WASHINGTON, June 26: US President George Bush called on Liberian President Charles Taylor on Thursday to step down in line with a truce deal, as he pushed to end Africa’s bloody conflicts before his first trip there.
“President Taylor needs to step down, so that his country can be spared further bloodshed,” Mr Bush said in a speech laying out his policy towards the continent before his July 7-12 visit.
“All the parties in Liberia must pursue a comprehensive peace agreement and the United States is working with regional governments to support those negotiations and to map out a secure transition to elections,” he said.
“We are determined to help the people of Liberia find the path to peace,” said Mr Bush, whose first visit to Africa as president will take him to Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.
Liberia has been wracked by almost uninterrupted war since the 1990s, with tens of thousands of refugees flocking to nearby countries for shelter, where their hosts struggle to feed them.
Bush also pledged 100 million dollars over five years to shore up defenses against terrorism — primarily in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda — and urged progress in ending conflicts in Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo.
On the Democratic Republic of Congo, the president urged regional governments to actively support the creation of
an integrated national army and the establishment of a transitional government by June 30.
“To encourage progress across all of Africa, we must build peace at the heart of Africa,” he said.
Bush said he would send his special envoy for Sudan, former senator John Danforth, back to the region in two weeks in hopes of ending Africa’s longest-running civil war, which has claimed some two million lives over 20 years.
“He will make clear that the only option on the table is peace. Both sides must now make their final commitment to peace and human rights and end the suffering of Sudan,” he said, to warm applause.
The US leader called on the international community to press for democracy in Zimbabwe.
Bush also revisited policies that affect Africa, such as his 15-billion-dollar plan to battle the spread of HIV/AIDS; enhanced US aid to nations that carry out political and economic reforms; and his push to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade regime beyond 2008.
Bush had originally been scheduled to travel to Africa in January, but the White House postponed the trip in December as the volatile standoff with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein heated up. The original itinerary included a stop in Mauritius.
Apparently in lieu of traveling there, the president was to welcome Mauritius Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth to the White House on Thursday for talks on trade and the war on terrorism.
The latest clashes in Liberia have made shambles of a cease-fire signed last week at west African-sponsored peace talks in Ghana.
Both government troops loyal to Taylor and fighters of the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), who have waged a bitter battle for four years, have vowed to fight to the finish.
Taylor told the nation Wednesday in a radio address that he was not fleeing from the worst-ever rebel advance on the capital, adding: “This blatant act of terror will be fought all the way.”
Defense Minister Daniel Chea has stressed that Taylor’s government is committed to the ongoing talks in Ghana, saying they would “go back to the negotiating table in Accra” once the rebels had been pushed out of Monrovia.
But Taylor, who has been charged with crimes against humanity by a special UN-backed tribunal probing excesses during a barbaric 10-year civil war in Liberia’s western neighbor Sierra Leone, has said the indictment must be lifted if peace talks are to succeed.—AFP
