The Liberian government on Monday signed a peace accord with the country's main rebel groups in Accra, capital of Ghana, to form a transitional government, paving the way for the end of 14 years of civil war.

According to the agreement, a transitional government is due to take power in October and continue in office until January 2006, replacing that of President Moses Blah, who took over power from former president Charles Taylor last Monday. Taylor stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria.

Sekou Damate Conneh, leader of the major rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), Thomas Nimely, chairman of the second rebel group Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) and Liberian Foreign Minister Lewis Brown signed the document.

The signing of the pact was witnessed by top leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is brokering the deal, including its executive secretary Mohamed ibn Chambas.

Also present at the ceremony were former Nigerian president Abdulsalami Abubakar, the chief mediator at the talks and GhanaianPresident John Kufuor, whose country holds the rotating presidencyof ECOWAS, as well as representatives of the United Nations, European Union and the African Union..

Under the deal, all three parties waive any claim to the top posts in the interim government, instead allowing non-combatants in the country's civil war to take the posts.

Last Tuesday, the rebels agreed to withdraw troops from a two-month siege of Monrovia and promised to pull back completely, allowing aid and food to flow again to hundreds of thousands of starving people.

Talks on the new peace pact between the caretaker government of Blah and the two rebel groups began Thursday but were nearly derailed at the weekend.

LURD had threatened to resume fighting if it did not get the number two position in the new government, which the rebels claimed they had been promised along with the post of parliamentary speaker.

However, Kabineh Ja'neh, who is leading LURD rebel group at peace parleys in Ghana, said after pressure from mediators that they had decided not to stake claim for the vice presidency.

"OK fine, we leave it," he said but stressed that the speaker' spost should be technically opened to all players.

"The mediators are saying it will not be open to the warring factions but only to political parties," he said. "We want it to be opened to everybody who can then vie for the position."

ECOWAS officials denied the claim, saying it had been agreed that no one from any of the warring factions would be president, vice president, speaker or deputy speaker in the new government.

After the pact is signed, the rebels and Blah's caretaker government will choose the leader and number two from among six candidates.

The president and vice president, to be called the chairman and vice chairman, will be drawn from political parties and civic groups, not the rebels or Blah's government, said ECOWAS spokesman Sunny Ugoh, explaining that "the posts have been renamed as it is an interim administration."

The new government will have 76 members: 12 each from Blah's government and the two rebel groups; 18 from political parties; seven from civil society and special interest groups; and one fromeach of Liberia's 15 counties.

Liberians and the international community have held out hope that Taylor's departure and a promised UN peace force will make a difference this time.

"I want to believe that with the signing of this agreement today, Liberia will never be plunged into another spiral of violence in the quest for political power, or under the false pretense of liberating the people,'' said Abubakar.

"Liberians do not need liberators anymore. Liberians need developers and nation-builders,'' he said.

Ross Mountain, top UN humanitarian official in Liberia, said "Any agreement that sticks is to the benefit of the humanitarian situation, and the people of Liberia."

The Liberian civil war, which lasted more than 14 years and claimed at least 200,000 lives, flared up again in 1998 following attacks launched by LURD in northern Liberia.

Civil war over the past decade has made Liberia among the most miserable places in the world and the latest unrest since 1998 has forced some 300,000 Liberians to flee to neighboring countries andleft thousands more dead. 

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2003)