Global Policy Forum

UN Hopes Disarmament Campaign Will Light

Print
Agence France Presse
December 1, 2003

The United Nations was due to torch a ceremonial pyre of surrendered weapons to light a fire under the peace process in war-torn Liberia, but 14 years of bloodshed may not be reduced to ashes so easily. With the 50 million-dollar (42 million-euro) disarmament program the UN Mission to Liberia (UNMIL) hopes not only to convince an estimated 50,000 combatants to relinquish their weapons but also to reintegrate them in a civilian society battered by two back-to-back civil wars since 1989.


A fragile peace has settled over the west African state since the August flight into exile of former president Charles Taylor, a warlord whose own uprising in 1989 sparked the first ruinous civil war. His former militias have been the most willing to disarm, with more than 700 among them surrendering an estimated 280 weapons -- those which UN special envoy Jacques Klein, clad in a bright orange suit, goggles and a helmet is to destroy Monday afternoon at a ceremony attended by eight newly-reaccredited European ambassadors.

The Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), which held the tiny country's east and engaged in major arms trafficking over the border with neighbor Ivory Coast, has also begun to disarm, though cross-border activity is still frequently reported. It is the country's largest rebel group, Liberians United for Democracy and Reconciliation (LURD) -- whose 1999 uprising against Taylor erupted into the second civil war -- that has been the most reluctant to surrender its AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

An arms cache belonging to LURD was reportedly recently found along the country's main north-south highway, though the United Nations has yet to confirm its discovery. Further, UNMIL spokesman Patrick Coker said Sunday that there have been no UN peacekeepers deployed as yet to the LURD stronghold of Tubmanberg, some 40 kilometers (24 miles) north of the capital Monrovia, although they have been allowed in for intermittent patrols.

With just 5,000 peacekeepers on the ground, UNMIL is woefully outmatched by the estimated 40,000-50,000 combatants, whose willingness to surrender their arms is tempered by the uncertain future they face in a country where 85 percent of its 3.3 million people are unemployed. Ceremonies aside, however, the real start date of the disarmament campaign has not been fixed, a UN communications official said Saturday, while continued clashes among the warring factions and a political imbroglio over government posts could instead send Liberia's dreams of peace up in smoke.

The absence Thursday of the chairmen of the three warring factions at a first official disarmament meeting, coupled with a staged walk-out by their seconds-in-command, evinced the realities of bringing peace to a country without a stable social or political infrastructure. Some 200,000 people were killed in the fighting while one in five Liberians was displaced -- either within the country or beyond its borders.

The warring factions banded together to denounce what they called "serious violations" of the August peace accord by interim chairman Gyude Bryant, whom they themselves appointed to head a transitional government to lead the country to elections in 2005. They demanded that the disarmament process be postponed until posts in government and at the head of public utility companies were distributed properly.

Though disappointed, Klein remained resolute that the disarmament would continue on schedule and that UNMIL would continue to expand under the Security Council mandate that foresees the deployment of 15,000 UN peacekeepers, humanitarian personnel and police officers by early next year. One thousand fighters each from LURD, MODEL and Taylor's militias are to be disarmed in the first phase of the campaign, then provided with counseling, vocational training and a 300-US dollar stipend. Younger combatants -- some 15,000 under age 18 according to UN estimates -- have been encouraged to trade their guns for pencils and begin schooling, although the absence of a university in Liberia means that even an education is no guarantee of a brighter future.


More Information on Charles Taylor
More Information on Liberia
More Information on Small Arms and Light Weapons

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.


 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.