The President of Liberia, Gen. Samuel K. Doe, dismissed his Interior Minister today for failing to heed a warning of an uprising by dissidents last week. General Doe also imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the Nimba region, where his opponents attacked a customs post in what the Government called an abortive invasion from the neighboring Ivory Coast. An official statement gave few details of the attack in an eastern town, Butuo, on Dec. 24, in which an army sergeant was killed and another soldier wounded.
The Interior Minister, Col. Edward Sackor, was dismissed along with the Nimba region's senior administrator. The two men had discounted a warning by a local chief that opponents were preparing an attack. The Government has sent troop reinforcements to Nimba, scene of abortive uprisings in 1985 and 1988 against General Doe, who took power in a 1980 coup of his own. It said some of the attackers were still at large.
A man who identified himself as Charles Taylor telephoned the British Broadcasting Corporation's African service on Monday to say that he was behind the invasion. He said that more than 100 armed men had mounted attacks in Nimba and that fighting was still going on. The Government has said the situation is under control.
Mr. Taylor, who has been living in the United States, said he had just left Liberia but he would not say from where he was calling. There were no other details of his identity or background. General Doe has survived several coup and assassination attempts, the last by his former right-hand man, Nicholas Podier, who was killed in July 1988 after leading a force of 12 men from the Ivory Coast. When he took power, he was an army master sergeant. Almost immediately after his successful coup, then-Sergeant Doe had a number of leaders of the deposed civilian regime, including two former Presidents, executed on a beach near the capital.
Source: New York Times
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