Liberian leader leaves talks without deal

MONROVIA - Liberia's new leader flew home empty-handed from peace talks with rebel factions in Ghana on Saturday as West African peacekeepers beefed up a force to help end nearly 14 years of war.

With most rebels out of Monrovia since the deployment of Nigerian troops backed by US Marines, a trickle of relief aid helped assuage hunger for hundreds of thousands of people trying to rebuild their lives.

Mediators had hoped to sign a deal on Saturday to set up an interim government that would take over from President Moses Blah, pariah leader Charles Taylor's former deputy, in October and then run the broken country for two years until elections could be held.

Sources close to the talks said the sticking point was rebel demands for top jobs. They insist on having them if they are to persuade their forces to disarm the fighters who helped drive Taylor into exile.

Blah left the talks in Accra without comment, though mediators and delegates from all the factions said negotiations would continue without him to try to reach a deal soon.

"There is an urgency that is engulfing all of us," Foreign Minister Lewis Brown told Reuters.

Fighting, even since Taylor's departure, has kindled the fears of many Liberians that if there is no deal, there will be a return to tribal faction fighting like the war that ripped apart Liberia in the 1990s and left 200,000 dead.

Some 2000 people, most of them civilians, perished in Monrovia's last round of bloodshed.

Although all the rebels of the main Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) faction were meant to be out of Monrovia by now and well beyond the outskirts, dozens still hang back.

Around 20 fighters stood smoking and chatting at Iron Gate checkpoint on the outskirts. Some wore t-shirts inscribed: Liberia needs peace not pieces and LURD liberators.

"We can't leave the place in a vacuum," said General "Press the Button", his eyes red under the brim of a baseball cap.

The rebels complained that they could not pull back to the river marking the new demarcation line until West African troops are in place to take over from them.

A plane brought 110 troops from Nigeria on Saturday to build up a force that is now about 900 strong and which many suspect is still far short of the number needed to ensure security. A UN envoy has said Monrovia alone could require 5,000.

"We are taking them to town immediately," Nigerian force commander, Brigadier-General Festus Okonkwo told Reuters as the latest contingent flew in on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of people started returning to their homes from the camps and corners where they had found shelter as best they could from bullets and mortar fire.

The vital port is now in the hands of the peacekeepers and two aid ships docked on Friday, helping supplement the stores of rice, beans and cornmeal that people looted in the chaos of the rebel pullout.

- REUTERS