ECOWAS calls summit on Liberia as Nigerian troops prepare to go in

Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire in Liberia and arrange the rapid deployment of Nigerian troops as the vanguard of an international stabilisation force moved into high gear on Wednesday, but heavy fighting continued on the ground. Nigerian General Festus Okonkwo, the commander-designate of the multinational force, flew into Monrovia at the head of a 12-man military reconnaissance team to prepare the arrival of two Nigerian army battalions numbering about 1,500 men later this week. "They went in on the basis of assurances from both the Liberian government and the rebels that their security in Monrovia is guaranteed," a West African diplomat in the Ghanaian capital Accra told IRIN. "On the basis of their assessment, approval for deployment could be given on Friday and the peacekeeping troops moved in immediately," The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is providing troops for the intervention force, meanwhile announced plans for an emergency summit in Accra on Thursday. Peace talks between Liberian President Charles Taylor and two rebel movements have been under way in Ghana for the past two months. In New York, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was deeply concerned at a "dramatic deterioration" of the situation in Liberia and urged the UN Security Council to send a multi-national peacekeeping force to the war-torn West African country as quickly as possible. He said the council should give the force a "robust mandate" to ensure that it has "a credible deterrent capability." US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner, meanwhile flew to Conakry for talks with the Guinean government and the leadership of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, which has been battling for two weeks to capture the capital Monrovia. Kansteiner was expected to put pressure on the LURD leadership to respect a ceasefire in Monrovia so that international peacekeepers can be deployed rapidly in the beleaguered city of one million people, which has almost run out of food. The LURD leadership is based in Conakry and Guinea is widely seen as the main backer of the rebel movement which has been fighting to overthrow Taylor for the past four years. Fighting continued in Monrovia on Wednesday, despite a fresh ceasefire announced by LURD on Tuesday. Its latest truce offer was rejected by the government since LURD said it would not withdraw from the strategic port of Monrovia it has occupied for the past week. At least one person was killed as government troops fired rocket-propelled grenades at rebel positions in Monrovia's western suburbs. The army chief of staff, General Benjamin Yeaten, told reporters that LURD forces had once more attempted to cross bridges from Bushrod Island, where the port is situated, into the government-held city centre. "The fighting is still heavy here," Yeaten told the Associated Press. "We are in fierce exchange of fire with enemy forces." Government forces also remained under pressure on two other fronts in the interior of the country. Defence Ministry sources said Taylor's troops failed to recapture the port city of Buchanan, which fell to the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), another rebel group, on Monday. MODEL forces were now advancing towards from Buchanan, 100 km southeast of Monrovia, towards Liberia's international airport at Robertsfield, they added. The sources said government forces were also battling LURD fighters for control of the town of Gbarnga, 120 km northeast of the capital, for the third day running. Relief workers estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 people have fled their homes in Monrovia as a result of the fighting. Many of them are now heading out of the city towards Harbel, the headquarters of the Firestone rubber plantation, near Robertsfield international airport. An IRIN correspondent who visited Harbel on Wednesday said displaced people were pouring into the town from Buchanan. Samuel Browne, the head of Liberia's Refugees, Repatriation and Resettlement Commission, said more than 20,000 desperate civilians had sought refuge in Harbel, which lies half way between the two cities. "It is very hard to give any definite figure at the moment because people are coming every day in their hundreds from Grand Bassa County (where Buchanan is situated)," he told IRIN. Diplomats in Accra said Kansteiner, the head of US foreign policy for Africa, was expected to attend the ECOWAS summit in Accra on Thursday following his talks with Guinean leaders in Conakry. "I expect he [Kansteiner] will...reaffirm our view that all neighboring states should take steps to make sure that there are no supplies or support reaching the rebels from neighboring countries," Richard Boucher, State Department spokesman told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. "We have reason to believe that these rebels are getting their supplies from somewhere. They have guns, they have bullets, they have other weapons. These come from somewhere and they don't get it through the official channels...they're coming from neighboring states, so we need to talk to neighboring states to do everything they can to prevent that supply and support," he added. As Nigeria prepared to lead an international stabilisation force into Liberia, there was still a question mark over who would pay for the expensive operation. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said earlier this week that while Nigeria and its ECOWAS partners were prepared to provide most of the necessary troops, it was up to the international community to finance their deployment. ECOWAS officials have estimated that it would cost US $110 million to deploy a 5,000-man force in Liberia for six months, but the United States, which is resisting international pressure to send its own forces into Liberia, has so far only offered $10 million.