Security Council draws back on arms embargo

The UN Security Council has voted to let weapons flow legally into Liberia for the first time since 1992 to arm the country’s newly trained police and security forces. The resolution, passed unanimously on Tuesday, said the move would enable Liberian security forces to “assume greater responsibility for Liberia’s national security.” Other UN sanctions on lucrative timber and diamond exports remain in place though newly elected President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf vowed to maintain pressure to have those embargoes lifted, too. “Step by step, through the leadership of government and the good work of the Liberian people, the president hopes that true political sovereignty and international standing is being returned to Liberia. The UN Security Council is assured that the people of Liberia are ready to manage their own economic affairs,” Sirleaf said in a statement. UN weapons embargoes were first slapped on Liberia in 1992 and reinforced in 2003 under warlord turned president, Charles Taylor. Sanctions were placed on exports of Liberian diamonds in 2001 and timber in 2003 after investigations by the British government and rights groups found that Taylor was using the valuable resources to bankroll conflict across the region. Liberia’s 14 years of brutal civil war ended in 2003. Security is still provided by some 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops, but slowly that responsibility is being handed over to the newly trained police and armed forces. Police officers on the streets of the capital Monrovia welcomed the news they would soon be armed saying that would it help them crack down on the city’s violence crime problem. “It has become very dangerous for us patrolling at night without arms and chasing and looking out for armed robbers. With this decision by the UN, we think the police will be fully ready to fight back the robbers,” Patrolman Howard told IRIN to cheers from over ten other new police men surrounding him. Liberia's police Chief Beatrice Sieh told reporters last week that crime rates in Monrovia have increased by 15 percent in the last two months including armed robbery, kidnapping and murder. International experts agreed that Liberia’s newly trained a security forces need to be armed to operate in a region awash with illegal small arms. “Provided it will be putting weapons in the hands of the army it is appropriate,” said Lul Segged, West Africa Manager with the conflict prevention NGO International Alert. “Different groups in Liberia have been accessing arms through illegitimate channels anyway so the army needs to be able to match them.” But some residents of the Liberian capital Monrovia said they care more about getting job-making industries up and running than seeing their police officers carry guns. Estelle Bondo, who was laid off from her timber industry job, said: “Since the UN imposed sanctions, I have not been able to find another job. I wish they had lifted the sanctions on diamonds and logs instead of the arms.” AK/NR/SS