By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
Associated Press Writer
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - Pressured by fellow West African leaders,
President Charles Taylor promised Saturday to resign Aug. 11 after the
expected arrival of peacekeepers, as his forces stepped up their battle
against rebels for Monrovia's port.
As fighting surged in the city outside, Taylor - after meeting with
West African envoys - told reporters at his lavish oceanside executive
offices that he would hand over power after a joint session of Liberia's
congress next week.
Taylor said he would step down the morning of Aug. 11 ``and the new guy
will have to be sworn in by midday.'' But he refused to say when he would
leave Liberia, as he has promised to do previously, and as West African
leaders and the United States have demanded.
``The most important thing is, everything that we have said about
resigning and leaving will happen,'' said Taylor, who has been offered
asylum by Nigeria.
Taylor has said he will hand power to one of two longtime colleagues -
Nyundueh Monkomana, Liberia's speaker of the house, or Moses Blah, his
vice president.
The president had accused Blah of complicity in what he called a
U.S.-backed coup attempt against him in June, but Blah eventually returned
to what appeared to be his full public role. Monkomana is believed to be
more acceptable to all sides, including rebels.
Taylor has been promising to surrender power since June 4, when a
U.N.-Sierra Leone court announced a war-crimes indictment against him for
his support of rebels there in a brutal civil war.
He also has made and broken other accords in 14 years of Liberian
conflict, which Taylor, then a warlord, started as the leader of a small
insurgency in 1989.
Saturday's meeting with regional envoys appeared to make at least some
progress by committing Taylor to a specific date.
West African heads of state, in a summit late last week in Ghana,
committed to sending peacekeepers Monday to Liberia, where rebels pressing
a 3-year-old war to oust Taylor have the capital under two months of
deadly sieges.
They had insisted that Taylor leave by Thursday, three days after the
deployment - an unusually forceful message to a peer, delivered under
strong U.N. and U.S. pressure.
``West African leaders seemed to understand that leaving the country
within three days is not practical,'' Taylor's spokesman, Vaanii Passawe,
said after the meeting.
One envoy praised Taylor's agreement as ``unprecedented.''
``He is to be congratulated for his sense of statesmanship and
patriotism, recognizing the realities and the fact that his departure will
facilitate the making of peace in Liberia,'' Nana Akufo-Addo, Ghana's
foreign minister, said. ``That's our main concern, not deadlines.''
The U.N. Security Council on Friday approved deployment of the
multinational force to Liberia, which is to last two months and be
followed by U.N. peacekeepers.
It was still unclear whether U.S. Marines on three warships that are
expected to arrive off Liberia's coast soon will go ashore. The Bush
administration has insisted that the force being assembled by the Economic
Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS, take the lead.
On Saturday, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan underscored Washington's
insistence that Taylor leave Liberia.
``Charles Taylor needs to leave and we need to see it in his actions,
not only words,'' McClellan said. ``The president has made it clear that
Charles Taylor needs to leave, there needs to be a cease-fire in place and
that the United States stands ready to support ECOWAS.''
Liberians - who feel a historical and cultural bond with the United
States - have clamored for U.S. forces to help end the fighting in their
country, founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. Liberia
remained a commercial and then strategic partner of the United States up
to the end of the Cold War.
Fighting accompanying the rebel offensives has killed well over 1,000
civilians in Monrovia. Hostilities have cut off the port and the main
water plant, leaving the city of more than 1.3 million residents and
refugees desperately short of food and water, and plagued by cholera.
Heavy fighting erupted again Saturday at two bridges linking Monrovia's
rebel-held island port with downtown, the heart of Taylor's government.
Front-line government officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
they received an order to recapture the port ``at any cost.''
Government fighters crossed one span, the New Bridge, in waves, some
crouching midway and directing heavy grenade and gunfire toward buildings
on the other side - apparently aiming at rebel snipers. One fighter fired
rounds from a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on the back of a pickup
truck until he was shot and slumped over his gun.
Black smoke rose from near the port. It was unclear whether the cloud
came from street fighting, government shelling, or other causes. A
five-minute mortar barrage sent downtown residents cowering.
``Heavy, heavy mortars,'' resident Mohammed Dauda said by telephone,
from under his bed. ``We are taking cover.''
Pickup trucks full of government fighters rolled toward the fighting.
Residents and fighters claimed Taylor's forces had crossed over into
Bushrod Island, site of the rebel-held port, but rebels said they had
beaten them back.
The two sides traded blame for the escalation in fighting, which came
as both sides sought to consolidate territory, bettering their positions
for any negotiations, ahead of the arrival of peacekeepers.
At Monrovia's overwhelmed main hospital, government militia fighters
brought in many of the first 70 wounded and seven or eight dead from the
fighting. They slapped nurses and threatened medical workers to keep them
from amputating a commander's shattered leg, hospital medical director
Mohammed Sheriff said.
West African leaders have pledged to deploy at least 300 Nigerian
forces Monday, to be followed days after by troops of Ghana, Senegal and
Mali. West Africans have called for a total of 5,000 regional
peacekeepers.
Blah, the vice president, said Saturday that Taylor set two conditions
for leaving after he cedes power: that an adequate number of peacekeepers
are on the ground, and that the war crimes indictment against him be
dropped.
U.N. prosecutors are adamant that Taylor face justice, raising the
prospect of a standoff blocking his departure.
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