Liberia: 'Expect chaos'
2003-08-09 20:18
Monrovia - Days from President Charles Taylor's promised surrender of power, his spokesperson warned on Saturday of bloodshed to follow and said he feared what Taylor's demoralised fighters would do.
"All hell might just break lose," he declared.
The threat came with a weak truce in Liberia's war-divided capital of Monrovia holding, but with fighting persisting in the northern town of Gbarnga and the southeastern port city of Buchanan, according to Taylor's Defence Minister Daniel Chea.
Western aid agencies and diplomats kept up negotiations on Saturday for humanitarian access to Monrovia's rebel-held port, with hunger building on the government-held side.
Under US and West African pressure, Taylor has promised to resign one minute before noon on Monday, and head into exile in Nigeria at some unspecified time to follow.
The pledge comes as rebels hold to ground won in two months of sieges of Monrovia, pressing home their three-year campaign to drive out Taylor.
On the streets, Taylor's largely unpaid forces say they are ready for peace - but demand some kind of money for laying down their AK-47s, saying they will use them to rob for a living if not.
Expect chaos
"Our morale has been sapped," Taylor spokesperson Vaani Passawe said, as the clock ticked on Taylor's regime. "The situation is likely to collapse unless some pressure is put to bear" on rebels.
"Once the president leaves, our boys might be stigmatised," Passawe said. "If that is the case, you must expect chaos. Hell might just break loose."
Chea, the defence minister, amplified the warning, saying, "If Taylor's departure results in collapse, then it means those who blamed him for the violence are wrong."
A West African peace force due to eventually reach 3 250 is building strength at a temporary base at Liberia's main airport, outside Monrovia.
But Monday's deadline for Taylor's government comes with the force, crucial to filling any power vacuum, still below battalion strength of 770 men.
Rebels largely have been more temperate in their statements ahead of Taylor's departure, but have said they would respond if Taylor's forces attack.
Each side has repeatedly broken cease-fires, blaming each other for the resumptions in fighting.
Rebels have pledged to turn over the port to peacekeepers when they arrive in adequate numbers to take over the harbour. With aid ships headed for Monrovia, the port, and its warehouses, are crucial to feeding hundreds of thousands of famished civilians on the cut-off government side of Monrovia.
Western diplomats were urging rebels to open a route now to the port alone, leaving them with their hold on territory around it.
Ahead of any deal, the International Red Cross was making a second trip across Monrovia's front lines on Saturday, ferrying medical kits and medicine to the rebel side. Civilians there, while having plenty of food, have been blocked from access to the main hospitals, on the government side.
Doctors on rebel-held territory have been reduced to setting up a hospital at a recently abandoned beer factory, treating injured children alongside rebel fighters on a loading dock of the plant.
- SAPA