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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

LIBERIA: Mediators hope peace agreement will be signed on Saturday

ACCRA, 14 August 2003 (IRIN) - Liberia's new provisional president, Moses Blah, held talks with the leaders of the country’s two rebel movements in Ghana on Thursday about finalising a peace agreement to end 14 years of near constant civil war.

Diplomats following the Liberian peace talks, which have been under way in Accra since June 4, said the West African mediators were hopeful that a comprehensive peace agreement could be signed on Saturday.

"We are hoping to sign on Saturday at 10 o'clock," one source said.

However, other seasoned observers of the peace talks noted that deadlines for signing the elusive agreement had been set and missed several times before.

The diplomats said the latest draft provided for Blah to hand over power on October 14 to an interim government that would rule Liberia for two years and organise fresh elections.

The president and vice-president and the speaker and deputy speaker of the legislative assembly would all be civilian figures with no links to the warring parties, the sources said.

But 10 of the 15 ministerial posts in the cabinet and many of the plum jobs in parastatal corporations would be reserved for nominees of the warring parties, they added.

The armed factions are Blah's government, which now controls little more than central Monrovia, the airport and a few nearby towns, and two rebel groups which control the rest of the country.

Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) controls the north and centre and has battled for the past two months to capture Monrovia, while the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) controls the south and east.

Blah, who succeeded former president Charles Taylor, when he stepped down and flew into exile on Monday, discussed the latest blueprint for peace with LURD chairman Sekou Conneh and MODEL leader Thomas Nimely.

Diplomats said the draft peace agreement provided for the president and vice-president of the interim government to be chosen by consensus over the next eight weeks by the warring factions and the 18 unarmed political parties attending the peace talks

Mediators from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had abandoned plans for election to these key posts, they added.

However, the sources said many conference participants were baulking at a suggestion by ECOWAS and Blah's government that talks on implementing the detail of the peace agreement should move from Accra to the Liberian capital Monrovia on Sunday. LURD and many of the civilian parties were against moving back to Liberia so soon.

On Thursday, Blah's government and LURD withdrew their fighters from the Monrovia port and city center and turned over responsibility for security in the battered city to Nigerian and US peacekeeping troops.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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