A senior military official accused Liberia’s president Saturday of hiring mercenaries to bolster Sierra Leone’s feared rebel movement. Liberian officials denied the claim.
Col. Alfred Claude Nelson-Williams, operations director for the military, said Liberian President Charles Taylor hired mercenaries from a now-disbanded South African security firm, Executive Outcomes, as well as from nearby Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
The mercenaries were to secure diamond fields controlled by the Revolutionary United Front and boost the rebel campaign against the government, Nelson-Williams said.
“The RUF is determined to hold on to the country’s breadbasket,” he said. His accusations could not be verified independently, and were rejected by the Liberian deputy information minister, Nathan Teahjay, as “sweeping, illogical statements that do not have foundation.”
Taylor is a close ally of rebel leader Foday Sankoh.
