The rebels besieging the Liberian capital made a surreal bid for respectability yesterday by herding thousands of civilians from the ruins of the city to sing their praises.
Crowds in rebel-held zones of Monrovia thronged the shattered streets to cheer the rebels as liberators.
Giving outsiders their first glimpse of suburbs seized three weeks ago, the guerrillas unveiled a humanitarian crisis and scenes of destruction. Some ruins were still smoking.
Fighters with heads spray-painted green ”for camouflage” gave guided tours of people stricken with cholera and gunshot wounds who have been cut off from aid and medical help during the battle for Monrovia.
Hope of ending the civil war have surged this week with the arrival of the first foreign peacekeepers, a lull in fighting, the arrival of increased aid, and peace envoys shuttling between the rebels and the government.
Much hinges on President Charles Taylor keeping his promise to step down and leave the country. Yesterday the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, said Taylor, had assured him in a telephone call that he would fly to Nigeria within two days of leaving office.
But hours later a spokespersonn for the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, said: ”The latest information we have is that Taylor appears at the present time unwilling to take up our offer of asylum.
”Mr Taylor is simply saying that he will be willing only to leave Liberia if the international court drops the war crimes charges against him.”
Peace also hinges on the behaviour of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd), the main rebel group, which has been accused of matching Taylor’s forces for atrocities during the three years of fighting.
They have promised to hand over Monrovia’s port and move back to the Po River when the Nigerian-led peacekeepers deploy from the airport, where they began assembling on Monday.
Synchronising Taylor’s departure and the rebels’ withdrawal will be a fraught operation.
Yesterday’s public relations blitz gave mixed signals about Lurd’s next move.
Three fighters crossed New Bridge to shake hands with astonished government soldiers. ”Our brothers on the other side are clearly tired of fighting. Just like our men here,” said Prince Hilton, a 27-year-old civilian who witnessed the scene.
The mood on the rebel-held side of Old Bridge was festive, with guns being fired in the air. But mortars and rockets had crumbled many of the buildings, and cartridges littered the streets, as did two decomposing bodies and a fresher corpse, a young man stripped naked and with his hands bound.
”When Lurd came three weeks ago there was some killing and rapes but things quickly got better, security has been OK the past while,” a civilian who did not want to be named said.
Thousands filled the streets, chanting ”Lurd forces”, ”We want peace” and ”Taylor must go”. Their sincerity could not be gauged in the presence of the armed rebels.
But the joy did seem real, possibly because they assumed that peacekeepers were not far behind the foreign journalists.
At a press conference at his headquarters, adorned with an Arsenal team photo, Major-General Seyea Sheriff, the rebels’ acting chief of staff, said his forces would not leave the port before Taylor left the country.
Should Lurd capture Taylor he will not be butchered, like his two predecessors, but extradited to the international tribunal in Sierra Leone to face war crimes charges, Gen Sheriff said.
He said that Moses Blah, the deputy president, was too close to Taylor to be accepted as a successor.
The woman regarded as Washington’s unofficial candidate to succeed him said yesterday that Taylor would probably continue to meddle in Liberia’s affairs from exile in Nigeria.
”He’s not going to retire to Obsanjo’s farm and live happily ever after. He’s going to get out his mobile phone and call people,” said Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf, leader of the Unity party.
Speaking during a four-hour stopover in London on her way from Washington to the peace talks in Ghana, she confirmed that she was a presidential candidate.
But she had not decided whether to seek the presidency of the planned interim government or wait until the elections for a permanent government. ”Mr Taylor’s departure will make a big difference but it will not be a total solution,” she said.
The Lurd chief of staff met the US ambassador, John Blaney, and the Nigerian commander of the peackeepers, Brigadier-General Festus Okonkwo. A senior rebel official, A. Seko Fofana, said the American marines moored offshore should bolster the peacekeepers. ”What will they be minding, fish?”
Privately, some rebel leaders say they do not trust the Nigerians as honest brokers.
The rebels efforts at showing a discipined front broke down when the fighters, some as young as eight, refused to stop firing in the air. The tension increased again when looters seized some food. ”You are embarrassing us,” screamed a commander.
It emerged that the rebel-held zone is better fed than the government-held city centre, thanks to a warehouse full of UN relief food. Using UN vehicles, the rebels have been distributing rice via the mosques and churches. But the market price of $5 for a cup of rice suggested limited largesse.
A man called Napoleon Jaeploe has formed a group, Vision in Action, to trade with the government-held sector.
”We have food but not enough medicine, they have medicine but not enough food,” he said.
At an improvised open air clinic, Prince Weah, a medical volunteer, said: ”In the past few weeks we’ve treated 200 to 300 people here, mostly for bullet wounds and cholera.” – Guardian Unlimited Â