West African leaders pledge peace force, Taylor's departure

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Pushed by the United States, West Africa's leaders broke a deadlock Thursday and announced the first troops of a long-promised peace force would be deployed to Liberia's bloodied capital within days. Tens of thousands of Liberians spilled into Monrovia's streets, celebrating the arrival of an advance military team.

Flashing peace signs, waving handkerchiefs and shouting in joy, residents and refugees came out of hiding places to welcome the 10-member team, which included one U.S. representative -- the first sign of a desperately hoped-for rescue.

"We are hungry, but seeing these people, we are full," declared businessman Mohammed Dauda, 31, as the West African and U.S. team rolled through streets littered with bullet casings and unexploded shells. "We hope this marks the beginning of the end."

"We want peace!" crowds chanted, thronging streets in front of the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy.

In Accra, Ghana, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and other West African leaders pledged Thursday to deploy the first peace forces by Monday and to get embattled President Charles Taylor out of the country three days later. The announcement came after weeks of promises to intervene, repeatedly stalled by deliberations over funding and broken cease-fires in Monrovia.

Bloodletting in more than two months of rebel sieges has killed more than 1,000 civilians in the capital, an Atlantic Ocean-side city of 1 million choked with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

With the port and the city's water plant cut off by fighting, hunger, thirst, and epidemics of cholera are rife in Monrovia, hit nearly night and day by mortars, rockets and gunfire.

Nigeria, West Africa's military power, was expected to provide two battalions with a total of roughly 1,500 men, vanguard of what regional leaders should be a 5,000-strong foreign force.

The first battalion would arrive Monday, peeling off from a U.N. deployment in neighboring Sierra Leone, said Col. Theophilus Tawiah, the future force's chief of staff.

"The first task" of the vanguard force would be to see that Taylor leaves, the heads of state declared in their statement.

Taylor, indicted by a U.N.-backed war crimes court for supporting rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone and blamed for 14 years of conflict in Liberia, is to hand over power to a successor within three days of the troops' arrival, and accept an offer of exile in Nigeria, the leaders said.

The West Africans did not specify whether Taylor had agreed. West African foreign ministers were due in Monrovia on Friday to meet with him.

Taylor has said since soon after the rebels opened their attacks on the capital in early June that he would yield power.

However, he and his aides have repeatedly hedged on the timing, or reneged outright.

In Monrovia, Taylor spokesman Vaanii Passawe called the Accra declaration only "a draft proposal." However, Liberian Defense Minister Daniel Chea said Taylor had been in close touch with the West African leaders behind the announcement, which he called not "that far from the truth."

Reached by telephone, the leader of the rebel movement laying siege to Monrovia scoffed at Taylor accepting it, or any other peace deal.

"Taylor's not going to leave except by force," chairman Sekou Conneh of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy said.

"After the peacekeepers have been on the ground for three days -- call me back then, and we'll see," Conneh said.

The West African leaders urged a cease-fire for the deployment.

However, the peace force would go in whether or not the two sides complied, Ghana Foreign Minister Nana Akuffo Ado said.

The presidents of Nigeria, Ghana and Togo attended the Accra summit, while Gambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Liberia sent lower-ranking officials.

In Monrovia, the arrival of the West African-led advance team was enough to bring a rare break in shelling, rockets and gunfire, and bring out cheering crowds.

"We want peace!" civilians chanted, tumbling out of basements and stairwells to cheer the foreign motorcade and to search for food.

"I can't hear any gun sounds today," said Moses Togbah, a blind man, tapping down blasted streets with the aid of a cane and a small daughter at his elbow.

Like many, he pleaded for the tiny advance force to stay, fearing resumption of slaughter if they left.

"I don't want them to just leave. Do not leave us struggling," the blind man said. "People are dying."

On Thursday, children scampered in the ocean in their underwear, brought out to play for the first time in weeks by the lull.

Medical workers appealed to both sides to immediately open an aid corridor to the rebel-held port, opening aid and commercial warehouses there for the starving city.

The advance team, led by a Nigerian general, was talking with Liberian and American officials, and scouting out logistics, such as lodging and fuel for troops.

On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had urged West Africans to commit to a date for the peace force.

Plagued by debts, Nigeria has asked the United States and other nations for more help with what's expected to be a multimillion-dollar daily tab.

The United States has promised $10 million. It is sending three warships with Marines to Liberia for what President Bush says will be limited assistance.

Liberia was founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves, with military backing from the U.S. government.

U.S. officials introduced a draft measure at the United Nations on Wednesday asking for approval of a multinational force, to be followed by a U.N. deployment by Oct. 1.

"I won't believe it until I see it," Bernice Wlue, 27, said of the peacekeepers as she scrubbed her clothes in a bucket. "When I see them in the streets -- then, I'll believe it."

U.S. officials introduced a draft measure at the United Nations on Wednesday asking for approval of a multinational force, to be followed by Oct. 1 by a U.N. deployment.

In Monrovia, tens of thousands of Liberians emerged from hiding places Thursday to welcome a West African-U.S. advance team they hoped signaled the imminent arrival of peacekeepers.

People in Liberia's capital passed one of the quietest nights in the last two months of rebel offensives against government forces. Gunfire rattled, but there was some relief from the rocket and mortar volleys of recent days, allowing starving families to scurry out in search of food.

The advance team of 10 West African and U.S. officials, which is led by a Nigerian commander, set off jubilant celebrations in Monrovia as it passed shacks with tin roofs peeled back by explosives. Unexploded shells laid in the streets.

"This is a sign of peace coming," refugee Hamilton Woods said with a smile.

As the advance team arrived at the high-walled, heavily guarded U.S. Embassy, hundreds of refugees taking shelter around the compound spilled out, fluttering handkerchiefs and flashing peace signs while shouting with joy.

"We are hungry, but seeing these people we are full this morning," businessman Mohammed Dauda, 31, said. "We hope this marks the beginning of the end."

The advance inspection team, led by Nigerian Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, was meeting government ministers and U.S. officials Thursday in the battered capital. Some tasks scheduled for the next two days include determining where the peace force will live and how much fuel is available for it.

Any initial deployment would be limited to the capital, authorities said.

The smaller of Liberia's two main rebel groups, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, declared Thursday that peacekeepers were welcome in its area -- joining Liberia's government and the leading insurgent group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, in insisting the foreign deployment would be greeted warmly.

"We are very elated to have the first wave," Liberian Defense Minister Daniel Chea said at the southeastern port of Buchanan, where his forces were pressing a three-day attempt to retake the city, which was captured by rebels Monday.

"We see it as a very, very good thing. Their arrival here is long overdue."

Chea claimed heavy battles in Buchanan on Thursday while rebels said Liberia's second-largest city was quiet and in their control.