IRIN Interview with the Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Liberia, Felix Downes-Thomas.

The Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Liberia, Felix Downes-Thomas, spoke to IRIN on issues ranging from Liberia’s development needs and efforts to build peace and security to its relations with the international community. The interview took place on 5 July at the Monrovia headquarters of the UN Peace-Building Support Office (UNOL), which Downes-Thomas heads.

Question: What is the mission of the United Nations Peace-Building Support Office in Liberia (UNOL)?

Answer: With the consent of the government of Liberia and the UN Security Council, UNOL has to ensure that this nascent democracy continues and is improved so that Liberia would not slip back into war. To this end, UNOL has the following main objectives:
· To ensure that, at the least, with the rather fragile peace there should be no upheavals that would result in any political transformation through violence.

· Second is to ensure that Liberia enjoys the assistance that comes from the international community to countries in similar situations. Therefore, basically what we facilitate is the mobilisation of resources for development and to ensure that subregional stability is maintained in the area.

Q: How do you rate your success or otherwise?

A: Now, I want to believe that we have been quite successful in ensuring that peace and security exist in Liberia. We’ve also been successful in our efforts to ensure that this nascent democracy moves along the right path. Here we are talking about diminution of human rights violations, we are talking about curtailing corruption.
That has gone down quite a bit. There is security, as you can see from travelling around the city.

On the question of human rights, our success has not been what I would have liked it to be. This is because we really did not have the wherewithal to do a really good job and we have been criticised. My office has been criticised, rather loudly, for being rather quiet in the whole area of human rights.

Sadly enough, UNOL’s mandate does not include human rights. We have been able, by what I generally describe as ‘enlightened illegality’, to involve ourselves in human rights ... We don’t have the capacity to monitor human rights violations. We don’t have the capacity to investigate allegations in that area. So we have limited ourselves to providing technical advisory services:
· we advise the government on how to go about things in the legislative process to get human rights on the agenda;

· we provide some technical assistance to human rights organisations;

· we have been involved in training the police on matters pertaining to civil and human rights.

And this is why I think we can do more. We have made proposals for aid with the Centre for Human Rights in Geneva.

Q: In which areas have you not succeeded?

A: Where I think, objectively, we have not been very successful, against the background of the above objectives, is this business of getting assistance to Liberia. What assistance we have here has been in comparative terms, a trickle. This has left the impression, as far as the international community is concerned, that their policy is one of punitive disengagement. Now I am not too sure - if indeed that is the case - whether that is the prudent course of action. We would wish to see constructive engagement rather than punitive disengagement by the international community.

The effects of this policy of not providing assistance has been felt deeply and widely among the populace, not within government circles, and the people are the ones who suffer the most.

As you know there are attempts to get electricity to Liberia; the sewerage system is bad; health and sanitation need tremendous improvement; the economy needs a massive infusion of capital. Yet, because of the debt overhang - between US $2.5 billion and $3 billion - Liberia cannot get financing from international institutions.

When you contrast the debt with the budget of this country - $64 million - it’s safe to say that during my lifetime Liberia will not be able to pay off the debt. That points to the need for the international financial institutions to look at this problem squarely and come up with innovative proposals and arrangements that can get the country out of this deep, black hole.

Q: Why is punitive disengagement being meted out to Liberia?

A: I tell you, impressionistically, there is a feeling that it has to do specifically with President Taylor. But the official reasons that are given for this lack of international assistance to Liberia include:
· human rights violations;
· corruption and the refusal to adhere to an open market system;
· fiscal responsibility;
· the Camp Johnson Road incident;(*)
· allegations of Liberian complicity with the RUF (Revolutionary United Front).

Now what is quite interesting about all this is that while Liberia has not completely met the bulk of the criteria established, it has made significant progress toward achieving it.

A recent IMF report, I understand, is quite favourable, indicating the successes of Liberia in meeting a number of significant benchmarks that they had set. It’s a sad coincidence that every time that something positive is supposed to happen in the economic area, there are other incidents that creep up and provide a further reason for stalling on assistance.

Q: What is the relation between the government and Sierra Leone’s RUF?
This accusation about Liberia’s complicity with the RUF is nothing new. It has assumed very subtle variations. What is undeniable is the link between Liberia, President Taylor and the RUF. That link is historical. During the civil war the non-NPFL (**) had their origins and bases of operation - at least for planning purposes - outside Liberia: Sierra Leone.

When President Joseph Momoh invaded Liberia during the civil war and the NPFL moved 25-30 km inside Sierra Leone, I think we then saw the embryonic beginning of the RUF.
What the allegations now say is that the government of Liberia - and/or President Taylor - is engaged in illicit diamond smuggling, that the diamonds are sold and a huge portion of the proceeds is used by the Liberian government or President Taylor for his personal use.
UNOL is not in a position to confirm or deny these allegations for the simple reason that the basis for these allegations, the elements on which they are founded are not available to us here. UN headquarters does not have this evidence either. Our position has been that it would be to the benefit of all for those who have the evidence to put it publicly so we can lay this matter to rest in a constructive way. (...)

Secondly, Sierra Leone is being raped, no doubt, of its patrimony and resources and financial foundation. Once this is out, it would have the added advantage of really increasing the revenue of Sierra Leone.

These are two basic reasons why this should be made public but I must admit that I am left nonplussed by what appears to be a reluctance or a fear to confront President Taylor with the evidence of this allegation. I wonder why? I just don’t understand it.

Q: How is UNOL’s relationship with the government?

A: Superb when it comes to cooperation. We have been able to put several points of view across and that has contributed, tremendously, to the reduction of tension between Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the maintenance of peace and stability in the Mano Union area (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone).

Q: What are the government’s needs, as you see them?

A: The health situation, infrastructure and provision of services, which are now operating at well below 30 percent of pre-war efficiency. Even that low figure of less than 30 percent is at a very rudimentary level. You have unemployment, well over 70 percent, and illiteracy at about 80 percent.

The implications of these dismal statistics are frightening. If you analyse the implications you’ll realise that while we believe that the structure for good governance are the institutions - and I don’t dispute that - you would be forced to pose the question whether real democracy can thrive or be expected to exist in a situation where three-quarters of the people are unemployed, uneducated and where beyond parts very close to Monrovia there are no institutions that would adumbrate the institutions of the democracy we wish to see exist in this place.

In a purely formalistic sense, democracy exists. There is the executive and legislative branch. There is freedom of expression, the newspapers are not in anyway inhibited or gagged. We realise that the representation in government, at both civil service and legislative levels, is thoroughly inclusive. In fact, well over 45 percent to 50 percent of people occupying top level posts are in the opposition....

If you take the point of view that the essence of democracy has heavy cultural elements in it, then it’s the pattern of the democratic habit that we have to inculcate.

Q: Why has this habit not yet taken root?

A: Multiparty elections are not the sole determinants of democracy. We have seen, and it’s empirically verifiable, where elections have given rise to popular governments that do not behave democratically. So, its not a guarantee that if you have free and fair elections that you’ll get democratic patterns of behaviour. So this is why I put emphasis on the need to inculcate - to a point where it becomes a culture - a democratic pattern of behaviour.

Q: Where do we start inculcating this behaviour?

A: Civil groups, churches, schools, other social behaviour moulding institutions. So what I’m suggesting is that we have to admit that you have nascent, adolescent and mature democracies and we will know in that context whether it is reasonable that once elections have taken place a nascent democracy will behave in the way we find those in mature democracies behaving.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable that we are talking about a process of development (...) and while we must push to achieve the ideal at the shortest possible period, we must also be cognisant of the reality that you’ll have to wean the population off a certain rebel mentality. You’ll have to wean them off a Wild West mentality, especially after a war which was anarchy.

I am advocating, for lack of a better word, patience as well as activities that would accelerate real democracy.

Q: Where is all this going to come from?

A: One of the important determinants of democracy is economic progress.
There is, for me, the profound need for what we in the UN call empowerment. Because with that economic empowerment people become truly conservative, in the sense that they do have something to conserve and, therefore, they would then adhere to those democratic precepts which essentially conserve that which they should conserve.

The British don’t have a constitution but there is a pattern of behaviour that none would not say is not democratic. Yet, within the British system there is no separation between Church and State. So we should face the agonising reality that democracy can be different not homogeneous. What is important is to have liberal governments as opposed to illiberal governments. Then we are talking about true democracy.

Q: How does one help Liberia?

A: Pragmatically. If we say one of the reasons for Liberia’s current state is corruption and slippage in the revenue collection, then one of the ways to deal with that is to provide assistance, build on those areas that are revenue earners; i.e. logging and the mining of gold.

A minister makes US $20 a month, a graduate with a master’s degree $8-10. So you can imagine what the tally clerk, who counts logs before shipment, makes. If we liberally say that person makes US $3 a month or $36 a year, and works for 20 years then he’ll make $720 for 20 years of work.
If a man is supposed to pay $15,000 in taxes and (the clerk) is offered $2,000 (in bribes) I have a feeling he will think ‘I’m making in one shot what I could not make in a lifetime’. I’m not too sure that that person would thumb their nose at the offer.
So you get slippage.

Without economic development you’re going to get depressed wages that only engender corruption. Without economic development you’re not going to straighten out a lot of the crooked things that you find here. But if, in fact, you start to give technical assistance to these people in this area, check their books, their data collection ... you might be able to start something that will not be inconsequential in that larger picture.

I’ve often wondered whether, if those who decry corruption were brought here as foreigners - say a UN or World Bank official - to live on US $20 a month, we might get a different perception of what corruption is: whether it is survival, morality or unethical behaviour.

For one reason or the other, I feel the deprivation of assistance to Liberia has really meant - as far as its human condition is concerned - that Liberia has been cheated for two years: There has been no peace dividend for Liberia. There has been no democracy dividend for Liberia.

I do understand that standards and conditions that are articulated by the international community are not uniformly applied. But it seems to me that there are countries that are actively engaged in war outside their countries. They don’t hide it and the tap of assistance has yet to be turned off on them. In the case of Liberia it is a question of yet-to-be-proven allegations.

NOTES:
(*)The Camp Johnson Incident, as it has come to be known, occurred in September 1998, when a former faction leader, Roosevelt Johnson, fled to the US Embassy compound with some of his aides after a gun battle with Liberian security forces. The latter fired on Johnson’s group as they entered the compound, killing one of them and wounding two US Embassy officials. This sparked a diplomatic row between Liberia and the United States.

(**) The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) was the insurgent group headed by Charles Taylor during Liberia’s rebel war (1989-1997). Non-NPFL refers to rival rebel groups.