By IPS Correspondents
WINNIPEG, Canada, Jul 31 2003 (IPS)

Women in Liberia, tired of carrying the burden of war, have appealed for peace in the strife-torn West African country.

The women, both Christians and Muslims, have come together under the auspices of Liberia’s Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNET) to demand unconditional ceasefire from the fighting forces.

"We are tired of the war, women and children are suffering and the situation is just getting out of hand," Comfort Freeman, WIPNET founding member, told IPS at the Tenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), being held in Winnipeg.

As Freeman arrived to attend the ten-day conference, which started on Jul. 21, she called home only to hear that her family had been displaced by the ongoing fighting which spilled to Monrovia, the country’s capital, two months ago.

But she is holding herself together and is determined to find peaceful solutions to her country’s problem.

In Apr., WIPNET launched a peace rally in Monrovia, and over 5,000 women convened, chanting anti-war slogans. "We wrote our statement which we presented to ECOWAS (the 15-nation Economic Community of West Africa States), the government and the U.S. ambassador in Monrovia," she said. "It was a way of telling the world that we are fed up with the bloodshed."

"We have been sitting in an open field in downtown Monrovia everyday from 8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. under the sun or rain, without talking to anyone. No eating or drinking, just waving placards with peace messages as a silent protest against what is happening in our country," she said.

Freeman said they also presented a petition to the rebel movement, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). In the statement, they demanded unconditional ceasefire and dialogue between the government and rebel forces.

She said they have been seeking representation in the current peace negotiations on Liberia, being held in Accra, Ghana, under the auspices of ECOWAS. "We are fighting hard to be granted a seat and for our voices to be heard at the talks," she said.

Freeman, who is also the women’s leader of Lutheran Church in the troubled West African state, decried the human indignity created by the conflict, which drove over 1,000 people to seek refuge in the church.

She briefed the 820 participants in Winnipeg about the absence of free movement and the widespread humanitarian catastrophe in Liberia.

She appealed to the international community to listen to the voice of Liberians. "We have been crying for so long and the situation in Liberia has gone unnoticed by the world. Now it is time for the international community to come urgently to our rescue," Freeman said.

The conference called upon the United Nations to send a stabilisation force to Liberia to protect civilians.

"We urge the United Nations Security Council to immediately mandate the deployment of a multilateral stabilisation force to separate the warring sides, to protect civilians, and to disarm and demobilise all fighting forces," said LWF in a statement.

LWF General Secretary, Ishmael Noko has met with the country’s embattled president Charles Taylor to articulate the women’s position on peace and dialogue. "I met him two times last year in and out of the country . to get him to open up communication between him and rebels, to which he agreed," said Noko.

He regretted the fighting has engulfed Liberia. "If the president would have embarked on our agreement, what is happening now would have widely been avoided," he said.

Noko has also established contact with the rebel factions, but he says nothing much has come out of it.

Freeman says Liberians are looking forward to the arrival of U.S. peacekeepers, mandated by President George W. Bush on Jul. 25 to head toward the war-ravaged nation and help restore peace and stability.

"We welcome President Bush’s intervention of sending his men but by the time they arrive, many more Liberians will be dead," she added.

More than 600 people have died since rebels, seeking to topple Taylor, advanced on Monrovia last month.

The U.S. troops are to assist a contingent of 3,000 soldiers from ECOWAS, expected Jul. 30. But only an advanced team of less than ten men arrived in Monrovia on Wednesday on fact-finding mission. They will stay in Monrovia until Saturday.

Liberia, founded by freed slaves from the United States in 1920, has been sailing in waters of conflict for over a decade. The war has claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced 1.5 million people.

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