Life is getting interesting for Charles Taylor since some of his dirty little secrets are floating to the surface of the cesspool. Citing Liberia's "active support" of rebel groups destabilizing West Africa, the United Nations Security Council renewed sanctions against that country, extending the measures to include a ban on timber exports in addition to existing arms and diamond embargoes. The new ban on timber exports begins on July 7 and will run for 10 months, but the Council will review the sanctions by September 7, to consider how best to minimize their impact on the country's humanitarian situation and could allow exports to resume to fund relief programs.
Former Sierra Leonean R.U.F. rebel commander Sam Bockarie (AKA "Mosquito"), indicted on war crimes charges by a UN court and on the run in Liberia, died after a shoot-out with government forces. The son of a diamond miner, Bockarie was born in eastern Sierra Leone in 1963 and led a "interesting" life before he joined the rebels; he worked as a professional dancer, a hairdresser, an electrician and a waiter.
There are two versions of what happened to Bockarie. In the first, he crossed the Liberia border into Ivory Coast and was asked to surrender by Ivorian government troops. He refused and his body guards opened fire on the soldiers, who returned fire. Bockarie and several of his bodyguards were killed, while the Ivorians lost one man.
The second version was that Bockarie and some of his bodyguards (40-50 former RUF rebels) were spotted crossing into Liberia near the Ivorian border town of Binhouin in the early hours of the 7th (driven back into Liberia by the Ivorian rebels.) Liberian government forces with orders to arrest him were met with stiff resistance, and there were casualties on both sides.
When a new Liberian rebel group, known as the "Movement for Democracy in Liberia" (MODEL) started to seriously threaten Taylor's "pepperbush" (or personal source of income, in this case the logging industry), Mr. Taylor decided to sue for peace. Convinced that the MODEL was supported by the Ivory Coast's President Gbagbo regime, Taylor had a meeting arranged a meeting in Togo. To get Gbagbo to back off, Taylor allegedly engineered the murder of Ivorian rebel leader (and his former friend) Felix Doh. Taylor's designated hitter was Sam Bockarie. Bockarie was said to have fled the Ivory Coast with over 300 vehicles that were sold in Liberia for about $500.00 apiece.
Taylor may also have engineered the death of Bockarie, to ensure that the "Mosquito" was never positively identified as the main supporter of the revolution in Liberia. - Adam Geibel