UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, May 6, 1996
7A
Thousands of Liberian refugees flee to Ghana
Clashes persist, hundreds dead in capital city
The Associated Press
MONROVIA, Liberia — Clouds of dark smoke billowed over the city yesterday as 2,500 Liberian refugees stood on the deck of a freighter, sadly singing a patriotic hymn and waving farewell as the ship inched away from the burning capital.
They were the lucky ones.
Back on the streets, Monrovia was consumed by violence. Young fighters set dozens of homes and buildings on fire yesterday. Rocket-propelled grenades slammed into Monrovia's besieged military bar
racks, the flash point of a month of bloodshed that has ruined the city and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of residents.
At the port, hundreds of Liberians desperately tried to climb up the sides of the Nigerian freighter Bulk Challenge as it chugged out to sea. Fighting erupted among those who had paid $75 for the five-day trip to Ghana but were left behind even after their luggage was packed on the ship.
"It was unbelievable — an exodus. It was pathetic," said Peter Sebok, the Dutch owner of West Coast Fisheries, whose offices are at the port.
The Liberians who made it aboard sailed away singing Lone Star Forever, a national hymn of Africa's first independent republic, founded by freed American slaves in 1847.
Not far from the port, the two
main bridges into the city that run parallel across the Mesurado River were being held by rival enemy camps, making it difficult for anyone to move in or out of downtown.
Rebel leader Charles Taylor had vowed that the battle for the Barclay military barracks held by his enemies would be won by the weekend. But Ulimo-J supporters of his archival Roosevelt Johnson fought fiercely as Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia resumed shelling the barracks.
The clashes shattered hopes that Johnson's evacuation from the country Friday — carried out by American troops — would spur moves toward ending the violence.
Instead, the fighting became even more brutal.
Hundreds of the 10,000 Liberians who have sought shelter at the U.S. Embassy residential compound
stood watching in horror yesterday as five of Taylor's fighters were executed down the hill below.
The five fighters had their throats slit, one had his ears chopped off. Later, a boy who appeared to be about 12 years old danced nude around the bodies, waving an assault riffe above his head in a victory cheer.
"Oh, it's Butt Naked, it's Butt Naked," the civilians murmured, referring to a gang of Ulimo-J fighters who gave themselves that nickname because they fight in the nude.
African peacekeeping troops, who had retreated up the street, entered the fighting yesterday, shooting and killing two of Taylor's militiamen who tried to prevent them from crossing a bridge.
Tens of thousands of Liberians fled the city during the weekend,
heading for rural areas already plagued by disease and serious shortages of food and medicine.
Taylor, a member of the ruling, six-man Council of State, has refused to join Johnson in Accra, Ghana, for talks scheduled to begin Wednesday on ending Liberia's six-year civil war.
Taylor recently aligned his forces with warlord Alhaji Kromah, once a bitter rival. Both men sit on Liberia's governing council, which was seated Sept. 1 after international mediators brokened the country's 13th peace accord in six years.
The council was designed to prepare Liberia for elections by August. Taylor said the council's civilian chairman, Wilton Sankawulo, would represent Liberia at the peace talks.
Johnson, who had been barricaded in the military barracks since
April 6, was hustled out in an armored convoy to the U.S. Embassy on Friday. American helicopters then flew him to neighboring Sierra Leone and on to Accra later that night.
Johnson, a former Cabinet minister, was fired by the government and charged with murder in connection with clashes in March that violated an August 1995 peace accord.
His refusal to surrender sparked fighting that quickly spread into a city-wide spree of looting, shelling and gunfire.
The U. S. military began evacuating foreigners April 10, and by Saturday about 2,135 people had been flown to neighboring countries.
The six-year war has already claimed the lives of more than 150,000 Liberians and forced half of the country's 2.8 million people to flee their homes.
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