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Brokers hope for Liberian truce

Mediators struggling to broker a ceasefire deal between Liberia's warring factions said they had won pledges from all sides that a formal accord would be signed yesterday.

The mediators at peace talks in Ghana have been working for more than 10 days to get President Charles Taylor's government delegation and two rebel factions to sign a truce, ending fighting in one of West Africa's bloodiest battlefields.

They hope that a ceasefire would pave the way for full-blown political discussions and also the deployment of peacekeepers.

"We have the commitment from all parties that they will sign tomorrow," Sunny Ugoh of the West African mediation team told reporters late on Monday as the talks were suspended for the night.

Liberia was founded as a haven for freed American slaves, but 14 years of almost non-stop war coupled with Taylor's role as mastermind of the region's web-like conflicts has reduced the country to a pariah state of battle-hardened young fighters.

It was still unclear on Monday what would be Taylor's role in any transition process. The main rebel faction LURD says it wants the ceasefire deal to include a clause giving the Liberian president, indicted this month by a UN-backed war crimes court, no more than 30 days to quit after a truce is signed.

Taylor, who was elected president in 1997 after emerging victorious from a seven-year civil war that cost 200,000 lives, has said he is prepared to step down at the end of his term next January.

He wants Sierra Leone's war crimes court to drop the indictment against him, something the court's US prosecutor seems unlikely to do.

Mediators appear reluctant to pencil in a precise timeframe for Taylor's possible departure in the ceasefire accord, preferring to leave that to future political negotiations.

The talks in Ghana were also overshadowed on Monday by rebel claims that Taylor's forces attacked them on several fronts. Military sources said the rebels had struck first and government troops were only defending their positions.

LURD launched its uprising against Taylor in 2000, from bases in northern Liberia with the help of Guinea. Another rebel faction known as Model burst into life in the southeast in April and seized a string of ports.

Between them the two groups, which diplomats say are closely linked, control two thirds of Liberia. The talks have been adjourned several times and previous promises of a deal have failed to materialize.

Yet they are the only hope left for exhausted Liberians, especially residents of the capital Monrovia who have crowded into schools and a stadium since LURD attacked in the wake of Taylor's indictment on June 4.

Rebel forces have since been driven back, and both sides are supposed to have agreed a cessation of hostilities.
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