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Two years after presidential elections in Liberia, its government is moving to put together a better trained and professional military that represents all or most ethnic groups, news organisations reported President Charles Taylor as saying.
“We will make sure to have a balanced, trained, professional and mobile army that will respond decisively to any external threat,” Taylor said at an induction of key senior officers, according to Reuters.
Liberia has at least 16 ethnic groups and Augustine Toure, head of Liberia Democracy Watch, told IRIN on Wednesday that “many Liberians are for an ethnically balanced army”.
He said, however: “We want a transparent process that will include the international community, preferably ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) which was responsible for the Abuja Peace Accord.”
That agreement, signed in August 1996, ended seven years of civil war during which fighters splintered into several rival ethnic factions.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions