Government troops battled rebels in Liberia as representatives of the warring parties and international mediators gathered on Wednesday in Ghana for talks to end three years of civil war in the west African nation.
Fighting lasted into the night in Klay, 37km north-west of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, and Bewion, near the south-eastern border with Côte d’Ivoire, Liberian defence officials said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The fighting was seen as a last-ditch effort by all sides to lock in territory ahead of any ceasefire agreement stemming from the peace talks. The talks in Accra, Ghana, are scheduled to last two weeks.
Liberian warlord turned president, Charles Taylor, has since 1999 battled the northern-based Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) a rebel movement that seeks to depose him. A new insurgency, called Model, emerged this year in the country’s south-east.
Human Rights Watch estimates Taylor controls only about 40% of Liberia, which has seen one-third of its 3-million people uprooted from their homes by the fighting.
Taylor took power in 1997, winning elections after a devastating 7-year-war civil war that he launched in the country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. Taylor has had a hand in many of west Africa’s destabilising conflicts, and the United Nations has him under sanctions for gunrunning with the region’s rebel movements.
Arriving in Ghana on Tuesday, Taylor ruled out relinquishing power as a compromise for peace.
”The question of me stepping down cannot arise and will not arise, because I was democratically elected,” Taylor told reporters in Accra.
But he said he was committed to peace.
”I am eager to see a peaceful resolution of whatever the issues are… let me tell you, I will not leave Ghana until we achieve peace for my people.”
Sierra Leone’s President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and Mohammed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary general of a regional bloc, were already in Ghana for the talks. Former Nigerian junta leader General Abdulsalami Abubakar is the main facilitator.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire are expected to arrive in Accra on Wednesday.
Liberian rebel envoys were expected to arrive in Ghana on Tuesday, according to Ghanaian officials.
In Monrovia, activists pinned white ribbons to people’s coat lapels and car antennas in hopes of generating goodwill before the peace conference began. – Sapa-AP