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Haves and Have-Nots Live on Both Sides of Monrovia
August 6, 2003
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
MONROVIA, Liberia, Aug. 5 - Rebel-held Monrovia's only
hospital is inside a brewery. Its operating table is a long
wooden desk. The surgeon, who cleans shrapnel wounds,
extracts bullets and ties up intestines punctured by
gunshots, is a nurse who used to work at a maternity
clinic. This afternoon, a patient with a fist-sized wound
in his arm was howling in pain. The hospital is almost out
of painkillers, as well as medications for its 50 cholera
patients.
Divided by a series of bridges, the rebel- and
government-held halves of this capital compose a bleak
landscape of haves and have-nots.
One side, controlled by the besieged Liberian president,
Charles G. Taylor, has little food or fuel, but a
sufficient supply of drugs and doctors, thanks to
international aid agencies. The other side, held by the
rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy,
has no drugs or doctors but plenty of food and fuel, with
the Free Port of Monrovia under rebel control. (Journalists
got a glimpse of the rebel half today by walking across a
bridge, waving a white T-shirt.)
This afternoon, the commander of what is to be a
3,250-member West African "interposition force" sent here
to stop the violence on both sides, crossed over to visit
the rebel zone. The commander, Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo,
said nothing about how quickly his forces would take
control of the Free Port. The rebels invited aid agencies
to remove their shipments from the port, but said they
would not leave it until Mr. Taylor not only relinquishes
power, but leaves the country.
"Resign and leave Liberia. Then we'll release the port,"
said the rebel chief of staff, Maj. Gen. A. Seyeh Sheriff,
after meeting with the commander of the peacekeeping force.
Much of the rebel zone was a wasteland today. Grenades and
bullets had punched holes in the buildings. Roofs were
gone. A dry goods warehouse was still smoldering from a
recent rocket attack. A bloated body lay in a puddle on the
main road. The wind blew the stench of death.
And yet, at a roadside market in the rebel zone on this
day, chicken and beef were for sale, luxuries not seen on
the other side. Two cups of rice could be had for 15
Liberian dollars, or 30 American cents. On the other side,
even when rice can be found, it costs 10 times as much.
Spaghetti, canned meat, toothpaste and sodas - all shipped
in to the port - were abundant at the market. On the
government side, there is little more than potato greens,
cornmeal and hot peppers.
Earlier in the day, as foreign journalists toured the area,
people poured out into the streets, shouting and clapping.
"We want peace, no more war," they chanted, just as their
counterparts on the other side have been chanting.
At the sight of visitors, the rebel fighters could not stop
firing their guns in the air.
"They are rejoicing," one of their commanders, Brig. Gen.
Sekou Kamara, otherwise known as Dragon Master, said, in an
effort to offer solace. He wore a United States Army
uniform, with a name tag that read "Hage."
This afternoon, soldiers who had been tossing grenades and
spraying each other with machine-gun fire for the last 16
days, met in the middle of the bullet-strewn Old Bridge.
They shook hands. They chatted. The rebel boys returned to
their side, Kalashnikov rifles dangling from their
shoulders, smiles from their lips.
From rebel headquarters, meanwhile, came threatening words
from General Sheriff, the rebel chief of staff, a man
missing a couple of teeth and wearing a red beret and
gold-rimmed glasses. He said he would storm the Executive
Mansion if Mr. Taylor, the rebels' sworn enemy, did not
leave the country.
"I will move on him," General Sheriff told reporters. "I
will attack him militarily."
Bluster aside, his words pointed up the fragility of the
so-called cease-fire.
From the rebel point of view, peace depends on what the
Liberian president decides to do. Mr. Taylor, who waged a
seven-year rebel insurgency before becoming president in
1997, has vowed to step down Monday at midday, but said
nothing about when he will leave Liberia.
His aides have suggested recently that he would not leave,
unless a war crimes indictment against him was dropped; an
independent United Nations-backed tribunal has charged him
with crimes against humanity in connection with the war in
neighboring Sierra Leone.
Mr. Taylor has already accepted an offer of asylum in
Nigeria. The Bush administration, which has allocated $10
million for peacekeeping in Liberia but stopped short of
promising troops, has made his exile a condition for any
direct military involvement in Liberia. The Pentagon has
sent three ships to the coast of Liberia, but many
Liberians, on both the government and rebel sides, have all
but given up on American assistance anyway.
Rebel commanders today shepherded visiting journalists
through their territory, eager to show off their
magnanimity. They brought out refreshments by the caseload
and crowded into a small office in their headquarters to
present their top officers, among them an assistant chief
of staff for planning, a logistics chief and someone in
charge of records.
They showed reporters territory that their enemies had
claimed to control earlier this week. They tooted their
horns as they drove the journalists through busy
neighborhoods, and people lined up along the streets to
cheer.
"Are we harassing these people?" A. Sekou Fofana, the
rebels' deputy secretary general for civilian
administration, mused.
Asked about his group's political ideology, Mr. Fofana said
simply, "Our intention is to clear the land, remove
Taylor."
The rebel commanders said that they had no idea what was in
the port and that their job was only to secure it.
Curiously, goods normally stored at the port were visible
all over the streets, including pickup trucks with United
Nations logos, with standard relief blankets piled in the
back.
The commanders made a show of disciplining their rowdy rank
and file, at one point beating a soldier with the butt of a
rifle for firing in the air, at another, trying to punish
looters who were carting away cases of food from a
shuttered store.
"No monkey," they yelled, issuing orders to behave. (They
also politely requested that photographers refrain from
taking pictures of child soldiers.)
Tempers ran high. All transgressors, including those
blocking traffic or driving too slowly, had guns pointed in
their faces.
Food was in abundance and at bargain-basement prices.
Virtually nonexistent were medicines and medical staff
members to care for the wounded and ill.
Patients lay on relief blankets on the floor of the
makeshift hospital at the Monrovia Brewery. Since the July
19 attack by rebels, the nurses running the hospital said,
they had treated 189 soldiers and 950 civilians.
Fifty-seven civilians and 7 soldiers had been dead on
arrival, a stark snapshot of who pays the price of this
power struggle.
A new volunteer organization had emerged, buoyed by the
idea of swapping food from the rebel side for medicine from
the other side. Most had family on the other side, and had
only heard the worst about how people were faring there.
"People are dying of hunger, bombs and bullets," said
C-Musa Sheriff, a church administrator in the rebel zone.
"We can't control the bombs and bullets, but we can do
something about the hunger. We can't be complacent."
At times today it was difficult to distinguish the fighters
on this side of the bridge from those on the other side.
They wore the same clothes, the same wigs. They carried the
same weapons. (Fighters on this side have a penchant for
spray-painting their guns.) Neither side seemed to have any
purpose beyond defeating the enemy. Both sides said they
were tired of fighting.
One soldier, Emmanuel Weah, wearing dirty overalls and worn
soccer cleats, described how he came to this side of the
bridge. Last February, he was captured by government forces
and sent to fight. Then he was captured by rebels and sent
to a training camp for three weeks and then sent to fight.
He said he found his former commander and had him executed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/international/africa/06LIBE.html?ex=1061283598&ei=1&en=6f5d4aea939ac97d
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