Liberian Church Leaders Met President Taylor, at the Peace Talks

The president of Liberia, Charles Tayler has told Liberian church leaders that he is prepared to "step down any day, anytime", depending on the deployment of a peace keeping force, according to Liberian church leaders, Reuters reported on 7 July.

Action by Churches Together(ACT) International and Concerned Christian Community(CCC) reported that the church leaders met the president on 4 July, after the president had requested that the church of Liberia help save the country from further destruction.

Rev. Kortu Brown, the president of CCC saied the president Taylor held firm that if he left before peace keepers arrived in the embattled country, chaos would ensue as "he didn't know what his fighting men would do".

Meanwhile, a united delegation of Inter-Religious Council of Liberia, the Liberian Bar Association, and the Mano River Woman Network for Peace took part in the peace talks in Accra, Ghana.

The deleation was grouped as an envoy of the All Africa Conference of Churches(AACC) and the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa(FECCIWA). At the peace talks, the delegation represented the churches.

The delegation visited Ivory Coast, Guinea and Sierra Leone to lobby Liberia's neighbors for their continued commitment and support of the peace talks and also support for the development of an international force.

There has been a fight in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia which brought a severe destruction around the areas. In the surrounding areas, tens of thousands of people fled to the city to escape the bloodshed. ACT have responded to this people and started humanitarian assistance.

After church leaders met the president Taylor, a US military team has arrived in
Monrovia to assess the security situation in the country, as reported on Monday, July 7.

**ACT is a world-wide network of churches and related agencies meeting human need through coordinated emergency response.
The ACT Coordinating Office is based with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Switzerland.