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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
LIBERIA: Peace hasn't stopped gunmen abusing civilians - Amnesty
ABIDJAN, 25 November 2003 (IRIN) - Amnesty International has warned that three months after the signing of a peace agreement in Liberia, gunmen are still killing and raping civilians and driving them from their homes, despite the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping force in the country.
"All parties to the conflict who signed the peace agreement a little over three months ago are violating the terms of that agreement including a commitment to end human rights abuses," the London-based human rights organisation said in a statement.
It was issued on Monday following a two-week visit to Liberia by a team of Amnesty International delegates who travelled widely within the West African country.
Amnesty said human rights abuses mostly occurred in areas outside the control of UN peacekeeping troops. These remain concentrated in and around the capital Monrovia as the force works up its full strength of 15,000 men.
The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has 6,500 troops on the ground at present and expects more to arrive in the first week of December, Lieutenant-Colonel Borje Johannson, UNMIL's military spokesman, told IRIN by telephone from Monrovia on Tuesday.
"We are hopeful that we will reach the full capacity by the end of February or early March", he added.
"For the moment, we cannot guarantee security and safety of civilians until we have enough, well equipped military personnel deployed throughout the hinterland," Johannson said.
Amnesty stressed the urgency of deploying UN blue helmet forces more widely.
"It is clear that the presence of UN troops offers protection to the civilian population in the few areas where they are currently deployed," the human rights watchdog said.
"What is needed urgently is the swift deployment of additional forces with adequate logistical support beyond Monrovia and the main route to Gbarnga," it added.
Amnesty said that "Instead of being able to return to their homes, hundreds of thousands of people remain internally displaced. These numbers increase daily as civilians flee killings, rape, beatings, forced labour and extensive looting."
It complained that the broad-based transitional government led by Gyude Bryant was doing little to punish those responsible for such behaviour and the international community was standing idly by.
"Those now in government should publicly condemn continuing abuses against civilians, urge the combatants whom they represent to cease these abuses immediately and make it clear that they will be held accountable," Amnesty said.
It also complained of a "lack of impetus by the international community to address impunity in Liberia."
The Amnesty delegation met large numbers of internally displaced people in camps around Monrovia and the towns of Kakata, Totota and Saclepea in the interior.
Those in Kakata and Totota on the main road north from Monrovia described how their villages were attacked and looted by Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) forces and how, as they fled, their few remaining possessions were taken by former government forces based around Sanoyie, it said.
Those in Saclepea in north-central Liberia had fled from fighters of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) forces as they advanced on the town, killing, looting and destroying villages.
Johannson confirmed that the demobilisation and disarmament of LURD and MODEL fighters and soldiers and militiamen loyal to former president Charles Taylor would start on 7 December as scheduled.
UNMIL will initially set up three demobilisation and disarmament centres. One for former government soldiers will be established at a military barracks on the road from Monrovia to Roberts international airport, a second for LURD fighters will be set up at Tubmanburg, 60 km northwest of the capital and a third for MODEL fighters will be created in the port city of Buchanan.
Taylor stepped down in August and left for exile in Nigeria, paving the way for the signature of a peace agreement that ended nearly 14 years of civil war in Liberia.
Bryant was sworn on 14 October as the head of a broad-based coalition government charged with organising fresh elections in 2005.
Themes: (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
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