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Nigeria lends support to Taylor

A child walks past a monument commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention, in the Liberian capital Monrovia on Saturday. PHOTO: AP

Nigeria's president was expected in Liberia yesterday to try to negotiate a smooth exit for President Charles Taylor as he moves closer to bowing out under US pressure, amid warnings it could spark chaos.

Taylor holds barely a third of his ruined West African country and is wanted for war crimes by an international court. A top Nigerian official said he had already accepted President Olusegun Obasanjo's offer of asylum.

Ahead of his visit to Africa this week, US President George W. Bush has told Taylor he must quit. But the former warlord wants a peacekeeping force in place first to prevent rebels or his own volatile fighters from running wild.

Security sources said Obasanjo was coming to discuss asylum, the makeup of a foreign force, the transition government and who would fill the void left by Taylor.

"It all has to be done in the interests of African solidarity," said one foreign ministry official.

There was no immediate suggestion that Taylor would return with Obasanjo to Nigeria, the regional giant and power broker.

South Africa and Taiwan have also been put forward by Taylor's men as possible homes for his exile. A Nigerian official said Taylor had initially wanted 40 days to prepare, but now looked ready to leave this month.

The US is still debating whether to send soldiers to Africa, 10 years after a bloody exit from Somalia. Many Liberians think the US has a duty to help a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century.

The Pentagon is due to send a team of experts to West Africa to study what is needed to achieve stability in Liberia.

West African countries have pledged 3,000 peacekeepers and want the US, Morocco and South Africa to make that up to 5,000.

Signs are growing that Taylor is preparing to leave and on Saturday he handed bonuses to some of the fighters who followed him through years of bush war before he won elections in 1997.

One glum looking security source, his hands in his pockets, said: "We don't know what our fate will be after the chief has gone. My major fear is from our own boys who will envy us."

He said some people close to Taylor had been given houses and cars, while other loyalist fighters were less fortunate and might now be out for revenge.

Nearly 14 years of violence in a country that was once well off by West African standards have bred a generation of fighters fired-up by drink and drugs and with few qualms about murder, rape or looting.
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