Liberia: Where rebels roam free

President Taylor: Allegations that he traded guns for diamonds with Sierra Leone rebels

By Mike Donkin in Monrovia

As the Liberian presidential jet touched down in the capital, Monrovia, the carefully choreographed crowd in national costumes sang and danced. It was a hero's homecoming for President Charles Taylor.

Then, at his executive mansion, I watched Mr Taylor preside over a thanksgiving for his success in persuading the rebels in Sierra Leone to free the UN hostages and the efforts he had made to bring peace there.

Liberia went through 6 years of bitter civil war

In a rousing speech to the mansion faithful, President Taylor responded to the accusation that his government supplies the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) with arms in return for diamonds.

"You hear them talking about gun-running and diamond smuggling," he said.

"It's the movies. They tried to say that we, the Liberian people, are thriving because of Sierra Leonean diamonds."

Liberia mined diamonds enough of its own, the president said.

Thumping the rostrum, he insisted that the only nation presently gun-running was Britain, which was giving weapons to Sierra Leone's unreliable army.

"This government is opposed to the British Government arming any group in Sierra Leone because we believe it poses a direct threat to the peace in Sierra Leone," he argued.

A man fighting in the bush wants to know that the man he's handing his gun is not going to receive it and shoot him in the back, that's all.

Charles Taylor, President of Liberia

He said security was the task of peacekeepers - and added that Liberia had a role to play there.

Liberian troops would join a West African mission to Sierra Leone because the rebels needed a force they could trust if they were to disarm, he said

"A man fighting in the bush wants to know that the man he's handing his gun is not going to receive it and shoot him in the back, that's all," Mr Taylor said, amid applause.

Rebel mentor

Charles Taylor provided guidance to Sierra Leone's rebel forces

President Taylor's influence with Sierra Leone's rebels is clear.

He helped to found their movement when he was waging his own guerrilla revolt in the bush, and he is still their mentor and protector.

I found evidence of that in a camp for 15,000 refugees from Sierra Leone just inside the Liberian border.

Families told me fearfully that RUF men roamed everywhere.

"They just live in the camps with us, just going about their business, normal business," a refugee said.

"But we know some of them. That's how we know they are here."

"I was somehow afraid when I saw them because I know what they have done to us," added another resident of the camp.

Sierra Leoneans blame Mr Taylor personally for the rebels' role in Sierra Leone.

"The people of Liberia are already being punished for the president's machinations," one inmate of the refugee camp said.

Aid shortage

Since Charles Taylor won power three years ago, there has been little international aid to piece this war-wrecked country together again.

The UK recently succeeded in blocking $53m in European aid to Liberia, on the grounds that Mr Taylor had been trading guns for diamonds with the RUF.

We have had a very serious war in this country. Our country is devastated. Up to now, we don't have water, we don't have electricity.

Bono Masamviana, student

Among the ruins on the campus of the University of Liberia, I found a group of students angrily berating their government in debate.

Students' Union vice-president Bono Masamviana said that Liberia would never recover while Western powers which might help reviled it as a pariah state.

"We have had a very serious war in this country," he said.

"Our country is devastated. Up to now, we don't have water, we don't have electricity.

Monrovia: The Liberian capital still lies in ruins after years of conflict

"If indeed, it's true that our government is involved in gun-running or in diamond business in Sierra Leone, we are encouraging it to stop and be much more concerned about our plight so that we can be able again to rejoin the community of nations so that we can get our place in international world."

Charles Taylor may aspire to the role of the statesman who will bring peace to West Africa.

But most here believe he has too big a part in the plot.