Rebels advance in Monrovia, attack Buchanan

The beleaguered government of President Charles Taylor came under attack on a second front at the weekend as rebels battling to capture the capital, Monrovia, launched a simultaneous attack on the port city of Buchanan, 120 km to the southeast. Rebel forces meanwhile gained ground within Monrovia, ignoring a plea by US ambassador John William Blaney to cease fire and withdraw to the Po River on the northern edge of the city. As fighting raged throughout the weekend, tens of thousands of displaced civilians were once more on the move, trekking through torrential rain away from the steadily advancing front line. One column was moving away from the latest fighting in the northern suburbs of Monrovia towards Paynesville, an eastern district which has so far remained virtually untouched by gun and mortar fire. But others were abandoning Monrovia altogether, heading north from Paynesville along the main road to Kakata, a town 48 km to the north. Relief agencies estimate that more than 200,000 people, possibly as many as 300,000, have been forced to flee their homes in the ragged city of one million people, where food is scarce and safe drinking water virtually non-existant. The government radio station ELBC reported on Sunday that rebels of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) began attacking Buchanan on Saturday and that sounds of heavy bombardment could be heard in the city centre. However, government military sources said later the fighting was actually taking place several km away at Morweh on the road to River Cess. Shooting heard in Buchanan on Saturday night was only the result of government soldiers harassing civilians fleeing into Buchanan from the battle zone and looting property within the city, they added MODEL, which controls most of southeastern Liberia, is led by former military officers of the Krahn tribe who supported former president Samuel Doe. Doe, who was himself Krahn, was overthrown and killed in 1990 as as the result of a rebellion launched by Taylor. Another rebel movement, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), has been fighting for the past nine days to capture Monrovia, On Saturday night LURD broke out of its stronghold on Bushrod Island, where the deep water port is situated, and crossed the Stockton Creek bridge which gives access to Somalia Drive, a ring road that loops round the northern outskirts of the city. By Sunday afternoon LURD fighters had advanced about six km along Somalia Drive with the apparent aim of encircling government forces in the city centre. Government fighters were defending a strategic river crossing known as Double Bridge in a desperate attempt to prevent LURD forces from cutting the roads from Monrovia to the interior and to Robertsfield international airport. Residents said it looked as if both rebel movements had now decided to disregard completely a 17 June ceasefire agreement with government forces and were launching an all-out offensive to try to finish off Taylor’s embattled regime before international peacekeeping forces arrived in the country. They ignored a plea by the US ambassador on Sunday to cease fire, withdraw from Monrovia and give up attempts to seize Buchanan in order to give a breathing space for peacekeepers to arrive. Blaney said Taylor had promised that his troops would not pursue the rebels if they pulled back. Nigeria has put two army battalions with about 1,300 men on stand by to lead the vanguard of an international intervention force into Liberia, but they are still awaiting orders to move in. The United States meanwhile is sending a naval task force carrying 2300 marines towards Liberia in preparation for possible military intervention in the West African country, which was founded by freed American slaves in 1847. However, on Sunday the flotilla of three ships was several sailing days away from West Africa. Civilians continued to bear the brunt of casualties in the latest fighting in Monrovia. Several were killed and wounded in the early hours of Saturday when LURD mortar shells slammed into two churches in central Monrovia, where thousands of displaced people had taken refuge. Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who evacuated the casualties, said five were killed and 10 wounded when a mortar slammed through the roof of Greater Refuge Church on Front Street. Another person was killed and seven more were wounded when a shell hit the Sarah Barclay Pentecostal Church just a few metres away, they added. Speaking at a rally and prayer meeting to mark the 156th anniversary of Liberia’s independence at the Samuel Doe national stadium on Saturday, Taylor said over 1,000 people had been killed during the latest battle for Monrovia. Daniel Clark, the head of the Liberian Red Cross, told IRIN on Sunday that he could not estimate accurately the overall number of dead, which relief workers have consistently put lower than than the governnment. However, all agree that the number of dead probably runs to several hundred. Taylor whose official audience at the stadium was outnumbered by tens of thousands displaced people who have sought refuge from the fighting there, reiterated that he would step down and leave the country as soon as foreign peacekeepers arrive. The former warlord, who was elected president in 1997 following two earlier bouts of foreign military intervention in Liberia, said he would be succeeded as head of state by either his deputy president, Moses Blah, or Nyudueh Markonmana, the speaker of parliament. Both men are Taylor loyalists who are unlikely to be acceptable to either of the rebel movements. The machinery of government has virtually collapsed in Liberia, which has been in a state of civil war for most of the past 14 years. Diplomats and relief workers say Taylor’s regime consists of little more than a band of poorly disciplined fighters defending central Monrovia and a few isolated towns in the interior. In a desperate attempt to curb lawless behaviour by government troops, military commanders publicly executed four soldiers for looting and raping on Saturday. Their bodies were left on display at a petrol station in Gardnersville, near the front line. LURD, which according to diplomats is heavily backed by Guinea, has been fighting Taylor’s government since 1999. The rebel movement has launched three assaults on Monrovia over the past two months despite its continued participation in peace talks in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. MODEL, which diplomats say is backed by Cote d’Ivoire, appeared on the scene in March this year as an offshoot from LURD. Its weekend advance towards Buchanan is its first major assault on government positions since the all warring parties in Liberia signed a ceasefire agreement in Accra on June 17. That truce now lies in tatters and the peace talks themselves stalled last Tuesday when LURD and MODEL rejected key elements of a draft peace settlement to them by West African mediators. General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the Nigerian mediator at the Accra peace talks, was due to meet the government, LURD and MODEL delegations again on Sunday night.