MONROVIA -- Liberia's interim government Tuesday said it doubted the reliability of a U.N. report blaming the army for the June 5 massacre of 600 refugees at a camp east of the capital.
A statement on state radio said, 'The government is not of the view that facts and circumstances of the Carter Camp massacre have been fully established by the panel beyond all doubts.'
A three-man U.N. panel of inquiry report released over the weekend in New York said it had 'credible, persistent and persuasive accounts' that the Armed Forces of Liberia, or AFL, was responsible for the massacre near Harbel, 37 miles (60 km) east of the Monrovia.
The statement said, 'no new evidence has been uncovered by the panel of inquiry to render invalid the conclusion reached by investigations conducted by the interim government.'
The government said the U.N. panel used methods similar those used by government investigators, but 'identified qualitative difference in the method used in obtaining evidence and arriving at different conclusion.'
The statement did not offer specific differences between the two investigations.
The statement said U.N. investigators lacked 'knowledge of the cultural tendencies that sometimes underbear rumors and predispositions which influence perspectives, especially in situations requiring trust.' The statement did not elaborate.
The government also ordered thearrest of three suspects named in the U.N. report as participants in the massacre.
Named were Capt. Nelson Paye, AFL commander in Habel; Pvt. Zarkpa Gour, and an officer identified only as Lt. Kollie.
The government called on the panel to make available 'any and all pieces of evidence it may possess regarding the culpability of these individuals' to aid in their prosecution.
The government investigation blamed the massacre on Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia and declared the front a 'terrorist movement.'
The intermim government of Amos Sawyer and the two main rebel groups, Taylor's NPFL and and the United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia, in July agreed to form a transitional five-member state council to lead the country to democratic elections by February to end the 3- year-old civil war.
