UN investigating recruitment of Liberian mercenaries in Cote d’Ivoire

The UN peacekeeping missions in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire are trying to track down those who have recently been recruiting former combatants in Liberia to fight for armed groups into neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire, a senior UN official said on Wednesday. Abou Moussa, the deputy head of the the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), told a news conference that investigations had begun following a meeting of the International Contact Group on Liberia held in Sweden last week. “[There have been] reports that some ex-combatants are crossing over the borders to join both sides of those fighting,” said Moussa. Liberia's 14-year civil war came to an end in August 2003, but a peace settlement between President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d'Ivoire and rebels occupying the north of his country remains elusive, despite two years of mediation efforts by the international community. Liberian mercenaries have been used by both sides in the Ivorian conflict since it erupted in September 2002 and there has recently been an upsurge in militia activity in the troubled west of the country near the Liberian border. “What is important is to pin down those who are doing the recruitment, we are looking into that now,” Moussa said. According to diplomats, Gbagbo backed the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) rebel group, set up in 2003. Now that the war in Liberia is over, some MODEL fighters are leaving their bases in the east of the country to fight for pro-government militias over the border in Cote d’Ivoire, they say. Moussa declined to confirm this, but the International Contact Group on Liberia said in its latest report that Liberian mercenaries were fighting for both sides in the Ivorian conflict. “Both the government and rebels in Cote d’Ivoire [are recruiting]… mercenaries from Liberia and other parts of the world,” said the Contact Group report, a copy of which was obtained by IRIN. Sierra Leoneans as well as Liberians were observed fighting alongside rebel forces in the early stages of the civil war. The government has meanwhile admitted hiring eastern European pilots to fly its Russian-built jets and helicopters and diplomats have accused it of using Israeli intelligence experts to intercept telecommunications traffic. The Contact Group, established in 2003, comprises key members of the international community who have been supporting the Liberian peace process. It includes the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, the United Nations and the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which brokered a peace agreement that ended the country's civil war. As far back as July 2004, humanitarian workers in the Liberian town of Zwedru close to the Ivorian border, warned IRIN that former combatants – some of them children - were crossing the nearby border to earn cash as mercenary fighters. There have since been reports of former Liberian combatants being recruited in Ganta, a market town on the Guinean border, to join armed groups allegedly being formed in the dense forests of south-eastern Guinea. UNMIL has a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force in Liberia, but finds it difficult to patrol the country's remote frontier regions effectively. There are 6,000 UN peacekeepers in Cote d’Ivoire, supported by 4,000 French troops under separate command. They face a similar problem.