Military

Alex Vines, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Statement Before the House Sub-Committee on Africa

October 2, 2003

 U.S. Policy Toward Liberia

Mr. Chairman and members of the sub-committee, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on Liberia. I have worked for the New York-based Human Rights Watch for over the last decade with a focus on Africa. I am currently a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Business and Human Rights Program. Since last September I have also been the Head of the Africa Program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London. In April 2001 I took leave of absence from Human Rights Watch to join the U.N. panel of experts on Liberia established under Security Council Resolution 1343 (2001).  I have served on three subsequent panels as an expert, until May 2003.  I testify before you on behalf of Human Rights Watch, but also with the benefit of the insights I gained over the last two years from being on the U.N. panel of experts on Liberia.

I shall focus in this testimony on the immediate need for civilian protection. I wish to first provide you with a summary from Human Rights Watch’s field investigation in Liberia less than a month ago. I will also discuss the issue of sanctions.  Finally, I will talk about the important question of Liberia’s management of its revenue and especially its maritime registry.  In each case I will highlight recommendations for U.S. policy toward Liberia.

I. The Human Rights Situation

Current Human Rights Conditions

Conditions remain worrying in Liberia, despite assurances by the West African-led peacekeepers that the situation has stabilized. President Bush pledged that America would “help the people of Liberia find the path to peace,” on his way to Africa this summer. Three ships with thousands of U.S. Marines steamed for Liberia’s shores. And on August 15, after the departure of Liberia’s brutal leader, Charles Taylor, a “vanguard” force of 200 Americans landed in Monrovia, raising hopes among Liberians that the United States would aid them at last.

Ten days later the Marines withdrew to their ships, leaving an ill-equipped and undermanned West African force in Liberia’s capital. Last weekend two U.S. warships left waters off Liberia’s coast and sailed home, followed this week by the third ship. This leaves just about 100 U.S. troops in Liberia, providing security at the U.S. embassy and working as coordinators with the 3,250 peacekeepers. Was this just a token gesture without the risk of assuming any responsibility?

The thinking behind this deployment appears to be the product of compromise between the State Department’s vision of wider American global interests and the Pentagon’s narrower view. The administration defends its actions by claiming Liberia is stabilizing and U.S. forces are no longer needed. It is true that West African peacekeepers have helped reduce violence in Monrovia, Kakata and Buchanan. The problem is that peacekeepers have barely moved into the unstable countryside—where U.S forces could make a significant difference.

The U.N. took over the peacekeeping responsibilities in Liberia yesterday and a force of 15,000 has been proposed, but it could take months for the force to reach full capacity.  In Sierra Leone, the delayed deployment of peacekeeping troops following the 1999 Lomé peace accord contributed greatly to the collapse of the country back into war in April 2000.  Currently marauding armed bands continue to commit murder, rape, forced recruitment and looting in many parts of the country.

Ragtag government militias and fighters from both rebel groups – Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the splinter group made up of ex-LURD members called the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) – operate with little discipline or command-and-control. They loot in part because they are hungry and not being paid.

Hundreds of thousands of persons have repeatedly been uprooted as they fled the countryside in terror of these armed groups. Those groups are also seeking to secure the last spoils of battle in expectation of the territory being secured by peacekeepers. Soldiers systematically extort money and other goods from those seeking refuge and have blocked them from moving to safety. Fleeing civilians are also vulnerable to rape and abduction by the armed groups. Thousands of people remain in hiding in the bush where adequate food, water, shelter and medical care are scarce or non-existent. Most of the population remains in grave need of basic necessities, particularly outside the capital, Monrovia. In Bong County, fighting between government forces and the LURD rebels has caused the mass displacement of the population.

Rape and other sexual violence against girls and women remain pervasive and is committed by all parties. The sexual violence, which is also committed against young boys, often accompanies the widespread looting.

Both the government militias and rebel fighters rely on child soldiers, most of whom are between thirteen and sixteen years old, but some are as young as six. Many have been forcibly recruited.  Human Rights Watch researchers saw many soldiers that appeared to be below the age of eighteen (perhaps as young as thirteen) at government and rebel checkpoints.

A comprehensive peace agreement signed on August 18, 2003, included a pact by the government and rebel forces to grant access to humanitarian organizations throughout the country. However, the insecure situation continues to impede the delivery of humanitarian assistance to those in greatest need.

Protection of the civilian population remains an urgent priority. All sectors of Liberian society, from civilians to civil society groups, and even the combatants from all the warring parties, have repeatedly called for a prompt and expansive deployment of ECOMIL (the 3,500 West African peacekeepers now operating under a U.N. mandate and known as UNMIL) and other international forces.

A more robust U.S. military deployment could have gone a long way to ending much of this misery. Liberia is not Somalia or the Middle East. The U.S. is much respected and welcomed in Liberia, probably more so than in most other countries in the world. A significant U.S. presence on the ground as part of the international force would have had a profound psychological effect on Liberians and the leaders of the armed factions. It would have deterred further violence on the ground and also make recruiting more forces from other countries for the peacekeeping operation easier.

The administration should seek funds from Congress to support the country’s reconstruction, including the rebuilding of its judicial and law enforcement institutions. It should back the 15,000 strong U.N. peacekeeping force with human and logistical support. It is not too late for the U.S. presence on the ground to be beefed up.  The U.S. could show leadership by quickly contributing Marines to the U.N. peacekeeping operation. Civilian protection, facilitation of the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and establishment of conditions for the safe and sustainable return of refugees and internally displaced persons, and support for disarmament and demobilization efforts are immediate priorities.

For more recommendations, as well as a detailed description of ongoing human rights abuses, see the September 9, 2003, Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, “Liberia: Greater Protection Required For Civilians Still at Risk,” available as a link from www.hrw.org/press/2003/09/liberia091603.htm.

The Indictment of Charles Taylor

A defining moment came on June 4, 2003, when the Special Court for Sierra Leone “unsealed” its indictment against Charles Taylor. He is charged as one of the people who bears “the greatest responsibility” for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war. His alleged crimes include murder, taking hostages, rape, extermination, sexual slavery, and the use of child soldiers.

The indictment set off a chain of events that resulted in Taylor accepting an offer of exile from President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. President Bush repeatedly told Charles Taylor to leave Liberia. In a deal supported by West African leaders and welcomed by the U.N., Taylor handed the presidency to an interim government. In mid-October, that government will be replaced by a transitional government of national unity, whose chairperson will lead the country until elections are held in late 2005.

Taylor now resides in a hilltop mansion in Calabar, in southeastern Nigeria. However, Human Rights Watch believes that exile must not shield Taylor from prosecution before the Sierra Leone Special Court. International law does not accept amnesty for atrocities that amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes. The Special Court’s statute and implementing legislation provide that neither amnesty nor a suspect’s official capacity is a bar to prosecution.

The U.S. administration should urge the Nigerian authorities to hand over ex-President Charles Taylor to the Special Court.

II. Sanctions on Liberia

The Role of Sanctions

U.N. sanctions have played an important role in progress toward ending the war in Liberia. They are coming up for review within a month (November 4, 2003) and could still play a role in supporting efforts to obtain security and stability on the ground in Liberia and in the region.

An arms embargo was placed on Liberia in 1992 following a request from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after they had intervened militarily in the Liberian civil war to prevent Charles Taylor and his NPFL rebels from taking power. However, Liberia became an example of the lack of implementation of sanctions. It even took two years for a Sanctions Committee to be established to monitor their enforcement. Because of the failure of enforcement, the sanctions had no impact, even though they were maintained on Liberia after Charles Taylor was elected president in 1997.

In March 2001 this changed. In response to a report presented by the Panel of Experts established to monitor sanctions applied to the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and other forces operating in Sierra Leone, the Security Council decided to approve new sanctions on Liberia to start in May 2001. The basis for these sanctions was President Taylor’s support for the RUF in Sierra Leone in violation of the existing sanctions. Security Council Resolution 1343 reauthorized the arms embargo on Liberia; imposed a travel ban on key officials, their spouses, and business associates; mandated the freezing of all financial assets of the RUF; and called for the expulsion of RUF members from Liberia. An embargo was also imposed on all of Liberia’s diamond exports, and in July 2003 an embargo on the export of timber was also added.

A new panel of experts was also created to monitor compliance with the Liberian sanctions. Drawing originally from the Sierra Leone panel of five, it has since been renewed five times for periods ranging from five weeks to six months.

Security Resolution 1343 was the first time that the Council imposed sanctions on one country for its refusal to comply with sanctions on another. The Liberia sanctions were at their core designed to shore-up the peace process in Sierra Leone. They fully achieved this objective. The diamond embargo in particular resulted in an almost complete cessation of the trade in illicit diamonds from Sierra Leone to Liberia. The sanctions assisted with the trade axis re-aligning itself to Freetown. Patterns of diamond trading also changed, with some Liberian rough gems passing through to Sierra Leone to be sold from there.[i]

Events in Sierra Leone in late 2000 and 2001 also show that the threat and imposition of sanctions on Liberia probably contributed to the RUF’s decision to sign an unconditional ceasefire in November 2000 and their re-affirmation of the agreement in May 2001. Sanctions were not solely responsible for this positive development. Hundreds of troops from the United Kingdom sent in May 2000 to support the U.N., as well as sustained Guinean military operations against the RUF in Liberian territory also played a role. Sanctions on Liberia within this context helped to weaken Monrovia’s support of the RUF. This in turn assisted the RUF’s efforts to transform itself into a political party that peacefully contested the parliamentary and presidential elections in December 2002.

Mandate of Sanctions Needs to Change

By early 2003, following successful elections in Sierra Leone, the original justification of Security Council Resolution 1343 for sanctions on Liberia had been superseded by events on the ground. In late 2002 and mid 2003 the Panel of Experts submitted reports demonstrating that the mandate for the panel was increasingly outdated and that if the sanctions were to continue they needed to be underpinned with a new basis.[ii] 

The effectiveness of the sanctions had also deteriorated over time. Increasingly the Liberian government violated the sanctions imposed on it. For example, the travel ban was routinely violated and weekly sanctions-busting flights of arms and ammunition arrived in Monrovia. The Panel also found its investigations in Liberia became more difficult to carry out.  People were less willing to speak to the Panel, and the government became more defiant, obstructive, and hostile to the Panel’s work. Public sympathy for sanctions also had declined in the face of a growing rebel insurgency backed by neighboring Guinea.

The Guinea Connection

Ensuring that that the arms embargo is properly respected should be a key task of the U.N. peacekeeping operation. The example of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) could help here. The Milops operation and its Military Intelligence Office cell at UNAMSIL headquarters in Freetown played a critical role. It was a nerve center producing daily, weekly and monthly briefings on political and military developments. The system relied heavily on personnel from the United Kingdom. In Liberia, this could be a key strategic area where the U.S. contributes skilled personnel and logistical support.

A Future Panel of Experts

The monitoring of these sanctions in this review period could call on the Sierra Leone and Angola experience for guidance. The number of experts on the Liberia panel could be reduced in November, below its peak level of six experts. Numbers of experts do not necessarily equate with better reporting, and a reduction in size provides cost-saving in addition to signaling a positive response to political developments.  Human Rights Watch further recommends, as it has in the past, that the Security Council establish a permanent sanctions unit in the U.N. Secretariat to ensure continuity and the preservation of institutional memory with respect to the monitoring of U.N. sanctions regimes.

III. Management of Revenue

Misuse of Revenue by the Taylor Government

The reform of the management of Liberia’s sources of revenue, including from the timber sector, is critical for the reconstruction of the country. This is especially true given that the transitional administration that takes over in mid-October has divided the management of the key sources of revenue, forestry, mines, ports and the maritime registry between the protagonists in the civil war. 

For the last six years, under Charles Taylor, much of the country’s wealth was diverted or disappeared, making Liberia one of the poorest nations in the world. Tens of millions of dollars of state revenue disappeared, through extra-budgetary expenditures or through ad hoc tax exemptions. Rubber, timber and maritime revenues were key and, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), could generate U.S. $79 million a year if tax revenue is also included.

The sanctions-busting arms trade to Liberia depended on the ability of clients or their patrons to pay, whether in cash or precious gems. Liberia’s weapons purchases from 1999 to 2003 were mainly financed by off budget spending by the Liberian government. Payments were made from revenue that bypassed the central bank and was therefore not accounted for in the budget. Taylor favored maintaining major off-budget agencies—the Bureau of Maritime Affairs (BMA), the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC)—headed by his close associates.

The U.N. Liberia panel of experts, on which I served, documented nine payment instructions for a total of $7,500,000 from 1999 to 2001 to nine different bank accounts. These were all off-budget expenditures from the timber industry. Two of these were used as payments for defense-related expenditure.

On May 6, 2002, prior to the introduction of timber sanctions in July 2003, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1408 (2002). That resolution called for an audit of the revenues derived from the shipping registry and the Liberian timber industry. It represents the first time that the Security Council has required an audit. The relevant portion of the resolution states:

“Calls upon the Government of Liberia to take urgent steps, including through the establishment of transparent and internationally verifiable audit regimes, to ensure that revenue derived by the Government of Liberia from the Liberia Shipping Registry and the Liberian timber industry is used for legitimate social, humanitarian and development purposes, and not in violation of this resolution, and to report back to the Committee on the steps taken and results of such audits not later than three months after the date of adoption of this resolution.”

The Liberian government did very little in response to the resolution. It commissioned a systems and management audit, one that avoided any financial analysis. There remains an important opportunity to ensure that the timber revenues are appropriately audited and managed. The U.S. should encourage and provide technical assistance for a full audit and the creation of a system to ensure this revenue is used for “legitimate social, humanitarian and development purposes.”

Maritime Revenues: A Case Study

Maritime revenues have been problematic. Liberia has hosted a United States-based maritime shipping registry since 1949. Liberia today has the second largest maritime fleet in the world. The registry has traditionally had a high proportion of tanker tonnage.  In recent years, the prime concern has not been about the technical quality of the registry but what happens to the money generated from it. From 1949 to 1999, the registry earned around U.S. $700 million for the Liberian government. During the 1990-1996 civil war in Liberia and during the interim period following that war, revenue from the registry represented some 90 percent of the Liberian government’s total income. In 2003 this was once again the case. Maritime revenues provide on average some U.S. $15 to 18 million a year, although in 2003 the IMF estimated this had declined to U.S. $13 million.

Transactions by the United States-based Liberian International Shipping and Corporate Registry (LISCR) to off-budget accounts were also used to pay for illegal arms shipments.  After LISCR ceased the practice in August 2000, other off-budget outlays of maritime funds were utilized.

The U.N. panel also documented in detail how the Commissioner of Maritime Affairs assisted sanctions-busting efforts, notably by arranging payments from the Bureau of Maritime Affair’s (BMA) funds and providing logistical support. The U.N. panel concluded in its October 2001 report that the Liberia’s commissioner of maritime affairs and the BMA were “little more than a cash extraction operation and cover from which to fund and organize off-budget expenditures, including for sanctions-busting, and that the funds would need to be protected from Bureau misuse.”

Human Rights Watch gave a detailed testimony on misuse of Liberian maritime revenues to the House Armed Services Special Oversight Panel on the Merchant Marine on June 13, 2002. It can be found at: http://armedservices.house.gov/openingstatementsandpressreleases/107thcongress/02-06-13vines.html.

Accounting for the Maritime Revenue in Monrovia

The U.N. panel investigations found that the maritime funds were remitted directly to a tripartite account held at the Ecobank in Monrovia; the commissioner of maritime affairs and the minister of finance are signatories with a third determinational signatory controlled by the Executive Mansion – the Liberian presidency.

Following a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund, in October 2001 the Liberian authorities directed that government bank accounts be moved from commercial banks to the Central Bank of Liberia. The Bureau of Maritime Affairs (BMA), however, still maintains its own three-signatory account, and payments by LISCR were not made directly to the Central Bank but through a Liberian Embassy and a Bureau of Maritime Affairs account in the U.S.

This makes tracking what happens to the money once it reaches the BMA difficult – all the more so, because Liberia’s auditor general last audited the BMA over a decade ago, in 1988. When the U.N. panel tried to examine the accounts of BMA in April 2002, it was not able to do so. The panel was informed that a generator had broken down and that it would be repaired only after the panel had left Liberia.

Liberia’s Ministry of Finance admitted that in 2001, due to increased defense expenditure, there had been significant diversion of maritime funds for extrabudgetry use by the Executive Mansion. The figures provided by the Ministry of Finance for 2001 provided much higher remittances than those registered by the Central Bank of Liberia. This significant discrepancy is mainly due to high extrabudgetry demands on these funds by the Liberian presidency. The Finance Minister from September 1999 to July 2002, Nathaniel Barnes, also admitted that “the revenue was largely diverted,” for the “war effort. But there was no kind of accountability.”[iv]

In September 2000, following an IMF staff visit to review the January-June 2000 Staff Monitored Program (SMP), the IMF expressed concern about the shortfall in maritime revenue and wrote that “the continued decline in maritime inflows is troublesome and should be reviewed closely so that remedial measures can be taken if necessary.”  In December 2001, IMF again noted after its Article IV consultations that reported payments from the shipping registry to the government differed from collections at the Ministry of Finance by some U.S. $2 million, reflecting deductions at source by the BMA or timing differences in the transfer of funds from offshore accounts.  The IMF in its 2002 Article IV report of February 2003 noted that its mission had been “unable to attain any meaningful financial information…even of an unaudited basis, for the BMA and that there had been no action for a independent financial audit of it.”

Table 1 shows almost U.S. $4 million discrepancy between the funds received by the Ministry of Finance and those recorded by the Central Bank of Liberia during 2001 and early 2002.

The main problem with the Liberian shipping and corporate registry is what happens to the money once it is transferred to an account controlled by the Liberian government.

The Need for Independent Oversight and Transparency

The publication of three U.N. panel of experts’ reports (S/2001/1015 of October 26, 2001; S/2002/470 of April 19, 2002; and S/2002/1115 of October 25, 2002) has heightened international attention on how the Liberian flag of convenience is run and what happens to the funds it generates.

The U.N. panel in its October 2001 report recommended that the U.N. Security Council committee should set up an escrow account for all revenues generated from the shipping and corporate registry. It also encouraged the IMF and the government of Liberia to reach an agreement to audit these funds and to designate those funds for development purposes.  Sadly, the recommendation of setting up an escrow account was never taken up by the Security Council.

The Liberian Ministry of Finance on November 23, 2001, announced that it would audit and ring-fence the shipping and corporate registry. On receipt of income from the registry, the Ministry of Finance would channel the funds through the Central Bank of Liberia and would segregate those funds for infrastructure, social, health and welfare development and support programs.

This was followed on December 3, 2001, by a letter from the Ministry of Finance to the IMF requesting assistance to set up a financial monitoring mechanism. The IMF replied on December 14, welcoming the initiative, but ruled that it was enterprise specific and therefore outside the IMF’s mandate. The Ministry of Finance and LISCR then approached the nongovernmental anti-corruption group Transparency International for assistance, but Transparency International also turned down the request on the grounds that such an exercise was outside its mandate. However, they recommended that the ministry approach Crown Agents, a United Kingdom–based company that specializes in port management, auditing and project management.

Security Council Resolution 1408 (2002) called for an audit of the revenues derived from the shipping registry, as noted.  Serious negotiations with the Crown Agent Consultancy, Inc. began in mid-July 2002 but by August had collapsed over the Liberian government’s insistence on a strict liability clause in any contract. In September the government then announced first-stage bids for auditing maritime and forestry. This turned out to be a management audit and systems design – which would not look at any figures. The government awarded the contract to Deloitte & Touche, who withdrew from the contract in December on the advice of its New York and London offices. The government then continued with a local firm called Voscom Inc.

A full independent audit of the funds received by the Liberian government still has not been conducted.  However, this audit will only be as effective as its terms of reference allow.  An audit should be retroactive to 1997, run for a number of years and be publicly available for independent scrutiny.  This audit trail should also include how the funds are then allocated and spent.