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Liberian President Taylor Cedes Power

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

Liberian President Charles Taylor, who has been at the center of West Africa's conflicts for 14 years and faces war crimes charges, committed Tuesday to step down under a cease-fire agreement with rebel groups.

Taylor's defense minister, Daniel Chea, said the Liberian leader "fully supports this peace accord, and the government will do anything to ensure its success" - apparently committing Taylor personally to the deal.

Mediators and observers burst into applause and raucous cheers as Chea shook hands with Kabineh Janeh and Tia Slanger, delegates of the two rebel movements that in three years have opposed Taylor's regime, seizing more than 60 percent of the West African nation.

"We have done the greatest thing this afternoon by signing this cease-fire," Chea said. "By this, we're letting the world know that the government of Liberia wishes in no way to be part of any further bloodshed."

In recent weeks, rebels threatened to take the capital, Monrovia, and were fended off only by fierce fighting at the city outskirts.

Taylor, who in 1989 launched Liberia into near-perpetual war, is accused of having a hand in much of the conflict that has roiled West Africa since then. As the Ghana talks opened early this month, a U.N.-backed tribunal indicted him for alleged war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone.

The past three years of rebellion have uprooted more than 1.3 million Liberians, sending hundreds of thousands of them fleeing into neighboring countries. Rights groups say both sides in the war have killed, raped, robbed and kidnapped civilians.

In Liberia, news of the cease-fire had residents running into the streets of the capital, Monrovia, to celebrate. Cars, white rags tied to their antennas in symbols of peace, drove through rutted roads, honking. Shoppers burst into dance at one roadside market.

It was not immediately clear if Monrovia's residents were aware of the accord's provision that Taylor resign.

Earlier this month, rumors that Taylor had been arrested on his war crimes indictment set off panic in his capital - with residents fearing a bloody power struggle in his absence.

The United States, the European Union, Nigeria and Ghana have pushed for an end to the conflict in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. Representatives from all four signed Tuesday's agreement, as witnesses.

The accord, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, calls for "formation of a transitional government, which will not include the current president."

The interim government, to include representatives of the country's rebels and political parties, would be formed within 30 days.

At the start of the Ghana talks, hours after his war crimes indictment, Taylor made an emotional speech promising to surrender power in the interests of peace.

"If President Taylor is seen as a problem, then I will remove myself. I'm doing this because I'm tired of the people dying. I can no longer see this genocide in Liberia," the Liberian leader said then.

Despite calls for his arrest in Ghana, Taylor then returned safely to Liberia. Last week, he declared Liberia would have no peace unless the indictment was dropped.

To oversee any deal, West African nations have discussed sending a 50-member verification mission, said Sony Ugoh, an official with the West African regional bloc that oversaw the talks.

That would be followed by a West African-led "stabilization force," Ugoh said, adding that the force could include unspecified American assistance.

Liberia, Africa's oldest republic, long had strong business, aid and strategic ties with the United States. American officials confirmed that U.S. involvement or support was being considered.

Liberia knew only two years of peace before the outbreak of the rebellion in 1999. In 1989, Taylor, backed by Libya, launched an insurrection that plunged the nation into a 7-year civil war that killed at least 150,000 people.

Taylor emerged from the civil war as Liberia's strongest warlord. He won presidential elections the following year, elected in part by people who feared he would renew the war if he lost.

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