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Uneasy calm in Monrovia
11/12/2003 16:42 - (SA)
Monrovia - The Liberian capital Monrovia was on Thursday under an uneasy calm after at least 12 people were killed in three days of rioting by former government soldiers to protest a UN campaign to disarm them.
Liberian police have arrested five people in connection with the shooting death of a civilian, shot eight times at point blank range when she refused to hand over her car, local media reported.
A second civilian was reportedly killed by a stray bullet, as thousands of rounds of automatic weapons fire strafed the Atlantic coastal capital since Sunday, when the UN Mission in Liberia (Unmil) began the $50m disarmament campaign.
There were no arrests made in the deaths of 10 former fighters, who eyewitnesses said were killed in gun battles with a battalion of UN peacekeepers from the west African state of Benin patrolling the eastern Monrovia district of Red Light.
The UN Mission in Liberia (Unmil) has denied that peacekeepers were involved in the gun battles.
But if the UN involvement in the shooting incidents is confirmed, the unrest would mark the first clashes between Liberia's warring factions and international troops who have been on the ground since former president Charles Taylor fled into exile in August, paving the way for peace.
The international force has been under a UN mandate since October, when Monrovia was declared a weapons-free city.
A curfew imposed on Tuesday night by Liberian interim chairman Gyude Bryant remained in effect, and new security barricades, staffed by Unmil peacekeepers were put up all over the Atlantic coastal capital.
Soldiers in Taylor's former army were protesting the poor incentives being offered by Unmil to lay down their arms after 14 years of war that killed more than 200 000 and made refugees of one in five Liberians.
A new incentive program offering fighters $75 immediately upon handing over their weapons found few takers in the battle-scarred capital on Thursday.
An additional $225 in two increments would follow, along with psychological counselling, food rations, and schooling or vocational training.
Just eight young fighters, who were likely forced into taking up weapons even before they reached adolescence, were waiting for an Unmil vehicle to pick them up and transport them 25km east of the capital to the Schieffelin military barracks to disarm.
When the peacekeepers arrived they ordered the boys, all aged around 17, to dismantle their weapons and hand over their ammunition before they would be allowed to climb aboard, a reporter said.
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