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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
LIBERIA: Government needs $11 million before new army can be formed
MONROVIA, 26 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Liberia's transitional government needs almost US $11 million to pay the retirement and severance packages of some 4,000 soldiers before a new national army can begin being trained, a senior defence official said on Monday.
"We are still scouting for funds and there are signals that donors will come to our assistance so as to begin the process. Let me say that South Africa has pledged $4 million out of the $10.9 million required," Deputy Defence Minister Joe Wylie told IRIN.
The United States has already pledged US$ 35 million to help take on and train recruits for the new force and has contracted DynCorp International, a privately owned security company.
But first the back payments to the remnants of the old Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) have to be cleared.
Plans for Liberia's new army have already been scaled back from 4,000 men to 2,000 because of government budgetary issues, but the establishment of the new national force is likely to suffer more delays.
"We had anticipated that by now, the training would have been in progress and a new battalion of 800 men would have become operational when the newly elected government is inaugurated in January 2006. But this seems unlikely," Wylie said.
Securing the funding is not only crucial to get the new army up and running but also to prevent disgruntled soldiers from the old AFL taking matters into their own hands.
In June soldiers from the old army went on the rampage in Monrovia. Some looted their own barracks to protest missed payments, others threw stones and metal missiles at the defence ministry.
Liberia has been without a regular army since civil war broke out in 1989 when Charles Taylor's forces launched an offensive to topple the-then president, Samuel Doe.
During the conflict, which was to run for 14 years until August 2003, there were several proposals to restructure the Liberian army but none of them came to fruition.
Some ordinary Liberians fear that with the process now delayed, whoever is elected president after the 11 October polls will be able to wield some influence over the training of the army.
"We saw this happening under the regime of Charles Taylor when he refused to allow the West African troops to restructure the army and at the end, he created militia groups under the banner of the AFL," said Daniel Brown, a university lecturer in Monrovia.
Under the Abuja peace accord that led to a break in the fighting in 1996 and general elections in 1997, the West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) was supposed to retrain a new national army based on fair ethnic and geographical representation.
Taylor, who won the 1997 elections, sidelined the issue, saying the restructuring was solely a matter for the elected government. A year later his government established a commission that recommended the establishment of a new 6,000-strong army but the proposal was never implemented.
However Wylie dismissed the notion that a repeat was possible.
"No way, it will not be the case this time around and let it go forth that this process will be internationally supervised and no government will dictate it," he said. "This army will have regional and tribal balances in its rank and file and no particular group will dominate as was the case in the past."
In the meantime, responsibility for security in Liberia currently lies with around 15,000 blue-hatted troops that make up UNMIL, the most expensive UN peacekeeping force in the world.
[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 2005
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