Key timber port of Harper falls to rebels

Rebels have captured Liberia's main timber export port at Harper close to the border with Cote d'Ivoire following a weekend of intense fighting with government forces, relief workers in the capital Monrovia said on Monday. About 1,200 Ivorian refugees in Harper and some 800 people from other West African countries who had been awaiting evacuation by ship, were forced to flee by the fighting, the sources told IRIN in Abidjan by telephone. Most of those displaced from Harper had sought refuge there just a few weeks ago to escape fighting around Zwedru further inland. They originally entered Liberia seeking refuge from the civil war in Cote d'Ivoire, but had become subsequently become victims of Liberia's own conflict. The relief workers said some Liberians had also fled the fighting in Harper. Defence ministry officials in Monrovia told IRIN that rebels of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) had been making advances in southern coastal districts, but they did not specifically confirm that Harper had fallen. According to diplomats, MODEL draws its support mainly from the Krahn tribe of southeastern Liberia and is backed by the government of Cote d'Ivoire. The group is a relative newcomer on the scene, but has made rapid advances in eastern Liberia in recent weeks. It is loosely allied to another longer established rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). This controls much of northern Liberia and according to diplomats is supported by Guinea. Relief workers said fighters loyal to President Charles Taylor had ransacked the local offices of various humanitarian agencies in Harper before fleeing. Locally-based Liberian staff of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the World Food Programme and the Danish Refugee Council had fled and their whereabouts remained unclear, they added. Harper is close to the main timber producing areas of Liberia. Greenville, Liberia's other main timber port, 200 km further west, fell to MODEL fighters earlier this month. Timber exports by Chinese, Indonesian and Malaysian logging companies had until now been one of Taylor's main sources of revenue. However last week the UN Security Council extended sanctions against his goverment to include a ban on timber exports, effective from July 7. The sanctions, in force for the past two years, already included an arms embargo and a ban on Liberian exports of diamonds, smuggled in from other countries. However, the Council considered that Taylor was using earnings from timber to buy arms illegally and destabilise neighbouring states. "By taking Harper," a relief worker said, "the rebels are trying to cut off the government's lifeline, to starve it of money. With some weeks still remaining before the UN ban on timber exports takes effect, there has been a rush to sell as much as possible. Security was tightened around Monrovia on Monday with security personnel manning barricades, amidst reports that rebels had attacked Sasstown, 20 km to the northwest in an apparent push on the capital. Non-military vehicles were not allowed to go beyond Plunkor, 15 km from Monrovia. Fierce fighting was also reported at Ganta, 247 km northeast of Monrovia. The town was captured by LURD in March, but the government has been fighting to regain control of it. Several international media organisations quoted the government as saying that Guinean troops had crossed the boreder and were fighting alongside LURD forces. UN sources in Abidjan told IRIN that recent fighting had rendered 80 percent of Liberia inaccessible to relief agencies. The World Food Programme had stopped distributing food to an estimated 200,000 displaced people in camps around Liberia because the rations were systematically seized by armed raiders as soon as they are handed out, they noted The latest flare-up in fighting followed last week's announcement by Taylor that he would attend peace negotiations brokered by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Accra, Ghana on 2 June. Diplomatic sources in Abidjan on Monday said LURD had dropped its opposition to Accra as a venue for the discussions. It had originally wanted them transfered to the Senegalese capital Dakar instead. Liberia's Roman Catholic archbishop, Michael Francis, said in Monrovia that the ECOWAS-appointed facilitator of the Accra talks, Abdulsalami Abubakar, would meet representatives of both LURD and MODEL in Freetown, Sierra Leone, this week for preparatory talks. Abubakar is a retired Nigerian army general and former military head of state.