Officials Enter Rebel Territory in Liberia for Talks About Aid
MONROVIA, Liberia — Amid a shaky truce Tuesday between government and rebel forces in this war-torn nation, U.S. and West African officials ventured into guerrilla territory to urge insurgents to open the port and help feed this starved capital.
A day after peacekeepers arrived in the city to a rapturous welcome, the officials traveled in a convoy of at least a dozen cars to talk to rebels who have besieged Monrovia for two months.
The initial peacekeeping force of about 200 West African soldiers will not move from the airport to the center of town for several days. But the mere presence of the soldiers has seemingly been enough to silence the guns.
The trip into the rebel stronghold around the port allowed a glimpse of what was thought to be some of the worst fighting in Liberia's 14-year civil war.
Stopping on the government-held end of the city's so-called New Bridge, the delegation first met with senior Liberian military officials and urged them to respect a cease-fire with the rebels.
The bridge had become a killing field during repeated rebel pushes toward downtown Monrovia and the heart of government territory.
"We are happy that you people are here," Liberian commander Gen. Benjamin Yeaten told U.S. Ambassador John W. Blaney and the peacekeepers' commander, Nigerian Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo. "There will be no shooting at all."
The American ambassador helped broker the cease-fire several weeks ago, but it had largely been ignored until Tuesday. President Charles Taylor remains a major obstacle to peace. Leaders of the rebel movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy insist that there can be peace only after Taylor leaves the country.
Bowing to pressure from the international community, Taylor has agreed to resign Monday. He appears reluctant to keep his promise to go into exile in Nigeria, saying he would leave only when enough peacekeepers have arrived and when an international war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone drops its indictment of him.
"As long as he doesn't leave, we will keep fighting," said the rebel chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Abdulla Seyeah Sheriff, as he stood outside his makeshift headquarters at the port's Cape Maritime Shipping Agency.
Trucks crammed with government militias carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers escorted the convoy to the New Bridge, which was littered with the casings of spent bullets.
