the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Register accepted directions from Taylor to facilitate ams trading w/ al Qaeda before 9/11/01

Taylor Maintained Power through Western Assistance 8/6/06

http://jsjacobsen.blogspot.com/2006/08/taylor-maintained-power-through.html

by Jaclyn Jacobsenfor Africa Policy WatchThe election of Ellen SIrleaf-Johnson as President of Liberia has finally ended the official political power of Liberia's former ruthless dictator, Charles Taylor. With the support of the UN and other international agencies, as well as significant aid from Western countries, it appears that democracy has triumphed over two decades of inter-gang warfare and authoritarianism, in which 150,000 were killed and more than a million were displaced.However, Charles Taylor, now indicted as a war criminal in the newly created Special Court for Sierra Leone, continues to wield considerable power behind the scenes. Although mandated by the UN to cease all contact to government ministers and key industry leaders, Taylor remains a potent force behind many transactions in West Africa, and is thought to be responsible for the attempted assassination of Guinean President Lansagna Conte in mid-January 2005. Policy analysts agree that Taylor represents a seriously destabilizing presence in western Africa, as Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Cote d'Ivoire struggle to retain control over their territories.While Western nations have been among the strongest advocates in calling Taylor to stand trial for war crimes, their complicity enabled Taylor's gang-land regime to subside and flourish in Liberia for years, while allowing Taylor to personally finance a range of brutalities that would erupt in neighboring Sierra Leone. "Conflict diamonds" from Sierra Leone and Liberia made their way largely unobstructed in the ports of the European Union and the United States, revenues from which would finance the rape and murder of thousands of Africans...

While Liberian government agencies assert their non-compliance with Taylor's underhanded tactics, the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Register, the second-largest shipping registry in the world with 1600 registered ships, personally accepted directions from Taylor to divert nearly $1 million to the coffers of arms dealers in Sierra Leone, and facilitated trades between the RUF and Al-Qaeda before September 11. The UN would not impose sanctions on Liberian diamonds until 2001, well after the start of armed conflict in the region...