Annan asks for 15,000 UN peacekeepers for Liberia

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday asked the Security Council to authorize the deployment of 15,000 peacekeeping troops and 875 police officers to war-ravaged Liberia, as part of an enlarged UN mission to the West African country. He said in a report to the Security Council that the mission, to be known as UNMIL, would support the Transitional Government headed by businessman Gyude Bryant, which is due to take office on 14 October, and help it to extend state authority throughout Liberia. Bryant was chosen by a Liberian peace conference last month to lead a broad-based government that will pave the way for fresh elections in 2005. UNMIL is expected to work closely with the large UN mission in neighbouring Sierra Leone, where there are still more than 10,000 peacekeeping troops, and the smaller UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire, where the United Nations is also involved in efforts to end a civil war. The Liberian peacekeeping force is due to be backed up a large team of civilian technocrats. "With the recent political and military developments in Monrovia, the security situation in the country continues to improve," Annan said in his report. "Liberia remains highly unstable, however, as armed groups, militia and criminal elements operate throughout the country," he added. The report noted that the Liberian conflict, which started in 1989, had unleashed armed groups and criminal gangs which had destabilised the entire sub-region. The result had been widespread displacements of the civilian population, poverty, high unemployment and a proliferation of small arms. "The armed conflict in Liberia resulted in serious abuses of human rights and humanitarian law, including deliberate and arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture, widespread rape and sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, forced conscription, use of child soldiers, systematic and forced displacement and indiscriminate targeting of civilians," Annan said. Some 250,000 people are believed to have died in war-related circumstances in Liberia since 1989 - about one in 12 of the country's three million population. At least half were civilian non-combatants. "All sides have been responsible for violations and abuses. Torture was widely used by all parties to the conflict. Government militias, police and paramilitary units are known to maintain torture chambers," Annan said. If his recommendations are endorsed by the Security Council, UN peacekeepers could be deployed from October, to stem continuing violence in various parts of Liberia. UN officials reckon the force would take about six months to build up to full strength. Human Rights Watch meanwhile reported that government forces and rebel fighters were still committing abuses in Liberia because the West African peacekeeping force (ECOMIL) currently deployed around the Liberian capital, Monrovia, was too small to cover the whole country. ECOMIL, which landed its first peacekeepers in Monrovia on 4 August, now has 3,500 soldiers from Benin, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo deployed in and around capital. A US naval task force carrying 2,300 marines is stationed off the Liberian coast, but Washington has been reluctant to deploy these troops on the ground in large numbers. They are however due to be withdrawn completely on 1 October. Human Rights Watch said: "Marauding armed bands continue to commit murder, rape, forced recruitment and looting. Ragtag government militias and fighters from both rebel groups-Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), operate with little discipline or command control and loot because they are hungry and not paid." Hundreds of thousands of civilians had been uprooted from their homes repeatedly as they fled in terror from these armed groups, it added. "Soldiers systematically extort money and other goods from those seeking refuge and block them from moving to safety. Fleeing civilians fall victim to rape and abduction by the armed groups. Thousands remain hiding in the bush, where adequate food, water, shelter and medical care are scarce or non-existent," the New York-based human rights organisation said. Annan said UNMIL would monitor compliance with a ceasefire agreement signed by Liberia's warring parties on 17 June in the Ghanaian capital, Accra and a comprehensive peace agreement signed two months later. It would also facilitate the free movement of people and relief workers, train new law enforcement officers, reorganise the judicial system, set up a UN radio station and help create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "The transfer of power from President (Charles) Taylor to Vice-President (Moses) Blah and the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement by the Liberian parties offer a unique window of opportunity to end the suffering inflicted on the people of Liberia and to find a peaceful solution to a conflict that has been the epicentre of instability in the subregion," Annan said. He added: "Enhancing the overall security situation should greatly facilitate freedom of movement for persons and goods, and help to give humanitarian agencies safe and unhindered access to the civilian population in dire need of relief assistance." Taylor handed over power to Blah, after intense international pressure, and left for exile in Nigeria on 11 August. The former warlord has been indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone in view of his support for a brutal rebellion in Sierra Leone from 1991-2001. Diplomats have accused Taylor of continuing to orchestrate clashes between government militias and rebel forces in the interior of Liberia by telephone from his new home in Calabar in southeasten Nigeria. Apparently alluding to this mischief making, Annan said: "I call upon Taylor to abide by the terms of the agreement reached with Nigeria regarding his exile and to disengage completely from Liberian politics." The UN Secretary General said the gross violations of human rights in Liberia required that special attention be paid to the demobilisation of fighters and the protection of civilians, especially women and children. "Eliminating the culture of violence in Liberia is an essential prerequisite for ensuring that peace takes root," he said. "Unless we address the reintegration problem early and effectively, thousands of disarmed youth, in a dire economic situation, are likely to return to the bush and become hired guns, not only inside the country but in a subregion already awash with small arms and mercenaries." The Liberian conflict has displaced one million Liberians from their homes and has sent 300,000 as refugees into neighouring countries. It has also disrupted further the lives of 50,000 refugees from Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea living in Liberia. "The cumulative impact of the conflict has further reduced the already declining living standards of Liberians. It is one of the world’s poorest countries, with high illiteracy rates and an unemployment rate of 85 percent. The national debt is US $2.8 billion and over 75 percent of the population lives below the poverty line," Annan said. The European Commission on Tuesday gave a grant of eight million euros to support peacekeeping efforts in Liberia by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Poul Nielson, Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian aid, said: "We have in recent years witnessed an increasing and successful involvement of African leaders in conflict resolution on their continent. ECOWAS' role in brokering and monitoring peace in Liberia is a good example." Part of the money will pay for daily allowances, food and water rations for the ECOMIL forces. The rest will be used to set up the office of an ECOWAS Special Representative in Liberia, the Commission said in a statement.