West Africans call for troops in Liberia by Monday

MONROVIA - West African leaders approved a peacekeeping mission to Liberia on Thursday, calling for troops to enter the war-weary country by Monday, and clearing the way for President Charles Taylor to go into exile.

The news came as hundreds of Liberians in the capital Monrovia cheered the arrival of a handful of West African military experts sent to prepare for the deployment of thousands of peacekeepers in a hungry city, battered by two weeks of war.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it had agreed Taylor, a former warlord indicted for war crimes in Sierra Leone by a UN-backed court, would leave Liberia within three days of the arrival of the peacekeepers.

Around 1500 Nigerian soldiers are on standby to go to Monrovia. The size of the vanguard force was not immediately clear but ECOWAS plans eventually to have 3250 troops on the ground.

The ECOWAS statement did not say whether arch-survivor Taylor had accepted its timetable. Three West African foreign ministers are due in Monrovia on Friday to prepare for a handover of power.

"The Liberian government have always spoken of peace and President Taylor has said that he would step down and so he stands by what he said," Vaani Passawe, a spokesman for the Liberian president, said in Monrovia after the Ghana summit.

He did not elaborate but said Liberia was still negotiating with ECOWAS.

Taylor, under US pressure to leave, has accepted an asylum offer from Nigeria. He has pledged to leave when troops arrive and hand power to his vice president or the speaker of the House of Representatives. But he has been vague about timing.

Fighting appeared to have died down in Monrovia on Thursday after earlier exchanges of rocket and small arms fire.

Hundreds of Liberians, exhausted by nearly two weeks of inch-by-inch battles, lined the streets to cheer the arrival of the 10-person West African advance team, chanting "No more war, we want peace" and delighted to see even a few foreign soldiers.

The Nigerian commander of the peacekeeping force, who was in Monrovia with the advance team, said he was unaware of the date set by ECOWAS for the troop deployment.

"I'm hearing it for the first time," Brigadier-General Festus Okonkwo said as he toured the capital.

Rebels of LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy) attacked Monrovia nearly two weeks ago. Hundreds of civilians have been killed by stray bullets and mortar bombs.

Liberians have long begged for foreign intervention to end the fighting -- the latest chapter in 14 years of conflict.

"Then we'll be happy at least. We've been suffering for too long," said a Liberian called Roland after hearing the news from Ghana.

Others feel the United States has a duty to intervene in a country founded by freed American slaves more than 150 years ago. Three US warships are sailing to Liberia to provide support, but no decision has been made on deploying US troops.

On Thursday, the White House said it would support ECOWAS as it went into Liberia and reiterated that Taylor must go.

The deployment of troops has been held up by haggling over who would pay for what could be a long and costly operation in a country seen as the source of much regional instability.

ECOWAS said the United Nations would provide logistics support for deploying and maintaining the troops. A Nigerian military spokesman said the Accra accord indicated logistics issues had been resolved, but said a final date could be set only when senior officers returned from Ghana to Nigeria.

The United States has introduced a draft UN Security Council resolution to authorise a peacekeeping force, preparing for any future US and UN deployment in Liberia.

Liberia was devastated by a civil war in the 1990s during which around 200,000 people were killed. Regional peacekeepers sent in then failed to stop some of the worst bloodshed.

Taylor's troops are also fighting another smaller rebel group, known as Model, in the country's second biggest city.

ECOWAS also said on Thursday that none of Liberia's warring faction leaders could become president or vice president in a transitional government to be set up once Taylor leaves.

- REUTERS