Johannesburg — Fighting continued for a fifth consecutive day, Wednesday, in the battle to control Monrovia, the besieged Liberian capital and President Charles Taylors last stronghold. There were reports of fierce exchanges of fire between rebels and troops loyal to the Liberian leader.
Meanwhile, in Washington U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell signalled his support for American involvement in Liberian peacekeeping. Saying the administration had been slow in deciding what form that support should take, Powell told the Washington Times that the United States has an interest in stabilizing West Africa and an obligation "not to look away" when a desparate situation like this arises.
In Monrovia in driving rain, rebels of the armed group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd), were again advancing and stepping up their offensive. But the rebels changed tactics, this time trying to encircle Monrovia after failing early this week to hold two strategic bridges leading straight to the city centre.
Reports earlier Wednesday said Lurd militiamen had succeeded in capturing the key Stockton Creek Bridge, located between the Freeport (already in rebel hands) and Somalia Drive, the main highway leading to and from Monrovia and heading up country.
But Reuters quoted military sources later in the day indicating that fighting had see-sawed around the bridge, loosening Lurds grip on the strategic position.
Securing Stockton Creek Bridge, outside Monrovia, would give Lurd control of critical supply routes in and out of the capital and access to Taylors private residence. The bridge is within striking distance of the main crossroads heading towards the international airport. If they reach that junction, and by skirting around the back of the seaside capital, Lurd rebels could conceivably cut Monrovia off, leaving the government and hundreds of thousands of residents and traumatised refugees trapped inside the city.
Intense shelling for the past five days has sent terrified Monrovians racing for shelter, as well as people who have poured into the capital since the rebels first tried to capture the capital last month. The masses were on the move again on Wednesday.
Reuters reported that thousands of people fled in fear as mortars pounded the Gardnersville suburb, which is on the direct rebel route as they advance. Relief workers said 10,000 refugees were sheltering at Robertsfield International Airport, 28 miles (45km) outside Monrovia.
The humanitarian situation is grim. Thousands of people are living rough in a city that is short of water, food and medicine. Aid agencies reported that Monrovias hospitals were brimming with wounded civilians and that up to 300,000 people were displaced from their homes in and outside the city.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) announced Wednesday that fighting in Liberia had blocked access to most agricultural areas and created a food crisis within the country. FAO said 200,000 displaced people in the centre of Monrovia were dependent on food aid.
Meanwhile, after days of talks in Senegal, West African military chiefs agreed to send an advance force of 1,300 Nigerian peacekeepers to Liberia. The Nigerians would be redeployed from UN peacekeeping duties across the border in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
News of their imminent arrival, under the umbrella of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), was greeted with both relief and scepticism in Liberia. Desperate for someone to act as a buffer between the rival fighting forces, Liberians complained that Ecowas last month promised to deploy peacekeepers "in two weeks time", then said "within a week", which then changed to "in the next few days" and now had become, "as quickly as possible", on a date to be set "next week".
The Ecowas executive secretary, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said the initial peacekeeping mission would be funded with US$10m from the United States and hoped all Liberians would respect a ceasefire agreed last month, but violated spectacularly by both sides in the last few days.
Lurd blamed Taylors government forces for the upsurge in fighting, saying the order had been given for rebels troops to cease fire, but that they reserved the right to fight back if attacked.
The Monrovia government has consistently accused Lurd rebels of being the surrogates of neighbouring Guinea with whom Taylor has hostile relations.
Under a ceasefire agreed at negotiations being held in Ghana between Liberias various rival political groups - including the government and two rebels groups - Taylor was to have quit power, with the option of going into exile in Nigeria. His departure would open the way for an interim government in Liberia, leading to fresh elections with 18 months.
Taylor's Information Minister, Reginald Goodridge, said Wednesday that he was unaware of a pledge by Taylor to go "in 10 days," as he is quoted saying in an interview with the New York Times. Nigeria has offered the Liberian leader asylum.
West African leaders are keen to see an end to the renewed civil war in Liberia, which has spilt over its borders, threatening to destabilise an already insecure region. Along with Liberians and the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, Ecowas has called on the United States, with its strong historical connections to Liberia, to help end the war there.
Pressure remains intense on Washington to intervene to stop the fighting in the country originally settled by freed American slaves in 1847. President George W. Bush has committed limited American involvement and says he will follow West Africa's lead.
But the current United States military presence in Liberia is confined to a reinforcement of marines guarding and boosting security at the high-walled US embassy complex in Monrovias Mamba Point diplomatic enclave. Around 20 more marines, in full body armour, were flown in by helicopter on Wednesday, bringing to 41 the deployment of the protective team.
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In the Washington Times interview on Wednesday, Secretary Powell made a strong case for American intervention to help calm the violent and volatile situation in Liberia, adding that any such mission would be limited in "scope and duration". Washington has a duty to help Liberians, Powell told the newspaper, a conservative voice that is widely read in policy-making circles in the American capital.
"We do have a historic link to Liberia and we do have some obligation, as the most important and powerful nation on the face of the earth, not to look away when a problem like this comes to us. We looked away once in Rwanda, with tragic consequences," he concluded, referring to the 1994 genocide in the central African nations.
In the interview, Powell noted that Paris and London had sent peacekeeping forces to stabilise the wars in their former colonies and in other African countries. Acknowledging that the United States was "clearly stretching" its forces around the world, he said the American military still had "unused capabilities".
Powell said Ecowas nations, poised to send a peacekeeping force into Liberia,"just don't have the capacity to deploy forces and keep them sustained in the field." Liberia did not need "250 guys with no equipment", he added.
"Only the United States, France, Britain and maybe one or two other countries have that kind of capability within their armed forces," he said.
