In Liberia: old script, new end?

It's August in Monrovia. Rebels are advancing on the capital city from the north, demanding that Liberia's leader step down. Fierce fighting in the capital has killed hundreds, and trapped thousands in their homes. Under pressure to intervene, a US president sends troops to the West African coast. But it's the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that sends in peacekeepers first.

That was 1990.

Liberians must be forgiven if they sense a déjà vu quality to their impending rescue this week - and if they feel a certain wariness. Several hundred Nigerian soldiers are expected to land Monday, the first contingent of an expected 1,500-strong "vanguard force." Three US ships with 2,200 marines were expected offshore Sunday. And President Charles Taylor has pledged to step down by Aug. 11. But most Liberians still remember the last time around: The US troops never arrived and it took seven years to restore a semblance of order.

One important factor has changed, however. Liberians say that this intervention has a better chance, because all the warring parties have agreed to support the peacekeepers.

For a few hours Friday morning, Monrovia was quiet while a 10-man advance team from ECOWAS toured the city in preparation for the Nigerian peacekeepers. The challenge for ECOWAS and the international community will be to ensure that this time, Liberians will not have to wait seven long years for peace.

"There's a different feeling today," says the Rev. Weh Weah Bitieh, standing outside George Patten United Methodist Church, after more than a week of flying bullets and crashing mortar shells. A woman stirs a pot of gruel. Two men shovel garbage, and a half dozen children chase each other over fallen trees and rubble. A moment of relative normalcy for the 600 refugees. "The arrival of the ECOWAS observer team has given people hope and courage."

On Saturday, after a meeting with ECOWAS leaders, an embattled Charles Taylor pledged to leave power. But he failed to set a date for his departure from the country, which the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) have set as a requirement for peace.

The events that followed the deployment of ECOWAS peacekeepers in late August 1990, however, are fresh in everyone's minds as the Nigerians prepare to land Monday. Because although most Liberians say their arrival helped stabilize the situation, it took seven years before conditions were calm enough for an election to be held.

In the meantime, Liberia's leader, Samuel Doe, met a grisly death at rebel hands, and ECOWAS troops were sucked into the conflict and became combatants. Several cease-fires and transitional governments failed, while armed groups multiplied.

No one here, least of all the West Africans who left Liberia only five years ago, wants such events to be repeated.

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