UN council authorises peacekeepers for Liberia

By EVELYN LEOPOLD and IRWIN ARIEFF

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council has authorised a multinational force to intervene in Liberia for the purpose of implementing a cease-fire that would end the country's bloody civil war.

The vote in the 15-nation council on the US-drafted resolution was 12-0, with France, Germany and Mexico abstaining because of language allowing any crimes committed by peacekeepers to be prosecuted only by the peacekeepers' own governments.

With Nigerian troops expected to arrive in Liberia on Monday, the resolution lays the groundwork for an African force as well as US involvement but does not spell out what role, if any, American soldiers would play.

But it makes clear that Liberian President Charles Taylor would have to leave the country and that any possible US participation would be brief.

The measure calls for a UN peacekeeping force to replace the multinational troops by October 1, a date most UN officials believe is too soon to organiae and dispatch troops.

"Within the house, there is some concern about that tight deadline," said UN spokesman Fred Eckhard, adding that timing also would depend on whether the West African troops would join the subsequent UN force.

But US officials argued that extra funds and equipment on hand would allow the United Nations to move fast.

The resolution invokes Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows the use of force. It would grant authority for a multinational force "to secure the environment for the delivery of humanitarian assistance."

The main difficulty in the text was a provision insisted on by Washington giving the peacekeepers immunity from prosecution by anyone -- including the new International Criminal Court -- but their own governments. An exception is the 91 nations that have ratified the statutes of the ICC, vehemently opposed by the Bush administration.

"This one paragraph has nothing to do with the multinational force and the mission to Liberia," said Germany's UN ambassador, Gunter Pleuger. Pleuger and Mexican ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser said the provision contradicted international law as well as their national laws, which specifically provide for prosecution of serious offences committed abroad against one of their citizens.

- REUTERS