Nigerian peacekeepers in Liberia, will the killing stop?

ROBERTSFIELD AIRPORT, Liberia, Aug 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - West African peacekeepers arrived outside the beleaguered Liberian capital Monrovia  Monday, August 4, raising hopes for an end to the war-ravaged country's latest bout of bloodletting.

Nigerian infantrymen swarmed out of UN transport helicopters at Robertsfield Airport, 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside Monrovia, and took up defensive positions around the tarmac.

"We're very optimistic about the mission," a Nigerian officer who identified himself as Captain Jibril told reporters as 20 men - the first of a contingent of 675 slated to arrive Monday - secured the area around the lead chopper, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Nigerians, who have been detached from a United Nations peacekeeping mission in neighboring Sierra Leone, are the vanguard of ECOMIL, the acronym for the Liberia peacekeeping mission of the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

"You are the star of this big operation, and I am sure you will be successful," UN envoy Alan Doss told the troops as they left the Sierra Leone capital Freetown.

The force is eventually expected to count between 3,000 and 5,000 men, under the command of Nigerian General Festus Okonkwo.

As the helicopter flew over Monrovia, the fighting stopped and people looked up and cheered, according to the BBC correspondent in the Liberian capital.

In Freetown, the Nigerian troops were in high spirits as they waited to board the four helicopters, clapping and singing.

General Daniel Opande, commander of the UN peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, told the troops as they left Freetown that they would be working to restore normal life in Monrovia after weeks of violence.

"You have been assigned a difficult task to bring Liberia back to normalcy. We shall be watching what you are doing, and I am sure you will succeed," he said.

The Nigerians are expected to receive a rapturous welcome by a population that has suffered more than a decade of civil conflict topped off since June 5 by attacks on the capital itself.

Both the government of President Charles Taylor - who has vowed to step down on August 11 - and the rebel movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) have promised to work with the peacekeepers.

At a news conference in Rome, LURD rebel leader Sekou Damate Conneh said his forces will leave Monrovia as soon as the peace force is in place.

Both sides have, however, breached previous ceasefire agreements, and after a weekend in which Taylor launched a failed but bloody bid to recapture Monrovia's seaport, few observers expect an easy transition to peace.

Despite the doubts, news that the ECOWAS mission was going ahead inspired a mood of anxious optimism in a city gripped by hunger and threatened with disease.

The mission has been set up by ECOWAS but has some international financial backing and has been authorized by the United Nations.

On Saturday, Taylor - a former warlord who fought his own way to power in a bloody civil war - agreed to step down.

Nigeria, west Africa's economic and military giant, offered Taylor asylum if he agreed to resign as leader of a nation that has suffered more than a decade of war and turned into a breeding ground for regional instability.

LURD rose in rebellion against Taylor almost five years ago.

Along with a splinter rebel faction, they now control around four-fifths of the country, an impoverished land of 111,400 square kilometers (43,000 square miles) of bush, swamp and tropical forest on Africa's Atlantic shore.

The rebels have proved unable or unwilling to capture the capital Monrovia, a port city lying on a string of islands and peninsulas, now teeming with around 200,000 refugees, desperate for food and clean water.

On Sunday, the UN World Food Program announced that it had managed to fly in half a ton of nutritional biscuits and planned to bring more. But most planners believe a larger humanitarian mission will require a security force.

Vrola Chea, a 24-year-old refugee hiding out in the filthy concrete shell of a ruined hotel overlooking bridges that have been on the front line of the battle for Monrovia, suffered eye injuries when a shell exploded over her head. She feels ECOWAS is her last hope.

"We are suffering. We have no food. We are dying," she told AFP. "Nigerian troops should come soon. They should save us."

U.S. Troops

On the other hand, many Liberians want the United States to send troops as well, according to the BBC.

Washington has pledged $10m to fund the start of the peacekeeping operation and U.S. warships are thought to be anchored off the coast out of view, ready to sail nearer to land when the West Africans arrive.

However, a United Nations resolution authorizing the deployment of a West African force makes no mention of any participation by U.S. troops.