UN officials examine banned weapons cargo that arrived in Liberia

United Nations officials have opened and inspected a 40-foot container carrying tons of assorted weapons imported, despite a Security Council arms embargo against Liberia, by former President Charles Taylor just days before he went into exile in Nigeria, the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said.

Jacques Paul Klein, the Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for Liberia, had the container opened by UN weapons experts on Friday in the presence of two members of the UN Panel of Experts monitoring the sanctions imposed on Liberia, Atabou Bodian and Damian Callamand, UNMIL said.

“We have continued to receive reports of brokers making deliveries of weapons to Liberia and violating the arms embargo. This seizure is the first time real evidence of an arms shipment has been discovered,” Mr. Callamand said.

The Panel’s Chairman, Mr. Bodian, said part of its mandate was “to monitor the arms embargo and take stock of all evidence available, including the origin of the weapons.” He did not say where the shipment was manufactured or from where it might have originated.

The inspection noted two 60-millimetre mortars, 149 boxes of mortar ammunition, 67 boxes of rocket-propelled grenades, 299 boxes of AK-47 rifles and about 699,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition. “The ammunition was scheduled for immediate destruction,” UNMIL said.

The weapons arrived at Roberts International Airport very early on 7 August, three days before Mr. Taylor was forced into exile, and violated a Security Council resolution imposing the arms embargo, the Mission said.

The container was intercepted by Nigerian peacekeeping forces, then under the command of the Economic Community of West African States Military Mission in Liberia (ECOMIL), but now under UNMIL’s command. The peacekeepers disabled the truck in which Mr. Taylor’s Anti-Terrorist Unit had placed the cargo.