TROUBLE HANGS OVER LIBERIA AGAIN!
-Insurgents Next Door
Forum
Monrovia, Liberia
Distributed by
The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
According to the reports, insurgents based in neighboring Ivory Coast are planning to attack Liberia if Mrs. Ellen Sirleaf is inaugurated as President of Liberia on January 16, 2006.
Though sources who hinted this paper did not name the rebel group, it is believed to be made up of Liberian mercenaries who have been fighting alongside the New Forces in the North of Cote d’Ivoire.
A few elements of the unknown rebel group are reported to have also fought alongside the Ivorian Government militias in the west of the country.
These elements are said to have the task of opening corridors in the Southeastern tip of Nimba as well as the Northwestern part of Grand Gedeh for the insurgency.
Other members of the group are said to be deployed in villages and forests along the Liberia-Ivorian border in the Southeast between Grand Gedeh and Nimba Counties on reconnaissance mission while some are said to be even in Monrovia for the same mission.
The people of Nimba, the sources revealed, have vowed to resist the use of their county by any group to destabilize the country.
Some Nimbaians told The FORUM in Ganta last weekend that they were aware of such information and were prepared to resist it to the letter.
According to our sources, the recent coup plot uncovered by the National Transitional Government of Liberia was part of the insurrection planned by the group, some of whose organizers are allegedly officials of the government.
The coup was said to have been planned to be executed on Saturday December 10, 2005 with the appointment of one of the defeated presidential candidates as Head of State.
The sources also hinted that this candidate would have refused the offer by the coup makers by disassociating himself on grounds that he is an ardent believer of democracy, as such, would have been purportedly arrested from his residence and taken to the Executive Mansion and made to announce himself as Head of State.
However, reports of the insurrection are yet to be independently verified either by the NTGL or UNMIL. Notwithstanding, it is only the coup plot that the government announced recently, noting that two of its officials were linked whose names were not disclosed.
Meanwhile, UNMIL has already assured Liberians that the January 16 inauguration of Mrs. Sirleaf will take place, warning that it is in full control of security of the state and that it will deal robustly with anyone that would make the attempts to destabilize the nation.
In a related development, latest reports emanating from Lofa County say 19 former fighters have been arrested in Kolahun District by state security after they emerged from the Belleh forest.
The 19 arrested by the security following a hint from the residents of the area were reportedly among one thousand former fighters the rest of whom were said to have fled back into the bushes after they realized that their colleagues have been arrested for questioning.
The reports also said five hundred of the one thousand former fighters resisted arrest and made their way toward Vahun at the Liberia-Sierra Leone border.
This latest security information, especially with the presence in huge number of former fighters coming from the Belleh forest has sparked off panic among war-weary Liberians, mainly those in Lofa County who have started rebuilding their lives.
The emergence of former fighters from the Belleh forest which has often been reported of harboring unknown armed has raised another big security concern in the country.
