Peacekeepers exit Liberia after 14 years
UNITED NATIONS MISSION WHICH WAS DEPLOYED IN 2003 HANDED BACK CONTROL OF SECURITY MATTERS IN JULY 2016
As United Nations peacekeepers leave Liberia after 14 years, headway in reforming the security forces is being undermined by lack of progress in tackling the country’s traumatic legacy of war crimes, officials say.
Liberia’s 1989-2003 conflict killed around a quarter of a million people, while government forces and rebel groups murdered, maimed and raped with impunity.
The UN mission, known as UNTIL, was deployed in September 2003 as the highly politicised army and police were disbanded after committing some of the worst abuses.
The effort to protect Liberians after the gruelling conflict will be remembered long after the mission’s exit, said Eugene Farkollie, a civil society leader.
“UNTIL has had a serious positive impact in Liberia. No need to remind anyone about how the UN peacekeepers saved thousands of lives by sending a vanguard force when killing was fair game for the various warring factions,” Farkollie told AFP.
“The mission gave hope to refugees to return home, and built schools through its quick impact projects. UNTIL also positively impacted our security sector by helping to train a professional police and immigration [service],” he added.
UNTIL handed back control of security matters in July 2016. Its final pullout is today.
Samuel Smith, a Liberian security expert, pointed to the peaceful roll-out of last year’s presidential election as proof that the security forces could stand on their own, partly thanks to UN support and training. “When you look at the manner in which our national security handled the presidential elections, it makes you believe that we are getting there gradually,” he said.
But UN officials say more must be done to address the roots of Liberia’s long conflict, and to deal with its lingering effects.
The United Nations Deputy Secretary General Aminah Mohammad said last week in Monrovia that peace would “remain fragile as long as people feel excluded from the economic and political life of the country, and as long as corruption undermines confidence in institutions”.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up by former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to probe war crimes and rights abuses linked to the conflict said in 2009 that a compensation scheme should be created, alongside a dedicated war crimes court.
To date no one has been prosecuted for war crimes committed during the conflict, and the underlying causes of the conflict remain strongly felt in Liberian society.
President George Weah has made no specific commitments to addressing war crimes since his election last year.
Seeking closure
“Either we forget or justice is done,” he said at a ceremony for the mission’s departure.
However, he added he harboured hopes that the Ministry of Justice and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission would come “back to the table”, without elaborating.
Ebrahim Al Bakri Nyei, a Liberian researcher and political analyst, said the country’s leaders had to provide an outlet for victims to access justice, and for perpetrators “to exonerate themselves or justify their alleged action before a competent court”.
A war crimes court, he added, would require UN expertise to set up, pointing to a continuing role for the world body beyond development projects once its peacekeeping duties wound up.
The future of UN peacekeeping is also being considered more widely as two other bodies are playing an increasingly important role in West African security and politics: the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the G5 Sahel group of nations.