LIBERIA: TAYLOR ADMINISTRATION EMBROILED IN ANOTHER SCANDAL OVER TWO MISSING JUNIOR MINISTERS ACCUSED OF INVOLVEMENT IN COUP BID WHO ARE NOW CLAIMED TO BE DEAD

Record ID: 344822

  • Title: LIBERIA: TAYLOR ADMINISTRATION EMBROILED IN ANOTHER SCANDAL OVER TWO MISSING JUNIOR MINISTERS ACCUSED OF INVOLVEMENT IN COUP BID WHO ARE NOW CLAIMED TO BE DEAD
  • Date: 17th July 2003
  • Summary: (W8) MONROVIA, LIBERIA (JULY 15, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. MV DEPUTY MINISTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY JOHN YORMIE'S WIFE, CYNTIA YORMIE, CRYING AND BEING HELD UP BY NEIGHBOURS; SCU WOMAN CRYING 0.15 2. SCU STILL PHOTOGRAPH OF DEPUTY MINISTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY JOHN YORMIE 0.20 3. SLV COURTYARD INSIDE YORMIE'S HOUSE WHERE NEWS CONFERENCE BEING HELD 0.25 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) SUZANNA VAYE, WIFE OF OTHER DEPUTY MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORK ISAAC VAYE, ALSO KILLED SAYING: "I beg Charles Taylor, President Taylor, I am pleading with him let him give me my bones. I will bury them. Let him tell me what is he is charged with. History says what has been done cannot be undone." 0.43 5. MV VAYE WALKING AND CRYING BEING SUPPORTED BY NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS; MV WOMEN CRYING 0.57 6. SLV LOCAL WATER DISTRIBUTION FOR DISPLACED AT THE SAMUEL DOE STADIUM (6 SHOTS) 1.22 MONROVIA, LIBERIA (RECENT) (ICRC) 7. SLV /SCU LIBERIAN WOMAN LYING ON GROUND; CHILDREN LYING ON GROUND (4 SHOTS) 1.43 8. MV CHILD BEING TREATED BY RED CROSS STAFF; SLV RED CROSS CAMP AND ACTIVITIES (13 SHOTS) 3.54 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MONROVIA, LIBERIA
  • Country: Liberia
  • Reuters ID: LVACOF24IUN3FCAKMC7L0RNVBC17
  • Story Text: Liberian President Charles Taylor's administration is
    embroiled in another scandal after the families of two
    Liberian junior ministers, who had been missing since they
    were detained for alleged involvement in a coup bid in June,
    said the men had been killed.

    Liberian President Charles Taylor's administration
    became embroiled in another scandal on Tuesday (July 15, 2003)
    after the families of two Liberian junior ministers, who had been
    missing since they were detained for alleged involvement in a
    coup bid in June, said the men had been killed.

    John Yormie, deputy minister for national security, and
    Isaac Vaye, deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Works,
    were detained on June 5. The families said Taylor instructed
    local elders to tell them the men were dead.

    Taylor has been indicted by a U.N.-backed court in Sierra
    Leone for war crimes linked to that country's civil war.

    Nigeria has offered asylum to Taylor, who has accepted but
    says he wants peacekeepers in place before he goes.

    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday that
    ECOWAS troops could enter Liberia first, then Taylor would
    leave as U.S. forces arrived. But Jan'eh said he would prefer
    the Americans to arrive first.

    "It would be a psychological comfort to see new faces," he
    said from Ghana, where he is taking part in peace talks.

    Nigerian peacekeepers deployed in Liberia during a civil
    war in the 1990s failed to stop some of the fiercest
    blood-letting of that conflict, which claimed 200,000 lives.

    Under a ceasefire deal agreed between Liberia's foes on
    June 17, parties to the Ghana talks were given 30 days to draw
    up a comprehensive peace plan. That deadline expires on
    Thursday.

    LURD on Tuesday proposed their chairman, Sekou Conneh, to
    head a transitional government after Taylor leaves -- a
    proposal likely to be rejected by the government and regional
    mediators.

    Tens of thousands of people have fled into Monrovia to
    escape fighting between rebel forces and the government troops
    of President Charles Taylor.

    Latest estimates put the number of internally displaced
    people who have moved into the capital at 150,000 added to
    the city's million inhabitants.

    Liberia's government and rebels welcomed on Tuesday (July
    15) President George W. Bush's willingness to send troops to
    their country, but the insurgents said they wanted the U.S.

    presence to be "overwhelming".

    Bush said on Monday he was open to sending U.S. troops but
    that any deployment would be limited in size and in duration.

    The president has come under pressure to intervene in a
    nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century
    and now brought to its knees by 14 years of almost non-stop
    war.

    But Washington is wary of sending troops to Africa, 10
    years after a bloody and humiliating exit from Somalia. The
    U.S. army is also stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Liberia's government did not comment on Bush's demand that
    President Charles Taylor, a former warlord indicted for war
    crimes, quit Liberia before any troop deployment.


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