Liberia veered between hope and fear last night as fresh fighting flared in Monrovia amid expectations of the imminent arrival of peacekeepers.
Mortars and heavy machine-gun fire resounded across the capital but civilians racing for cover cast glances skyward for the helicopters due to ferry the vanguard of a Nigerian-led intervention force.
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) said the first peacekeepers would deploy by tomorrow with logistical help from the Americans, prompting Liberia’s few optimists to count what they hoped were the nightmare’s final hours.
A three-year civil war has devastated the west African nation and split Monrovia into zones controlled by rebels and forces loyal to President Charles Taylor, with no man’s land shifting by the day.
”We are praying for the darkness to lift,” said Rev Weh Weah Betieh, pastor of the United Methodist Church, standing in a candle-lit basement which hundreds of displaced people called home.
Those sheltering in a disused factory across the street had shafts of light, thanks to a roof perforated by shrapnel.
”It’s never been this bad, never. The reason so many people have lost their lives is because of the delay,” said Abrahahm Feika (35) who coached a leading football team before he became a refugee. ”We thought the US would take a leading role in restoring sanity to this country. I’ll tell you this, when the peacekeepers do come there will be jubilation.”
At least nine civilians, four of them children, died when their house was hit in yesterday’s bombardments. One of the victims was decapitated. Festus Okonkwo, the Nigerian brigadier-general who will command the peacekeepers, said the first 300 troops would arrive soon. ”I have told them to get the men ready to deploy on Monday. I’m coming in on Monday and when I come in on Monday it’s business.”
Liberia’s history tends to repeat itself, each time as tragedy: a president murdered in 1980 gave way to a president murdered in 1990, followed by a slide into anarchy which Nigerian-led peacekeepers failed to stop. They left after Taylor was elected president in 1997 but after a brief lull the mayhem resumed, for which many blamed the warlord-turned president.
Keeping the peace this time hinges largely on a promise by Taylor (54) to step down and accept asylum in Nigeria, safe from a war crimes indictment issued by a UN tribunal in Sierra Leone.
Two rebel groups control most of the countryside as well as Monrovia’s port but the president, a former security guard in Boston, could try to hunker down in the executive mansion. ”Peace is relative,” smiled Edward Johnson (29) commander of government troops at one of the three bridges contested by rebels. A flurry of explosions sent civilians scattering but ”General” Johnson, sipping red wine from a plastic jug, ordered them to walk. ”It’s OK, don’t rush.”
For the dead man 100 yards down the street it was not OK, nor for the man with a cart waiting for a lull in shelling to collect the body.
Typically, it was not clear which side was firing the heavy weapons, or why.
Even those who want Taylor to go fear his departure could signal a looting frenzy by his undisciplined militas.
A handful of foreign military experts have toured what is left of Monrovia in the past few days to prepare for the 1 500-strong vanguard peacekeeping force. They are greeted with crowds chanting: ”No more war, we want peace.”
The force will be supported by three US warships dispatched by President George Bush in response to those who say Washington has a responsibility to a country founded by freed American slaves in 1847. Fragments of that early utopian spirit survive on chapel billboards with names like New Destiny, Peace and Harmony, Harvest of Love.
Hope falters when you reach the main football stadium where 55 925 people are sheltering, mostly in the tunnels, according to Daniel Yeator, a medical supervisor for Médecins Sans Frontières.
Improved sanitation has reduced cholera but hunger and malaria take their toll. In a grim caricature of the real thing, some boys in rags kicked a ball around the field, watched without enthusiasm by the latecomers on the terraces for whom there was no room underground.
Children grabbed the hands of strangers and slapped distended bellies, asking for money to buy the doughnuts and onions sold by hawkers. ”I have nothing to feed my sons and daughters,” said Davison Loplu (28) bedding down for his tenth night at the stadium.
Another stadium resident, Rashid Kabba (41) appealed for peacekeepers to deploy immediately. ”They promise and they promise but we need them now, on the ground.”
Streets emptied of pedestrians and cars as gunfire intensified during the day. Journalists queuing for sandwiches at the Mamba Point hotel dived when a stray bullet entered the window. Patients and staff in the grounds of the JFK memorial hospital, some on crutches, scrambled for cover when shelling and gunfire neared.
Wemie Mhenduah, a hospital administrator, tried to reassure patients with jokes: ”Don’t you worry, that’s the sound of music.” But privately he was worried: ”It’s never been this close. I think somebody is trying to send a warning to the peacekeepers. Whenever they hear this the patients get panicked.”
Of all the ordnance raining down the most feared is the one you cannot hear until it hits – the 81mm mortar, nicknamed the ”blind man”. The codeword for peril, said Jerry King, one of the few taxi drivers still operating, is ”five five”. Asked the codeword for safe, he looked blank. ”There isn’t one.” – Guardian Unlimited Â