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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
LIBERIA: MODEL says Taylor's men burn villages
BUCHANAN, 23 October 2003 (IRIN) - Liberia's MODEL rebel movement has accused fighters loyal to former president Charles Taylor of burning down villages in Grand Bassa county in central Liberia last week and attacking a motorcade carrying its leader Thomas Nimely.
Meanwhile, civilians have complained of torture, theft and harassment by MODEL fighters in neighbouring Rivercess county.
Kai Farley, the MODEL commander in Buchanan, told United Nations officials who visited this port city, 120 km southeast of the capital Monrovia on Wednesday, that a force commanded by a man called General Kofi, a close ally of Taylor, attacked several villages in Bong County last week.
"[They] burnt seven villages in Yapkah and attacked the convoy of Nimely, who is traveling throughout our-territories to talk about the peace process with our forces," the soft spoken Farley said.
Yapkah is in the north of Grand Bassa county, of which Buchanan is the capital. Farley said there were 600 men in the pro-Taylor armed force which had caused havoc in the area.
Relief workers in Buchanan meanwhile reported that more than 100 civilians had recently fled to Buchanan from Rivercess county, further to the east, after being harassed by MODEL fighters there.
"Women and children are arriving from villages in Rivercess County since Saturday," one relief worker told IRIN at a therapeutic feeding center operated by the French charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres.
"We have 106 persons and we still expect more of them to come," he said. "They complain that the fighters tied up the breasts of women with strings of cloth, to torture them into giving away money."
MODEL (the Movement for Democracy in Liberia) captured Rivercess county in June and has controlled the area ever since.
One Zeima, one of the women who fled Rivercess, told IRIN: "It is hard to say what we went through. The fighters were just beating us like dogs and saying we are Charles Taylor's supporters."
She said she would only return there once UN peacekeepers went in to guarantee security. However will not be for several weeks. There only 4,500 blue helmets in Liberia, deployed in and around Monrovia. The force is unlikely to reach its full strength of 15,000 until early next year.
Another elderly woman in her early forties told IRIN: "The fighters stripped me naked just like the way I was born and took away my thousand dollars (US $22)."
Buchanan, Liberia's second largest city fell to MODEL in late July and subsequently became the forward base of the rebel movement, which controls southern and eastern Liberia. The UN mission which visited the city on Wednesday was led by Abou Moussa, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Liberia.
Meanwhile Farley said the armed men burning villages in Grand Bassa county were taking their orders from pro-Taylor commanders in Monrovia.
"Two of our soldiers were seriously wounded in the attack. We consider the attack a violation of the ceasefire by Taylor's militias," said Farley, relaxing on a sofa in the back porch of one of the apartments formerly used by Malaysian managers of the Oriental Timber Corporation (OTC.)
The logging company is partly owned by Taylor.
"I want to make its clear that these militias are still in daily radio contact with their commanders in Monrovia," Farley said. "They are causing havoc to our people here. It is time for peace. We do not want war in this country again."
He also told the UN team that one of his men, "Black Marine" had been beaten and detained by government militiamen roaming the Buchanan-Monrovia highway.
"The UN and the international community must address these issues. MODEL has the men, power and logistics to move on those militias, but we are holding on because we do not want to be seen stalling the peace process," Farley said.
Taylor resigned as president under massive international pressure on 11 August and left Liberia for exile in Nigeria after Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), another rebel movement, had battled its way into Monrovia.
Since a peace agreement was signed on 18 August, both LURD and MODEL have engaged in skirmishes with government fighters in rural areas. The clashes recently forced the World Food Programme recently to suspend food distribution outside Monrovia, out of fears for the safety of its staff.
An interim government led by his vice president, Moses Blah, took over until 14 October when a broad-based transitional government led by Gyude Bryant was sworn-in to rebuild the country after 14 years of civil war and prepare for elections in 2005.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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