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Fierce clash as Liberia

warlord's home under siege

MONROVIA: Fierce clashes rocked a suburb of Liberia's capital Monrovia on Saturday after armed police laid siege to the home of deposed faction leader Roosevelt Johnson and his supporters fought back, witnesses said.

Members of the police Rapid Response Unit surrounded the house on the orders of the transitional ruling council of state, which has accused Johnson of murder following a clash with militia rivals near his home.

The fighting, during which the two sides used machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, shattered the calm of the residential suburb of Sinkor and triggered an exodus of civilians.

Hundreds of people, mostly women with bundles on their head and children, headed for the safety of the city centre, two miles (three km) away.

Witnesses reported firing from before dawn. They said that West African peacekeepers had brought up tanks and had sealed off roads leading to the area but had not intervened.

"The police are trying to move into Johnson's house and his supporters are trying to resist," one witness said.

Civilians had already fled the immediate area around the house, leaving it in the hands of Johnson supporters.

The council of state suspended Johnson, minister for rural development, from the government after commanders in his ULIMO-J militia deposed him as leader in February. The council sacked him last month after the clash near his home and ordered that he stand trial for murder.

Johnson, a former teacher and government official, has said he will not hand himself in to face charges unless his security is guaranteed by the ECOMOG peacekeepers and he is assured fair treatment. Mediation efforts have failed.

He says that the police are biased and infiltrated by supporters of Charles Taylor, one of the ruling council's six members and the man who launched Liberia's civil war in December 1989.

The war has killed over 150,000 people, driven almost half the pre-war population of 2.5 million from their homes and shattered the economy based on iron ore and rubber.

Liberia's squabbling faction leaders agreed a peace deal last year envisaging a ceasefire, disarmament and elections by August 1996.

The ruling council was set up under the agreement but the ceasefire has been repeatedly breached by skirmishing militiamen and the peace timetable has stalled with disarmament failing to get off the ground.

U.N. secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned on Thursday that continued delay could lead to the peace process unravelling and create a humanitarian disaster.-Reuter