Machine guns. Rocket launchers. Mortars by the crate. An hour’s drive from the country’s newly peaceful capital, Liberia’s rebels remain locked, loaded and battle-ready at their headquarters in the bush. In an early, and crucial, challenge to United Nations-sponsored disarmament here, insurgents have tacked a few more demands – more power, more money – onto their August 18 peace deal. And they insist they’ll keep their bargaining chips, their weapons, until the new conditions are met. “Jungle mortar – yeahh,” crooned one young rebel, fishing a round out of the back of a pickup truck painted with skull-and-crossbones as a friend rolled a cigar-size joint of marijuana. With a UN convoy rolling through town a few kilometres away, rebels at their base in north-west Liberia showed off their arsenal. To give it up, rebel leader Sekou Conneh now says, he wants a bigger share of power in Liberia’s new transitional government than agreed to so far. Full Story
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