April 17, 2002 Liberia, accused of diverting funds from its lucrative shipping registry to buy arms in violation of U.N. sanctions, has failed to take measures to end such abuses, a U.N. panel reported.
The panel's experts, in a report expected to be released on Friday, said irregularities persisted in the Bureau of Maritime Affairs, whose books had not been audited since 1988. When panel members wanted to examine accounts they were told "the generator had broken down."
But they were shown some figures from the Finance Ministry, the Central Bank and the shipping registry's agent, a U.S. company based in Vienna, Va. "None of the figures match with each other, and they show significant discrepancies, illustrating the urgent need for independent auditing and oversight," said the panel's report, obtained by Reuters.
The panel was set up by the U.N. Security Council to investigate the effectiveness of a ban on arms sales, an embargo on Liberian diamond exports, and a travel ban on Liberian President Charles Taylor and top associates. Liberia has been accused of fueling the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone by supporting that country's rebels in a gems-for-arms trade, partly to enrich some officials.
The sanctions were imposed on Liberia last year and expire on May 7. The 15-nation council must determine by then whether to drop, extend or expand them. The expert panel called for an extension of the arms embargo, saying it had found "credible evidence" Liberia was still buying arms and providing new weaponry to its soldiers in violation of the embargo, even as Sierra Leone moved toward peace after a decade of civil war.
'BLOOD DIAMOND' TRADE OFF
It also favored keeping the travel ban, which it said a handful of officials had been able to flout by obtaining passports with false names and traveling through Abidjan, where Ivory Coast officials turned a blind eye.
As for the ban on diamond exports, the panel said rough diamonds originating in Liberia had disappeared from official markets and production had declined as a result of the sanctions, although some black market trade likely continued. But the panel said it remained "concerned" about the activities of the shipping registry, although it made no recommendation about imposing sanctions on the registry.
In an October 2001 report, the panel identified four suspicious payments made by the registry's agent, the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, to nongovernmental accounts and said it believed Monrovia had used the money to buy arms to help fuel civil war in Sierra Leone. The U.S.-owned and -operated company that manages the day-to-day operations of Liberia's ship registry, collecting fees from the more than 1,700 ships that fly the Liberian flag. It contributes about $18 million a year to Liberia's budget.
After the earlier report, the Liberian government promised audits and other measures to assure funds were not diverted and asked the Liberian Central Bank to take over the accounts of the Bureau of Maritime Affairs. But the panel said the reforms had not been carried out. The panel said that Sanjivan Ruprah, a Kenyan national, previously identified by the United Nations as a key figure in the illicit arms and diamond trade in West Africa, had traveled under diplomatic passports identifying him as the bureau's deputy commissioner.
Benoni Urey, the Liberian commissioner of maritime affairs, has repeatedly denied bureau involvement in arms deals and insisted that Ruprah had nothing to do with his business. But the panel said it had evidence that Ruprah signed letters as the deputy commissioner and "maintained a close relationship with Urey." Ruprah was arrested in Brussels in February and charged with association with a criminal organization and possession of false passports.
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