Taylor's shadow looming over Liberia

When Liberia's new leaders gather tomorrow to take the next step on the path towards peace in their shattered country, one man's long shadow will hang ominously over proceedings.

Former Charles Taylor may have been forced into exile by a combination of diplomatic arm-twisting and a rebel assault on his capital, but he may not have played his last part in Liberia's bloody drama.

Gyude Bryant will take power tomorrow as the chairman of a Liberian transitional authority, with the support of the UN and the west African leaders who persuaded Taylor to go into exile.

But fears remain that after almost two decades at the centre of the power struggles that tore Liberia apart, 56-year-old Taylor and his remaining supporters may still attempt to manipulate events back home.

Jacques Klein, the chief UN envoy to Liberia, has alleged that Taylor is still pulling strings from Calabar, the southeastern Nigerian city where he is living in some splendor in a villa overlooking the harbor.

"Taylor still has a cell phone and calls the [Liberian interim] government two or three times a day," Klein alleged last month.

"He still continues to undermine the political process. Government officials and businessmen go to Ni-geria to meet him," he said.

Klein's which was backed last week by Washington's UN ambassador John Negroponte, caused Nigeria's President Olusegun Oba-sanjo to issue a stern warning to Taylor not to abuse his asylum privileges.

Obasanjo a statement declaring Taylor was banned "from engaging in active communications with anyone engaged in political, illegal or governmental activities in Liberia."

Taylor been accused of sponsoring atrocities committed by rebels in Liberia's neighbor Sierra Leone in the 1990s, and, if he loses his asylum status, could face prosecution in the UN war crimes court.

Nevertheless, he remains defiant. His spokesman Vaanii Paasewe said on Saturday that Taylor saw nothing wrong in calling the caretaker government of Moses Blah, his former vice-president.

"Our calls were not intended to undermine the peace process. We would have expected the incoming president to have wanted some advice, and we also had some ideas," he said by telephone from Calabar.

Paasewe also said that Taylor wished Bryant nothing but success.

"We want to assure you from Calabar that the president will do nothing to derail the peace process," Paasewe said, perhaps unconsciously referring to Taylor by his former title.

"We want to say that we welcome the interim arrangement and that the former president particularly supports Gyude Bryant and wishes him well in trying to bring Liberians together for development and reconstruction."

A US-educated civil servant, Taylor was trained as a guerrilla fighter in Libya and in 1985 formed the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. He fought his way into Monrovia and declared himself president in 1990.

His rule was later confirmed by an election, but he proved unable to hold his tiny west African country together.

By time he left on Aug. 11, two rebel groups had taken most of the country and hundreds of thousands of refugees were trapped in the besieged capital of Monrovia on the brink of starvation.

Under rule Liberia was seen as a source of instability in the wider region, with gangs linked to Taylor's allies and enemies alike sparking unrest in Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast.

The ranks of the militia he left behind are stuffed with children and former child soldiers, brutalized by war and massacres, and with a record of rape, torture and plunder.

Now the flamboyant leader, a Baptist preacher known for his impeccable white safari suits and jaunty cane, is living in luxury in Calabar, surrounded by a substantial court and a wall of Nigerian police guards. But he may not be there for ever.

"We look forward to him coming back, but we've no plan or no intention of wanting a revolution or wanting anything terrible against the peace process," Paasewe said.