Liberia: UN-run disarmament tops expectations but aid needed to help ex-fighters

Over 95,000 former fighters in Liberia - including 10,000 children - have turned in weapons to United Nations peacekeepers as the end of the process approaches, but more funds are needed to ensure their safe reintegration into society, the top UN envoy to the country said today.

With 31 October set as the deadline for ex-combatants to give up their arms, available resources have not matched promises, Jacques Paul Klein told the UN News Service. Of the $520 million pledged at a major UN donors' conference in February, only $354 million has been received.

While the disarmament process is largely finished, reintegration and rehabilitation are taking on greater importance, especially in a country which already has an 85 per cent unemployment rate. Reintegrating some 100,000 young people into Liberian society will be "an awesome task," Mr. Klein said.

The envoy pointed out that long-term support is needed to lift Liberia out of turmoil and poverty. "Liberia is a failed State," he observed. "We've put out the fire, but we must also have the assets and take the time to rebuild the house."

Youngsters who have disarmed are taken to interim care centres run by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), where they receive not only physical but also psychological support, which is particularly important "because many of these children are traumatized, quite a few of the girls have been raped or are pregnant," Mr. Klein noted.

Over 90 per cent of the children concerned have been reunited with families - an exceptionally high figure in a country where the communications infrastructure is barely functional. "United Nations radio is the only 24 hour a day radio station that reaches into some of the hinterlands," Mr. Klein said, attributing the success to a word-of-mouth campaign propelled by dedicated efforts.

Mr. Klein said original estimates of 38,000 weapons had been "totally wrong" because it was based on misinformation from former combatants. "None of the warring factions have ever given us the complete and honest list," he said, explaining that they had been trying to "keep the disarmament process in abeyance, so they would still have some residual firepower" to take military action.

In addition to the distorted information from combatants, Liberia "was awash with weapons from prior conflicts," he added.

"The failure last time was not everybody was demobilized, not everyone was demilitarized, not all the weapons were turned in, weapons caches stayed buried," the envoy cautioned. "This time we want to avoid replicating the failure of the past."

In order to tackle the root causes of proliferation, the UN is recording serial numbers of arms before destroying them in a large machine stationed in the capital Monrovia. Mr. Klein said this documentation "is very important to preclude future shipments of weapons coming this way."

After 31 October, he emphasized, those fighters who miss the deadline will still have the opportunity to disarm. "We'll have to have one camp somewhere available to take them in and to process them," he said. "We certainly don't want to deny anyone who is a truly eligible, former combatant, the opportunity to disarm, demobilize and have some help returning to a useful civilian life."