IRIN interview with Felix Downes-Thomas

Q : What is UNOL's mandate in Liberia? A : Basically it is to facilitate the stabilisation process, which involves reconciliation, and trying to get assistance for this country to move forward. And also to act as the conductor of the orchestra in terms of UN agencies and to give them policy directions in matters which deal specifically with reconciliation and resettlement. Q : What are the major challenges facing UNOL? A : Paucity of funds. There should have been a trust fund for UNOL which has remained unsubscribed and that has tied our hands in terms of doing practical things in the areas of peace building and reunification. Another challenge is how does one mobilise assistance for Liberia against the background of the accusations of Liberia being the bad boy of the 'quartier'. Recently, we seem to have made breakthroughs in terms of Liberia's relations with neighbouring countries as well as Nigeria. The presence of different heads of state for the weapons destruction on 26 July, the role that the government of Liberia played in the Sierra Leone peace talks in Lome and the visits of the UN Secretary General and senior ECOWAS emissaries gave me the impression that we had turned the corner in terms of Liberia's isolation. But the events in Voinjama last week appear to have put a damper on the mood here. Q : So you believe that Liberia's reputation as the bad boy of the region is unjustified ? A : I hope we do not dwell too long on this because for me it is a thing of the past. The area where Liberia was being accused most was complicity with the RUF in Sierra Leone and to date no one has produced any concrete evidence of such complicity. Therefore, it is very difficult for me to associate myself with those criticisms in the absence of any proof. Q : So to what extent do you feel that the Liberian government is dealing with issues relevant to UNOL's mandate such as reconstruction of the armed forces, reconciliation, human rights issues, freedom of the press? A : I do not consider freedom of the press to be an issue in Liberia. The press is quite free and flourishing in Liberia. As regards restructuring of the army, the government has set up an independent task force which has recommended that the army be downsized by about 6,000 men. But how does one operationalise that plan? You are talking about retrenchment, you are talking about pension payments and the government is strapped for funds. That is a fact and the government needs international assistance which has not been forthcoming. Matters are further complicated by the fact that certain donor countries have legislative restrictions on providing assistance to armies in foreign countries. But there is another problem which the Liberian Government faces: that of determining the ethnic balance of the army... Donors want the army to reflect the overall ethnic composition of Liberia, a matter which I raised with the appropriate government authorities. They pointed out to me that they had inherited a national army which was predominantly Krahn and that there were two ways of bringing parity. [One option is that] the numbers of Krahn within the army could remain the same and be augmented by other ethnic groups. This option would mean an expansion of the armed forces with the associated cost implications. The other option would be to diminish the number of Krahns in the army and bring the other ethnic groups up to the same level. But in this case the government was afraid that it might be accused of ethnic persecution. And so the whole army restructuring issue is not as simple as it appears. On this particular matter the government is caught between a rock and a hard place. Q : And human rights issues? A : One of UNOL's challenges is the absence in its mandate of matters dealing with human rights. However, we have tried to provide technical assistance and advice on human rights issues through the participation in training courses for security personnel, notably the police. We have also provided assistance in terms of drafting bills and documents which relate to human rights. We lack the capacity to monitor or investigate human rights abuses, but thankfully there are a plethora of human rights groups within civil society which seem to be doing this job rather admirably. Q : What about ex-combatants? A : This is an issue which has exercised my mind from the beginning and I have had extensive discussions with donors about this. I firmly believe that if we do not attend to this business of ex-combatants we are going to have problems not only nationally but in the subregion. We all heard about the involvement of Liberians in the recently concluded civil strife in Sierra Leone and the government saying that their presence in Sierra Leone was not government-sanctioned. And then we learned [unofficially] that there were Liberians as far afield as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ex-combatants are predominantly characterised by young, able bodied persons (although a good number do have disabilities) who are uneducated and the only trade or skill that they have is killing or fighting. If we do not do something quickly there is a danger that they will go out and market their only skills. Some disabled ex-combatants visited me recently and they were quite energetic about their demands. They expressed concern that the UN and the international community had not kept their part of the bargain to reintegrate them and to resettle them. For them this includes the provision of skills, opportunities for self-employment, income-generating activities and so on. I empathise with them because they are right about that. The problem is that funding from the international community has not been forthcoming. Liberia has yet to receive a peace or democracy dividend. Q : You mean in the form of support from the international community? A : Exactly