Middle East & Africa | Liberia's civil war

Fiddling while Monrovia burns

The reluctance of outsiders to intervene

|

AFP

But does he frighten the rebels too?

MORTARS crashed into America's embassy in Monrovia this week, flattening a diplomat's house, injuring several embassy staff, and killing more than 30 of the 20,000 refugees cowering in the embassy compound next door. Outside, in the streets of Liberia's battle-torn capital, there was worse. The rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) launched its latest assault on Monrovia on July 19th. It has lots of shiny new toys, but its child-fighters do not know how to aim them. Hundreds of people have been killed by stray explosions, raising the cost of two months of fighting for Monrovia to over 1,000 civilian lives.

As in the LURD's previous attacks, bereaved Monrovians dumped dozens of fresh corpses outside the American embassy, and chanted for American troops to come and save them. Liberia is America's historic ally in West Africa, and Liberian ju-ju is considered potent, but George Bush proved resistant. Some 40 American marines were airlifted to Monrovia this week to prepare for a possible evacuation, and a 4,500-strong American force bobbing at sea was put on the alert. But Mr Bush announced no plans for American military intervention.

Instead, he offered logistical support for a Nigerian-led, regional peacemaking force. This had been promised last month when ceasefire talks were going on between the LURD and Liberia's government. But with the ceasefire long forgotten, the regional powers have been prevaricating. However, on July 23rd they agreed that a force of 1,300 Nigerians, which has been keeping the peace in Sierra Leone, should be redeployed to Liberia. This, or so it was said, should arrive in about a week.

Charles Taylor, Liberia's president, has stoked wars in all of Liberia's neighbours (including Sierra Leone, where a UN-backed court has charged him with crimes against humanity), and now appears reluctant to let go. Earlier this month, faced with a possible encounter with American troops, he accepted a Nigerian offer of asylum. But this week, as the rebels fought their way into central Monrovia before being pushed back, Mr Taylor's henchmen suggested he would prefer to fight it out.

Under pressure from the UN, Britain and France, all of which have intervened to end Liberia's neighbours' wars, America sent a humanitarian assessment team to Monrovia last month. Also, through its military support for Guinea, which backs the LURD, America has attempted to rein in the rebels. But the LURD's fighters are now ignoring their politicians' call for a renewed ceasefire.

Reluctant either to land its troops in Liberia, or to abandon it altogether, the United States risks being entangled in the sort of poorly-mandated, multinational intervention it has so often deplored. Trading diamonds for guns, Mr Taylor found it reasonably easy to deal with Nigeria's last chaotic mission to Liberia, which was sent to quell the civil war he started in 1989. He may hope to do so again. In the meantime, Monrovia's mess and misery continues. When a Lebanese businessman saw marauders swarming over his wall, he phoned the hotline for Mr Taylor's new anti-looter strike force. One of the marauders took the call on his mobile.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline "Fiddling while Monrovia burns"

Blair, the BBC and the war

From the July 26th 2003 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

After pushing its economy to the brink, Egypt gets a bail-out

But a record-setting investment from the UAE will not fix its chronic problems

Gaza is on the brink of a man-made famine

Israel and Hamas reject a ceasefire even as people starve


Senegal proves the doomsayers wrong

Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s win is a triumph for the country’s democracy