Liberian
church leaders advocates of peace
Geneva, July 7, 2003
Liberian Church leaders report that President Charles Taylor
has told them that he is prepared to "step down any day,
anytime", depending on the deployment of a peace keeping
force.
A Liberian-based partner of the global alliance, Action by
Churches Together (ACT) International, Concerned Christian Community
(CCC) writes that the church leaders met with President Taylor
for three hours on Friday (July 4), after he had requested that
the Church in Liberia help 'save the country from further destruction".
The head of CCC, Reverend Kortu Brown says that President Taylor,
however, held firm that if he left before peace keepers arrived
in the embattled country, chaos would ensue as "he didn't
know what his fighting men would do".
Meanwhile, a delegation comprising the Inter-Religious Council
of Liberia, the Liberian Bar Association, and the Mano River
Woman Network for Peace took part in the peace talks in Accra,
Ghana. As a special envoy of the All Africa Conference of Churches
(AACC), which is a member of ACT International, and the Fellowship
of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa (FECCIWA),
members of the delegation represented the churches at the peace
talks. A visit to Ivory Coast, Guinea and Sierra Leone, followed
in an effort to lobby Liberia's neighbors for their continued
commitment and support of the peace talks, as well as support
for the deployment of an international force.
The recent fighting in the capital of Liberia, Monrovia and
surrounding areas has severely hampered humanitarian assistance
to the tens of thousands of people who fled to the city to escape
the bloodshed. ACT members have responded with humanitarian
relief flights to Monrovia.
ACT members on the ground -- ACT-Liberia Forum -- have made
an assessment of immediate needs and requested support from
the ACT alliance through the Rapid Response Fund. USD 50,000
will be sent by the ACT Coordinating Office to provide food,
clothes and medicines for one month to 4,000 displaced families
in 15 church compounds in the city.
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