UN steps up security in Liberian capital after clash

The UN’s peacekeeping mission in Liberia said today it has stepped up security measures across the capital after police clashed with angry supporters of the loser in the country’s first post-war presidential election.

In a speech late yesterday that fired up hundreds of supporters, international soccer superstar George Weah said he would work to stymie the January inauguration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who won the November balloting to become Africa’s first-ever elected female head of state. Weah rejects the results, charging fraud.

Angry Weah supporters attacked UN and Liberian police afterward in Monrovia’s streets, leaving several security force members injured, the UN said in a statement.

Police detained 40 Weah supporters suspected of rioting, it said. The UN mission blamed Weah’s political party for the violence, asking party leaders “to call on their supporters to prevent any further disturbances.”

Security measures have been bolstered across Monrovia to prevent any further strife, it said.

Also today, Liberia’s Information Minister William Allen said a plan was afoot to “destabilise” the country.

He told private Star Radio that “one or two” of the alleged plotters are “highly placed government officials.” He gave no details and didn’t specifically link the alleged plot to events surrounding Weah’s speech – which raised tensions across the country.

Weah, in his speech, echoed the fiery bombast used by warlords and factional leaders to stir up militants during Liberia’s ruinous 1989-2003 civil war.

“Fellow partisans, revolution is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it,” he boomed.

“It is our right to seek justice, and we will use all means to obtain that,” he told a cheering crowd.

“I know one day we will be free.”

He said Johnson-Sirleaf’s January 16 swearing-in wouldn’t take place.

“There is no victor for now, and I say there will be no inauguration in the country until the world gets together and finds a means for a peaceful resolution to the problem,” said Weah, back in Liberia after meeting regional leaders.

The elections for a leader to take over from a transitional administration arranged under peace deals that ended the war were supposed to move Liberia past its recent bloody history, which saw some 200,000 people killed in years of fighting that ruined the country.

International election observers ruled the two rounds of voting had largely been clean, and the national elections council decided Weah’s charges of ballot-box stuffing were groundless.

With heavy support among the young, jobless males that fought in Liberia’s wars, Weah risks returning the country to strife through his continuing protests.

Some 15,000 UN peacekeepers are guarding Liberia’s tenuous calm.