Thank you very much, Madam President.

No.

I did qualify it as a speculation.

No, I have no detailed knowledge of other sources of funding. One would be able to speculate whether the kind of pivotal role that Burkina Faso played --

In my mind and down to the present date the initial funding of that attempt - and you may remember how modest at the beginning it was, the fighting force was not huge, they crossed into northeastern Liberia from the Ivorian territory, this initial attempt was, at least in my understanding ...

I would not wish to overstretch a sentence. I can imagine easily the conditions under which we were writing, late at night having transcribed the interview and trying to get that into the next day's paper. So all I meant is that there was a destabilisation attempt by Libya ...

Yes, I made a distinction between development aid being budgeted and given to African countries and I then agreed that despite the institutional checks and balances it happens in Liberia and in other African countries. Overall we should remember that Africa is three times more aided and helped than other ...

I think it was widely reported, but once I again I look like we do right now at a specialised press, if now we were referring to, I don't know, how intensely CNN or maybe other news agencies or networks did report is also always a question, you know ...

I have a good recollection of that instance. I had just left the country and when I was a correspondent for Reuters news agency we usually worked with local stringers which means when we are not in the country local journalists do report and feed our news organisation by their ...

In the situation in which I was, I could imagine that it was something like people having picked something up, a news item, and under the pressure in which we were they would come to me and say, "Listen, Sankoh just said something", but they would not say where and ...

And I think I added that I had the impression they weren't helping us in our specific situation to which I won't refer any further.

Public statements, yes.

I think this is a correct reflection of what I said.

I feel uncomfortable with commenting on something that I can't remember I had knowledge of at the time. I think I pointed this out to your learned colleague at times; that I am really happy that we all have that high opinion about journalists and how much they follow ...

I did say that I had not followed event - or that I don't have the recollection of these details. Specifically this one I said I had no recollection of them at the time, or I have no recollection that I knew that at the time.

I had no reason to correct my initial impression that Mr Taylor was following press reports closely and took them into account in the overall assessment of the situation, yes.

I am referring to the early in 1990s, so I would say that would be between 1990 and 1993/'94. Roughly that period of time.

And I think - just it comes as a recollection. I think he himself - I am not aware whether this was an expression he used, but very often the reference to the media reporting on Liberia was referred to by people close to him by a very - an expression that stuck ...

First of all when we met we would discuss them and we referred to reports that were carried for example over international radio stations and Mr Taylor was always knowledgeable about these reports and aware of them, so we had common ground and this allows me to say that he ...

I just meant the reverberations or the reporting on these events, so he followed media reports on his country and neighbouring countries very closely.

Mr Taylor was well aware of what - and was following events and its reflection, the reflection of the events in the press very closely, which is fully understandable given his position.

I think I did explain in detail that when we were seeing Mr Taylor we would actually stop, congregate around him and he would answer our questions and would give us the briefing of the day. So I think that is what I understand to be a meeting. So we ...

Excuse me, please, I think what we said yesterday was that over the first period in 1990 we would see Mr Taylor when we were in the field maybe even almost every second day so I think it was legitimate to say numerous. I would concur with you that after ...

Yes.

Very widely so to the extent that even nowadays when you speak about Sierra Leone some of my students or even acquaintances would remember just one fact which is precisely the terror and the form this terror - specific form this terror took in Sierra Leone.

I think it is on the record that I said yesterday that I endorsed fully this paragraph, or half of this paragraph, when I was asked and I just stated that I would see the countering of the influence of the regional power that was Nigeria as being just one ...

The terror was the common denominator between Liberia and Sierra Leone and even in very broad assessments of the regional war this commonality was stressed. And, as I said yesterday in one of my opening statements, we created in a sense a category of destructured conflicts that were distinct from ...

As I just tried to explain, I just tried to explain that there may have been different - I put it - I said idioms of terror. I experienced terror in Liberia clearly.

I will always remember, for example, the first person that was shot at a distance closer than the one ...

I think we have gone through this detailed chronology and I would like to see as one of the outcomes a balanced view between what I think patent dependency of the burgeoning civil war in Sierra Leone from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, Mr Taylor's organisation, and at ...

I think I stated yesterday that it seemed to all of us self-evident that there was a link between Mr Taylor's movement in Liberia and the sort of offspring of this fighting force in neighbouring Sierra Leone given the interconnectedness that we had already realised in the field between ...

Thank you very much for attracting my attention to that. I apologise.

I don't think it was immediately known exactly the composition of that motley group of about a hundred fighters. If my recollection is correct - but, you know, it is very difficult to put things on a time line from hindsight, but I think we were aware of the fact ...

At the time being at the time of the report by Africa Confidential, or in 1991?

Yes, sir.

In all honesty I would think of it as a continuous period and not adding up his sojourns in the United States. I say this because I just mean to be fair play and I thought yesterday obviously that I would have - given the occasion that we spoke various times ...

Yes, it is a dolorous experience for me, but overall I think when there is a dispute about facts and someone is sitting so close to the source that should know it best I was prone to concede that I might have been wrong.

MFI-1B if I followed these proceedings correctly.

Good morning.

I would agree that under the prevailing circumstances it wouldn't come as a huge surprise, yes.

This is a very deterministic reading of history. I expected a revolution or a rebellion to happen against Mobutu for years and turned out to be wrong. So if you mean in almost Marxist terms that the objective conditions were ripe for a revolution then probably yes, but overall I ...

This is correct and it also stems from the disparity of between Liberia and the United States; what is little aid money seen from Washington is obviously a huge amount of money seen from Monrovia.

I haven't redone the calculation, but I trust if I did it at the time that's what I meant.

You are correct, yes.

This is true and I probably omitted to add that there was also the relay station of the Voice of America.

I hoped and believed that the American legal system is not acting on grounds who is the ally of the executive power, but otherwise your statement correct, yes.

This is perfectly correct as it is correct to state that usually when a government in Africa is overthrown there is huge enthusiasm that usually - and I know that I generalise - doesn't last very long and when the next government is overthrown, et cetera. I also referred to the ...

Yes, and just to refer once again to the guilt that I invoked, we may state that in 1980 beyond the personal history of Samuel Doe is a kind of major shift or watershed in the history of Liberia as for the first time the colonised majority of the interior ...

What I meant by that - I think I summarised it yesterday by saying that Liberia's probably the African country that comes closest, not in legal terms, but closest in reality to being an American colony on the African continent and that the overall oversight of dealings, and I think ...

I would not dispute that fact at all, yes.

That is not entirely correct. As you are probably aware of the Americans were so embarrassed by the money that disappeared that they sent in something that was unprecedented in their relations with any foreign country - they sent in executive controllers who actually had to countersign each cheque that was ...