Liberia's government was to start peace talks with rebels in earnest yesterday under pressure to avoid a bloodbath in the capital and end violence that has poisoned West Africa for more than a decade.
Mediators have pushed President Charles Taylor and the main rebel faction into agreeing a ceasefire for talks in Ghana, offering at least temporary respite for hundreds of thousands of terrified Liberians packed into Monrovia.
But mistrust runs deep between Liberian foes who well remember more than a dozen peace deals signed and broken during a war in the 1990s. Many old faces from that war, which cost 200,000 lives, joined the new rebellion three years ago.
The president, himself a former warlord, is under UN sanctions for fuelling regional instability and was indicted by a UN-backed court last week for a suspected part in Sierra Leone's savage war.
Rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) faction and a group known as Model control at least two-thirds of a country founded by freed American slaves and now ruined by years of killing and plunder.
Talks stalled last week after LURD attacked Monrovia and the court indicted Taylor when he was at the opening ceremony, but West African leaders are desperate to end the crisis that has spilled a generation of killers into their region.
Mediators hope to secure a permanent ceasefire this week.
The sole demand of both rebel factions is for Taylor to quit, so that elections can be held without him. All factions have their origins in the tribal divisions exacerbated by the first war.
Taylor has offered to step down for peace, but few think he would if it was likely to lead him before the court. Diplomats suspect he would rather fight to the death like Samuel Doe -- the brutal dictator he launched a war to oust in 1989.
The court has said it will not drop its indictment and has asked the UN to strengthen measures to bring Taylor to trial, but UN Security Council diplomats said the request would have to take a back seat to peacemaking.
In Monrovia, the battalions of terrified civilians would accept almost anything that could prevent the kind of fighting that left streets strewn with bodies in the last war.
On the ground, witnesses said rebels had moved back beyond Po River Bridge, some 12km from the outskirts of Monrovia after pushing to just five kilometers from the center early this week.
For the first time in six days, there were no reports of fresh fighting on Wednesday, but conditions in Monrovia remained desperate with aid workers saying up to one million people were displaced. Food and water are in short supply.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RSS