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[This article has been excerpted.]

LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) – Nigerian military ruler Gen. Sani Abacha and Benin President Mathieu Kerekou…expressed concern over the escalation of violence in Liberia.

In a communique at the end of Kerekou’s visit to Nigeria Thursday, both leaders appealed to the Liberia’s militia to embrace peace for the benefit of their people.

Nigeria and Benin are members of the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which sent peace monitoring group, called ECOMOG to Liberia in 1990.

The presence of the force, comprising mainly troops from Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone has failed to end the six-year-old war in which some 150,000 people have died.

Commanders of the regional force have been holding peace negotiations in the Liberian capital, Monvoria, since Thursday. ECOWAS Chairman President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana…sent a delegation to talks which include United Nations officials and the Liberian faction leaders. The meeting is being held in the United States Embassy.

Fighting erupted in Monrovia April 6 following the decision of the ruling Liberian Council of State to arrest deposed ULIMO-J leader Roosevelt Johnson on murder charges. This arrest order followed fighting between the militias loyal to Johnson and other warlords.

Reports from Monrovia said Friday the fighters…agreed to another cease-fire. But observers are sceptical because of the frequency with which the Liberian warring factions have violated previous cease-fires and peace accords.

The last peace agreement they signed in August 1995 in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, had been widely hailed as an enduring document before the latest violations.

It was the 13th peace treaty since the war broke out in Africa’s first republic founded in 1847 by freed slaves from the United States.