ECOWAS pledges to send first troops by Monday

West African leaders pledged on Thursday to send the Nigerian vanguard of a multinational peacekeeping force into war-torn Liberia by Monday at the latest. President Charles Taylor would step down and leave the country three days later, they said in a communique at the end of a hastily convened ECOWAS summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra. Heavy fighting broke out again in the Liberian capital Monrovia within an hour of the announcement. Eyewitnesses said the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD) rebel movement captured the northern suburb of Gardnersville sending thousands of panicking civilians rushing towards the eastern suburb of Paynesville. Nigeria has about 1,500 troops on stand by for immediate deployment to Liberia as the vanguard of a 5,000-strong multinational peacekeeping force. The summit communique said: "The heads of state and governments formally approved the deployment into Liberia of the vanguard interposition force, calling for an early deployment, latest Monday August 4." ECOWAS Executive Secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas told reporters that the West African force would have 3,250 troops on the ground by the end of August. "Within a month, we shall have a full force in place," he said. Fighting between government forces and rebels in Monrovia died down at dawn on Thursday after a heavy overnight bombardment, allowing a West African military reconnaissance team, which arrived on Wednesday, to drive round the city. Only three of the 15 ECOWAS heads of state attended the Accra meeting: President John Kufuor of Ghana, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo. Gambia was represented by its vice-president, Guinea by its prime minister and other ECOWAS countries by ministers of state. The meeting was also attended by US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner. Washington has offered US $10 million in cash to help deploy the West African peacekeepers and has sent a naval flotilla with 2,300 marines aboard steaming towards Liberia, but has so far been reluctant to send troops into the country. Although two batallions of Nigerian troops will be the first on the ground, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Mali have offered to send soldiers in a second phase of deployment. Their combined contribution will take the force strength up to 3,250, but Kufuor, the current chairman of ECOWAS, said more troops were still needed. Opening the summit meeting, he said: "Additional troop contributions are needed to raise the total force to a level equal to the task in hand, and which might last throughout the projected transitional period of not less than a year." Nigerian General Festus Okwonkwo, the commander-designate of the peacekeeping force, flew to Monrovia on Wednesday at the head of a 12-man reconnaissance team to prepare for the arrival of the first two batallions of Nigerian soldiers. Okonkwo and his team toured the battered city on Thursday to the acclaim of thousands of displaced civilians. They cheered the reconnaissance team's 18-vehicle convoy as it sped through the streets of the battered city. Okonkwo and his aides visited the John F Kennedy hospital, where a medical team led by the International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) has treated nearly 1,000 people for war injuries during the latest rebel assault on Monrovia, and the Omega Navigation Tower, a former US military communications facility which is due to become the communications centre of the Ecowas Mission to Liberia (ECOMIL) force. They also held talks at the US and Nigerian embassies. But Okonkwo said he had no plans to visit the port and other rebel-held areas of the city. "We did not bring enough men to allow us visit the rebels controlled areas," he said. Taking advantage of a lull in fighting, hundreds of internally displaced persons gathered in front of the US embassy at Mamba Point chanting, "we want peace, no more war, we want peacekeeping force." Hard-pressed relief agencies fighting against famine and a spreading cholera epidemic in the city of one million people, clamoured for the peacekeepers to arrive so that they could ship in fresh supplies and reach the needy. One Caritas official said: "The atmosphere is so volatile that people now are just as likely to die from hunger rather than be killed by a bullet, but no food or medical aid can come into the country until order is established. The situation is too risky." UN relief operations in Liberia have been virtually paralysed following the withdrawal of UN international staff in June, but the ICRC said it managed to fly in a chartered cargo plane on Thursday carrying a water truck and emergency medical supplies. However the ICRC admitted that recent fighting had forced it to scale down its activities in Monrovia. Sources at the Accra summit said Okonkwo's reconnaissance team was expected to report back to ECOWAS on Saturday, clearing the way for the first Nigerian troops to be flown into Monrovia on Sunday or Monday at the latest. The West African force is due to be transformed in the coming weeks into the International Stabilization Force (ISF) with a UN mandate to impose peace in Liberia, which has been in a state of civil war for most of the last 14 years. Two previous bouts of Nigerian-led military intervention failed to provide a lasting solution to the conflict. ECOWAS has estimated that it would need US $104 million to keep the force in Liberia for six months. The organisation is looking to western donors, particularly the United States, to help pay the bill, but Washington has so far been reluctant to commit troops to Liberia or increase its financial contribution beyond the $10 million arleady offered. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington on Wednesday: "We have provided $10 million to support the deployment. We'll consider what more we need to do as things develop. But we have made an initial contribution certainly, and would expect to provide additional support...Whether that involves soldiers deployed on the ground, that's a decision the President [George Bush] will have to make at the appropriate time." Despite Washington's prevarication, Chambas said: "There is absolutely nothing holding back the deployment of the vanguard force. Apart from what we have now, other countries have confirmed their financial pledges. The United Nations will airlift the troops and also provide logistic support for the force." The ECOWAS summit called on all the warring factions in Liberia to cease hostilities immediately and took note of LURD's pledge to hand over control of Monrovia Freeport to ECOWAS troops. In their final communique, the heads of state also reiterated that the leaders of the warring parties should be barred from taking the post of president or vice president in the interim government that would take power once Taylor departed. On Wednesday, the unarmed 17 opposition parties represented at Liberian peace talks in Ghana issued a stinging condemnation of Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire, accusing their governments of continuing to support the two rebel troops which have battled on against Taylor's government in contravention of a June 17 ceasefire agrement. "The international community should bring pressure to bear on Guinea and Ivory Coast to halt their diplomatic, political and military support to LURD and MODEL," Abraham Mitchell, the spokesman for the 17 parties told reporters in Accra. Guinea is widely believed to be supporting LURD while a secon rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), is said by diplomats to depend on support from Cote d'Ivoire. Mitchell said: "ECOWAS countries, particularly Guinea and Ivory Coast, should expel all elements of the political and military leadership of LURD and MODEL from their countries and send them back into Liberia so that they can experience the massive suffering they are imposing on Liberians." "The US and the European Union should also place a travel ban on and freeze the assets of LURD and MODEL's leadership residing in the United Sates and Europe," he added. "We have all suffered under Taylor and been jailed for opposing him. We have told the rebels that Taylor is a provocateur and that they should not be drawn into any fighting because of provocations. But now, simply because of provocations from Taylor, they are hurling missiles and mortar shells into heavily populated civilian areas," he added. Mitchell's statement highlighted a growing gulf between the unarmed opposition parties and the two rebel movements at the Accra peace talks. Earlier this week, MODEL threatened to pull out of the negotiations if the civilian politicians persisted in trying to exclude the rebels from a leading role in a post-Taylor transitional government. Sources at the peace talks said Ellen Sirlief Johnson, who stood unsuccessfully against Taylor in the 1997 presidential election, had withdrawn her name from the list of possible candidates to lead the transitional government that will be charged with organising fresh polls. Marcus William Jones, president of the Liberian Bar Association, Marcus William Jones, has meanwhile put himself forward for the job of interim president. Taylor, who has been indicted by a war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone for his part in fuelling that country's 1991-2001 civil war, has been offered asylum in Nigeria.