Liberian fighters enter Ivory Coast war
( 2003-02-21 08:05 ) (7 )

"The Liberians are coming!" Panic breaks in a western Ivory Coast town at the mere rumor of it. Townspeople bolt for home. Fierce rebel fighters dive for cover, AK-47s at the ready.

Renegades from across the border in lawless Liberia have entered Ivory Coast's 5-month-old civil war on both sides - but increasingly, are in it purely for themselves, and for the loot. "Mad Max Country," international aid groups call the far west, referring to the 1979 film about an apocalyptic future populated by roving gangs.

Freelance Liberian gunmen now roam Ivory Coast's cocoa- and coffee-rich west, preying on civilians, seizing homes and cars, and attacking towns at will, rebels and terrorized residents told The Associated Press on a rare visit to the largely cut-off region.

Entry of the dope-smoking, gun-toting marauders into the war heightens fears that one of West Africa's leading nations will go the way of one of its worst - Liberia, bloodied and ruined by more than a decade of conflict.

Liberia's 1989-96 civil war, followed by what is now four years of rebellion against warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor, have helped flood West Africa with small arms, and accustomed fighters to the idea of unarmed civilians as legitimate targets.

Liberian fighters are notorious for their terror campaigns - raping, torturing, killing, stealing and press-ganging labor.

Even if Ivory Coast somehow finds peace, many fear the Liberians - having been drawn into their far-more prosperous neighbor and seen the easy pickings here - will be loathe to leave.

"All they know is war," said one Ivory Coast rebel, who described Liberians fighting alongside Ivory Coast's insurgents when they took the city of Man in December.

Back-and-forth battles for Man, the west's leading city, left hundreds dead in the street.

With the battle over, Liberians now have retreated to their own camp outside of Man - and turned their sights from enemy combatants to the helpless population.

"They take drugs, they steal weapons and cars," said the 27-year-old rebel, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Even as he spoke, a surge of fear ran through the town at word that someone had seen the Liberians on the move.

Rebels took up positions at their heavily guarded headquarters. The few merchants who have opened shops and stalls in the war-wrecked town quickly shut them, and shopkeepers and customers scurried home.

Outside Man, the fighters have thrown up checkpoints on roads between the city and towns to the west. They stop cars and seize them, along with their occupants' cash and belongings, a woman from the border-region town of Danane said.

Trapped, families in Danane cower in their homes - except for those the Liberians have taken over, the woman said. She refused to give her name, as her family was still in the zone occupied by Liberians.

Rebels have seized the north and parts of the west since launching their uprising with a failed coup attempt against President Laurent Gbagbo. Rebels accuse Gbagbo of fanning ethnic hatred in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer.

The rebel-held north largely is described as calm, with no severe unrest or food shortages. Fighters there are largely Ivorians of the same ethnic group as the population, conscious of courting both local and international good will.

The west is a different story.

Man, tense as it is, is considered the last secure town before the true no-go zones farther west, toward the Liberian border.

"The security situation is so grave that that area is off the radar for us," said Michel Maitta, with the French-based Action Contre la Faim, or Action against Hunger. "So we can't say what the humanitarian situation is."

Clearly, though, it's grim.

Fighting has left market stalls smashed and burned vehicles littering the roads. Common graves hold some victims in a cemetery at the edge of Man. Charred, decayed bodies lie on the pathways leading to it.

In Man, security from the Liberians is assured only by the insurgents - young, trigger-happy, and prone to firing in the air at random.

"We want peace, we want peace," said Razak Lawini, a tailor producing traditional caftans of handspun cotton at his tiny shop in Man's market.

Lawini stayed in town throughout the fighting.

Now, Lawini said, "We don't know what's going to happen - if any of us are going to survive."