LIBERIA: Liberia's government and rebels accused each other yesterday of violating a peace deal as US helicopters flew a reconnaissance mission for west African peacekeepers due to deploy in rebel areas.
The accord signed by both sides last Monday was designed to end 14 years of bloodshed, but the government, led by caretaker President Moses Blah, and the rebels say fighting is still going on away from the capital Monrovia.
Thousands of civilians fled towards Monrovia on Saturday after gun and mortar fire near the rebel-held second city of Buchanan, and government forces reported more clashes yesterday. "They came to attack us . . . this morning . . . They are trying to push me from here, but we're not going to move," said Gen Kay Friday, government commander in the Compound Number One area, some 80 km from Monrovia.
Gen Friday said the attackers, numbering 15 to 30, wore the red T-shirts of the rebel faction called Model which holds Buchanan.
As Gen Friday spoke, a fellow soldier sitting behind him smoked a marijuana cigarette and blew smoke into the mouth of a tiny black-and-tan puppy. Shortly afterwards a gun shot rang out and the soldiers said they had killed another dog to eat it. Villages by the potholed road from Monrovia to Compound Number One stand abandoned.
Col Theophilus Tawiah, of the west African peace force ECOMIL, blamed the exodus on government militia fighters firing in the air - a tactic used by both sides during the war to make looting easier. By yesterday the flow of refugees along the road had dried up, but the calm was broken when five US helicopters flew past towards the port city of Buchanan.
Col Tawiah said the helicopters were carrying out reconnaissance in preparation for peacekeepers to move into the area.
Washington has three warships sitting off Liberia. Only some 200 of the 2,300 US soldiers have gone ashore to help ECOMIL, but helicopters and warplanes have provided backing. - (Reuters)