Republican News · Thursday 7 August 2003

Liberians welcomes peacekeepers

More than 3,000 West African peacekeepers had started arriving to Liberia on Monday 4 August, and they were being welcomed by a population tired of the fighting and massacres that have devastated the country for years. African peacekeepers may yet be the saviours of the Liberians, though when the fighting reached Monrovia in June, the population first looked to the United States, which has long historical ties to Liberia, for salvation.

The West African country, founded by freed American slaves, has been in political turmoil since the 1980s, when a coup by Sergeant Samuel Doe overthrew president William Tolbert after food price riots. Doe's coup marked the end of dominance by the minority Afro-American settlers, but heralded a period of instability that reached its peak in December 1989, when rebel leader Charles Taylor - who is still Liberia's president - rebelled against the government. The civil war forcibly displaced 500,000 people, who moved across the border mainly to Guinea, but also to Ivory Coast. At the time, Guinea and other West African countries formed an intervention force to stop Charles Taylor. They counted on the help of some Liberian refugees, who eventually formed the rebel movement Ulimo-K.

By 1996, Liberia enjoyed a peace-lull, and refugees returned home as West African peacekeepers began a disarmament programme, clearing landmines and opening roads. However, it was now the turn of Liberia to suffer due to a neighbouring country's turmoil, as Guinean rebels, opposed to president Lansana Conte, fled to Liberia, where they were supposed to receive military training. This is the same group of Guineans that linked up with Sierra Leone's rebel group Revolutionary United Front, which brought pain and misery upon Sierra Leone's population with their limb amputations in their effort to gain control of the country's diamond mines.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, Charles Taylor had come back, this time as a politician, winning a landslide victory in presidential elections in 1997. The continuing war in Sierra Leone meant more refugees crossing the borders into an overcrowded Guinea and also into Liberia. Thousands of Sierra Leone rebels entered Liberia escorted by the Liberian military and used the country as a base to continue their attacks against Sierra Leone's government and population. When a peace agreement was signed between rebel leader Foday Sankoh and Sierra Leone's president Kabbah in 1999, the role of Liberia, and specifically Charles Taylor, in the human rights violations carried out by the rebels came to relevance. At the same time, tensions between Guinea and Liberia mounted, with continuous cross border raids. Refugees were the main victims.

In Guinea, the local population turned against the refugees - at the beginning of 2001, Guinea was a refuge for more than 400,000 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Liberia accused Guinea of sheltering Liberian rebels, while fighters from the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation (Lurd), some of whom opposed Charles Taylor in the 1990s civil war, reached the edge of the capital Monrovia before being forced back. A new rebel group surfaced near the Ivorian border calling itself the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (Model).

In June 2003, Taylor was indicted by a UN-backed war crimes tribunal over his alleged backing of rebels during the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone. The indictment and an arrest warrant were issued as Taylor attended talks in Ghana aimed at ending the ongoing rebellion in his country, during which he unexpectedly offered not to stand for re-election, should this be stipulated in a peace plan.

Taylor has said he will step down as president on 11 August - but it is not clear when or if he is going to leave for Nigeria, which has offered him asylum - potentially escaping an indictment filed by a United Nations court in Sierra Leone.

At the beginning of August, 300 Nigerian peacekeepers flew into Monrovia - the first contingent of several thousand West African troops scheduled to be sent to Liberia by the regional grouping Ecowas.

"For [Nigeria], it's a question of logistics and then money. For the Americans, I think they are seeing it like a new Mogadishu," says Henri Boshoff, a military analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa.

The last time the US government decided to intervene in an African civil war, ten years ago, it resulted in dead American troops being dragged through the streets of Somali capital Mogadishu.

Liberians expressed their feeling of betrayal against a US government that failed to intervene when Monrovia's residents were calling for help by piling up the bodies of some of those killed outside the US embassy.

The US has promised to pay $10m for the peace force but analysts say this is not nearly enough. The US has also tabled a draft resolution to seek UN backing for the Nigerian peacekeepers. This could make all the difference, as the UN would foot at least part of the bill and the soldiers would have the extra motivation of being paid in hard currency. But ensuring peace in the weeks and months to come promises to be a complex and costly affair for the international community and for the Liberians.

Rwanda ready for elections

Nine years after the Rwanda genocide that cost the lives of more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus - killed by armed militia in 100 days of violence in 1994 - eleven people have been handed a death sentence, 73 were sentenced to life in prison and 37 were acquitted by the court in Gikongo in southern Rwanda. So far, the number of people convicted of genocide crimes in the African country is 6,500. Of those, more than 600 have received death sentences, and according to public prosecutor Gerald Gahima, 23 death sentences have been carried out.

Some 100,000 genocide suspects are currently in jails in the central African state awaiting trial, and the authorities have resorted to mass trials and traditional community courts in an attempt to deal with the backlog.

Meanwhile, a United Nations war crimes tribunal for Rwanda, set up in 1995 in neighbouring Tanzania, is dealing with the cases of major figures accused of being behind the genocide. So far, only 12 people have been convicted of genocide-related crimes, and one person has been acquitted

However, while dealing with a painful past, Rwanda is also looking to the future, and the country has opened its campaign for the first presidential elections since the genocide. The vote will take place on 25 August and parliamentary polls will follow on 3 September. The poll is being held under terms set by a national referendum earlier this year, designed to prevent future outbreaks of ethnic violence.

Irish activist detained by Israelis

Irish human rights activist Terry McNeill was arrested on Tuesday by Israeli forces along with 46 other Palestinian, Israeli and international activists. They were protesting against the demolition of a Palestinian home by the Israeli military in order to clear a path for the so-called Separation wall. The barrier, when completed, will consist of 1,000 km of concrete, eight metres high with a round watchtower every 200 metres and will effectively seal off large areas of the West Bank.

The activists were freed on bail on Wednesday morning but on condition that they do not re-enter the West Bank. One of those detained is currently undergoing treatment in a Jerusalem hospital for suspected fractured ribs.

Spokesperson for the IPSC, Dr Ismael Al Hinti, said: "This is completely unjustified and criminal move against what was a peaceful and dignified protest.

"The Israeli government have said the wall will cause 'minimum disruption' to the daily life of the people living on both sides, but in places whole villages have lost their primary access to water and cropland while others have lost their homes or are entirely caged by it. This is unacceptable."