June 30, 2003	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 29,1424

MONROVIA: Calls are growing for a multinational peacekeeping force to intervene in Liberia, which has seen hundreds die in intensified battles for the capital in the past month.

Britain, France, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Liberian President Charles Taylor, West African diplomats and hundreds of ordinary Liberians have all in recent days called for a peacekeeping force, and urged the US to take the lead.

However, US officials are making no commitments on the issue, and President George W. Bush has only said that Taylor to resign.

Monrovia was enjoying its second day of relative calm on Sunday, two days after the government and rebels trying to overthrow Taylor declared a ceasefire.

More than 600 people were killed and over 1,000 injured — many of them civilians — during two sets of intense battles for control of the capital in the past month.

The rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) pushed almost to the centre of Monrovia and took control of the port during the most recent battles. Shells rained down on commercial and residential neighbourhoods and tens of thousands were forced to flee their homes.

Now the talk in diplomatic circles is of sending a multinational intervention mission to try to keep the fragile ceasefire and create an atmosphere that could allow stalled talks on forming a transitional government to resume.

The Liberian conflict, which has crippled the country for much of the past 14 years, is seen as a regional powder keg, causing instability in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Guinea.

A UN Security Council mission touring West Africa was scheduled to meet Sunday with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to discuss the prospects of deploying such a force.

Annan said on Saturday the Security Council should approve an international force to stop Liberia’s path “towards total disintegration”.

The conflict threatens to cause a massive humanitarian catastrophe, Annan said in a letter to the council president.

Two of the council’s permanent members, France and Britain, have agreed with Annan.

Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, has said the US would be the “natural candidate” to lead an intervention in Liberia.—dpa