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NEWS STORY
Rory Carroll August 3, 2003 First the drugs, then the bullets and then the battle. Jungle Fire battalion knew the routine and lounged on the abandoned market stalls, waiting for the marijuana and crack cocaine to kick in. It was 4pm and they had to take the bridge before nightfall with an all-out assault to push back the rebels and reclaim the port area of Monrovia, Liberia's capital, for President Charles Taylor. Waterside district was once the city's trading hub but it was as dead as the decomposing body of the soldier on Merclin Street, the legs rotted, the chest a carcass, the arms missing and the skull gleaming white. The flies preferred the three civilians further up the street: young men with holes in the head sprawled beside little green boxes of Chinese tea. Executed for looting, said some members of Jungle Fire, felled by mortars, said others. It did not seem to matter. The battalion's eyes reddened and some began giggling. A 17-year-old calling himself War Black sprinted on the spot, euphoric. His friend, General Death, 31, issued orders to assemble but Richard Shakpeh, 28, was not ready. "I'm in charge. I'm deputy commanding general lance corporal of the..." he paused, thinking hard, "of the 51st platoon section." Liberia's civil war, one of the continent's most brutal, is to start ending today with the arrival of 300 Nigerian peacekeepers, the vanguard of a 5,000-strong west African force authorised last week by the UN security council. Mr Taylor, pressured by Washington and regional leaders as well as the two rebel groups who control most of the country, has agreed to resign on August 11. Weeks of shelling and gunfire have reduced districts to charred rubble and killed hun dreds but Monrovia hopes that deliverance is at hand. "Minutes away from showtime, that's where we're at," grinned George Quaye, a taxi-driver. But Liberia's history may repeat itself, with peacekeepers sucked into a conflict which started in 1989 when the then warlord Charles Taylor started a bush rebellion which flared again after he was elected president in 1997. He has accepted an offer of asylum from Nigeria which should protect him from a war crimes indictment in Sierra Leone, but the orders given to Jungle Fire suggested he could be planning to stay and fight. For weeks, Old Bridge was the frontline between the rebel-held port and Taylor-held city centre. On Saturday evening, the president decided to end the stalemate in a grab for strategic territory before peacekeepers arrived. "Yes indeed, the time has come," whooped General Death, herding comrades up Merclin Street. Rice was doled into grimy hands but the hunger was for the contents of the little white cardboard boxes which a commander, standing on a wooden crate, opened and threw into the air. In puddles and in rubbish, his fighters scrabbled for bullets. "Ammo straight from the executive mansion, lots of it," smiled a fighter. Watching scornfully from the back of a pick-up was a boy, no more than seven, whose AK-47 clip was already full. Disappearing inside a motorcycle helmet, he banged the cabin roof and sped away. According to Clausewitz's Principles of War you could describe the battle in terms of forward rushes, supporting fire and tactical retreats but the macabre spectacle was closer to the principles of Barnum's circus. Seven youths broke cover and emptied their assault rifles in the direction of the other side, a collection of shacks hundreds of metres away. The seven dashed back behind a wall, panting. It was the turn of David Kollie, 12, nicknamed Deputy, to lead the next wave. He wore a red headband, a yellow T-shirt which said "AK Baby, Man Moving, Man Dropping" and a serene expression. "I eat the leaf," he said, "but I cannot disclose its nature because that is a military secret." Then he was on the bridge, firing away and joined by older boys, some with women's wigs and toenails painted blue. On Merclin Street a teenager with a bayonet jigged to the rhythm. It started to drizzle and some stripped off their T-shirts. Return fire pinged overhead and on the ground, ricocheting and chipping masonry but of little concern to Benjamin Mulbeh, strolling for cover to the beat from his ghetto blaster. Phase two of the attack was led by five young men with bandoliers and a very loud Chinese-made machine gun. A man with a T-shirt emblazoned SSS, a special unit, roared at the others to follow and threatened executions. In another part of the city another suspected SSS man carried out the threat but at Old Bridge there was no need: Jungle Fire emptied their guns towards the unseen enemy. A youth accidentally discharged his AK-47 and a comrade hopped back, his shin bloodied. Then, another casualty: a 15-year-old pulled his trousers down to his ankles to inspect a grazed thigh. He seemed a child about to cry but the moment passed. Phase three was a Toyota Land Cruiser mounted with a machine gun and seven men, greeted as rock stars. Without warning they fired, deafening and scattering the admiring throng, then raced across the bridge. They stopped about 20 metres from the other side and blazed at the enemy before reversing at top speed to offload a fighter hit in the belly. For the next assault the SSS man found a more effective stick to prod Jungle Fire into action and about a dozen fight ers supported the Land Cruiser. One boy, emotional from drugs or trauma, offered to lend a clump of white hair on a necklace, his juju charm. "This'll bullet-proof you, man," he said. The rain was hard now and the rebels were replying with mortars but they landed far away, among the city's 1.3 million civilians. The number of dead was not known but the morgue at JFK hospital was full. Staff treated more than 80 people, including a commander with a shattered leg whose men threatened to shoot any surgeon who amputated. As dusk fell it was clear the bridge would not be taken and the sodden attackers retreated down the cartridge-strewn street. The attack resumed last night but few expected a breakthrough from Mr Taylor's lost souls. Their childhoods plundered, all they could offer was sound and fury. Save the Children UK said it was flying 30 tonnes of medical supplies, food and clothing for the people of Monrovia. A chartered DC-8 took off from Manston airport, Kent, last night, with the £90,000 relief package, the charity said. story url
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