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."
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