Ex-fighters making money from latex refuse to leave rubber plantation

Several hundred former rebel fighters are still squatting on Liberia's second largest rubber plantation nearly two years after the civil war ended. They say they will refuse to leave until the UN-backed transitional authorities make good on pledges to provide them with full package of benefits due to ex-combatants. "We have been abandoned and that is why we will remain here, come what may,” said Lawson Koffa, a spokesman for the group of former fighters of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement. Koffa claims there are 2,000 LURD fighters squatting on the Guthrie plantation, which stretches for 15 km along the main road from Monrovia to the Sierra Leone border. However, a delegation of UN peacekeepers which turned up to talk with the squatters earlier this month only managed to speak to a group of 40. What nobody disputes is that the fact that the LURD men have been camped in the Guthrie plantation since Liberia's 14-year civil war came to an end in August 2003, tapping latex from the rubber trees and selling it illegally to dealers in the capital. Ordered to leave Last month, the former combatants were ordered to vacate the property by Gyude Bryant, the leader of Liberia's power-sharing transitional government, which is guiding the West African country towards elections in October. This was not the first departure notice served on the squatters, who have made themselves at home, turning the plantation offices into bedrooms and storehouses. But like previous orders to quit they have ignored it. “The government has with immediate effect turned over the plantation to its real owners, the General Resources Corporation,” (GRC), the Information Ministry quoted Bryant as saying. According to documents shown to IRIN by local government officials, the transitional government struck an agreement with GRC, a company owned by Lebanese interests in March 2004, providing for it to operate Guthrie plantation. It then signed separate accords with former LURD commanders in November last year, which provided for Guthrie to be turned over to its new operator on 31 January. But Bryant's orders fell on deaf ears. "On disarming we were promised that we would benefit from skill training for those who want to learn vocations and places in schools for those of us who are desirous of continuing our formal education," Koffa told IRIN. “But since then we have not benefited from any such assistance", he said." We will remain here until the UN, our government and other international organizations are ready to give us the training and education promised us." Plans to reintegrate and rehabilitate Liberia’s legions of gunmen before they cause more problems at home or across the region have run into severe cash problems. No money left to pay for rehabilitation The campaign originally set out to disarm between 38,000 and 53,000 former fighters, providing each of them with a US $300 resettlement grant and education or skills training to ease the reintegration of the fighters into civil life. But in the event, the United Nations ended up registering 103,000 people as former combatants, more than twice the number it originally anticipated. That has left it with a shortfall of $58 million to pay for rehabilitation and reintegration projects to help them earn an honest living. In January 4,000 former fighters were expelled from secondary school after the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) failed to pay their school fees. However, UNMIL said a few weeks later that it found enough money to send them back to class. A UN statement on 12 April put the current shortfall in the Trust Fund for the reintegration and rehabilitation of former fighters at $39.5 million. Molley Passaway, the spokesman for Liberia's National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Rehabilitation (DDRR), told IRIN last week that times were tough for ex-combatants due to the shortfall in donor funding. "The commission is aware of the plight of those ex-combatants at Guthrie and other parts of the country who are yet to go through the RR (rehabilitation and reintegration) programmes,” he said. “There have been problems of funding, but we have received signals from donors of pending funds for the RR programs that will include all those fighters.” According to commission figures, only one in eight former combatants are currently benefitting from some form of assistance with social reintegration. A total of 7,202 ex-fighters are enrolled in schools and colleges, while 6,670 are taking part in skills training programmes. Sando Johnson, a nominated member of Liberia's transitional parliament, says the squatters on the rubber plantation pose a threat to the local community. "They must leave Guthrie Plantation now or face the wrath of the local population who continue to be deprived of resources from the plantation," he said. "Some of our citizens from Bomi and Grand Cape Mount counties that were working on the plantation are out of jobs, because of the fighters’ illegal occupation," he protested. Local traders prosper But Koffa, the spokesman for the Guthrie plantation squatters, insisted: “We have good relations with the people living in nearby villages and towns.” And many local residents agreed. "All of us have been living together here without harassment and intimidation from the ex-combatants. It is very difficult to see anyone who has been maltreated or harassed by the former fighters", said Aaron Gbelly, a 60-year-old resident of Gbah, a village in the midst of the plantation. In fact traders in Gbah, which lies on the highway to Sierra Leone, have been enjoying good business since the rebels took over the plantation. "The fighters are our main customers,” said Zoe Kemonh, who sells clothes and commutes daily between Monrovia and Gbah. “We have not seen any marketer being beaten or having their goods taken away.” The bouncing latex business While exports of timber and diamonds remain banned under the terms of UN sanctions intended to prevent arms purchases by former president Charles Taylor, rubber can still be exported legally. So agents riding in pick-ups and trucks travel each day up the 35-km road from the capital to purchase latex from the former fighters. "This is a real business, we normally sell a bag of 50 kilos of rubber for US $6.50," said Amos Tamba, the deputy head of former fighters in the Division Ten section of the Guthrie plantation. "Sometimes each of us earns about US $60-150 per week just from sale," he added. That is good going in a country where senior civil servants and doctors earn an official salary of less than US $20 per month. "We use this money to take care of personal expenses and save some money for the future," Tamba said. Amos Pattern is one of the scores of private businessmen who buy raw rubber from the former fighters. "Often, we simply take the latex to Monrovia and sell it to purchasing agents from other rubber companies such as Firestone who are unable to travel here…. . The latex then is shipped out of the country,” he said. US companies began planting rubber trees in the 1920s. The country’s biggest plantation, owned by US tyre manufacturer Firestone, lies close to Monrovia's international airport on the eastern side of the city. Former fighters from Sierra Leone Koffa said more than 500 of the ex-fighters occupying the plantation were Sierra Leoneans who were recruited by LURD. They previously fought for the Kamajors, a pro-government militia force, during Sierra Leone's own 1991-2001 civil war, he added. Abdul Karim Kamara, alias "Scorpion", told IRIN that he was one of these mercenaries. "I was recruited from the Kamajors in 2002 to fight for LURD and now the wars in my country and Liberia are over, but some of us find ourselves on this part of Liberia,” he said. All three of Liberia's rival armed groups recruited foreign fighters from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, and UN peacekeepers disarmed about 600 foreign combatants when the civil war ended in August 2003. The overwhelming majority were from Guinea and Sierra Leone. "We are not about to go,” said Kamara. “We are even afraid to return home to Sierra Leone." “Guthrie rubber is what we are living on, and we will continue to remain here until the government and the UN relocate us to another place where training will be given us,” he said.