[Episcopal News Service]
The World Council of Churches' (WCC) general secretary Dr. Konrad Raiser, in a letter to United Nations' secretary-general Kofi Annan, expressed serious concern over an escalation of fighting in Liberia between government forces and a rebel group, and urged support for peacekeeping forces in the region.
'Given the gravity of this near-anarchy situation that has developed, it is difficult to foresee a cease-fire holding out without the backing of a credible peace keeping force,' said Raiser.
The WCC's call was backed up by one from the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) in Nairobi which called for the African Union and the UN to provide both peace-keeping and peace-enforcement forces. 'Experience has shown that without them an armistice agreement will not hold,' said the AACC in a statement.
Hopes of success in talks aimed at ending years of warfare in Liberia were dashed after Liberian President Charles Taylor said they would fail unless a UN court dropped war crimes charges against him, and at the same time rebels declared they would not negotiate with a 'criminal.'
In his letter, Raiser noted that fighting between the government forces and the rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURP), had added to the sufferings of the people of Liberia. Thousands of people, including people already displaced from neighboring countries, had once again been uprooted and were on the move in search of security.
'The WCC therefore calls on the United Nations to support the peace initiative of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) and ICGL (the International Contact Group for Liberia) and encourage the parties to the conflict to agree on the presence of peace keepers to prevent the situation from deteriorating into yet another major human tragedy,' said Raiser.
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