Liberians give thanks for peace, pray it holds

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Monrovians enjoying a rare respite from violence in Liberia sang their thanks Sunday for deliverance by West African and U.S. troops and prayed for the peace to last.

But even as rebels negotiating with the government in Accra, Ghana, made a key concession, scattered attacks on civilians were reported on the outskirts of the capital, again forcing people to flee.

Rebel leaders and Liberia's government signed a pledge to let aid workers deploy freely throughout the starving and war-ruined country.

Jacques Klein, the U.N. special representative for Liberia, called the aid accord a "first test for the commitment of the combatants to lay down their arms and help the peace process."

Liberia's main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, dropped then their demand for a top post in an interim power-sharing government.

Mediators had threatened to suspend talks at midnight Saturday for a month unless rebels dropped that demand. With rebels giving way, negotiators said an agreement on the power-sharing accord could be signed as soon as Monday.

"We are doing this to show our commitment to the early resolution of the Liberian crisis," said George Dweh, a leader of the rebel delegation, in the Ghana capital of Accra. "We want to prove to the entire world that this whole thing is not about LURD wanting power."

West African nations, the United States and United Nations are trying to keep up the momentum toward peace in Liberia, following President Charles Taylor's Aug. 11 resignation and flight into exile.

But rebels have lingered in the capital and civilians on the outskirts of Monrovia said Sunday that government militias had driven them from their homes on Monrovia's edges, firing into the air. Rebels were blocking the residents' return, calling it unsafe.

"Both government militia and LURD militias are there," said one refugee, J. Ebenezer Richardson, living off what he could find in the forests. "We're suffering and we want to go home."

Taylor, a Libyan-trained guerrilla fighter blamed in 14 years of conflict in Liberia, yielded the presidency to his vice president, Moses Blah. West African leaders say Blah will hand over power in October to the power-sharing government, meant to see Liberia through elections.

Rebels responded Thursday to Taylor's departure by lifting a 10-week siege of the capital that saw hundreds of civilians killed by mortar barrages and bullets, and hundreds of thousands more starve.

Sunday was the first day of calm for worship in deeply religious Liberia, after weeks when congregations sang hymns against the backdrop of AK-47 and mortar fire, or lay on the floor of churches to escape bullets.

Jubilant survivors danced at their pews and in the aisles of Monrovia's Sacred Heart Cathedral to the backbeat of drums.

Choir boys snapped their fingers and sang a hymn that had been repeated often during the siege -- "I will dance, I will dance to praise the Lord."

"We've gone through hell. How many friends have died?" Catholic Archbishop Michael Francis, a leading and lasting critic of Taylor, said before the 1,000 congregation members.

Francis and worshippers gave thanks for West African peacekeepers and U.S. Marines in the capital -- and prayed that combatants on all sides "never, ever" seek revenge.

"We pray that our country, so beautiful in the past, will come back, better," said Francis, a rare vocal opponent of Taylor not silenced by torture, bribery or escape into exile.

Virtually every city and town in Liberia has been ruined by war, leaving about 2 million starving and exposed to attack in communities, hiding in the bush, or living as refugees in neighboring countries.

On Sunday, about 50 West African troops pushed out toward the city's edges, urging rebels to pull back all forces behind the Po River, outside Monrovia, as the insurgents had promised.

AP writer Kwasi Kpodo in Accra contributed to this report.