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NEWS STORY
Rory Carroll August 12, 2003 When a despot falls it tends to be messy. Mobs storming the palace, rebels and loyalists exchanging pot-shots, portraits and statues smashed, a wave of hate which sweeps away the despot's dignity and often his life. Slobodan Milosevic, Nicolae Ceausescu, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein - they all lost control of events in the final hours of crumbling regimes, ending up having to flee, barricade the doors or beg for mercy. It is a measure of Charles Taylor that yesterday he pulled off the hardest of acts: he choreographed his own downfall. In a day of high drama, Liberia's warlord turned president stepped down from power and headed for exile as Nigerian peacekeepers took over Monrovia and three US warships laden with marines steamed over the horizon. President George Bush said US troops would bolster the peacekeepers after Mr Taylor quit and here they were, offshore but visible, sending throngs of cheering people down to the beach to celebrate what they hoped was the end of war in the west African country. The rebels besieging Monrovia were last night said to be on the verge of ceding control of the port to peacekeepers, opening the city to shipments of humanitarian relief for a population close to starvation. A swirl of events adding up to one thing, the demise of Charles Taylor's reign, and pulling the strings was the man himself. He was quitting under enormous pressure from African and western leaders as well as the rebels controlling most of the country, but he was doing it his way. Elected president in 1997 after leading a brutal bush rebellion, Mr Taylor has been accused of setting west Africa aflame by exporting insurgencies to his neighbours. Indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone, his Swiss bank accounts frozen, his people angry and desperate, his time was up. Option one was extradition to Sierra Leone. Option two was to stay and risk being captured and tortured to death, like his predecessor Samuel Doe, or disembowelled in his bed, like Doe's predecessor, William Tolbert. Mr Taylor, 55, found a third way: exile. He was promised sanctuary from the UN tribunal by the Nigerian president, Oluse gun Obasanjo, and three houses have been set aside for Mr Taylor and his entourage in the jungle city of Calabar. Other despots also ended up as exiles but Liberia's demanded that he leave in style. Knowing Mr Taylor could drag on the fighting, neither George Bush nor the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, was going to stop yesterday's party. Offically it was the induction of Moses Blah, the vice-president, into the top job. But really the ceremony was a farewell party for the outgoing president, who gave every impression of enjoying it thoroughly. The ego was in full flight. Resplendent in a white safari suit and green sash, Mr Taylor played the wise and beloved statesman who resigned to spare his people from further suffering. Comparing his persecution to that endured by Jesus Christ, he said: "History will be kind to me. I have fulfilled my duties. I have accepted this role as the sacrificial lamb _ I am the whipping boy." He added: "There are two things that I want for the people of Liberia, one that they live, two that they see peace _ I leave you with these parting words, God willing, I will be back." The executive mansion, like the rest of Liberia, was in ruins, but aides scrounged enough diesel to run the generator, lighting the three chandeliers overhead and casting the chamber, flanked by velvet curtains, in a golden hue. A gospel choir sang Onward Christian Soldiers, followed by the theme song from the film An Officer and a Gentleman. Diplomats, foreign dignitaries and well-wishers packed the audience. Amid the rubble of Monrovia someone had even managed to print a programme. Mr Blah, dressed in flowing white robes, resembled a bride as Mr Taylor entered the chamber, a military brass band playing in the balcony. It was pure theatre and the three visiting heads of state, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Ghana's John Kufuor, and Mozambique's Joaquin Chissano, had the crucial roles of furnishing gravitas. They praised Mr Taylor's "courageous" and "statesmanlike" decision to step down. Nobody detailed the hundreds of thousands dead, the rapes and mutilations, the looted diamonds and timber. "Today's ceremony marks the end of an era in Liberia," President Kufuor said. "It is our expectation that today the war in Liberia has ended." With no radios or television, the population outside was deaf and blind to the ceremony but some of those inside, daring to believe the speeches hailing peace, sobbed in joy and hope. Before boarding the plane for Nigeria, Mr Taylor looked back briefly and waved a white handkerchief. The fragile ceasefire could give way to lasting peace. Mr Taylor could lapse into oblivion and the guns stay silent as talks in Ghana between his successor and the rebels keep a timetable for agreeing a transitional government by October. Or it could go horribly wrong, with Mr Taylor stirring things, Mr Blah turning tyrannical, and the rebels lobbing mortars into Monrovia as patience runs out. Much hinges on yesterday's master of ceremonies no longer being a master of his fate. story url
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