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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

LIBERIA: Warring factions walk out of disarmament talks

MONROVIA, 27 November 2003 (IRIN) - The three warring parties in Liberia walked out of talks on disarmament with the United Nations on Thursday after demanding dozens more government jobs in return for handing in their guns.

The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said afterwards that it "condemns in the strongest terms" the actions of "those claiming to represent LURD, MODEL and the former government of Liberia."

UNMIL said in angry statement that by walking out of the inaugural meeting of the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration, the representatives of the armed factions had "put in jeopardy the future peace and stability of Liberia."

The collapse of Thursday's meeting could endanger the planned start of the disarmament process next week. However, UNMIL Disarmament Officer Raul Carrera said that the United Nations was determined to keep it on track. "There is no change in our targets, nor our dates," he told IRIN.

UNMIL was planning to formally launch a five-month campaign to disarm an estimated 38,000 gunmen in Liberia on Monday in the presence of eight visiting European ambassadors who are accredited to Liberia.

The actual process of disarming and registering the former combatants in Liberia's 14-year civil war was due to get under way on 7 December at three special camps. There UN peacekeepers are due put up to 1,000 combatants at a time through a three-week demobilisation process.

These camps are being set up in Monrovia, Tubmanburg, a LURD-held town 60 km northwest of the capital, and Buchanan, a port city controlled by MODEL 120 km southeast of Monrovia.

UNMIL said the representatives of all three warring parties began Thursday's meeting by demanding "dozens of positions for themselves within the the ministries of the National Transitional Government of Liberia and public corporations as a condition for their participation in the DDRR programme."

They then walked out. "They have done this once again for the sake of personal gain and self-agrandizement," UNMIL said bitterly.

It accused the representatives of the armed factions of showing a "total disregard for the welfare and well-being, not only of their combatants, but of the 3.3 million citizens of Liberia who they claim to represent."

A peace agreement signed in August gave five of the 21 ministries in the broad-based transitional government set up to lead Liberia to fresh elections in 2005 to the followers of former president Charles Taylor. It also gave five ministerial posts each to the two rebel movements; Liberians United for Democracy and Reconciliation (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).

The peace accord also allocated the warring parties most of the top jobs in public corporations.

However, since then LURD in particular has pushed hard for its supporters to be given other key jobs in the government and security forces.

The United Nations, which will eventually have 15,000 peacekeeping troops in Liberia, has consistently blocked such demands.

Senior UN officials have privately accused all the armed factions of simply seeking to pack the government with their own men so that they can line their own pockets with public money.

UNMIL spokeswoman Margaret Novicki said on Thursday the demands for more jobs centred mainly on assistant minister posts.

The armed factions have accused Gyude Bryant, the civilian leader of the transitional government, of trying to put his own men into several of these positions.

Bryant co-chairs the disarmament commission, along with Jacques Klein, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative to Liberia.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance

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