Ambassador urges rebels to pull back as mortars kill 14

MORTAR rounds pounded homes in Liberia’s rebel-besieged capital, killing at least 14 people, while the US ambassador appealed yesterday to insurgents to withdraw from the bloodied city and reopen its port for desperately needed food and aid.

It was the eighth straight day of deadly bombardments of schools and churches in crowded neighbourhoods of Monrovia, where rebels are pressing home their three-year campaign to drive out warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor.

One mortar round landed before dawn yesterday on a tin-roofed shack near a bridge leading from the rebel-held island port to downtown, killing four people, according to aid workers collecting bodies.

Another shell fell on a nearby house late Saturday killing an entire family of eight adults and two children. Mr Taylor claimed on Saturday as many as 1,000 people have died since rebels launched their third attempt in two months to take the capital.

With desperation mounting in the refugee-choked city, US Ambassador John Blaney called yesterday for a new ceasefire line, urging rebels to pull back to the natural boundary of the Po River outside the capital. The line, about six miles northwest of Monrovia, would leave rebels with some of their recent gains in territory but reopen the port, with its food warehouses and outlying refugee camps, to aid workers. It also would help long-promised monitors and peacekeepers to secure a ceasefire.

Mr Blaney said Mr Taylor, blamed for much of the turmoil engulfing the country for almost 14 years, had agreed to the proposal and urged rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy movement to do the same.

“The LURD needs to show that they have regard for the people of Liberia, that it is not indifferent to the great human suffering that is taking place here,” Mr Blaney told reporters at the heavily guarded US Embassy. “If they want to get to a post-Taylor era, this is the way to do it.”

George Dewey, leader of the rebel delegation at off-and-on peace talks in nearby Ghana, said his movement had not yet received the proposal, a claim denied by the embassy. The United States oversaw founding of Liberia by freed American slaves in the 19th century, and remains a leading foreign influence here. Under mounting international pressure to intervene, US President George W Bush has ordered US ships to take up positions off Liberia to support a promised West African-led peace force. But he has stopped short of saying the Americans would participate directly in a peacekeeping mission, demanding that Mr Taylor step down first. Mr Taylor, who agreed to resign in a broken June 17 ceasefire, has reneged on the promise.

He has said he will accept an offer of asylum from Nigeria, but only after peacekeepers arrive.