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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
LIBERIA: Bitter LURD fighters say their leaders betrayed them
GBARNGA, 19 Apr 2004 (IRIN) - Former fighters of Liberia's LURD rebel movement say they are happy enough to hand over their guns to UN peacekeeping troops, but many grumble that they have been forgotten and abandoned by their own political leaders.
The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) launched a programme to disarm, demobilise and rehabilitate an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 former combatants throughout Liberia in the northern town of Gbarnga last week.
But many of the LURD fighters queuing up to surrender their weapons there were bitter that 14 years of civil war had left them empty handed.
In particular, they complained that Sekou Damate Conneh, the chairman of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, had broken his promise that he would provide them all with education and skills training once former president Charles Taylor had been driven from power.
Colonel Mohammed Jabateh, surrounded by a group of nearly 100 LURD fighters, did not mince his words.
"All we are saying is that Conneh and other officials fooled us to hold arms and promised that he would send all of us to school and vocational centres. Now, Taylor has left. We have won the war, he does not want to care for us," Jabateh told IRIN.
"They have forgotten about us," said Jabateh, referring to LURD's political leaders, many of whom now occupy top jobs in Liberia's broad-based transitional government. "They are all enjoying good life in Monrovia. We hardly see them around, never mind visit us frequently".
"We do not want to see them around us no more, they fooled us before and we will not succumb to their orders", he continued.
Conneh himself keeps a low profile these days and is always surrounded by a strong squad of bodyguards. He has been to Gbarnga only once since the signing of a peace agreement in August last year that ended the civil war.
In early February Conneh drove to the town 150 km northeast of Monrovia, protected by a strong bodyguard of UN peacekeepers, for a three-hour meeting with LURD fighters in the town.
Conneh, who worked as a tax official and second hand car dealer before joining LURD five years ago, was conspicuously absent as his men started handing in their weapons to UNMIL at a special disarmament camp in Gbarnga on 15 April.
However, the LURD leader told IRIN in Monrovia the following day that he had not abandoned his fighters. He claimed that General Phillip Kamara, one of his senior commanders, had represented him at the ceremony in Gbarnga to mark the resumption of disarmament following a four-month delay.
A second disarmament centre is due to open in the port city of Buchanan for fighters of the MODEL (Movement for Democracy in Liberia) rebel movement on Tuesday. And two more are due to open near Monrovia and the LURD stronghold of Tubmanburg, by the end of April.
Conneh declined to give reasons for his absence from the high profile start of disarmament. But he said: "We have been working behind the scenes just for the disarmament to go on smoothly in Gbarnga."
"The leadership have done so well for the fighters, we sent delegations all of the time which distributed food and clothes to our fighters. I have been there once and my wife, Aisha was there few days ago", he added.
What Conneh omitted to say is that his estranged wife is now more popular than he is among many grass roots LURD fighters and their military commanders.
In fact, many of them have signed a petition demanding that Aisha take over from her husband as the official leader of LURD.
She has always played a key role in the organisation as a result of her close personal links with Guinean President Lansana Conteh, LURD's main backer.
It is an open secret that Aisha is Conteh's soothsayer and enjoys considerable influence with him.
Diplomats and LURD insiders say privately that Conneh was only invited to become the nominal leader of the rebel movement when it was formed in 1999 because of his wife's close connections with the Guinean head of state.
Conneh's control over LURD has weakened since he became estranged from Aisha in October. The couple quarrelled after he appointed a close relative of his first wife as finance minister in the transitional government, which is due to guide Liberia to fresh elections in October 2005.
Several LURD fighters in Gbarnga complained that the LURD leadership had ignored their request for transport to bring former combatants to the cantonment site.
Conneh said it was up to UNMIL to bring in fighters for disarmament at the rate of 250 men per day.
"Under the disarmament arrangement, the UN is responsible for transporting fighters from all areas to the disarmament centre," he told IRIN." We are not responsible for that".
Jachnik Clive, a disarmament and demobilisation officer with UNMIL, said "there are more arms in the remote villages, we are working it out with the factions to have fighters in those areas transported to the disarmament and cantonment sites".
Although the LURD fighters queuing up to hand in their weapons at Gbarnga had little good to say about their own leaders, they were positive about the UN intervention in Liberia.
"Our only hope and concern right now is for UNMIL to help us go back to school and be educated after we disarm. We are tired of holding guns, while our leaders are working in government in Monrovia and enjoying from our sweat", Colonel Jabateh said.
"With money for guns or not, all we want now is to acquired knowledge" he added
Ahmadu Sessay, a 25-year-old fighter sporting long dreadlocks who claimed to be the artillery commander of LURD's Iron Lady Battalion ,said the fighters would not hinder the disarmament exercise.
"Disarmament is our only hope for better lives. The war is over and we will not fire a single bullet," he told IRIN.
The mood of the disarmed fighters definitely picked up as the UN peacekeepers handed them bedding, new clothes and food at the cantonment centre about 8 kilometres away from the disarmament facility where they handed in their guns.
All of them will undergo a week's screening before the UN peacekeepers send them home with $150 in cash, the first instalment of a $300 resettlement allowance.
The disarmament facility in has been installed on a farm belonging to former president Taylor, just to the south of Gbarnga. But like the town itself, the farm has been stripped bare by looters.
Gbarnga, a once bustling market town on the main road from Monrovia to the Guinean border lies in ruins.
Local officials say 100,000 people used to live there, but now it is a ghost town with fewer than 5,000 residents.
Gbarnga was once a stronghold of Taylor's army. But LURD seized the town in July last year after heavy fighting, just before Taylor resigned as president and flew to exile in Nigeria.
Most private homes have had their roofs stripped by looters, while rockets and explosives have burned many buildings, including the City Hall, to the ground.
At the once bustling market in the heart of the town, a small group of 15 traders huddle over their paltry wares.
"We are afraid to bring in more goods in the market, because those fighters are not reliable. They can harass you and take your goods at will", Mamie Sebah, one petty trader said.
Until the fighters who control the town and the surrounding countryside relinquish all their weapons, few are willing to come back.
"Because the fighters are not fully disarmed, the original residents of this city are afraid of returning. Others do not want to return because their homes were either looted or burned during the war", said Alfred Kollie, one of the few who stayed on.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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