First US mission since Somalia

2003-08-15 22:01

Monrovia - Long prayed-for, US Marines in Liberia went about the workaday tasks on Friday of America's first peace mission in Africa in nearly a decade, patrolling new razor-wire perimeters and guarding the first in a convoy of aid ships.

Americans' task in Liberia's shelled, starving capital: "Trying to get the boats in the port," said Major Leonard DeFrancisci of Melbourne, Florida, a reservist with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Friday marked the first full day ashore for about 200 US forces. Military helicopters landed them from three US warships looming in the tides off Monrovia the previous day, after warlord-president Charles Taylor ceded to US, West African and rebel demands and left his bloodied country.

For US forces, landing on the green, black-rock-heaped hills of Liberia's coast opened the first humanitarian mission in Africa since Somali fighters killed 18 US troops in Mogadishu in 1993.

The battle deaths prompted Washington's withdrawal of troops the next year, and lingering US reluctance to get involved in the continent's crises.

Black Hawk Down

"We've all seen the movie," Marine Captain James Jarvis, a spokesperson for the 26th Marines at Liberia's main airport said, referring to Black Hawk Down, depicting the Somalia deaths.

"But in this day and age, you try to help people when you can," Jarvis said.

On Friday, Marines, including men in two Humvees mounted with 50-caliber machine guns, guarded the airport's landing strip, securing it for flights of West African troops and aid.

Deployment at the airport freed a stretched-thin, still building West African peace force, now at roughly 1 500 men, for duties in Monrovia, where hungry, eager crowds on Friday broke through the front-line that had split the city for 10 weeks of rebel sieges.

A 150-member US rapid-reaction force was on standby at the airport, ready to fly out by helicopter if the Nigerian-led peace force came under attack anywhere, Jarvis said.

On Thursday, a Navy Seal team scoured the trash-strewn water at Monrovia's seaport, looking for navigation hazards for aid ships bringing food and other aid for the hungry capital.

Razor-wire fences

About 40 Marines, including DeFrancisci, helped West African forces hold the heavily looted, badly damaged port, which up until this weekend had victims of fighting still floating face-down off the docks.

After pounding stakes on Thursday to erect razor-wire fences, Marines patrolled the port barricades on Friday, or sat in the shade of delapidated buildings against the rainy-season heat and sun.

Within blocks of the Marines, rebel fighters lingered, despite insurgents' pledge to withdraw from the city entirely.

"Better than it was yesterday," DeFrancisci said, his attention drawn to the young insurgents.

"The country's in shambles," Sergeant Nathen Baker, 23, of Olean, New York, said back at the airport. "We're trying to keep the peace."

Many of the Marines, including Jarvis, had served in Afghanistan. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit had deployed in Iraq as well, at Mosul, but few here were part of that mission.

Liberians had prayed for rescue by America, whose government oversaw Liberia's 19th-century founding by freed American slaves.

Quieter

As the siege grew, meeting the worst fears of the trapped people, angry crowds laid men, women and children killed in mortar barrages before the high-walled US Embassy.

Crowds roared at sight of warships offshore this week, followed by what are now repeated helicopter and warplane buzzes over the city.

The limited size and role of the US troops' mission means they take a back seat to West African forces here.

"We like it that the Americans are flying to protect us. But why don't they come down with us and see our hunger?" Emmanuel S Cooper, a 22-year-old unemployed university graduate, asked as he crossed Monrovia's newly opened front-line to look for beans, rice and oil.

Undoubtedly, presence of the heavily armed Marines, and their warplanes and warships, have helped cow fighters on both sides - rag-tag militias, prone to smoking cocaine and drinking, and more accustomed to attacks on civilians than disciplined fighting.

Already, Jarvis said, "the streets have gotten quieter. This is what the people have been waiting for."

- AP