuous control of Kono since November 1998, when it attacked in flying columns (highly mobile guerrilla units) in tactics developed by ex-South African Defence Force Colonel Fred Rindle. Along with other tactical specialists drawn from the apartheid SADF (Rindle was a liaison officer for P.W. Botha’s regime and Jonas Savimbi’s rebels in Angola) Rindle trained and equipped the RUF units to operate alongside Liberian and Burkinabè fighters...

Rindle, who can be seen occasionally in Monrovia’s Mamba Point Hotel and styles himself as a mining engineer, won Taylor’s confidence with the devastatingly successful 1998-99 offensive. The RUF and allies retook all of Kono District, before moving rapidly towards Freetown, where they took the West African peacekeeping force, the Economic Commission of West African States Monitoring Group (Ecomog) by surprise. By 8 January 1999, RUF soldiers were giving interviews to the BBC on satellite telephones from central Freetown: that invasion left more than 6,000 people dead and thousands more mutilated in less than a week...

From the frenetic military activity, the arms shipments to rebel-held Kono and the radio rhetoric from Monrovia officials, another major Liberian military operation is in train. Irritatingly for Taylor’s government, Kabbah’s government and the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone now get good aerial reconnaissance reports of activity across the border. There is also far more human intelligence available from former Sierra Leone Army (SLA) soldiers who fought alongside the RUF and from some recent operations behind the rebel lines, we hear. All this clearly shows trucks loaded with weapons, food and medicine going from Liberia into Sierra Leone along the three major RUF supply routes. One report suggests that a helicopter lent to Taylor by Libya’s Col. Moammar el Gadaffi to ferry UN hostages back to safety (500 were captured by the RUF at the beginning of May) had been used to resupply RUF forces

Taylor’s ambivalent role - negotiator and ‘liberator’ of the UN hostages and godfather-quartermaster of the RUF - has put him under greater Western scrutiny. In November 1998, the United States State Department’s Director for West Africa, Ambassador Howard Jeter, earned Taylor’s opprobrium by publicly stating that there was unambiguous intelligence that the Liberian government was backing the RUF. This was later repeated by both the Nigerian and Ghanaian governments following the RUF’s blitz on Freetown. The US Embassy in Monrovia, criticized by some Liberians for being soft on Taylor, insists there is no reason to change Jeter’s assessment”.

And yet Rev. Jackson’s personal “intelligence” tells him that “Taylor is not encouraging the fighting”. But the truth is that without Liberia and its neo-Nazi allies etc., the RUF as a fighting force is finished. The rebels need arms, ammunitions, fuel, food, medicine, communications and an open corridor to retreat to for effectiveness. Cutoff in the jungle without supply routes and Liberian leadership, these poorly trained rag-tag child soldiers are nothing to be afraid of. Thus the war in Sierra Leone must be seen as an extension of the Liberian war and to apply sanctions leaving out Liberia is to encourage the horrors.

It was US Secretary of State Madeline Albright who said for peace to prevail in Sierra Leone, justice must be seen to be done. Her refusal to back sanctions against Liberia is a contradiction of that belief. In the end however, Africans must end this dependence on America and the West for solutions to their nightmares. Concerted efforts must be made to engage the criminals masquerading as politicians and only through this can we talk of an African solution to African problems. The alternative is that interest groups such as the America’s Black Congressional Caucus, with no real interest in Africa’s problems, will sit in their safe homes and determine our future. Such a future, if nothing is done, is a future determined for us by the Taylors, and Sankohs of Africa in cohort with the Jackson of America and international criminals interested in diamonds for guns. To let that happen is to sell our birthrights.