LURD reopens Po river bridge, gets UN warning

The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD) rebel group said on Tuesday it had lifted a three-day ban on relief vehicles moving out of Monrovia on the main road west to Tubmanburg and the Sierra Leone border. It closed the road last Saturday in protest at the rejection of three LURD nominees to senior government posts by Gyude Bryant, the chairman of Liberia's transitional government. The broad-based government is supposed to rebuild Liberia after 14 years of civil and organise fresh elections in 2005. The United Nations urged LURD to make sure that its fighters do not block relief vehicles from entering areas under its control again. "Political developments should not be linked to humanitarian activities. We have to move in anytime to do our job," the acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Liberia, Cyrille Niameogo, told a news conference on Tuesday. Last Saturday LURD fighters stopped UN and relief agency vehicles from crossing the Po River bridge on the main road from Monrovia to Tubmanburg and the Sierra Leone border. They took the action in protest at Bryant's rejection of three LURD nominees to the broad-based transitional government which is supposed to rebuild Liberia after 14 years of civil and organise fresh elections in 2005. The bridge, 17 km from central Monrovia, separates the zone controlled by UN peacekeepers in Monrovia from the LURD-controlled north and west of Liberia. "The fact that we were denied access is a serious issue. They stopped a team that was carrying school supplies for 10,000 children. Relief agencies were going there to carry out activities [but] were prevented from doing so," Niameogo said. "The humanitarian community is seriously concerned about this," he added. LURD deputy Secretary General for Civil Affairs, Sekou Fofana, said the bridge had been reopened on Monday to allow relief vehicles through. "The bridge is now opened, all non-governmental organisations from wherever are free to come. We have security guarantee for everyone coming in our territories to help our people," he told IRIN. However the UN said its staff were skeptical about returning to work in LURD-controlled areas of the country. "The issue was taken up with LURD authorities and they have said that humanitarian agencies can now come in anytime...But we want to make sure that we do not have problems when we go back," Niameogo said. "Sometimes when the top gives orders, it does not filter down to those manning the checkpoints." He added: "We have a document [Peace Agreement] signed by LURD, government and MODEL [the second rebel group] and witnessed by the UN, African Union, ECOWAS. They signed...we said, 'well let us have access everywhere.' But now they have prevented us from moving." The peace agreement was signed by leaders of the Liberian warring parties on 18 August in Accra, Ghana following an 11-week peace conference. It granted all aid agencies safe and unhindered access to all areas of the country. The acting head of Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Liberia (OCHA), Ahunna Eziakonwa told reporters: "As far we are concerned, access is a human rights issue. It is the right of people who are in need to have access to resources that they require to stay alive". "We must be allowed to go to people who are in need irrespective of what the political considerations are," she added. LURD's military chief of staff, General Aliyu Sheriff played down the incident. "It was a political decision which we shall again discuss on Thursday with our leaders. We have no problem with the UN because they are our partners," he told IRIN. Before closing the Po River bridge, LURD called for Bryant's resignation and threatened to pull out of his broad-based government. However, Bryant softened his position on the question of senior government appointments after a closed-door meeting with the Liberian parliament on Monday. It remained unclear, however, whether he would approve three LURD nominees he had earlier rejected. These were General Sheriff, who had been nominated as chief of staff of the Liberian army, LURD's Netherlands-based spokesman, Charles Bennie, who had been designated commissioner of customs and excise and Isaac Nyanebo, a founder member of the rebel movement, who was nominated to become vice-governor of the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL).