UN discontinues immediate $75 cash payment to disarmed fighters

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Liberia said on Friday that it would no longer pay cash up front to former combatants who hand in their guns once its stalled disarmament programme resumes in March or April. Charles Chodo a programme and policy adviser on disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR) with the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), said the $75 cash payment handed out to fighters surrendering their weapons during the first attempt to launch a disarmament programme in December would be discontinued. Chodo told IRIN that former combatants would in future be paid the first US $150 tranche of their $300 reinsertion allowance upon completion of a two to three-week demobilisation process. This will take place at four specially built camps in different parts of Liberia. The second $150 tranche of the reinsertion allowance would be paid following their return to their home community three months later, he added. "The principle is very simple," Chodo said. "The combatants are supposed to disarm and demobilise. At the end of demobilisation, once they have been discharged from the camps, we have programmed a reinsertion allowance of $300 payable in two instalments. The first instalment will be paid once they have disarmed and demobilised and have been discharged from the demobilisation camp." Chodo told IRIN by telephone from Monrovia there was "no way" that UNMIL would resume paying fighters a first instalment of $75 on day one following the surrender of their weapons. "What happened in December was just to stabilise the security situation," he explained. UNMIL made an abortive start to disarmament on 7 December, with just one cantonment site in operation on the outskirts of Monrovia. Shortly after it opened, fighters loyal to the former government of Charles Taylor rioted in the eastern suburbs of Monrovia demanding cash for handing in their weapons. At least nine people were killed during the ensuing two days of disturbances. Calm was restored after UNMIL agreed to pay all fighters volunteering for disarmament a $75 advance on their resettlement allowance as they handed in their guns. However, the disarmament camp at Scheffelin barracks on the road to Roberts international airport was soon overwhelmed with fighters keen to hand in their weapons and receive the cash. The disarmament programme was therefore suspended on 17 December. UNMIL is determined to be better prepared and organised once it resumes. However the peacekeeping force has already missed two deadlines which it had set for recommencing the disarmament of former government fighters and the combatants of two rebel movements, Liberians United for Democracy and Reconciliation (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). One expired on January 20 and another 30 days later. No fresh target date has been set, but the resumption of disarmament now appears unlikely to get under way until mid-March at the earliest. Souren Seraydarian, the deputy head of UN mission in Liberia, said earlier this week that disarmament would not restart until the four cantonment sites were ready in Monrovia, Tubmanburg, Gbarnga and Buchanan, UNMIL troops had been fully deployed throughout the country and an information campaign to make former combatants understand the process had been completed. Chodo added a fourth condition on Friday. He said that each of the three armed factions would have to submit to UNMIL a complete list of their fighters and weaponry. The DDR adviser said these lists were not yet complete and UNMIL could not yet gauge exactly how many fighters were likely to come forward to hand in their guns. However, he said the final figure would probably be somewhere between the 38,000 estimated by UNMIL in December and the 53,000 mentioned by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a speech to a donors' conference in New York earlier this month. Chodo said UNMIL signed contracts with a series of non-governmental organisations on 14 February for the construction of the four cantonment sites within a target period of 22 days. Seraydarian said on Tuesday that UNMIL should reach its full strength of 15,000 men "sometime in March" - there are currently just over 11,500 UN peacekeepers on the ground. But General Daniel Opande, the Force Commander, said last week that they might not be fully deployed throughout Liberia until April. Fourteen years of intermittent civil war in Liberia came to an end with the signing of a peace agreement last December. Once the UN peacekeeping force has disarmed the three warring factions, it is due to train a new army and police force and supervise elections in October 2005.