Family feud rocks Liberia
2004-01-22 07:18
Monrovia, Liberia - Liberia's interim leader warned the country's main rebel movement on Wednesday not to let its husband-wife leadership split grow into violence, saying United Nations forces would respond.
"Jungle justice" would not be allowed to take hold in Liberia, Gyude Bryant, chairman of the internationally brokered power-sharing government, declared.
Liberia's most powerful rebel movement, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, saw an open split on Tuesday between leader Sekou Conneh and wife Asha Keita-Conneh.
Keita-Conneh, an influential spiritual medium long seen as a powerful force behind the rebel movement, announced she was replacing her husband as the group's leader, saying his ambitions were threatening peace in Liberia.
American-founded Liberia is six months into its power-sharing peace deal, meant to end 14 years of conflict that have claimed a quarter of a million lives. The deal was signed a week after President Charles Taylor, a Libyan-trained guerrilla fighter who launched the nation into war in 1989, fled into exile in Nigeria on August 11.
The world's largest UN force, nearing 15 000-strong, is helping keep the peace.
Tuesday's divide in rebel leadership raised fears of a return to the kind of warlord power-struggles ushered in by Taylor.
"We will not allow the Lurd problem spilling into the communities and growing into larger things," Bryant said on Wednesday, warning feuding factions within the rebel movement to stay within the law.
The UN force, he said, "is fully prepared and capable to execute those responses as will be requested."
"Nobody will be allowed to go about this country in a jungle-justice faction - I don't care who you are, let the message be clear," Bryant said.
There was no sign on Wednesday of resolution to the dispute. It remained unclear whether husband or wife commanded the loyalty of the majority of thousands of rebel fighters.
- AP