Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Africa, courtesy of AfricaPundit.
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More from NJ.com...CAREYSBURG, Liberia (AP) -- West African peacekeepers took a crucial step toward securing Liberia's peace Tuesday, making their first major move into the volatile countryside and brokering a cease-fire to end the latest battle between rebels and government troops.
Fighting erupted early Tuesday when rebels attacked and overran Kakata, 40 miles northeast of Monrovia, said Col. Theophilus Tawiah of Ghana, the peace force's chief of staff.
About 650 soldiers from Guinea-Bissau arrived just outside Kakata as the two sides traded fire. The contingent's Nigerian operations chief and a senior commander from Guinea-Bissau then met with leaders in the clash, negotiating an end to the battle.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Twelve U.S. Marines who were in Liberia last month in support of a West African peacekeeping mission have contracted malaria and 21 others have symptoms of the disease, defense officials said Monday.
Two of the Marines were flown from the USS Iwo Jima warship off the coast of Liberia to a U.S. medical center in Germany on Saturday and 31 others were flown from the ship Sunday to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Marines, members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were in Liberia in mid-August as part of a U.S. quick-reaction force of about 150 U.S. troops. They operated from an airport outside Monrovia, the capital.
AP:
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - The government reported persistent clashes Monday in diamond-rich northeastern Liberia despite a week-old peace deal, but authorities and residents denied knowledge of an alleged massacre by rebels there.
Tegen Wanti, a Nimba County resident reached by satellite telephone, said people of the town of Bahn had heard nothing about the deaths of 1,000 people that state radio had reported.
Meanwhile, a force of 150 U.S. Marines returned to their warships off Liberia's coast Sunday, insisting shipboard troops would be better positioned to respond to any flare-ups in the country's still-gelling peace accord.
Sorry to interupt "All Blackout - All the Time", but news is still being made elsewhere in the world. US Marines have entered the Liberian Capital of Monrovia:
MONROVIA, Liberia, Aug. 14 -- U.S. Marines joined Nigerian peacekeepers in reassembling this divided capital today, deploying into what had been rebel territory accompanied by the scream of Harrier jets overhead and the cheers of Liberians all around them.Full Story at The Washington Post.
So reports the San Fran. Chronicle; the focus will be on "short-term" missions. Quick ... in tomorrow's paper: Quagmire Alert! Quagmire Alert!!
Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This monthly Regional Briefing will focus on Africa, courtesy of AfricaPundit.
CNN:
MONROVIA, Liberia (CNN) -- A plane carrying former Liberian President Charles Taylor into exile has taken off from the airport in the capital Monrovia.
Earlier on Monday Taylor handed over power to his vice-president Moses Blah as demanded by the United States and West African leaders -- 14 years after leading a rebellion that triggered a bloody civil war.
Hundreds of people surrounding the aircraft cheered when the former warlord, who was accompanied by the Nigerian delegation that attended the handover of power and his immediate family, mounted the steps.
AP:
MONROVIA, Liberia - Top West African officials flew into Liberia's embattled capital Friday to press the country's president to cede power after peacekeepers arrive, but Charles Taylor kept them waiting by reportedly heading to a southern war zone.
The West African mission began as new fighting in Monrovia killed at least 12 civilians, including four children and a pregnant woman. By late Friday afternoon, fighting between Taylor's forces and rebels was reported intense around three bridges leading toward downtown.
Taylor's evasion of the top-level delegation sparked rumors he fled the country, but the military and Taylor's spokesman denied it. The West African leaders were told the warlord-turned-president went to southeastern Buchanan, which would be his first known journey outside Monrovia since a rebel siege began in June.
Updating a prior post, things are heating up in Liberia. The Salt Lake Tribune offers the latest on the Marines' deployment to the coast, noting:
Three amphibious assault ships carrying 2,300 Marines and 2,000 sailors have been heading toward the western Mediterranean since last weekend for possible deployment to Liberia. The president's new orders will move them all the way to the Liberian coast; Pentagon officials said they would arrive in seven to 10 days.Reuters, meanwhile, is reporting that a church in Monrovia has been hit by mortar fire, killing at least seven. Similar attacks on two schools and an area near a hospital killed 23 Friday.
President George W Bush has ordered United States warships to take up positions off the coast of Liberia.
The BBC reports the warships will be used to support the expected deployment of West African peacekeepers in Monrovia.
President Bush’s announcement came as mortar bombs pound Monrovia in fighting between the Government and rebels that threatens a humanitarian disaster.
Shortly after Mr Bush's announcement, the rebels declared an immediate cease-fire but vowed to defend their positions, after a day in which shells struck schools crammed with refugees, killing at least 14 people and wounding scores more.
BBC:
One mortar shell has hit a building of the US embassy compound in the Liberian capital, Monrovia.
There are no reports of injuries from that attack, but more than 60 are being reported killed in less than an hour of bombardment on the centre of the city.
Mortars were fired near the centre of the city after a lull of about 12 hours in fighting between government forces and rebels.
AP:
WASHINGTON - Some 4,500 more American sailors and Marines have been ordered to position themselves closer to Liberia amid renewed fighting in the West African nation, officials said Monday.
And President Bush indicated he had not made up his mind on the size of a U.S. force that might be sent to help a proposed African peacekeeping force in the country.
"We continue to monitor the situation very closely," Bush said during a joint news conference on his Texas ranch with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a deployment order over the weekend ordering a three-ship amphibious ready group from its position off the Horn of Africa into the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said Monday. That would put the group in a position to get to the west coast of Africa faster, if needed for an evacuation of Americans, peacekeeping or some other mission.
AP:
MONROVIA, Liberia - They staggered out of jail as scarred stick figures. A few slumped on the pavement in exhaustion — too ill to show any emotion about their newfound freedom. One was so traumatized he no longer recognized his sister.
The men and boys, some as young as 13, were among 51 political prisoners unexpectedly released Friday from three jails in Monrovia — bearing witness to a brutal system of punishment and terror meted out by President Charles Taylor, whose regime now appears to be crumbling.
"My people must think that I am dead," Junior Mulbah, 13, said weakly as he gazed around him, looking vainly for signs of a familiar face among the crowd outside the jail.
The sudden and unexplained release comes amid growing international pressure for Taylor to step down after years of sanctions against his regime.
MONROVIA - Gun-toting Liberian troops stopped a U.S. military team from reaching a refugee camp on Tuesday as President Bush vowed to work with the United Nations and Africans for peace in the country.More...
AP:
MONROVIA, Liberia - U.S. military experts received a jubilant but chaotic welcome Tuesday from thousands of Liberians pleading for an American-led rescue mission to help end their West African country's ruinous civil war.
Waving hankies and American flags, refugees swarmed the U.S. team's convoy as it visited some of the camps housing tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting.
At a high school where 18,000 people live, crowds thronged the delegation, clambering over vehicles and chanting, "No more war, we want rest!"
Thousands more danced, sang hymns and chanted, "USA, USA," at Monrovia's athletics stadium, where families left destitute by war are sleeping beneath the bleachers.
A US military team has arrived in the Liberian capital Monrovia to assess how best to bring stability to the war-ravaged West African country.
The 20-strong group of military civil affairs specialists is being seen as a possible forerunner of a larger US peacekeeping force.
Liberia's President Charles Taylor has agreed in principle to leave the war-torn country following demands from US President George W Bush for him to quit.
But he said he would not accept an offer of asylum in Nigeria unless an American-led military force was in place.
BBC:
The West African regional body, Ecowas, has agreed to provide 3,000 troops for a peacekeeping force in Liberia, in the throes of a bitter civil war.
In its statement after talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra, Ecowas also urged the United States to take a lead role in the operation.
But officials in Washington say President George W Bush has not made any decision yet on troop deployment, although a US military delegation has been sent to Liberia to assess the situation.
BBC:
Liberia President Charles Taylor says he will step down but only when an international peacekeeping force has been deployed.
His declaration was welcomed by the United States, which has urged Mr Taylor to leave the country for the sake of peace.
The White House is sending a team of military experts to assess whether deploying US troops will restore order to the war-torn country and has indicated it may be flexible about Mr Taylor's departure.
UPDATE: Reuters reports that Nigeria has offered Taylor asylum there, and that he has accepted.
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday urged Liberian President Charles Taylor to leave the chaotic West African nation as he strongly considered sending hundreds of U.S. troops to help end its 14-year civil war.
"We are exploring all options as to how to keep the situation peaceful and stable," Bush told reporters at the White House. "One thing needs to happen -- Mr. Taylor needs to leave the country. In order for there to be peace and stability in Liberia, Charles Taylor needs to leave now."
Rebels demanding Taylor's resignation have been battling government forces for weeks and now control more than half of the country, but the fighting has resulted in the worst bloodshed in Liberia since 1990.
Liberians are desperately grasping at the hope that the United States might send troops. Demonstrators chanting "George Bush, USA" surged outside the U.S. Embassy overnight and there was talk of little else Wednesday in the capital Monrovia.
Full article...
From ABC (US):
Liberian President Charles Taylor is calling on the United States to lead a peacekeeping force to end civil unrest in his country.Mr Taylor is urging the United States to intervene, despite President George W Bush's calls for him to leave office.
Up to 300 people were killed during recent fighting between rebels and Government troops in the capital Monrovia.
Mr Taylor, who has been indicted on war crimes charges in neighbouring Sierra Leone, is refusing to step down.
However he is calling on the US to lead a multinational force to put an end to the latest violence.