Warlord steps down

Monrovia, Liberia

Liberian President Charles Taylor agreed this week to leave office as part of a truce agreement with the rebels his government has been fighting for three years. “I’m doing this because I’m tired of the people dying,” Taylor said. “I can no longer see this genocide in Liberia.” Taylor has fueled West African conflicts for more than a decade. Backed by Libya, in 1989 he led a bloody rebellion in Liberia that lasted seven years. It ended with his election by a populace that feared he would continue the war unless he was given the presidency. He then funded a brutal insurgency in neighboring Sierra Leone, where he is wanted by a U.N. court for war crimes. The truce, signed in Ghana this week, calls for the “formation of a transitional government, which will not include the current president.”

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