In Africa's "branch of the American tree," Liberians cry for U.S. peacekeepers

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- Pancakes and doughnuts are breakfast fare, and worshippers sing gospel in a 19th-century Baptist church built by slaves freed from America's Deep South.

This is Sunday in war-ravaged Liberia, a West African nation with an American soul crying for help.

"We pray to God that the Americans will send soldiers and bring us peace of mind and hearts as soft as cotton," 55-year-old Nessidee Mason whispered between hymns sung exuberantly at Monrovia's Providence Baptist Church, its roof leaking after recent shelling.

Surrounded by pervasive reminders of America's cultural and political influence, Liberians look to the United States as the potential savior for what Mason calls a "branch of the American tree."

Civil war continues to ravage Liberia, a nation of 3 million founded 150 years ago by freed U.S. slaves. Besides the Liberians, European leaders and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan are pressing the United States to follow the lead of Britain and France, which have sent peacekeepers to help end wars in their former African colonies, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

With twanging, lilting voices influenced heavily by the accents of Louisiana and Mississippi, Liberians have thronged U.S. military advisers, chanting "George Bush, we want peace," since an American team arrived in the capital, Monrovia, last week.

The team has been visiting ports, airstrips and refugee camps to assess logistics ahead of a possible U.S. deployment of peacekeepers or humanitarian relief. Other U.S. officials are attending Liberia peace talks in neighboring Ghana.

President Bush says he has not decided yet whether to deploy troops, and Annan was to meet with him Monday in Washington to discuss the conflict.

In Liberia's seaside capital -- named for the fifth U.S. president, James Monroe -- a growing number of civilians already depend on the United States for safety in a war that has killed thousands and forced more than a million others to flee their homes.

At an embassy auxiliary compound that once housed diplomats and is still guarded by the U.S. Embassy's Liberian security staff, over 1,000 people have been allowed to build bamboo and canvas shelters since fighting drove them there last month.

Nearby, other refugees sleep and build cooking fires between the pillars of a once-grand Masonic hall that resembles a plantation mansion from the American south.

Reed Harris, a 41-year-old paralegal assistant among those seeking refuge in the embassy compound, said he did not feel safe anywhere else.

"Liberia is an American country, so it is logical to ask the U.S. government for help. We will stay here until the war is over," he said.

At Providence Baptist, built in downtown Monrovia in 1839 and expanded in the 1970s with the help of sister churches in the United States, Rev. Joseph J. Roberts described America as "our big brother" who "has the power to end our suffering."

"America is the (country) of all countries," Roberts told The Associated Press. "The presence of American troops here will settle everything."

Similar views were echoed at downtown street stalls, where corn bread, biscuits, doughnuts and pancakes can be bought for 25 cents. At Shark's, a Monrovia business center and pool hall, residents licking ice cream cones debate the question on everyone's mind: "Will the Americans come?"

The United States spent hundreds of millions of aid dollars on Liberia during the Cold War, when the country housed a major Voice of America transmitter and an airstrip that was an emergency landing and refueling point for U.S. aircraft.

From independence in 1847 until two decades ago, Liberia was ruled by members of the nation's elite -- slave descendants still sometimes referred to here as "pioneers." They battled frequently with local tribes and spread American customs, not unlike the French and British who imprinted their cultures when they were colonial powers in Africa.

In 1980, a coup by Samuel Doe turned the reigns of power over to his ethnic Krahn tribe, making him the first president of Liberia without U.S. freed slave heritage.

Nine years later, rebels under Charles Taylor, a former gas station attendant and Massachusetts prison escapee of mixed Liberian and American heritage, launched a bloody seven-year war.

His 1997 election victory is attributed to threats he would relaunch the fighting if he lost.

Taylor's foes regrouped in 1999 and launched a rebellion to topple him, steadily gaining ground and twice entering the capital during deadly forays last month.

Baptist Church member Nessidee Mason says her male family members recently joined neighbors in a Monrovia suburb in a forming "vigilante" group patrolling the streets to prevent rebel or government militia incursion into the residential area.

"We are tired of looking over our shoulders. We want America to come here and free us from all the warlords," Mason said. "Then I pray we can learn to love one another again."