| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: West |
| Liberia’s Hungry Capital Reunited After Battle |
| 2003-08-16 |
| Tens of thousands of famished Liberians flowed back and forth across Monrovia Friday in search of food and families after rebels released their month-long stranglehold on the capital. Aid ships docked in the devastated port, but security in Monrovia remains poor and government and rebel forces accused each other of attacking outside the city. The first two ships docked with high-energy biscuits and other supplies from the U.N. World Food Program and refugee agency UNHCR, but damaged equipment hindered unloading. A U.S. plane brought more aid. With wheelbarrows, pots and plastic bags, hungry crowds surged toward the port area where West African peacekeepers were deployed with the help of U.S. Marines Thursday as rebels pulled back beyond the outskirts. Most of Monrovia’s aid stocks were in the port when rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) grabbed it last month in the most ferocious of a series of attacks since June that left some 2,000 people dead. Newly arrived U.N. envoy Jacques Paul Klein toured the crippled port and said international organizations still had food in Monrovia, but were afraid to open up stores because of poor security and the likelihood of looting. "It’s a state that has collapsed," said the veteran American diplomat, sporting a U.S. Air Force jacket and name-badge displaying his rank of major-general. "The war, the fighting, the killing, the human rights abuses of the past, I don’t think we must ever again allow those to occur here," Klein told reporters earlier, cigar in hand. But rebels and government forces accused each other of attacking on the southeastern front. Rebels of the Model faction advanced to a village 8 miles away on the Monrovia side of a river which the U.S. Embassy said was an agreed demarcation line. With their mission to overthrow pariah leader Charles Taylor accomplished after he flew into exile Monday, the rebels agreed to pull back to give a chance to talks on ending strife that has wrecked Liberia for 14 years and poisoned the region. A few rebels hung behind and government forces loitered near the city center despite promising to pull back once rebels did. Leaders of the two rebel factions met in Ghana for a second day with a delegation led by new President Moses Blah, but it was unclear whether a deal would be signed Saturday as hoped. "We haven’t resolved our differences yet," said Blah’s foreign minister, Lewis Brown. Rebel officials said they were discussing how to share out posts in a transition government due to rule for two years once Blah steps down in mid-October. Klein planned to go to Ghana Saturday to secure rebels’ agreement on getting humanitarian aid into areas they control. The United States has warships offshore and Thursday deployed more than 100 Marines at the port and the airport, with helicopters and fighter jets ready to back up the Nigerian peacekeepers in case of trouble. And everyone lived happily ever after. |
| Posted by:.com |