President Charles Taylor submitted his resignation and tapped his vice president to take over the reins of the embattled government as throngs cheered the first West African peacekeepers to enter Liberia's besieged capital.
Vice President Moses Blah said the handover is planned for Monday, but rebel leaders warned that they will not allow any ally of Taylor's to hold power while the war-torn country tries to find a way out of 14 years of bloodshed.
PHOTO: AP
Outside Monrovia, peacekeepers reportedly seized a new weapons shipment from Libya that apparently was destined for government forces in violation of a UN arms embargo.
Residents and refugees poured into the streets on Thursday when more than 100 Nigerian soldiers in the peacekeeping mission drove into the capital.
Nigerian Lieutenant Colonel Amos Nudamajo would not say when the force would begin regular patrols of the city, saying only that would happen "at the appropriate time."
The force's first foray into Monrovia came as Congress formally endorsed Taylor's letter of resignation on Thursday and he designated the 56-year-old Blah to succeed him.
Blah said he received a telephone call on Thursday morning from Taylor, who said he would be sworn in as president Monday.
Taylor indicated he would go into exile "very shortly," said Blah, who was a feared Taylor ally in the 1988-96 civil war that killed 100,000 people and put Taylor in power over a nation left in ruins.
However, Taylor has repeatedly hedged on promises to go into asylum in Nigeria.
His government said that would happen only after enough foreign peacekeepers were on the ground -- and if a war crimes indictment by a UN-backed tribunal is dropped.
"Nigeria has chosen to ignore that court, and I will be going to Nigeria," Taylor said in a CNN interview. "They've all seen the political nature of this ... they see no reason why I should be harassed. I will go to Nigeria, God willing."
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Taylor would not get out of the war crimes charges.
"If Taylor leaves Liberia, as we expect him to do in the very near future, and is given asylum in Nigeria, this does not remove the indictment in any way," Powell said.
Rebel leaders reached by phone at the scene of peace talks in Accra, Ghana, said the rebels would observe an often-violated June 17 ceasefire pact for Monrovia, but insisted they would not accept Taylor's allies holding power.
Kabineh Ja'neh, a leader of the rebel group besieging Monrovia, said his men "will not recognize Blah or any other chosen representative of Taylor's criminal empire."
The UN is drawing up an ambitious plan to rebuild Liberia's infrastructure and government which would see the creation of a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force to disarm all the warring factions, The Washington Post said yesterday.
The plan, which is being discussed by chief UN envoy Jacques Paul Klein with potential troop donors and the US, would also call for arresting Taylor if he does not leave the country soon.
The new UN mission would move into Liberia in November, replacing the West African force, and reach full strength by February, said the daily, quoting US and UN officials.
A potentially major stumbling block to the UN project is its financing, since the US would have to provide one fourth of its projected cost of US$500 million, a senior UN official said.
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