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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
LIBERIA: Rebels agree to hand over port to peacekeepers
MONROVIA, 12 August 2003 (IRIN) - Rebels in Liberia have agreed to hand over the strategic port of Monrovia to international peacekeeping forces by midday (1200 GMT) on Thursday as part of a deal that will see both government and rebel fighters withdraw from the beleaguered city.
The agreement, which should allow a rapid resumption of humanitarian aid to Monrovia's one million inhabitants, was struck on Tuesday at talks between representatives of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement and US and Nigerian military commanders.
"We've just concluded discussions of a deal with LURD that will give permissive entry of peacekeepers into this area...that includes the Freeport," US ambassador John Blaney told reporters after the meeting at LURD's command post on Bushrod Island where the port is situated.
Sekou Fofana, a member of LURD's National Executive Committee, said: "We are not leaving a man behind. All of us will pack up and leave for headquarters."
The agreement was reached 24 hours after former president Charles Taylor stepped down and flew into exile in Nigeria as part of moves to end 14 years of near constant civil war.
However, it remained unclear whether any of the 2,300 US marines on three warships sitting offshore would land to help a small peacekeeping force of fewer than 800 Nigerian troops maintain order in Monrovia.
Blaney said: "That has still to be determined. The US is here in full support of ECOMIL (The Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force)."
Sources at the Liberian peace talks in Accra, said Taylor's successor, Moses Blah, would fly to the Ghanaian capital on Wednesday for a meeting with LURD chairman Sekou Conneh and Thomas Yaya Nimely, the chairman of a second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).
They said the hastily arranged summit was intended to breath new life into the peace talks. The negotiations began on June 4, but became bogged down as fighting continued on the ground and Taylor resisted US demands that he step down and leave the country.
Fighting has stopped in Monrovia since Nigerian soldiers began arriving in the city on 4 August as the vanguard of a multinational West African peacekeeping force that should number 3,250 men by the end of this month.
But battles have continued elsewhere in Liberia, with LURD and MODEL gaining ground on the government. Its shrinking fiefdom has been reduced to central Monrovia, Roberts international airport and a handful of nearby towns.
Hundreds of displaced people fleeing into the town of Harbel told IRIN on Tuesday that MODEL forces were advancing towards the nearby airport from Liberia's second city of Buchanan, 50 km to the east.
However, Tiah Slanger, the head of MODEL's delegation at the peace talks in Accra, told IRIN that his men had no plans to try and take the airport, which is now controlled by Nigerian peacekeepers. "We have authorised our men to let go as soon as they reach that area and allow ECOMIL to take over control of those territories in order to prevent incursions on our positions by government forces," he said.
Some of the civilians fleeing on foot to Harbel said that before dawn armed men of unknown poltical affliation had raided villages near Farmington River, which is only 10 km from the airport, shooting in the air, harassing the local population and looting goods.
Diplomatic sources in Monrovia said the agreement for LURD forces to withdraw to the Po River on the northern edge of Monrovia, about 17 km from the city centre, followed a similar deal struck between the Nigerian force commander, US officials and Blah for government fighters to withdraw from the urban area at the same time.
At the peace talks in Accra, LURD and MODEL have agreed to let a civilian unconnected to any of the warring parties become president of a broad-based interim government.
However, LURD, the older and more established of the two rebel movements, said it wanted the biggest share of cabinet posts in the new administration.
"LURD is not interested in the interim presidency, vice presidency or the speaker of parliament positions," Moses Jarbo, a senior LURD representative at the peace talks told IRIN." We have played a major role in freeing our people of Taylor. So we rather want major roles in government ministries and autonomous agencies. This will enable us to actively be involved in the disarmament and demobilisation of the fighters."
Confirming that Conneh, the LURD chairman, had already arrived in Accra, Jarbo said: "Now that Taylor is gone, we want the peace talks to be accelerated so that we can all go home."
Providing all remaining issues of substance are thrashed out Wednesday's summit, mediators from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) were hoping to present a final draft of a comprehensive peace settlement to the three warring factions and 18 unarmed political parties attending the peace talks on Thursday.
One ECOWAS official said: "The talks have intensified in the background. We just have to fine-tune a few details here and there. Hopefully by Thursday, all parties should have drafts of the new comprehensive peace document."
The sources said the participants at the peace talks were currently discussing the size of the cabinet and legislative assembly and who would get which ministries in the interim government. This is due to govern the West African country founded by freed American slaves in the early 19th century for up to two years and organise fresh elections.
"I hope that within the next week or two, everything in Accra will be finalised," Slanger, the head of the MODEL delegation, said.
Meanwhile Carolyn McAskie, the UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, flew into Monrovia on Tuesday to try and kick-start UN relief work in the city, where aid workers estimate that between 200,000 and 450,000 people have been displaced from their homes by recent fighting. Most are going hungry in make-shift camps where sanitary conditions are appalling.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) hopes to resume large-scale food distribution as soon as it can regain access to its warehouses in the rebel-held port.
UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, is planning to send in 60 tonnes of medical supplies, food supplements tents, water bladders and water purification tablets within the next few days.
And the UN refugee agency UNHCR is deiverting supplies of kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, lanterns and soap, that were originally destined for Iraq, to Liberia.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said several other relief agencies, including Save the Children, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Committee of the Red Cross, were also positioning more supplies to be moved quickly into Liberia.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Food Security, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
[ENDS]
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