...embargoed mail is returned to senders

MONROVIA, Liberia - The Ministry of Posts Telecommunications has started returning hundreds of letters and parcels to their senders after an embargo on Liberian mail came into effect last month.

International airlines, the Universal Postal Union and the Pan African Postal Union, among others, imposed the ban on mail entering and leaving Liberia due to the country's failure to settle its financial obligations to those institutions over the past decade.

Liberia owes about dlrs 250,000 to Dutch airline KLM and dlrs 56,000 to Ghana Airways, government officials have said. They have not disclosed how much is owed to the other institutions.

Ghana Airways is the only major airline currently flying to wartorn Liberia, and hundreds of letters and parcels have piled up in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, as a result of the embargo.

Postal workers in Liberia have been busy the last few days collecting postage receipts from angry customers and returning their mail.

An embarrassed mail agent who asked not to be named said Tuesday there was no information yet on when and how money would be refunded to those whose letters and packages never reached their destination.

Posts and Telecommunications Minister Miwaseh Pay-Bayee said Tuesday he regretted the situation, and that every effort was being made to resolve the matter.

He said he had requested permission from President Charles Taylor to travel to Accra to ask Ghana to join Liberia in calling for the lifting of the embargo.

In addition to the mail embargo, the United Nations has imposed arms and diamond embargoes against Liberia to punish Taylor's government for its support of rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone. The country's leaders are also subject to a travel ban.

Taylor has been fighting his own shadowy dissidents for the last three years. The clashes have sent thousands of Liberians fleeing into neighboring Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast.