Top UN envoy for Liberia poised to ask Security Council for 'large force' to rebuild country

In New York to press for the massive numbers of troops needed to stabilize and help rebuild Liberia, the top United Nations envoy for the country said today he would ask the Security Council "not to be indifferent" to the West African nation but to do its utmost to support a founding member of the UN "that had fallen on hard times because of poor leadership and exploitation."

Briefing reporters on the situation in Liberia, Jacques Paul Klein, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative, said the country had "stepped back in time." It was a nation where 85 per cent of the population lived at the poverty line; where 70 per cent of the militias were children under the age of 18; where unemployment was at 90 per cent; and where the capital city, Monrovia, did not have running water or electricity, and had not for the past 10 years.

Mr. Klein said that in order to help in the reconstruction of the country, his assessment team had outlined a long-range plan of how to rebuild the health care and education systems, the port and the economy as a whole. That survey had been completed, and he would hopefully present the Secretary-General's report to the Council next week.

The report asks for a fairly large force - some 15,000 peacekeepers and 900 international police - as the assessment team did not want to repeat the mistake made in Sierra Leone of going in with too light a force, Mr. Klein noted. A good number of countries had come forward to volunteer and had promised contributions for both troops and civilian police.

Asked about the length and the cost of the proposed plan, Mr. Klein said that he did not know, as experts had not yet been brought in to estimate the cost of rebuilding the port of Monrovia, the hydroelectric grid, and the road infrastructure, among other things. It would take a programme of at least five to 10 years to rebuild the failed State, he said.

The hardest part, he continued, would be to rebuild Liberia in terms of long-range reconstruction and funding, because the regime of former President Charles Taylor had effectively destroyed the State. All the ministries had been gutted, all the archives had been destroyed, the medical infrastructure was gone, and the educational infrastructure had ceased to exist, he said.

Mr. Klein said he would ask the Security Council not to be indifferent to the people of Liberia, "a founding member of the United Nations [now]…fallen on hard times." There was a clear understanding that Liberia was the key to West Africa, and the excellent work that the British had done in Sierra Leone, and that the French had done in Côte d'Ivoire, could all very rapidly become undone if Liberia imploded.

Meanwhile on the ground in Liberia, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) relief ship, Martin I Majuro, steamed out of Monrovia harbour this afternoon bound for the southern coastal town of Harper. On board, an inter-agency UN and international non-governmental organization (NGO) mission is poised to dock and enter territory held by forces from the rebel group Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) in the hope that access to Harper will widen the international assistance to Liberia's most vulnerable.