Liberia: Liberian President Charles Taylor's tenuous grip on power appears to be slipping as rebels threaten a fresh offensive if the US fails to send peacekeepers, writes Declan Walsh Monrovia
In the past week, prisoners have walked free, government ministries have ground to a halt - some looted by their own employees - and top-ranking officials have apparently prepared to flee the country.
"His time is finishing, I am sure of it," said Varsay Kamara, one of 51 prisoners inexplicably released from detention on Friday.
Mr Kamara's feet rotted during his one-year detention after being held in knee-deep water for 16 days. He believes Mr Taylor's secret service arrested him for belonging to the Mandingo, an ethnic group associated with the main rebel movement.
In some government ministries, employees have deserted their posts; in others, displaced townspeople have occupied the building. Over 1,500 people have been sleeping in the corridors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs after fleeing two waves of fighting last month.
At the Ministry of Finance, revenues have collapsed since the controversial timber business, one of Mr Taylor's few remaining sources of income, ground to a halt last month. Aid workers say that even simple tasks such as vehicle registration are impossible.
"The entire system is down. We are just waiting for the international community to arrive," said a senior ministry official yesterday as he returned to collect some papers from his office.
A western observer who recently visited the National Security Agency said all the furniture appeared to have been looted. He had received reports that a number of senior officials had sent their families into exile in nearby Gambia and Ghana.
"It's a big boat sinking fast and people are trying to save their lives," he said.
Others have left by less conventional means. A human-rights activist escaped from detention in the Central Prison after guards deserted during a rebel offensive. The man fled into the night, slipped out of the port city by fishing canoe and eventually found refuge in nearby Ghana.
In Accra, Taylor's officials are holding talks with the rebels.
But hopes of a peace deal are low, and there is widespread scepticism in Monrovia that the government officials will return if Mr Taylor keeps his promise to leave office.
He has already accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria but refused to say when he will leave.
Now much rests on whether US President Bush will succumb to concerted international pressure to send up to 2,000 US peacekeepers.
Mr Bush met UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan in Washington to discuss Liberia yesterday, but his spokesman said an announcement on troop deployment was not expected.
The US has already sent a small military assessment team to determine the conditions of any possible deployment in Liberia, and another 100 back-up troops arrived in Sierra Leone and Senegal at the weekend.
Some of Mr Taylor's ill-disciplined troops, angry at not being paid, have threatened a looting spree known as "Operation Pay Yourself" if he leaves before they receive severance pay.
"I'm depending on George Bush," said militia fighter Joshua Tamba (27), at a checkpoint north of Monrovia. "I'm won't be sorry to see \ go."
Although Mr Bush has just returned from a five-day tour of Africa, his advisors are divided on whether American troops should be sent to Liberia, founded by freed US slaves over 150 years ago.
One suggestion is that instead of sending a large force of US troops, Mr Bush would send money and logistical back-up to reinforce a contingent of west African peacekeepers. But many Liberians are sceptical that compromise would work.
"They were part of the problem before; they armed different factions and got involved in the looting," said Oscar Bloh of Search for Common Ground.
Stopping the shooting should be the priority for the US, said Jordi Raich of the International Red Cross.
"If they come here to protect sacks of rice it's useless. They have to provide security," he said.