A week later, the evidence is still here. Lying in two shallow ditches behind the village are 15 bodies, swollen and decaying in the sweltering heat of the West African sun. People who are fleeing from this small village and surrounding hamlets say they saw Government troops round up people in six villages and shoot many here before the soldiers ran away on May 9. But the villagers said the gruesome outburst here was hardly unusual. The fighting began last December, when guerrillas opposed to Liberia's leader, Gen. Samuel K. Doe, invaded the lushly forested hills here in the north. The Liberian Government then sent troops and provincial policemen to oust them. Since then, a war of small, quick and often brutal engagements has unfolded, attracting little international attention.
The rebels assertion that they control 75 percent of rural Liberia is clearly excessive. But they appear to be able to move freely in more than a third of the country, making what they call liberated zones a practical reality. No definitive accounting of civilian casualties has been compiled. But Western diplomats and missionaries and other travelers through the northeastern corner of Liberia, where the fighting has centered, as well as Liberians with friends and relatives in the area, put the figure of those killed at 700 civilians or more. The Government in Liberia has not sought to deny or play down such reports.
A three-day visit through northeastern Liberia, in the company of rebel guides, showed that the guerrilla force of at least a thousand people has turned hundreds of square miles of the country into a war zone of charred huts and crumbled and blocked bridges that give them control of key roads. The guerrillas seem well equipped and appear to be at least as disciplined as the Government forces. Although the rebels also assert that they have a clandestine presence in Monrovia and the port of Buchanan, Charles Taylor, the former minister who is leading the revolt, said the rebel strategy is to gain control of rural Liberia before trying to invade urban areas. He made his comments during an interview at his base, a former Baptist mission in Tapeta, about 130 miles east of Monrovia. In this area where the rebel forces are in control, the signs of warfare are everywhere - at roadblocks guarded by heavily armed men wearing tattered rags, in the machine-gun nests on hilltops, in the trucks loaded with rebels hurtling through the countryside.
Production in the country's vital mining and logging industries has virtually halted, and the sudden flight of tens of thousands of farmers from the agriculturally rich Nimba region has clouded the prospect for this year's vital rice harvest. Nearly 200,000 of the 270,000 people estimated to reside in Nimba County have fled their homes because of the fighting and have sought sanctuary in neighboring Guinea, the Ivory Coast or in and around the Liberian capital, Monrovia. Government administration in Nimba County has ceased to function and the turmoil here, many Liberians fear, will soon threaten the rest of the nation unless a settlement is reached soon. Nonetheless, ever since the rebellion began and as recently as last week, General Doe has repeatedly asserted in Monrovia that his troops are maintaining complete control of the country. The rebels, General Doe has said, are only an annoyance, a small band of lightly armed and poorly trained dissidents fighting in isolated mountainous areas.
Mr. Taylor asserted that the insurgency was gainining momentum as it headed toward the capital. "I can assure you that we are in striking distance of Monrovia," Mr. Taylor said in the interview. Mr. Taylor, 42 years old, a stocky man of medium height with a trim beard, is a former Cabinet minister who is remembered by many Liberians for fleeing the country in 1986 after being accused of embezzlement. The rebel leader told reporters today that the charges were false and that he had been framed by General Doe.
On Saturday, the rebels captured Yekepa, site of Liberia's biggest industrial complex, an iron-ore mine. Today, heavy fighting took place around Buchanan, which the rebels say they have surrounded. Residents near the airport at Robertsfield, about 25 miles east of Monrovia, reportedly have begun to flee as fighting draws near. As Western reporters were escorted by rebel troups through Nimba and Grand Bassa counties, villagers waved, chanted and danced to show their support. "Our leader Mr. Taylor! Our leader Mr. Taylor!" they shouted. 'Doe Has Been Bad' But when asked what they thought about the rebel leader, many of the villagers confessed that they knew virtually nothing about him. Indeed, what appears to have driven many to the rebel cause was not Mr. Taylor, but rather their hatred for General Doe.
In addition to the villagers, human-rights monitors, among them members of Amnesty International and Africa Watch, based in London and Washington respectively, said they had received reports that soldiers engaged in vicious and mostly arbitrary reprisals against people they believed were sympathetic to the rebel cause. Asked about reports that Liberian soldiers were abusing unarmed civilians, General Doe offered no apologies and insisted that Government troops only pursued rebels.
Last week, Monrovia was awash in rumors that the Government was seeking a negotiated settlement with the rebels. "Doe has begun to realize that things are not going his way, and if he doesn't act soon, the rebels are going to be camped on the lawn of the executive mansion," said an African diplomat from a neighboring country.
Mr. Taylor told reporters that he wanted to get rid of General Doe and install democracy. And while he has not ruled out negotiations, he said there would be no bargaining as long as General Doe is in office. "We want Doe gone," Mr. Taylor said. "Dead or alive."
Source: New York Times
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