Taylor Seen as Still Meddling in Liberia
A bounty offered by the U.S. for the warlord's capture indicates peace accord's fragility.
By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer

November 11, 2003

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa ? A $2-million bounty approved last week by the U.S. government for the capture of former Liberian President and international war crimes fugitive Charles Taylor comes amid reports that the exiled leader is making persistent efforts to meddle in the affairs of the fragile nation.

The measure specifies that $2 million will be used "for rewards for an indictee of the Special Court in Sierra Leone," which is seen as a clear reference to Taylor. The money would be given to anyone responsible for delivering Taylor to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, following the precedent of war criminals captured after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Rwandan genocide.

The action against the warlord is an indication of Taylor's continuing influence and the fragility of Liberia's nearly 3-month-old peace accord as the West African nation awaits the arrival of 11,500 United Nations peacekeepers in the coming weeks. Those troops will reinforce 4,500 soldiers, many of them Nigerians, already on the ground.

Nigeria, which gave Taylor asylum in August to hasten peace efforts in Liberia and to protect him from a U.N. war crimes indictment for his involvement in a war in Sierra Leone, is one of the United States' major oil suppliers and a key political ally in Africa. Nigerian leaders heightened security around Taylor's villa in the city of Calabar over the weekend and warned that they would not tolerate any breach of territorial integrity, making imminent U.S. military action unlikely.

But the reward, which was signed into law Thursday by President Bush as part of an $87-billion spending bill to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, is a clear shot across the bow for Taylor and his supporters in Liberia. It is also meant to be an inducement for Nigerian officials to turn over Taylor to the war crimes tribunal, said U.S. congressional aides who requested anonymity.