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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

LIBERIA: Rebels fight their way into port city of Buchanan

MONROVIA, 28 July 2003 (IRIN) - Rebel forces fought their way into the Liberian port city of Buchanan on Monday as they continued to battle for control of the capital Monrovia, government defence sources said.

The Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) rebel group, which controls eastern Liberia, had captured the port of Buchanan, 120 km southeast of Monrovia by Monday night and was fighting government troops for control of the city centre about five km away, they added.

The sources said Defence Minister Daniel Chea had gone personally to Buchanan to lead government efforts to stem the rebel advance into Liberia’s second largest city and troop reinforcements were being rushed there by road from Monrovia.

Bus drivers meanwhile reported that thousands of civilians were fleeing west from Buchanan towards Harbel, a town near Robertsfield international airport which is the headquarters of the huge Firestone rubber plantation. In recent days its population has been swelled by thousands of civilians fleeing the crackle of machine gun fire and the thud of mortars elsewhere in the country.

Heavy fighting continued in Monrovia on Monday for the 10th day running between government forces and a second rebel movement, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).

LURD forces retreated from positions occupied over the weekend in the northern suburbs of Barnersville, Gardnersville and New Georgia, but retained control of Bushrod Island where Monrovia’s deep water port is situated.

Government forces managed to cross two bridges over the Mesurado river linking Bushrod Island to the city centre, but failed to make much headway on the other side.

US ambassador John Blaney appealed on Sunday for LURD to withdraw from the port and retreat to the Po river bridge on the northwestern outskirts of Monrovia and for MODEL to halt its assault on Buchanan so that a fresh ceasefire could take hold and international peacekeeping troops could move in.

He said the government of President Charles Taylor had promised not to pursue the rebels if they withdrew.

But his pleas went unheeded, the fighting continued and Taylor’s army commander, General Benjamin Yeatan, said on Sunday night he would chase the rebels right out of the city. “These people have killed innocent civilians. They cannot remain in Monrovia,” he told reporters.

As the battle continued to rage, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) once more delayed a decision on when to send two battalions of Nigerian troops to Liberia as the vanguard of what should eventually become a 5,000-strong international intervention force.

Military chiefs of staff from the 15-country organisation met in the Ghanaian capital Accra with UN, US and British officials on Monday, but failed to set a date for the Nigerian troops to move in.

An ECOWAS source told IRIN that the organisation was still reluctant to send troops into Liberia until there was an effective ceasefire on the ground. Even then, the force commander, Brigadier General Festus Okonkwo of Nigeria, and an eight-man exploratory team, would go in first to prepare the deployment, he added.

“The meeting was held to let the Americans know what ECOWAS has already done on getting an intervention force in place, what is outstanding and also on other commitments that must be met in order to deploy the force into Liberia,” the ECOWAS source said.

Washington has offered to pay US $10 million towards the cost of deploying West African peacekeepers in Liberia, which has been in a state of civil war for most of the past 14 years.

It has also put a naval task force carrying 2,300 marines on stand by for possible intervention in the country, which was founded by freed American slaves in the early 19th century. But President George Bush, pressured by heavily military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, has so far been reluctant to commit US ground troops to an open ended operation in Liberia as well.

Taylor has said he will bow to US pressure for him to step down from power and leave the country, but only when international peacekeepers arrive. Taylor, a former warlord who has been indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone, has said he is ready to take up an offer of asylum in Nigeria.

LURD has launched two separate assaults on Monrovia since the warring parties in Liberia signed a ceasefire agreement at peace talks in Ghana on June 17.

But this is the first time that MODEL sources have attempted to move forward in a big way since the truce was declared. They advanced rapidly over the weekend, covering the 50 km from their forward position in the port town of River Cess to Buchanan in just three days.

Diplomats say LURD, which launched a guerrilla war against Taylor in northern Liberia in 1999, is strongly backed by Guinea.

They say that MODEL, on the other hand, which has gained ground rapidly since it emerged as an offshoot of LURD in March this year, receives heavy support from Cote d’Ivoire.

Fighting flared up across Liberia in early May and has intensified since the start of peace talks on June 4.

Relief workers reckon that several hundred people have been killed in the latest battle Monrovia, mainly civilians caught in the crossfire or blown up by indiscriminate shelling. Taylor put the death toll at more than 1,000 on Saturday.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Liberia, Dominique Lingme, told IRIN on Monday that 482 people had been treated at Monrovia’s main John F Kennedy hospital for bullet wounds and injuries inflicted by mortar and rocket blasts during the latest battle for Monrovia.

Relief workers estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 people have been displaced from their homes in the beleaguered city of one million people where food is running out and clean drinking water is almost impossible to obtain. Many residents say they have not eaten for days and relief workers fear the outbreak of a cholera epidemic.

Ironically, thousands of people had fled from living hell in Monrovia to Buchanan to escape the fighting. They are now on the move again.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

[ENDS]

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