Liberia's President Charles Taylor began his last full day in office yesterday before his promised resignation under US pressure to try to end 14 years of strife that have spewed chaos into West Africa.
The latest bout of bloodshed between Taylor's forces and rebels has left at least 2,000 dead in the capital Monrovia since June and stranded hundreds of thousands without homes or enough food.
Since Taylor began a war to end a brutal dictatorship in 1989, the country founded in hope by freed 19th century American slaves has become a byword for anarchy spread by a generation of intoxicated young killers inured to savagery.
PHOTO: AFP
At least a quarter of a million people are thought to have died in Liberia's war and closely entwined conflicts in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
Taylor, in control of only part of his own capital, told to step down by US President George W. Bush and wanted for war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone, has agreed to hand over to Vice-President Moses Blah today.
His one condition for bowing out was that West African peacekeepers arrive to ensure order. The first elements of a Nigerian force flew into Monrovia last week to a heroes' welcome from weary Liberians desperate for peace and change.
As well as the nearly 800 regional troops, the US has 2,300 Marines on ships anchored offshore but has said it will not commit itself to more than a backup role for the West Africans.
While the shooting has died down in Monrovia itself since the peacekeepers came in, fighting has continued for the second city of Buchanan and in northern Liberia.
There is also little sign of a let-up in the desperate humanitarian crisis in Monrovia, where the UN estimates that at least 450,000 people are displaced -- many of them hungry and sick.
Father Daniel Geekor, who is trying to take care of 150 orphans and children who lost their parents in the fighting, is unsure what he can do to help them. All they had been given to eat for a day was a banana.
"There isn't anything on the ground now for them to eat," said Geekor at his church.
The situation might ease if rebels of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) reopened the port, where they have already pillaged supplies of food aid.
But the rebels have been reluctant to relinquish their hold on ground captured in recent fighting while they say they are still unsure that the wily Taylor will fulfil his pledge to step down and leave the country.
Taylor won the 1997 elections after emerging as the strongest warlord during seven years of civil war. But he never achieved the clean image he sought as evidence mounted of Liberia's role in other conflicts in the region.
The rebels have also threatened to continue their fight if Taylor hands over today, as planned, to Vice President Moses Blah -- an ally from days of guerrilla training in Libya.
West African officials say that Blah's stay would be short, possibly just days, before a new interim president is chosen at peace talks in Ghana among Taylor's officials, rebels and squabbling politicians.
There is also a big question over how Taylor's volatile fighters will respond to the departure of the man they know affectionately as "Pappay."
"Some of us will go to school, some will do business, as they were doing before," said General Solo, gazing across a bridge towards rebel positions near Buchanan.
"I will not be afraid because I have not harmed anyone. Those who did bad, bad things to people will be afraid."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in