Speaking to cheering members of his National Patriotic Party in Monrovia, Taylor said the campaign to remove him amounted to a ?rape of democracy?. However the president said he was standing down in the interest of the Liberian people. The statement comes as fighting continues in parts of the country and the Red Cross says humanitarian situation is particularly desperate in Liberia?s second city ? the port of Buchanan.

Taylor in his address confirmed that he would leave office today under the terms of an internationally-backed peace plan. He also said he would go into exile ? a demand made by Liberian rebel groups for an end to hostilities in Liberia.

However the Liberian president, who has been indicted for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone, did not say when he would leave the country. Nigeria, which is leading a West-African peacekeeping force being deployed in Liberia, has offered to grant him asylum. The president?s supporters regard him as the victim of the American and British governments who are insisting on his departure.

Bloodshed

His spokesman has warned that Taylor?s departure could be followed by more bloodshed, involving his demoralised fighters. ?Once the president leaves, our boys might be stigmatised. If that is the case, you must expect chaos. Hell might just break loose,? said Vaani Passawe.

Taylor has said he will hand power to Vice-President Moses Blah ? an ally from his days of guerrilla training in Libya. The main rebels group ? Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) ? says it will not accept him as a successor and will keep on fighting. But West African officials say that Blah?s stay would only be short, possibly just days, before a new interim president is chosen at peace talks in Ghana among government officials and rebels.

In Buchanan, fighting has been taking place between rebels of the Model movement, who hold the city, and government forces. More than 8,000 people have taken refuge in the Catholic Mission compound, which have run out of food and water.

Aid needed

Meanwhile, Lurd is facing pressure to fulfil its commitments to allow aid into Monrovia. The rebels have pledged to turn over the city?s port to peacekeepers when they arrive in adequate numbers.

With aid ships heading for Monrovia, the port, and its warehouses, are crucial to feeding hundreds of thousands of famished civilians on the cut-off government side of Monrovia. Ahead of any deal, the International Red Cross made a second trip across Monrovia?s front lines yesterday, ferrying medical kits and medicine to the rebel side. Representatives said civilians there have food but cannot reach the main hospitals on the government side.

human tragedy

Lost childhoods

Soon after daybreak on Wednesday, hundreds of people walked through central Monrovia to the frontline and tried to cross into rebel territory. They said they were desperate for food and that the price of rice was soaring out of control.

Many of them have family members living on the other side of the frontline who they believed would be able to give them food and supplies.

But government soldiers said they could not allow it and after shots were fired in the air, the crowds dispersed, disappointed. It?s a mark of how inured to suffering these people are, that instead of erupting in riots over this decision, they instead stood around in small groups, sullen anger being their prime emotion.

Over in rebel territory, gunmen on the frontline appear relaxed. They believe that despite the tension in the city, the next few days will stay generally calm. They say they welcome the West African peacekeeping force. ?You have to wonder how much it all means to Liberia?s child soldiers. Many are no more than 10-years-old, with their fluorescently painted guns only emphasising their youth?.

The tragic perversion of what could laughingly be described as their ?childhood? is only too clear to see. ?Many of them play on the road, where the bodies of executed looters lie unburied. I spotted a boy of about 10 riding a child?s bicycle just behind the rebel checkpoint. He was cycling round and round in a circle; an ordinary enough scene anywhere else in the world, except flung over his back was an AK-47 rifle?.

In fact, both the boy and his bike were so small, the weapon was trailing on the ground behind him. It?s impossible to say how the legacy of what these child soldiers have seen will affect them in future years. But it?s clear just by watching them that many are psychologically disturbed. Yet underneath it, they share a lot in common with the ordinary children of Monrovia. ?I?ve spoken to several children, both fighters and civilians, and they all repeat the same thing. All they want is to go back to school and have an education. Through the everyday trauma of living in this place, they still somehow know that there is a better future that they can aspire to?. Monrovia?s two main river crossings, the Old Bridge and the Gabriel Tucker Bridge have been the most tense of all these frontlines. Both are littered with empty ammunition cartridges. And yet the Old Bridge was witness to an extraordinary spectacle as fighters from both sides walked across the bridge to the middle, meeting halfway, then hugging each other. Maybe this is a good omen for when the National Assembly meets today to formally transfer power from President Charles Taylor.

But although the bridges are fairly calm at the moment, there is still a tense undercurrent. Child and adult rebel soldiers alike are high on marijuana and extremely excitable. They?ll allow members of the press to cross over, but all it would take is one stray gun shot across the bridge for fighting to break out again.

Barnaby Phillips