June 7, 2004
Gyude Bryant, the Chairman of Liberia's transitional government has pleaded to the UN Security Council to lift an embargo on diamond and timber exports to help the struggling company rebuild its shattered economy after 14 years of civil war. Bryant, who was appointed last October to lead the country to fresh elections in 2005, addressed the Security Council in New York on Thursday as the body prepared to review the sanctions, imposed during the rule of former president Charles Taylor.
"The sanctions on timber continue to hurt us," Bryant told the Council, pointing out that his government needed to urgently create jobs for tens of thousands of former combatants who are currently being disarmed by UN peacekeeping troops.
Bryant told the Security Council members that the logging industry used to provide over 7,000 jobs in Liberia and once contributed 20 per cent of government revenues. It also generated about half the country's foreign exchange earnings, he noted. The Liberian leader also urged the United Nations to lift its ban on Liberian diamond exports, saying his government had made progress towards restoring control over the industry. He pointed out that, like logging, diamond mining had once been a major source of employment and foreign exchange revenue in Liberia. Bryant said his government was prepared to maintain a voluntary ban on the import and export of diamonds until Liberia had been fully certified by the Kimberley Process, a diamond verification procedure set up in 2000 to clamp down on the sale of contraband stones used to fund wars in Africa.
Former president Taylor, who was ousted in August last year, had used foreign exchange earnings from both timber and diamonds to finance arms imports in violation of a UN arms embargo. The United Nations imposed a ban on arms exports to his government in view of its role in backing rebel movements in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire.
Jacques Klein, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Liberia, supported Bryant's plea for economic sanctions to be lifted in a separate address to the Security Council. Klein, who heads a 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Liberia, said the government in Monrovia was in critical need of reliable resources of revenue to overcome its present dependence on foreign aid.
Liberia's long-term security and stability depended on the establishment of an economy that created steady employment for young adult males with the support of a credible, democratic and accountable government, Klein said.
"The sanctions were put in place in order to penalize the previous government for egregious wrongdoings," Klein said. "With the old government now gone, it is up to the new government to demonstrate transparency and accountability. If the new government could do this, then I agree that the sanctions should go so as not to deprive Liberia of the tools it needs to rebuild its economy."
Last year's UN Security Council resolution renewing sanctions on Liberia specificed that diamond exports could only resume following the establishment of a transparent certificate of origin regime for Liberian rough diamonds, while timber exports could only resume following the imposition of effective government control over the logging industry and the revenues which it generated.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan acknowledged the progress achieved by Bryant's government towards restoring proper control over timber and diamond production in his latest report on Liberia, submitted to the Security Council on 26 May.
"Since its establishment, on 14 October 2003, the National Transitional Government of Liberia has made some encouraging progress towards meeting the objectives contained in resolution 1521", his report said. However, it also observed that the capacity of Bryant's government to deliver services and extend its authority throughout the country remained "extremely limited." The report noted, for instance, that the Forestry Department had declared its four regional offices to be open, but had yet to deploy staff to any of them.
The heavily forested West African country of three million people is struggling with an 85 percent unemployment rate following 14 years of civil war which destroyed schools, hospitals, roads and most of the country's economic infrastructure.
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