Liberia’s main rebel group, which will hold landmark peace talks with President Charles Taylor from Wednesday in Ghana, has grown from a shadowy force to a movement controlling half the country. The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) movement, which has been fighting to oust Taylor since 1999, has now been joined by another rebel group which emerged recently in the south-east of the country. Although the LURD denies any links with the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), the Liberian government says they are one and the same — a view shared by many others. According to United Nations experts, the insurgents control between 40 and 60 percent of Liberia’s territory. For the LURD, Taylor, a former warlord who played a leading part in a previous seven-year bloody civil war, encapsulates all that is wrong with this west African country. Full Story
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