- Liberian rebels seized the second port city of Buchanan
as the war-battered capital Monrovia remained in the grip of fierce combat
and west African leaders failed to fix a date to send peacekeepers to end
the brutal war.
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- Rebels from the smaller Movement for Democracy in Liberia
(MODEL) movement stormed into Buchanan in the morning and wrested it after
a fierce battle, residents said, adding that government troops fled the
garrison there towards Monrovia.
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- A humanitarian source said government militiamen had
looted cars and other property belonging to international aid agencies
before fleeing, leaving the city in rebel control.
-
- However, Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea said government
forces were still in control of at least part of the city, located some
100 kilometres (60 miles) southeast down the Atlantic coast from the capital.
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- "We are controlling the west part of the town, the
crossroad leading to Monrovia... (and) they are controlling the centre
of the town," he said.
-
- In Monrovia, detonations were heard at regular intervals
as forces of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)
main rebel movement pressed on with their two-week-old siege on the city.
-
- The shifting front lines in fighting for control of three
key bridges have returned to positions of two days ago, military sources
said early Monday.
-
- Meanwhile, top officials from the 15-nation Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc Monday failed to
fix a date for the deployment of a long awaited and long overdue peacekeeping
force.
-
- A military source at a meeting of west African military
chiefs in Ghana said that the officials concluded instead that a separate
mission must first be sent to evaluate the situation.
-
- An initial Nigerian force was to have been the vanguard
for a 3,000-strong ECOWAS peacekeeping force, agreed upon earlier this
month by the regional bloc.
-
- As the LURD showed no sign of halting their offensive
on Monrovia, the most brutal attack on the city in their nearly five-year
war against President Charles Taylor, UN chief Kofi Annan issued a stern
warning to the rebels.
-
- "I think by this reckless behaviour that is killing
many innocent Liberians and making it impossible for us to deliver humanitarian
assistance, they are disqualifying themselves from any future role in Liberian
life," he said.
-
- Amid mounting anger over US inaction in the crisis, US
President George W. Bush last Friday ordered the deployment of an amphibious
task force off the coast of Liberia -- which was founded by freed American
slaves in 1822 -- but their mandate remains unclear.
-
- The United States Monday also dispatched a senior diplomat
to west Africa for talks on the continuing crisis.
-
- Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter
Kansteiner left Washington for a tour of the region, the State Department
said without divulging his exact itinerary.
-
- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United
States would continue to push for a truce.
-
- At the same time, he warned the MODEL that Washington
would hold them responsible for their assault on Buchanan, which he said
would complicate matters to deploy a peacekeeping force.
-
- "We urged the Movement for Democracy in Liberia
in the strongest terms to avoid worsening the situation and especially
not to attack the port in Buchanan," Boucher said.
-
- "Such action would undermine all the efforts being
made to deploy an international force to stabilize the situation and efforts
to reach a peace agreement in Accra.
-
- "We will hold this group responsible for its actions,"
Boucher said.
-
- The fighting in Monrovia has claimed more than 1,000
mainly civilian lives in two weeks, according to Taylor, creating a massive
humanitarian crisis in Liberia's capital.
-
- Up to 200,000 people are living without shelter in the
city, and little food or clean water is available.
-
- As Buchanan fell on Monday, hundreds of terrified Liberians
swarmed to the Firestone Rubber Plantation, the largest of its kind in
Africa, to join some 50,000 displaced people already living there either
in camps or with relatives and friends.
-
- Taylor, whose forces now control only around a fifth
of the country following nearly five years of fighting, reaffirmed over
the weekend he would quit in line with a west African-brokered peace plan,
but repeated his demand that peacekeepers would have to arrive first.
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- He has accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria.
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