Warring Liberia Factions Agree to Power-Sharing Plan

Liberia’s warring factions agreed Saturday to share power under a new formula that in theory removes the main obstacle to ending more than five years of civil war, conference delegates said.

The most important points in the accord reached at talks in Nigeria are the removal of the controversial elderly chairman of the National Council of State and the inclusion of chief warlord Charles Taylor on the interim ruling body.

“For now we’ve reached an agreement. Basically, the chairman of the council has been named and accepted by all as the right neutral man to head the council,” said Victoria Reffel, a spokeswoman for Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, or NPFL.

She named the new chairman as Wilton Sankawulo, a professor of English. He replaces Chief Tamba Tailor, who is in his 90s and is also at the meeting in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

“Everybody is in a good mood. What we should be looking at now is the implementation of the agreement,” she added.

Tailor, widely seen as too old to lead Liberia at a critical time, remains a member of the council that will run the country until democratic elections are held.

The other members are Alhaji Kromah, leader of the ULIMO-K faction; George Boley, who heads the Liberia Peace Council, and Oscar Quiah of the Liberia National Conference.

The formal signing of the new accord by all faction leaders was scheduled for later Saturday, delegates said.

Ghana, which holds the revolving leadership of the regional bloc ECOWAS, played a pivotal role in clinching the agreement, delegates said.

Taylor and his NPFL ignited the civil war in December, 1989, with an invasion from neighboring Ivory Coast. More than 150,000 people have been killed in fighting despite the intervention of a Nigerian-led West African force since 1990.