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Liberian Leader May Rescind Vow to Resign

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

President Charles Taylor is reconsidering his pledge to resign, seeing it as encouraging rebel attacks such as the recent push that seized Buchanan, the nation's second-largest city, his spokesman said Tuesday.

"We are of a different opinion now in the government about the validity of the overtures of the president to step down," spokesman Vaanii Paasawe said in the capital, Monrovia.

"So if you start hearing us say differently, you shouldn't be surprised."

Taylor, a former warlord blamed for 14 years of conflict in Liberia, has said since early June he would yield power, as the Bush administration has demanded. He has hedged or reneged outright on the promise since then, but most recently said he would step down when long-promised multinational peace forces arrived.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher emphasized that any U.S. intervention in Liberia is conditional on Taylor's ceding power.

"We would expect Charles Taylor to depart as an essential element in stabilizing the situation," Boucher said. "He's made those commitments before. He's made those commitments publicly."

Also Tuesday, Taylor's forces launched what they called a major counterattack on the key port of Buchanan, battling to take back the city a day after it fell to insurgents.

In neighboring Ghana, meanwhile, the country's main rebel group, which has staged a 10-day siege of Monrovia, declared the latest in days of cease-fire pledges. But it stopped short of U.S. demands that they withdraw and open the city's port for vital deliveries of food and other aid.

The rebels repeatedly have broken promises for a cease-fire, as have government forces.

"As we're talking, (as) we're announcing an unconditional cease-fire, Taylor is shelling our areas," rebel peace talks envoy George Dewey said in Accra, pressing international mediators to win a cease-fire from Taylor's forces as well.

Taylor made his first offer to resign in June as rebels began fighting to take Monrovia and oust the leader. Rebels "read that (offer) as weakness," Paasawe said. "In fact, it has escalated the war."

Officials said Taylor's forces also were struggling to take back Taylor's northern stronghold of Gbarnga, which like Buchanan fell to insurgents on Monday.

Fighting had divided the town of Gbarnga, 110 miles north of Monrovia, between rebels and government fighters, and gunbattles raged, a Liberian military commander said, also on condition of anonymity.

Government forces had retaken a military base, Naama, to the north of Gbarnga, the commander said.

The fighting for Monrovia between government forces and rebels from the main Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy movement has killed hundreds of civilians and left the city's populace of more than 1.3 million increasingly hungry and threatened by disease.

"It's just a crazy war - people are running to Buchanan, and people are running to Monrovia," a refugee, James Sumo, said at a makeshift camp overflowing with thousands of war-displaced people halfway between the two cities. "All we can do is continue praying."

Aid workers, tending to malnourished children in the capital, decried the loss of Buchanan, which had been the last significant port in government hands.

"Buchanan was the only alternative way to ship some food into Liberia. Now - you can forget about it," Frederic Bardou said at a feeding center in Monrovia run by Action Contre la Faim, or Action Against Hunger.

Around him at the center, emaciated babies hung from their mothers' shoulders.

In Accra, Ghana, leaders of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy movement said the unilateral cease-fire was effective immediately.

Taylor's government reacted with skepticism.

"They have declared many cease-fires already," Reginald Goodrich, Liberia's information minister, said in Monrovia. "So let's just see what happens."

Rebels would turn Monrovia's port, now in insurgents' hands, over to peacekeepers as soon as a long-promised multinational force arrives, Dewey said. Rebels would then withdraw to the Po River outside the city, he said.

U.S. Ambassador to Liberia John Blaney over the weekend had asked rebels to pull out of the city immediately.

Rebels have waged a three-year campaign to oust Taylor, who was elected president in Liberia in 1997 after waging eight years of civil war. He has been indicted by a war crimes court in Sierra Leone for backing that country's brutal rebels.

Monday's attack on Buchanan opened a second front with fighting led by the country's smaller rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia.

West African authorities planned a summit on Liberia's crisis on Thursday in Accra, regional bloc spokesman Sunny Ugoh said. Diplomats said they hoped to draw all the key heads of state in the region.

West African leaders have promised a multinational peace force for Liberia since soon after rebels launched their siege of Monrovia in early June.

The United States, which oversaw Liberia's founding by freed American slaves in the 19th century, has pledged support. But it insists Liberia's neighbors and the United Nations must take the lead.

President Bush on Friday ordered troops to take up position off Liberia's Atlantic coast in readiness for any peace mission.

Debt-strapped Nigeria, West Africa's military power, has offered asylum to Taylor and promised to send at least two peacekeeping battalions but says it needs financial help from the United States and others.

In neighboring Sierra Leone, a Nigerian battalion of 776 men was moving Tuesday to a U.N. airport, at the town of Hastings, to train for the mission in Liberia and await any directive.

But more West African, U.N. and U.S. talks on the peace force ended Monday with no sign of progress on deployment amid calls for more international assistance.

Pressure has been heaviest on the United States, which has confirmed $10 million in support for the deployment - enough only to pay a few days' costs of any substantial mission.

The U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, Walter Kansteiner, was expected Wednesday in Guinea, which is alleged to be supporting the key rebel group, Liberians United.

West African authorities said presidents of Nigeria and Ghana might also be traveling to Guinea.

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