Liberia chooses businessman to lead the way to peace

LIBERIA’S rebels and government yesterday chose a gentle-mannered businessman to lead a transition administration that aims to guide the country out of 14 years of civil war.

The announcement came at the close of 78 days of peace talks with international mediators.

In Monrovia, the UN envoy for Liberia said he would ask the Security Council for 15,000 troops to secure the peace what would be the UN's largest deployment in the world.

Envoy Jacques Klein also said he had asked that American forces remain to train a new Liberian army, saying: "We are hoping the US will take it on."

In Ghana's capital, the chief mediator announced the selection of businessman Gyude Bryant to oversee the two-year power-sharing accord for Liberia, and sent warring parties home with a mandate to support it.

"The first step of unifying the people starts from today," retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar of Nigeria declared. "Do not let your people down."

The selection of the transitional government follows the signing on Monday of a peace accord, made possible by warlord-president Charles Taylor's August 11 resignation and flight into exile in Nigeria as rebels laid siege to the capital.

The interim government is to take power from Taylor's designated successor, former vice-president Moses Blah, on October 14 and yield to an elected government in 2005.

As part of the peace accord, Liberia's rebels and government agreed not to vie for the interim government's top posts themselves.

Instead, combatants picked the interim leaders from a list of nominees submitted by political parties and civic groups in deliberations that ended only before dawn on Thursday.

Mr Bryant, a 54-year-old heavy equipment dealer, was seen as the most neutral among the three candidates for the chairmanship.

"I have lived there throughout all these problems, and I see myself as a healer," Mr Bryant, a large man noted for his gentle manner, said.

His priorities include demobilising fighters who grew up with AK-47s. "We have to disarm these young men and let them know the war is over."

Other priorities are restoring order and basic services, such as electricity, which was knocked out by fighting in 1992 and never repaired.