Curfew in Liberia after riots, four deadThis is very bad. I'm not sure I believe the claim that this was NPP: I'd be surprised if Taylor's Wahabbi connections were more than purely financial, but I know nothing about the lower echelon folks. I suppose it is possible, but I still suspect some other group is involved.By Alphonso Toweh
MONROVIA, Oct 29 (Reuters) - At least four people died in riots on Friday in Liberia's capital, where U.N. peacekeepers fired in the air to bring rampaging, stick-wielding youths under control and a daylight curfew was in force.
U.N. troops loaded three bodies into a truck in the debris-strewn main street of the Paynesville suburb where the violence erupted, while residents peered out from behind doors and a helicopter hovered overhead.
A petrol station was still ablaze and smoke rose from a torched building. White U.N. pickup trucks and armoured personnel carriers cruised the normally bustling street, almost empty but for sticks, rocks and five burned out vehicles.
Liberia is struggling to emerge from nearly 14 years of war and the poor West African country is home to 15,000 United Nations troops, the biggest peacekeeping force in the world.
More than 80,000 fighters have been disarmed but with a crippled economy, massive unemployment and few opportunities, youths, many of them ex-combatants, vent their anger and frustration by rioting.
"(The United Nations mission) has been asked to use maximum force to bring this situation under control," Jacques Klein, U.N. special envoy to Liberia, told local U.N. radio. "And I mean to shoot on sight."
Liberia's Information Minister William Allen said the curfew, announced on state radio by interim leader Gyude Bryant, would remain in force until further notice.
Witnesses said a dispute between Muslim and Christian residents near Paynesville late on Thursday had mushroomed into a full-scale riot on Friday morning which then spread to the hilly centre of the coastal city.
GOVERNMENT ACCUSES TAYLOR ALLIES
Earlier on Friday, young men clutching sticks and machetes roamed streets near Paynesville while U.N. peacekeepers blocked a main road and tried to chase rioters back.
In the centre of Monrovia angry former fighters charged round with canisters of petrol on their heads looking for things to burn. Thick smoke rose from a building in the town centre.
Residents brought the body of a young man to Klein's office, saying he had been shot by peacekeepers nearby. There was no independent confirmation of how the student had died.
U.N. armoured personnel carriers and blue-helmeted soldiers lined a street in the Mamba Point district which is home to most of the U.N. agencies and the U.S. embassy.
Allen accused members of exiled former President Charles Taylor's political party (NPP) of planning to whip up violence in an attempt to disrupt the disarmament programme.
While Liberia has been wracked by war for nearly 14 years, battle lines have usually been drawn down lose ethnic or regional groupings, rather than on religious lines.
About 20 percent of Liberia's population is Muslim, 40 percent Christian and 40 percent follows animist beliefs.
"We were provoked by a Christian yesterday when one of them beat our Muslim sister. When we went to find out, they tried to beat us. So we called for reinforcements. They have burned down our gas stations," said Amara Konneh, near Paynesville.
The leadership and many of the LURD rebel fighters who ousted Taylor last year are from an ethnic group which is mostly Muslim, though their fight was not a religious one.
"The Muslims were the ones who set three of our churches on fire. We have been living here on good terms but they have not reciprocated it. We want to see religious tolerance in this country," said Fred, a member of the Pentacostal church.
You don't need to "whip up violence" to stymie the disarmament program; it's much easier than that.
FWIW, the religious ratios are very different from what I remember. They're the latest CIA Worldbook numbers, though.
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