The United Nations has confirmed that the delayed disarmament programme in Liberia will restart on Thursday after a four-month delay.
| Doesn't that mean the bad guys have been running around waving shootin' irons for the past four months? |
Jacques Klein, the head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), made the announcement on Saturday at a joint press conference with Gyude Bryant, the Chairman of Liberiaâs transitional government, in the capital Monrovia. Earlier this month, Bryant had set 15 April as the target date for restarting a disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration (DDRR) programme for an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 former combatants in Liberiaâs civil war. However, until Saturdayâs announcement by Klein, UNMIL had declined to confirm the date.
| "We were still processing the paperwork..." |
One reason for this is the fact that the three armed factions in Liberia have still not fulfilled one of the pre-conditions set by UNMIL for resuming the disarmament process. They have not yet provided a full list of their combatants, the locations where they are based and the weapons in their possession.
| The UN assumes the bad guys have this information? |
Klein referred to this on Saturday. According to a press statement issued by UNMIL he âurged the factions to submit comprehensive lists of their combatants locations and weapons,â saying these were âvital to support implementation of the programme.â General Daniel Opande, the commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia, said earlier in the week that the other pre-conditions for starting disarmament had all been met. The Kenyan general said UNMIL now had adequate troops on the ground to ensure security and they had been deployed throughout the country. Opande said UNMIL had nearly 14,000 troops in Liberia and these had established positions in 13 of the countryâs 15 counties. He also noted that a campaign to make former combatants aware of how the DDRR programme would work had been conducted satisfactorily and that the four cantonment sites where the fighters will hand in their weapons and undergo a two to three-week screening exercise had been completed.
| Oh, an Outreach™ program. How sweet. |
Bryant said on Saturday that the DDRR programme would start on Thursday at Gbargna, a former stronghold of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, 150 km northeast of Monrovia, and would be extended gradually to the three other centres. The second cantonment site would open at Buchanan, a port city formerly held by the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) rebel group, on 20 April, while the third would open at Tubmanburg, a LURD military base 60 km north of Monrovia, on 25 April, he added. Bryant said the fourth and final cantonment site would open at VOA on the outskirts of the capital on 30 April. This site is aimed mainly at disarming fighters loyal to former president Charles Taylor. UNMIL made a first attempt to start disarmament on 7 December, when it had only 5,000 troops on the ground and only one cantonment site in operation on the outskirts of Monrovia. However the exercise was ill-prepared and led to bloodshed and confusion. It was suspended after just 10 days.
| Most things in Liberia seem to lead to bloodshed and confusion, to include breakfast... |
At least nine people were killed as pro-Taylor gunmen rioted in Monrovia demanding cash for handing in their weapons. UNMIL eventually agreed to pay each former combatant US$75 in cash as he handed in his gun, but then found itself overwhelmed by fighters clamouring for the bounty. This payment was presented at the time as the first tranche of a $300 resettlement allowance. UNMIL was therefore determined to be fully prepared before it attempted to re-launch the disarmament exercise. Bryant said on Saturday that this was why it had taken four months to resume the DDRR programme.
âWe had some hurdles, it took some time, but that was to ensure that when we begin this time, we donât run into the kinds of problems we ran into when we began on 7 December,â he said. UN officials in Liberia have made clear that UNMIL will not pay former combatants any money as they hand in their weapons this time round.
| Do they have to turn in their bustiers, too? |
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