By IPS Correspondents
MONROVIA, Apr 17 2003 (IPS)

Liberia’s warlords and politicians have agreed to meet soon to try to end the country’s three-year civil war.

Both President Charles Taylor, a former warlord who seized power in 1997, and rebels of the Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) have agreed to talk over all matters of contentions, diplomats told IPS this week.

The exact date and venue have not been fixed nor the composition of participants decided upon, but analysts say the pending peace talks provide an opportunity to end the country’s conflict and chart the course to free and fair elections.

The meeting was initially scheduled to begin in Bamako, the capital of Mali, on Mar 19. But bickering over the nature and composition of participants and chair of the parley – some of the problems that have often led to broken peace talks in Liberia – appeared to have forced Mali to back out, saying it did not "want to be a failure".

Diplomats say a frantic search is now underway in the West African sub-region for another venue. They say Ghana appears to be the likely choice.

The meeting comes as the LURD rebels step up their assault, capturing a string of territories from government forces and moving on Monrovia’s outskirts. But the government has fought back to beat the rebels from threatening the capital, Monrovia, military sources say.

The upsurge of fighting in 11 of Liberia’s 15 regions has created huge humanitarian crisis as the United States, the European Union and United Nations suspend relief operations from the area, leaving thousands of displaced and refugees without relief aid, one aid worker told IPS this week.

So far, pressures are mounting on Liberia’s belligerents to make peace.

Hundreds of women converged on the city hall in Monrovia on Apr 11 to "pursue peace". But, to their disappointment, President Taylor and his senior officials did not show up to the meeting, despite the invitation extended to them.

"We, the women of Liberia, are tired of war, we want peace, we insist on peace and we are determined that we will have peace," says Etweda Cooper, the secretary general of the Liberia Women Initiative (LWI).

Her colleague, Leno Gbowee of the Women Network for Peace, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), says the continuous violence, which mostly affects women and children, has prompted the Liberian women to rise up and speak their mind.

"We realise that thousands of people have been killed, millions of dollars worth of property destroyed, schools have been closed down, clinics and hospitals and other humanitarian institutions are being closed because of the skirmishes," she says.

Bishop Sumuwood Harris of the Lutheran Church of Liberia says Liberians have nowhere else to run for safety now, because of xenophobia in neighbouring countries. "We have reached the end of the running, and this is the time for peace."

To the chagrin of the opposition political parties and civic groups, the government insists on chairing the proposed peace talks. In a joint statement this week, Liberia’s opposition parties and civil groups warned that the LURD "would most certainly reject the meeting if the government, which is a party to the conflict, were to chair it".

They called on the government to demonstrate its "oft-repeated pronouncement of a commitment to achieving peace in Liberia by going to the conference to engage in constructive dialogue with LURD under the auspices of ECOWAS so as to end the war, hold free and fair election and move the country forward".

ECOWAS is the Economic Community of West African States. Taylor also says his government will not accept an intervention force, as demanded by the rebels, in Liberia, arguing it construes a lack of sovereignty. Instead, he says his government will accept a capacity-building force to help train Liberians for the electoral process.

For more than a decade, Liberia has lived through bloody violence that has torn its people apart. With its vast resources of gold and diamond, timber and iron ore, this tiny West African state on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean could be one of, if not, Africa’s richest nation. But it is now a desperately poor country, unable to find a durable formula to melt its contending political squabbles into a cohesive nation.

Its 2.5 million people – most of whom are malnourished because of the worsening food and health situation blamed on intensified war – have known only brief interlude of peace since Taylor ignited the first civil war in 1989.

The only commodity in abundance is the AK-47 and kulaks riffles. People in the capital, Monrovia, live in fear from marauding armed gangs.

Currently, Taylor and his top officials are under UN sanctions and travel restrictions for their alleged complicity in the guns-for-diamonds trade with rebels in Sierra Leone.

Civil servants’ salaries remained unpaid for over 12 months owing to liquidity crisis in the country. Businesses are no longer brisk because of the liquidity crisis that has hit the banking and commercial institutions hard.

The LURD and opposition parties have demanded Taylor’s resignation to allow the creation of an interim government. But Taylor insists on staying on until the end of his term in October.

Liberia’s state-run Elections Commission has announced a timetable for the Oct 14 elections under which campaigning are not expected to begin until July.

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