Interim Liberian Government Head Named

Liberia's warring parties chose a mild-mannered and politically obscure businessman today to lead an interim government until 2005. Delegates from the government and two rebel factions, meeting in Accra, Ghana, chose Charles Gyude Bryant, 54, who is an Episcopal leader, a dealer in heavy equipment and the head of a minor political faction, the Liberian Action Party.

Under the accord, the chairman of the interim government -- the title will be chairman, not president -- had to be an outsider unaligned with the three warring parties. "I see myself as a healer," Mr. Bryant said in a telephone interview. "I see myself as neutral. I side with no group."

Liberia has been in almost constant conflict for 14 years, since the last president, Charles G. Taylor, a former warlord who left last week for exile in Nigeria, began fighting his way to power in 1989. Mr. Taylor's immediate successor, his vice president, Moses Blah, will resign in October.

The interim government led by Mr. Bryant is to try to help hold Liberia together until elections in October 2005. Mr. Bryant's selection came as a surprise to many diplomats and foreign officials, and to many Liberians. Many had expected the chairmanship to go to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 64, a former international banker and senior United Nations official who had led the candidates submitted by the government's negotiators to the rebel parties for their approval. But some diplomats cited last-minute maneuvering by Mr. Taylor's loyalists to block Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, who lost to Mr. Taylor in the last election Liberia held, in 1997. She said in an interview today that she would back Mr. Bryant.

Several of the Liberian delegates were injured this afternoon when the Ghana Air Force plane meant to carry them home failed to take off and its undercarriage collapsed, airport officials said. The mishap did not seriously injure any of the 44 passengers, the officials said, but it closed Accra's international airport.

In Monrovia, aid groups carefully began shipping some food into the countryside today. Fighting is continuing between government and rebel forces within 50 or 60 miles of Monrovia, despite a cease-fire. On Friday, more than 200 soldiers from Ghana are to join a West African peacekeeping force of nearly 1,000 troops, overwhelmingly from Nigeria. By October the force is to number 3,250, and the mission is to be turned over to the United Nations.

The United Nations envoy for Liberia, Jacques Klein, an American diplomat, said he would seek a mandate from the Security Council for up to 15,000 troops from all over the world to help secure the countryside so aid can reach a starving and war-weary population. There is also talk in Monrovia of a formal request to the United States to help train a Liberian army that was undermined and corrupted during Mr. Taylor's presidency.

Source: New York Times