[allAfrica.com] [Christian_Science_Monitor] Fighting Stops in Liberia As Envoys Negotiate Taylor's Exit Vanguard (Lagos) NEWS August 4, 2003 Posted to the web August 4, 2003 Monrovia West African envoys were last Friday pressed Liberia's President Charles Taylor to step down and go into exile in Nigeria after a peacekeeping force is deployed as fighting stopped for the first time in two weeks. A vanguard of up to 1,500 Nigerian soldiers is to begin arriving in Liberia by Monday ahead of a 2,000-strong regional force tasked with enforcing a ceasefire between government forces and rebels seeking to overthrow Taylor, leaders of the West African ECOWAS grouping decided last Thursday at a summit meeting in Accra. Taylor, an indicted war crimes suspect, was told to hand over power in the three days that follow the deployment of the full peacekeeping force and depart for Nigeria, which has offered to take him in, said the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In Monrovia, the guns fell silent for the first time in the capital after two weeks of daily mortar attacks, according to Taylor's military commander there. "There is no fighting this morning for the first time in two weeks," General Benjamin Yeaten, Deputy Chief of Staff, told AFP from the frontline. "The fighting stopped just minutes after midnight." ECOWAS Executive Secretary Mohamed ibn Chambas and the Foreign Ministers of Ghana and Togo were to travel to Monrovia last Friday to discuss with Taylor the arrangements for the handover of power to his successor. The regional bloc did not specify who that successor would be. Taylor's spokesman Vanii Paassewe said the beleaguered leader, who after almost five years of war only controls about a fifth of Liberia, will "not necessarily" abide by the ultimatum, suggesting that much wrangling lay ahead for the envoys to finalise a deal. "Any political arrangement that will take place in Liberia, will depend on the ongoing negotiations in Accra" between the warring parties, he said. A nine-man reconnaissance team led by a Nigerian general were given a hero's welcome last Thursday as they arrived in Monrovia to plan for the deployment of the peace force, with scores of cheering Liberians lining the streets as their motorcade drove by. Monrovia residents, who have seen hundreds die around them during a two-month siege, shouted "We want peace!" as General Festus Okonkwo and his team began touring sites around the capital. "There is going to be peace in Liberia as soon as possible," Okonkwo told reporters as he inspected sites for a future communications network. Led by Nigeria, the peacekeeping force for Liberia will include troops from Ghana, Mali, Benin and Togo and its deployment is expected to take three weeks. The United States has pledged to provide financial backing for the ECOWAS force, removing one of the biggest obstacles to deployment, and it has introduced a UN Security Council resolution to authorise the deployment of a separate multinational peacekeeping force to Liberia. Hundreds of civilians have died in Monrovia in the recent upsurge of fighting in the nearly five-year war, the latest in a string of conflicts in the west African country, and over 200,000 have been displaced. Liberia, founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century, has for three decades witnessed the violent overthrow of successive regimes and the rise of brutal warlords to power in the country of 3.3 million. As a former warlord, Taylor unleashed one of Africa's most savage civil wars in 1989 against former president Samuel Doe, which lasted for seven years and killed some 250,000 people. Taylor is accused of backing rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leona, who were notorious for recruiting child soldiers and hacking off people's limbs in a war which raged from 1991 until January 2002 and claimed up to 200,000 lives. A year after Taylor's election in 1997, the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) took up arms against Taylor, plunging Liberia into war yet again. Who will follow Taylor when he takes asylum in Nigeria remains an open question. The president has tapped as potential successors either his vice president, Moses Blah, or the president of the national assembly, Nyundueh Morkonma. But rebels have not given their backing.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2003 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================