---------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rick Rozoff) Reply-To: "STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN!" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 21:11:36 -0600 (CST) Subject: Next Target: Liberia [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] U.S. Wants Liberian Arms Embargo by NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United States is seeking to impose a U.N. arms embargo on Liberia and a global ban on its diamond exports as a way to stem its support for Sierra Leone's rebels, diplomats said Wednesday. A U.S.-sponsored draft resolution, circulating among Security Council diplomats Wednesday, comes after an independent U.N.-appointed panel alleged that Liberia was the rebels' most trusted middleman, helping them get their diamonds to market and acquire illegal weapons. The panel report, released two weeks ago, recommended measures to try to block the Liberian connection and better enforce the existing U.N. arms and diamond embargoes on the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. The RUF restarted Sierra Leone's eight-year civil war in May by taking 500 U.N. peacekeepers hostage. The rebels have since signed a new cease-fire agreement, but the U.N. report documented a network that allowed the RUF to sell their gems for guns, despite a July diamond embargo. Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was key in securing the release of the U.N. hostages, has insisted his administration was not involved in any diamond smuggling or gun-running for the RUF, with whom he has close ties. The U.S. draft picks up most of the panel's recommendations, including imposing a global ban on all Liberian diamond exports until the government shows it is no longer supporting the rebels and smuggling out their gems, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. While Liberia does mine its own diamonds, the report found that the volume of ''Liberian'' gems that were being traded on international markets far outweighed its production capacity. The U.S. draft would impose an arms embargo on Liberia, forbidding countries or their nationals from providing Liberia with any arms, ammunition or paramilitary equipment, the official said. Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone met with rebel leaders Wednesday to urge their withdrawal from conflicts in Liberia as well as neighboring Guinea. U.N. force commander Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande traveled by helicopter to the rebel-held town of Magburaka to meet with RUF leader Gen. Issa Sesay and other rebel officials, U.N. spokeswoman Hirut Befecadu said. The U.N. Security Council has condemned recent rebel incursions into Guinea, where the government says Liberia and the RUF are backing Guinean dissidents who have staged a series of cross-border raids since September. RUF fighters are also reported to be helping Liberian forces fight their own dissidents in the northern part of that country. ''The U.N. is trying to get the RUF to see reason, so that their fighters are not used as mercenaries by these two neighboring _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
