Liberian rebel fighters who have advanced to the suburbs of the capital Monrovia have asked the Italian Catholic community of Sant’Egidio to mediate in their war with President Charles Taylor, the community revealed late on Sunday.
The news came shortly after the Swiss government announced that two Swiss nationals and a Briton who had been reported missing in Liberia had been found safe and sound.
Refugees said members of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) advanced under heavy fire to recapture the key Saint Paul river bridge just hours after the defence minister had vowed to root out pockets of resistance.
US marines prepared sandbag bunkers on top of the American embassy, ready for an expected helicopter evacuation of Westerners. The embassy had already announced an evacuation of non-essential personnel, and UN agencies were also said to be considering pulling out.
The fighting has overshadowed peace talks, due to resume on Monday, in Ghana to try to end nearly 14 years of violence, which Taylor is accused of spreading to Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.
Lurd has been fighting Taylor since 1999 and now controls much of the west African country. Taylor was a leading warlord in an earlier seven-year civil war that ended in 1997 and later became president.
A press statement signed by Lurd chief Sekou Damate Conneh reads: ”The Lurd requests the good offices of the community for the national reconciliation process in Liberia.”
The statement said Sant’Egidio had already presided over two days of talks between the rebels and the government that had led the Lurd on Sunday to declare a halt to its advance on Monrovia ”on humanitarian grounds”.
The Sant’Egidio community — nicknamed the ”United Nations of Trastevere” after the district of Rome where it was founded in 1968 — is present in numerous conflict zones and played a key role in engineering a peace deal in 1992 to end Mozambique’s long-running civil war.
Meanwhile the Swiss foreign ministry said a Briton and two Swiss nationals — the honorary consul Juerg Landolt, also head of a brewery in Monrovia, and a diplomatic aide — had been found near the European Union mission in Monrovia.
The three and a German national had been missing since Saturday, following fighting five kilometres from the centre of Monrovia between the Lurd and the army.
”They are free and safe and sound,” ministry spokesperson Muriel Berset Kohen said in Bern late on Sunday, adding that the three were with a Liberian woman and her two children.
”All of them are currently north of Monrovia, a few kilometres away from the European Union (EU) mission, which they have been unable to reach due to shooting,” she said. A convoy was to be sent on Monday to pick them up.
She was unable to say what had happened to the three and had no information about the missing German.
On Sunday the Lurd halted its advance on the city centre and gave Taylor three days to step down.
The EU has ordered all its citizens in Liberia to prepare for possible evacuation. Over 100 had gathered at the EU’s office in Monrovia by Sunday afternoon, along with 30 United Nations employees.
The rebel offensive on Monrovia had caused thousands of civilians to flee their homes. Many converged on a giant stadium in the capital, where the government had said they could seek shelter.
Conditions inside the stadium, one of the largest complexes in Monrovia, were appalling.
Fresh fighting was reported from several areas on Sunday afternoon, all less than 10 kilometres from the city centre. Earlier in the day, the Lurd announced it was halting its advance and ordered Taylor to leave power.
”Lurd strongly instructs Charles Taylor to step down from the Liberian presidency within the next 72 hours to avoid bloodshed in Monrovia,” it said in a statement.
”Lurd does not recognise Taylor as president of Liberia but a wanted international criminal,” the rebel movement said.
Taylor was indicted for war crimes last Wednesday by a United Nations-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone, Liberia’s neighbour to the north.
The court charged Taylor with crimes committed in Sierra Leone’s brutal 11-year civil war, in which some 250 000 people died and several thousands had their limbs amputated.
The government of Guinea has said it fully supports Taylor’s indictment.
An official communiqué read out on state radio on Thursday night said; ”We urge countries of the world, particularly countries of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), to do all they can to ensure the speedy execution of the arrest warrant for Mr Taylor and to co-operate with the tribunal for the achievement of peace in the sub region”.
The government statement added: ”This is a clear testimony to Charles Taylor’s culpability in the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.” It congratulated the Chief Prosecutor for the Special Court for taking ”such a courageous decision”.
President Lansana Conte has made no secret of his hostility to Taylor, whom he blames for sending armed men into the east of Guinea to launch an abortive rebellion three years ago. But his open support for Taylor’s extradition to face war crimes in another country is likely to raise eyebrows in Africa.
Governments on the continent seldom call publicly for heads of state of other countries to be held accountable in a court of law for events that took place beyond their own borders. Ghana pointedly refused to arrest Taylor, who was in Accra to attend the opening of peace talks with Liberian rebel movements, when the Special Court issued its indictment on Wednesday.
Diplomats noted that Conte’s own government has given strong backing to the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) rebel movement, which has been widely accused of treating Liberian civilians in a brutal manner.
The almost uninterrupted civil war in Liberia has left an estimated 200 000 people dead since the early 1990s. ‒ Irin, Sapa-AFP, Guardian Unlimited Â