Liberia's Rebels Back Down from Cease-fire

AKOSOMBO, Ghana (Reuters) - Liberia's main rebel faction backed away from an earlier commitment to forge a truce and said on Saturday it would not sign a cease-fire until President Charles Taylor stepped down.

"These are our conditions. Mr Taylor must leave office before we sign any formal cease-fire agreement. I want to make that emphatically clear," rebel spokesman Kabineh Ja'neh said during a break in peace talks with regional mediators in Ghana.

"There will be no cease-fire agreement here at Akosombo with Mr Taylor still occupying the presidency," Ja'neh, who represents the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), told reporters.

Rebels and representatives from Taylor's government have been locked in peace talks in the Ghanaian lakeside resort of Akosombo for days and West African mediators had said they expected a formal cease-fire to be signed on Saturday.

A cease-fire would offer respite to hundreds of thousands of terrified people in Liberia's capital Monrovia, where rebels fought to within 3 miles of the center last week.

West African mediators also hope the cease-fire will mark the first step toward ending war in a nation founded as a haven of liberty for freed American slaves but now crippled by conflict and seen as a destabilising force in a volatile region.

Taylor's forces and rebels agreed a cessation of hostilities earlier this week to give the peace talks a chance.

Taylor, a former warlord who has been indicted by a U.N.-backed court for war crimes, has said he would step down at the end of his term in January 2004 if it would bring peace.

But he wants the indictment, which relates to his role in Sierra Leone's brutal civil war, lifted.

STAKES HIGH FOR MONROVIA

Rebels from LURD and a newer group known as Model now hold two-thirds of Liberia. Last week, LURD pushed inside Monrovia, sparking mass panic and triggering the evacuation of hundreds of foreigners.

The battle for Monrovia claimed the lives of at least 300, and possibly 400, civilians and fighters in a city already ravaged by a brutal civil war in the 1990s.

LURD fighters have since been pushed back outside the city limits but conditions remain desperate for the displaced, who lack food and water and risk disease.

Residents are still nervous and the Pentagon said on Friday that the United States had sent an amphibious assault ship with 3,000 Marines and sailors to the waters off Liberia for a possible evacuation of U.S. citizens.

Ja'neh said the rebels wanted the creation of an interim government and the deployment of a U.S.-led Western peacekeeping force. Talks with mediators were continuing Saturday.

Mediators say a cease-fire deal will pave the way for serious negotiations about the formation of a transitional government and the possible deployment of a peacekeeping force.

But the biggest question may be resolving the fate of Taylor. His aides insist he will not leave Liberia and West African officials admit they cannot see him serving time, but the Sierra Leone court is adamant he must be handed over.

LURD launched their rebellion in 2000, fighting to oust Taylor who was elected in 1997 after emerging victorious from a brutal seven-year civil war that claimed 200,000 lives.

Even if a cease-fire is signed, peace may not be assured. More than a dozen peace deals were signed and broken during the civil war, and many of the same faces are involved in the latest conflict.