November 27, 2002
The Security Council on Tuesday accused Liberia's government of buying weapons in violation of a UN arms embargo and left sanctions on the West African nation in place for another six months.
The council also made clear in a statement that it believed the arms embargo applied to Liberia's main armed opposition group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), as well as to the government.
"Prohibitions on the sale and supply to Liberia of arms and related materials...applies to any recipient in Liberia, including all non-state actors such as the LURD," said the statement, read to reporters by Ambassador Wang Yingfan of China, this month's Security Council president.
The 15-nation council imposed an arms embargo, a ban on diamond exports and a travel ban on President Charles Taylor and his top associates after accusing the government in Monrovia of fueling civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone through an illicit arms-for-diamonds trade.
Liberia has pushed hard for the arms embargo to be lifted, arguing that it needed arms to fend off LURD rebels, who have repeatedly threatened the capital in the impoverished nation of 3 million people.
But council diplomats have expressed fears that lifting the sanctions could prompt fresh flows of arms into a region with a history of instability, even though the fighting in Sierra Leone has ended and Liberia's illicit diamond trade has pretty much dried up.
"Council members expressed their concern that the government of President Taylor continued to violate the sanctions, including by importing arms in breach of the arms embargo, and that he had not met the council's demands," the council statement said. The sanctions next come up for review in May, council diplomats said.
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