With rebel forces advancing on the capital, Gen. Samuel K. Doe announced today that he would not seek re-election to the presidency next year. He also appealed to the United States and other nations to help end the five-month conflict here and supervise elections in 1991.
Six United States Navy ships carrying 2,300 marines were on the way here from the Mediterranean to prepare for the possible evacuation of American citizens. Western diplomats said the convoy is expected to reach the Liberian coast next Tuesday. General Doe told reporters at a news conference that the Sixth Fleet set sail "with the approval of the Government of Liberia."
General Doe said that while the 1991 elections would be open to the country's established political parties, they would not likely include the rebel leader, Charles Taylor, who he called a "wanted man in this country."
"Until the Government can give Charles Taylor clemency, I will not talk to him," General Doe said. For their part, guerrilla leaders reiterated today that they would not negotiate with General Doe, and that his decision not to seek reelection would not dissuade them from invading Monrovia, the capital. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation from Washington, Tom Woweiyu, a rebel spokesman, said, "The only offer that Doe can make now to us that will make any sense is to surrender himself to the Patriotic Front and to the people of Liberia to stand for prosecution."
Signs of anxiety, panic and growing chaos are evident throughout the city. Most neighborhoods had little or no water, and electrical outages were frequent. The streets were lined with crowds waiting in vain for transportation. The scarcity of transportation came about because members of the Mandingo tribe, who control much of the private taxi and bus service, have fled the capital. At grocery stores throughout the city, shoppers frantically tried to stock up. At one store, James Gaye, an electrician working in a hospital, said he was trying to buy enough frozen chicken and other items to last for at least a month. Like many others, he had opened his home to relatives who had fled from the fighting in the countryside. "I've got only one bed in my house," said Mr. Gaye, who is single, "and I've got 14 relatives now trying to sleep there." He asked, "How am I going to feed all these people?"
Nearby, Nancy Yekeson was searching through mostly empty shelves of canned foods. She, her husband and four children were packing up and driving to Sierra Leone, a neighbor nation, in hopes of avoiding the expected rebel onslaught. "If you can get out, God knows, you go," she said. Most worrisome, residents said, were reports of mutilated bodies found in densely populated residential areas. At least two bodies were found this morning, one of a girl who appeared to be about 12 years old.
Tensions have also been heightened by newspaper reports of Government soldiers harassing and killing civilians and looting stores. "Man Killed by New Recruit" and "31-Year-Old Man Stabbed by Soldier" read two headlines on the same page today in The Standard, a Monrovian newspaper. Despite the evident fear, some residents said they were beginning to doubt whether the threatened rebel invasion would ever come. It has been nearly three weeks since Mr. Taylor, the rebel leader, said a takeover of the city was imminent. But except for scattered reports from skirmishes near Roberts Field, Monrovia's international airport, the rebel presence has been slight. Reports of fighting near the airport, however, have prompted most airlines to cancel flights. "They've been saying they're coming, but I'm beginning to believe that's a lot of mouth-talk," said Abu Kromah, a Monrovian taxi driver. Yet, Mr. Kromah, like many Monrovians who have the means, was preparing to take his family out of the city.
The warfare started five months ago when about 150 guerrillas invaded a half-dozen hamlets in northeastern Liberia. The Liberian Government sent troops and provincial policemen to oust them. Since then, the rebels, their numbers increased several-fold, have pushed their army out of virtually all the northeastern quarter of the country. They have asserted that they control Buchanan, the port city about 88 miles by road from the capital, and that they are advancing on two fronts within 35 miles of Monrovia. The rebel force, which calls itself the National Patriotic Front, is drawn mainly from the Gio and Mono tribes of northeastern Liberia, who say they have been oppressed by members of General Doe's tribe, the Krahn.
General Doe seized power in a violent 1979 coup that ousted the privileged descendants of freed American slaves, who founded this nation. Today, a network of red-clay logging roads linking Monrovia with northwestern Liberia were clogged with overloaded vehicles fleeing the city. Because the rebel forces reportedly control the main arteries to the east and north, the western route is the only way out of the capital. Throughout Monrovia, talk centered on the United States Navy flotilla, which includes a destroyer, an amphibious assault ship, a tank landing ship and other support vessels carrying ammunition and combat supplies.
At the same time, many residents here said they were suspicious of the United States' decision to send the craft, and some wondered whether United States troops might try to prop up General Doe's Government. "Why do they need to send so many soldiers?" was a question heard often today.
The United States has extensive interests here, including a Voice of America radio transmitter and an Omega marine communications equipment station, which helps guide American vessels in the Atlantic Ocean - all of which are located fewer than 20 miles from the southern rebel front. United States Embassy officials here said that about 1,100 American citizens, including several hundred missionaries, remain in the country. About 4,000 expatriates fled last month.
Source: New York Times
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