'Guinea has blood on its hands'
2003-11-05 08:24
New York - Guinea broke a United Nations embargo by sending arms to neighbouring Liberia, where rebels used the weapons to commit atrocities, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
The UN Security Council, which currently includes Guinea, is to review the sanctions on Thursday. The sanctions are in force until May.
"It's appalling that Guinea, a current member of the Security Council, has flouted the arms embargo on Liberia," said Lisa Misol, arms researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"The Security Council must hold Guinea accountable for this major breach."
Liberia's new interim leader Gyude Bryant announced on Saturday he would charge a commission to disarm former combatants.
Bryant was sworn in as Liberia's new interim leader last month to steer the war-torn West African country to elections in 2005.
The country's three armed factions and 18 political parties signed a power-sharing agreement on August 18 following the flight into exile in Nigeria of warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor.
Human Rights Watch published its findings in Weapons Sanctions, Military Supplies and Human Suffering.; The paper traces the Guinea-backed rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd), and their assault on Monrovia, Liberia's capital.
Final offensive
"In the final offensive in July, Lurd indiscriminately shelled civilian areas," the New York-based human rights watchdog said in a statement.
"Scores of people were killed, and at least two thousand more, overwhelmingly civilians, were injured."
The group said that an investigation showed that mortar rounds fired by Lurd accounted for many of the casualties.
"The offensive was possible only because fresh arms supplies arrived through Guinea," the group said.
"Guinea's Ministry of Defence ordered mortars and other ammunition from Iran and arranged their onward transport to Lurd."
"Guinea has blood on its hands," Misol said.
"By supplying munitions to the Liberian rebels, it not only breached an arms embargo, but also became complicit in egregious violations of the laws of war."