POLITICS-LIBERIA: Relative Calm Returns to Monrovia

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Abdullah Dukuly

MONROVIA, Jun 12 2003 (IPS) - There is now a relative calm in besieged Monrovia after the government agreed to a truce in the weeklong fighting that sent up to 600,000 people – more than half the capital’s population – on the run.

Thousands of people, who fled the flashpoints of the fighting in the commercial district of Duala and the fishing enclave of New Krutown, eight kilometres northwest of the capital, are returning home to count the cost of the clashes.

Only few banks are opening to customers for few hours. Shops are partially opened and few commercial vehicles are plying the streets but "are not going into the battle zones", a taxi driver told IPS on Thursday.

Wednesday’s truce was negotiated by the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Mediation team, comprising its executive secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas and Ghana’s Foreign Minister Nana Kufor-Addo, held a short meeting with President Charles Taylor Wednesday after an earlier talk with the main rebel leader Damani Sekou Konneh in Conakry, Guinea.

The Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels launched a dawn attack on Monrovia Jun. 5 when they used local canoes to cross the strategic St. Paul Bridge, some 24 kilometres northwest of Monrovia, into the capital’s suburb in Duala. The battle lasted for five days.

Taylor announced the outbreak of the fighting at a news conference on Jun. 5, less than 12 hours after he had returned from Ghana where he attended the opening sessions of the peace talks on Liberia.

The heavy sounds of artillery bombardment and small machine guns triggered the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians from the western townships.

The rebels stepped up their attacks within 16 kilometres northwest of the capital on Saturday under a heavy downpour. Appeals from diplomats and peace negotiators went unheeded. The peace talks in Ghana were abruptly halted pending a cease-fire.

The rebels later withdrew from their captured areas and the army moved in to "mop them up", said a soldier from the frontline. Hundreds of civilians were asked out of their homes to allow the army operation.

After the guns were silenced, many returned home to find their houses looted.

Witnesses said "scores of people" were caught up in crossfire as the rebels fighting to overthrow Taylor advanced towards the city centre. They said a family of five was gunned down while trying to flee the government fire. As ambulances collect the wounded and dead bodies that littered street corners, survivors speak of the killing of many people and the destruction or looting of property worth millions of dollars.

The rebels demanded that the former warlord resign within three days – on Wednesday. But Taylor, who got himself elected in 1997, has warned of "disastrous consequences" of his premature resignation. "Charles Taylor was elected by 80 percent of the votes. I still enjoy strong supports of the people," the Liberian President said.

Terrified civilians in Monrovia are concerned about a power vacuum that may be created by Taylor’s resignation. "His forces will go on the loose, carrying out an orgy of killing, looting and destruction of property," said a human rights activist in Monrovia.

At his press conference last week, 55-year-old Taylor announced the foiling of a plot to overthrow him while in Ghana, implicating his vice president, Moses Blah. He is currently in jail -thus raising the burning question of succession.

Liberia’s constitution provides that in the case of eventuality, the vice president completes the term of the president. And in the absence of the vice president, the speaker of the parliament is the next in succession.

But political commentators believe Taylor – who risks arrest after being indicted by the war crimes court in Sierra Leone last week – may be contemplating choosing one of his most trusted men to succeed him if he chooses to go into exile.

His planning minister Roland Massaquoi is reportedly being groomed for the job, a leading businessman close to the power corridors told IPS Thursday. Next to Massaquoi is Taylor’s former information minister Joe Mulbah.

The latest fighting in Liberia’s long history of conflicts began in 1999 when the LURD accused Taylor of dictatorship and launched a rebellion in the north which has spread to 11 of the country’s 15 regions.

The fighting has affected half the country’s estimated three million people, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Liberia also hosts around 17,000 Sierra Leone refugees, at least 38,000 Ivorian refugees and nearly 44,000 returning Liberians who fled conflict in neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire. These too have been endangered by the fighting.