West African leaders flew into bloodied Liberia under heavy military guard on Friday, opening a mission to press warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor to step down as promised, and leave his war-ruined nation for exile.
New shelling erupted in Monrovia, the capital, as the envoys travelled toward Monrovia, leaving nine civilians dead, including four children. The shells slammed into a neighbourhood of tin-roof shacks, shattering a rare one-day lull in bloodletting.
The volley of mortar rounds, near the heavily contested Old Bridge, sent families fleeing back to hiding places and militia fighters running into the streets, AK-47s at the ready. The bridge has been at the centre of two months of fighting in Monrovia, as rebels try to push from the port to downtown, the heart of Taylor’s government.
Rebels and Taylor’s forces accused each other in the bloody bombardment, which reopened fighting at all three contested crossings toward downtown by midday on Friday.
As fighting surged, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the West African regional leaders’ bloc, arrived at Liberia’s main airport with the foreign minister of Ghana. Government ministers representing Senegal, Togo and Nigeria followed in separate flights.
US Ambassador John Blaney, representing the nation that oversaw Liberia’s founding in the 19th century, welcomed the mission.
The West African envoys are meant to bring a message to Taylor from his fellow West African heads of state, who declared on Thursday that they would send the first peace forces into Liberia on Monday — and that Taylor must leave three days after.
Taylor, a former guerrilla fighter and indicted war-crimes suspect, is blamed in 14 years of conflict in Liberia.
”We will go and explain the decision of yesterday,” Chambas said earlier on Friday. ”The decision was very clear in its plain meaning: We will put in the troops on Monday. We expect him to be able to leave within three days.”
”It’s not a coup d’etat — it’s a constitutional change of power.”
The West African bloc leader cited Taylor’s own pledges to yield power, made repeatedly since rebels opened their siege of the capital in June.
”He had made public undertakings, and that’s what the leaders of the region expect him to do,” Chambas said.
Fighting in three waves of rebel offensives has killed more than 1 000 civilians in the capital, a city of one million that is choked with hundreds of thousands of refugees.
With the Atlantic Ocean port and the main water plant cut off by fighting, hunger, thirst, and epidemics of cholera are rife in Monrovia, hit nearly night and day by mortars, rockets and gunfire.
Rebels are pressing home their three-year-old campaign to oust Taylor.
On Wednesday, regional leaders committed to a deployment date, after weeks of delay on sending promised peacekeepers, in part to allow for deliberations on what debt-strapped Nigeria expects to be the multimillion-dollar daily tab.
The first 300 troops, offered by Nigeria, are due to arrive on Monday with armoured vehicles, said Colonel Theophilus Tawiah of Ghana, the future force’s chief of staff. Ghana, Senegal and Mali each are to send 250 troops in the first days after, using United Nations’ (UN) and US planes, Taiwah said.
In Monrovia, presence of a tiny 10-member advance scout team for the first peacekeepers had brought a second night of near-peace in the battered capital.
Tens of thousands of the city’s people poured out of hiding places on Thursday, flashing peace signs and fluttering handkerchiefs in greeting as the advance team’s convoy passed by. Much of the team was leaving Monrovia, headed out to arrange Monday’s first deployment.
Taylor has said previously he would leave as soon as the first peacekeepers arrived. It was not clear whether West African leaders had his agreement to Wednesday’s announcement.
In Monrovia, Taylor spokesperson Vaanii Passawe called the Accra declaration only ”a draft proposal”.
However, Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea said Taylor had been in close touch with the West African leaders behind the announcement, which he called not ”that far from the truth”.
Reached by telephone, the leader of the rebel movement laying siege to Monrovia scoffed at Taylor accepting it, or any other peace deal.
”Taylor’s not going to leave except by force,” said Sekou Conneh, chair of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy.
”After the peacekeepers have been on the ground for three days — call me back then, and we’ll see,” Conneh said.
The United States has promised $10-million. It is sending three warships with Marines to Liberia for what US President George Bush says will be limited assistance.
US officials introduced a draft measure at the UN on Wednesday asking for approval of a multinational force, to be followed by a UN deployment by October 1. They have given the UN Security Council a 24 hour deadline to approve the force. – Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP