UN opens last disarmament site in Harper

The last disarmament centre in war-scarred Liberia has finally opened its doors just one month before the deadline for ex-combatants to hand in their weapons, the United Nations mission in the country (UNMIL) announced on Thursday.

Around 1,000 former fighters for the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) are expected to come to the centre in the port town of Harper in Maryland Country, which lies near the southeastern border with Cote d'Ivoire.

"Today marks the beginning of the end of disarmament throughout Liberia," UNMIL force commander Daniel Opande told Wednesday's opening ceremony.

"I want to urge all members of MODEL who are in the south-east to know that UNMIL is ready to cooperate with them to ensure that all ex-combatants in these areas turn in their weapons in large numbers," he added.

After almost 14 years of civil war, this heavily-forested West African country has enjoyed more than a year of peace but there are still pockets in the interior where rebel gunmen still hold sway because UN peacekeepers have not yet asserted effective control there.

Residents in Maryland County who fled to the capital Monrovia during the war, have complained they are too frightened to return home because of gunmen who continue to prey on the local population. Humanitarian workers also worry that ex-combatants in the south-east are crossing into neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire to fight or to sell their arms.

UNMIL kicked off the disarmament programme on 15 April after a false start in December. On Thursday it said its 15,000-strong peacekeeping force had already disarmed over 82,000 fighters, more than double the original estimate of 38,000.

But critics point out that while every former combatant gets a $300 cash handout, only one in three of those disarmed so far have actually handed in a weapon. They suspect that many civilians are simply posing as former combatants in order to grab the cash and claim other benefits like education and retraining.

There has also been disagreement about the planned closure of the disarmament programme. The United Nations, which is beginning to repatriate refugees next month and is keen to shepherd Liberia to elections in October 2005, wants to wrap up disarmament by 31 October.

"Anyone found with weapons beyond the date will be prosecuted for illegal possession of weapons under Liberian law," UNMIL warned again on Thursday.

Earlier this month, a government commission overseeing disarmament slammed the deadline as "unrealistic and unilateral" and argued that the campaign must go on for longer in order to mop up all the weapons still held by the warring factions in remote areas of the country.

However, Gyude Bryant the chairman of Liberia's broad-based transitional government said later that he accepted the UN-imposed deadline.