Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Charles Taylor Leaving Liberia?
Aired July 10, 2003 - 06:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It looks like Liberia's embattled president may get exactly what he wants, but there is a catch.
CNN's Brent Sadler is in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia this morning.
And what's the latest there -- Brent?
BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Fredricka, President Charles Taylor, the embattled Liberian leader, still in office here, no timetable as to when he might go.
He's saying that the arrival perhaps in a couple of weeks of 1,000 peacekeepers from West African nations, which have been pledged in the past 24 hours, is a step in the right direction. He says it's an acceptable bridging force to a wider peacekeeping mission. He is not insisting that U.S. troops are on the ground at the same time as West African troops, but he is leaving it kind of vague.
Now, at the same time as Mr. Taylor's position remains uncertain, what does seem more and more obvious here is that a United States humanitarian survey team is each day widening its scope of operations in terms of looking at what this country needs from a humanitarian perspective. In the past hour so, the team was able to pass through a checkpoint known as "iron gate" on the outskirts of Monrovia. This is a checkpoint where a couple of days ago there was a bit of a fracas, and the troops were turned away in what Mr. Taylor called a diplomatic boo boo.
No boo boos this morning. The team went straight through. They've gone to a refugee camp, internally displaced people, called VOA, Voice of America camp.
And, again, what we've seen here, as in a hospital which is run at the John F. Kennedy Hospital here in town, just yesterday we've seen really deeper and deeper the kind of problems that this country faces. The hospital wing of the largely-defunct JFK Hospital, run by the International Committee of the Red Cross, has scores of war- wounded people from vicious fighting just last month -- men, women and children. And I was told by doctors there, to give you an idea of the scale of the problem, in Liberia as a whole there are only two registered surgeons for trauma cases, only 21 government registered doctors for a population of three million people, a very dire situation indeed.
Now, also what we've seen, and it continues, has been an outpouring of positive reaction from Liberians to the survey team as it's gone about its business. Liberians here welcoming the arrival in the next couple of weeks of West African peacekeepers, but still wanting to see a U.S. presence on the ground here -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Brent Sadler, in Monrovia.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired July 10, 2003 - 06:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It looks like Liberia's embattled president may get exactly what he wants, but there is a catch.
CNN's Brent Sadler is in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia this morning.
And what's the latest there -- Brent?
BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Fredricka, President Charles Taylor, the embattled Liberian leader, still in office here, no timetable as to when he might go.
He's saying that the arrival perhaps in a couple of weeks of 1,000 peacekeepers from West African nations, which have been pledged in the past 24 hours, is a step in the right direction. He says it's an acceptable bridging force to a wider peacekeeping mission. He is not insisting that U.S. troops are on the ground at the same time as West African troops, but he is leaving it kind of vague.
Now, at the same time as Mr. Taylor's position remains uncertain, what does seem more and more obvious here is that a United States humanitarian survey team is each day widening its scope of operations in terms of looking at what this country needs from a humanitarian perspective. In the past hour so, the team was able to pass through a checkpoint known as "iron gate" on the outskirts of Monrovia. This is a checkpoint where a couple of days ago there was a bit of a fracas, and the troops were turned away in what Mr. Taylor called a diplomatic boo boo.
No boo boos this morning. The team went straight through. They've gone to a refugee camp, internally displaced people, called VOA, Voice of America camp.
And, again, what we've seen here, as in a hospital which is run at the John F. Kennedy Hospital here in town, just yesterday we've seen really deeper and deeper the kind of problems that this country faces. The hospital wing of the largely-defunct JFK Hospital, run by the International Committee of the Red Cross, has scores of war- wounded people from vicious fighting just last month -- men, women and children. And I was told by doctors there, to give you an idea of the scale of the problem, in Liberia as a whole there are only two registered surgeons for trauma cases, only 21 government registered doctors for a population of three million people, a very dire situation indeed.
Now, also what we've seen, and it continues, has been an outpouring of positive reaction from Liberians to the survey team as it's gone about its business. Liberians here welcoming the arrival in the next couple of weeks of West African peacekeepers, but still wanting to see a U.S. presence on the ground here -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Brent Sadler, in Monrovia.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
