Former fighters ordered off rubber plantations

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has asked UN peacekeepers to help the government take control of two rubber plantations occupied by former rebel fighters who have been illegally tapping latex. Agriculture Minister Chris Toe on Thursday said the move followed a joint government/UN report stating that illegal occupation of the plantations threatened the safety of communities living in the vicinity and humanitarian agencies. The report notably singled out the Guthrie and Sinoe plantations. Toe quoted Sirleaf as saying that these two estates “should be immediately repossessed, as an interim measure … until legitimate concession rights and management issues are clarified". "Due to recurring violence, UNMIL was requested to support the securing of the plantations, as well as stoppage of illegal sale and purchase of rubber from the contested plantations," Toe added. The former fighters were taking the law into their own hands at Sinoe plantation in the southeast and at Guthrie, which is 46 kilometres from the capital Monrovia, the UN Mission in Liberia’s rights section said in a report early this month. At Sinoe, “ex-LURD General and self-proclaimed General Manager of Sinoe Rubber Plantation, Mr. Paulson Gartey ..... is both police and judge on the plantation. He further described himself as "God", the report said. UNMIL said the ease with which the ex-combatants obtain funds through the exploitation of rubber is a key factor in the continued security vulnerability of the areas. An IRIN correspondent who visited Guthrie last year saw agents in pick-ups and trucks travelling up each day 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," Amos Tamba, the deputy head of former fighters in the Division Ten section of the Guthrie plantation told IRIN at the time. "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. With the UN sanctions still in place against the country's timber and diamonds, latex remains the only lucrative export product from Liberia. The 14-year civil war shut down the export of iron ore. ak/ccr