[allAfrica.com] [allAfrica.com_Top_Headlines] Confusion Or Division: LURD Promises Cooperation, But Plans Chaos; Aicha Orders Big Guns Back to Guinea The Analyst (Monrovia) NEWS May 17, 2004 Posted to the web May 17, 2004 Monrovia Finally winded and despondent, the rebel LURD "Executive Committee" last week issued a statement that beats the imagination of analysts. The statement said due to the refusal of the Chairman of NTGL, Gyude Bryant, to dismiss Finance Minister Lusinee Kamara, LURD would not cooperate with the NTGL but that it will not recall its representatives in the transitional government and will continue to encourage its militias to disarm to UNMIL. While analysts continue to gauge the meaning of LURD's statement, there are strong indications the decision by the "Executive Committee" not to cooperate with NTGL is actually a decoy to baffle the disarmament process. As The Analyst's roving reporter Mike Jabateh reports, the artillery pieces used to disembowel poor Liberians in cold-blood are reportedly being headed back to Guinea whence they came. Mrs. Aicha Keita Conneh, the estranged wife of the Chairman of LURD, Sekou Damate Conneh, has, over the weekend, reportedly ordered all artillery pieces belonging to LURD including launchers and mortar guns back to Guinea for safekeeping. According to our information, Mrs. Conneh ordered Lt. Gen. Philip Kamara to proceed forthwith to Bomi, Gbarpolu, and Lofa counties and move all artillery guns back across the border into Guinea. The information says Mrs. Conneh's decision to send the "big guns" back to Guinea emanated from the fact that Chairman Bryant has refused to remove Finance Minister Lusinee Kamara thereby robbing her of a say in who represents LURD in the transitional arrangement and denying her the opportunity of deriving any benefits from her investment in LURD. In another weekend incident that analysts say contradicts the much-publicized position of the LURD "Executive Committee," to cooperate with UNMIL, Mrs. Conneh also reportedly gave US$25,000.00 to one Gen. Fofee Fofana to mobilize enough men in Bomi, Gbarpolu, and Lofa counties to disrupt ongoing disarmament processes in those counties so that attention would be turned to the demand for the replacement of the Finance minister. In a chat with our reporter, Gen. Fofana said he had no intention of carrying out the plan and that he was going public with the information because he was tired of fighting and that now was the time for disarmament. When contacted for comment on the information, a chief spokesman for Mrs. Conneh, and LURD representative at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Soriba Kamara, and the Director of the Motor Vehicle Division at the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Mohammed Keita (a relation of Aicha), denied the information and described it as "untrue." According to the Messrs Kamara and Keita, Mrs. Conneh did not order the transfer of any weapons and has no reasons to do so. Meanwhile, the reported decision by some pro-Aicha elements of the LURD Executive Committee to baffle the disarmament process is strongly being rejected by several generals and some executive committee members of LURD who described attempts to make changes in the NTGL at this time as inimical to peace. In a press statement Sunday, a group of LURD Executive Committee members from Lofa vowed that the fighting men of LURD assigned in Lofa County will disarm. They therefore advised UNMIL to proceed to the county to begin disarmament there. Also dissociating himself from any plan to upset any gains made thus far in the disarmament process, the Deputy Chief of Staff of LURD forces, Gen. Ophoria Diah, cautioned against attempts to politicize the disarmament process. He then called on Mrs. Conneh to find alternative ways to reconcile with her husband instead of dragging LURD in the family feud. All the drama about promising to partake fully in the disarmament process and yet planning to subvert it, ordering weapons back into Guinea, and the issuance of parallel statements promising that disarmament would go ahead as promised, according to analysts, are indications that LURD is divided and confused over how to proceed. How much of this observation is anything to go by is not known, but observers say it is time the NTGL, ECOWAS, and UNMIL begin taking proactive measures lest they be caught with their pants down.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2004 The Analyst. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================