Liberia

Ballots are seen on a table at a polling station in a slum of Monrovia November 8, 2011. (Luc Gnago/Courtesy Reuters) Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf coasted to victory in the November 8 presidential runoff election because the opposition candidate, Winston Tubman, boycotted the vote claiming fraud. Turnout was low, especially in comparison with the 72 percent turnout in the first round. The blessing is that unlike a few days ago, there was less violence than many had feared. The runoff was praised by the Carter Center and  by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) election observers, though Attahiru Jega, its spokesman and the chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) noted the absence of opposition poll observers, presumably because of the boycott. According to the press, Winston Tubman has made it clear that he will not accept the results of the election runoff. But, it is unclear what his next steps will be. For now, Monrovia is quiet. However, the boycott is a reminder that the political class in Liberia remains seriously divided and peace is fragile. Outside Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is viewed as a hero of Liberia’s resurrection from warlordism and civil war. Much is made of the fact that she is Africa’s first female chief of state and that she is devoted to democracy. She won a Nobel Peace Prize embarrassingly close to election day. There is less enthusiasm for her in Liberia, where many see her as a conventional politician who was once allied to the notorious Charles Taylor, now on trial at in the International Criminal Court in The Hague for a legion of human rights abuses. In the first presidential round with a large field of candidates, she received about 44 percent of the votes. The opposition, however, claims there were significant irregularities, and the chairman of the electoral commission resigned. In the interval between the first and the second rounds –a runoff was necessary because no candidate received a majority of votes cast—she appeared to be negotiating with Prince Johnson, another notorious warlord, for his political support. In the end, no formal agreement was struck, though the two appeared together on the campaign trail. Association with Prince Johnson will do little to burnish her reputation at home, even if it has been largely ignored abroad.

George Weah, running mate of presidential candidate Winston Tubman of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), parades with his supporters during the party's rally in Montrovia October 9, 2011. (Luc Gnago/Courtesy Reuters) While international attention is focused on the gruesome death of Qaddafi and Kenya’s incursion into Somalia to fight al-Shabaab, Liberia is heating up. When the brutal warlord (and now born again) Prince Johnson announced that he would support Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in the November 8 runoff for the Liberia presidency against Winston Tubman, I observed that she needed a long spoon to sup with the devil. Now, the devil is demanding his due: thirty percent of government positions in return for his support. If she demurs, Prince Johnson hints that he will throw his support to the rival Winston Tubman ticket. However, that is unlikely considering Prince Johnson’s concern that a Tubman government would implement the shelved 2009 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, which said he should be prosecuted for his role in the civil war, and that Johnson-Sirleaf should be banned from politics. At the end of the day, shared concern about the TRC may facilitate a bargain between Prince Johnson and Johnson-Sirleaf. Enter another devil and the need for a second long spoon. To reach out to supporters of warlord and former chief of state Charles Taylor, Tubman publicly says that if Taylor is acquitted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, he would be free to return to Liberia and re-enter politics. He has also said that Taylor’s wife, Senator Jewel Taylor, would have a place in his presidential administration. Predictably, Congressmen Ed Royce (R.-Calif.) and Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) have strongly objected to Taylor’s return to Liberia under any circumstances. Royce said that if Taylor were to return, U.S. aid to Liberia, about sixteen percent of the country’s budget, would be “turned off.” The unpleasant reality is that Prince Johnson and Charles Taylor retain substantial support in Liberia and Johnson-Sirleaf and Tubman need their supporters (or many of them) if they are to win the runoff. To complicate matters, there are now contradictory reports that Tubman’s health is failing and that for the runoff he may be replaced by his vice presidential running mate, former soccer star and youth idol George Weah. The charismatic Weah might be a stronger runoff candidate against Johnson-Sirleaf than the seventy-year old Tubman, whatever the state of the latter’s health. But it is not clear whether candidates can be replaced or substituted for a runoff. And, while the Carter Center has given the first round of elections a clean bill of health, charges of fraud may be setting the stage for a repudiation of the elections by an aggrieved party. Liberia is a profoundly fractured country where much of the surviving political class is tainted by the civil wars. The Liberian press reports that when they learned that there would be a runoff, Tubman and Weah danced “a grand boogie.” Liberia’s friends must hope that the country doesn’t dance over the brink.

Liberian warlord-turned-presidential candidate Prince Johnson campaigns in the village of Demeh in Bomi County, in the West African country September 14, 2011. (Simon Akam/Courtesy Reuters) The first round of Liberia’s presidential elections left incumbent president Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson with about forty-four percent of the vote. Her principal rival, Winston Tubman (supported by vice presidential candidate footballer and youth idol George Weah) with about thirty-two percent, and Senator Prince Johnson with eleven percent. (While the Liberia National Elections Commission has not issued a final count, most of the polling centers have already reported.) There will be a run-off election between Sirleaf-Johnson and Tubman in early November because no candidate received a constitutionally-mandated majority of the votes. Sen. Prince Johnson has announced that he will support Sirleaf-Johnson, virtually guaranteeing that she will win the run-off. Over the past few days, as it has become clear that nobody had won a majority of the votes and that there would be a run-off, Johnson has gloried in his kingmaker role. Though I cannot prove it, almost certainly Sirleaf-Johnson and Prince Johnson did a deal. (Prince Johnson claims he decided to support Sirleaf-Johnson because he believes Tubman supporters want him tried for war crimes.) If so, Sirleaf-Johnson has chosen to sup with the devil; I hope she has a long spoon. Prince Johnson comes from Nimba County and has been the standard bearer of the Gio and Mano people. Nimba county is the second largest constituency in Liberia. He is also a former warlord whose bloodthirstiness is legendary. During the first Liberia civil war he captured chief of state Samuel Doe and oversaw his torture and execution while drinking Budweiser. He had the episode videotaped and posted it around the world; it can still be viewed on YouTube. (You will not find the link here.) Like Sirleaf-Johnson, he was allied with Charles Taylor and later broke with him. During the Sirleaf-Johnson presidency, he has been a fierce critic of her administration. Prince Johnson claims to have been Born Again and to be reconciled with Doe’s family. Over the weekend there was sufficient electoral violence in Monrovia to prompt International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to warn that “resorting to violence will not be tolerated.” Whatever the terms of Sirleaf-Johnson’s deal with Prince Johnson, the fact that it virtually guarantees her victory in the run-off probably reduces the likelihood of significant further violence. As I have written before, and as her Nobel Peace Prize attests, Sirleaf-Johnson is more popular outside of Liberia than in it. But a political deal with Prince Johnson – necessary though it probably was – will not burnish her historical reputation.

Women hold up their voter's cards for the photographer as they wait to vote during a presidential election at a polling station in Feefee, Bomi county October 11, 2011. (Luc Gnago/Courtesy Reuters) As I write this Liberians are voting for a president. The incumbent, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is an international darling. She is celebrated as the first sub-Saharan African female head of state, and over the weekend she was one of three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for working for the advancement of women’s rights in male-dominated societies. Her chief opposition is Winston Tubman, nephew of a former Americo-Liberian president, a former finance minister, and a former U.N. and World Bank executive. His running mate is George Weah, a soccer star who lost the presidential run-off to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2005. Both President Johnson-Sirleaf and candidate Tubman are graduates of Harvard. President Johnson-Sirleaf is probably more popular abroad than at home. Within Liberia, corruption remains ubiquitous, and shortages remain of electricity, running water, health care and education. UN troops are still there. Liberians also remember Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s earlier association with warlord Charles Taylor and her promise in 2005 that she would not seek a second term as president, as she is doing now. Tubman has already questioned the timing of the announcement of the Nobel prize only days before the election, though I doubt that that the prize committee sought to influence the outcome of the election. Having Weah on the ticket probably enhances Tubman’s chances. So, despite the advantages of incumbency, the president will not necessarily walk away with the elections. The Liberian electorate is small, with 1.8 million registered voters. There are some fifteen other candidates vying for the presidency, increasing the likelihood of a run-off election between the two candidates with the most votes, most likely the president and Tubman. That is scheduled for November 8, if necessary. On another note, on October 12, the State Department’s Office of the Historian is offering a workshop at the New York Public Library on using the Foreign Relations of the United States series for research. The workshop is titled “New Perspectives on Postcolonial History.” Later on the same day there will be “A Conversation about Security and Transparency in the Cold War Era,” a discussion on the debates waged over the creation of the volumes covering the fifties. Available online, this series is a collection of U.S. government records covering virtually every aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Normally, the volumes in the series appear thirty years after the events they discuss when most of the relevant documents are subject to mandatory declassification. Transparency requires me to mention that I was acting historian of the State Department just before I joined the Council on Foreign Relations. Among other things, that office is distinguished by having one of the largest number of Ph.D.’s in American history of any institution.

Liberia is in the news as Chevron has announced plans to begin oil exploration there later this year. That has led to predictable (and quite reasonable) worries about the country succumbing to the so-called resource curse, in which natural resource development ultimately hurts, rather than helps, the country involved. The news reminded me of a paper published earlier this year in the American Political Science Review that I’ve been meaning to blog about. In “Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse”, Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo argue against conventional wisdom on the subject. Specifically, they argue that resource extraction does not make democracy less likely. Indeed many variations of their statistical analysis lead to “results that suggest a resource blessing”. The authors appear to identify at least two problems with past analysis that explain why they come to different conclusions. Most empirical studies of the resource curse work by comparing large sets of countries. Those studies need to control for a variety of variables, like income and demographics, in order to isolate the impact of resource wealth on political institutions. But things like income surely aren’t independent of resource development. That invariably makes the statistical analysis fraught. Most interestingly, though, the authors point out that resource development is not only a “cause” of institutional development – it’s a consequence. States do not develop resources simply because they’re there – they develop them because political decisions are made to do so and because the business environment is right. It’s quite plausible to believe that authoritarian states are more likely to go full tilt into developing their natural resource than democracies are in the first place. (That might be because governments need the rents to pay off their citizens, or because public opposition can’t get in the way.) If that’s true, though, one may find a correlation between resource development and autocracy that doesn’t actually reflect a resource curse. In order to cut through these problems, the authors develop extensive histories of the countries they study. Doing that, rather than simply looking at cross-country snapshots, allows them to do a better job of sorting out cause from effect. That ultimately leads them to reject the resource curse hypothesis, and to conclude that a resource blessing often results. I can’t say that I’ve worked carefully enough through their (quite sophisticated) statistical techniques to know whether I ultimately agree with them, but the work is intriguing regardless. So what does this all mean for Liberia? Two things, I think. Liberia scores in the middle of the pack on most Freedom House scores (though its anticorruption and transparency scores, which are particularly relevant to the resource sector, are weak). If it can get better before an oil boom comes on in full force, resource extraction might reinforce that trend; if it can’t, all bets are off. Second, Haber and Menaldo’s analysis is statistical: while it might say that on average there isn’t a resource curse, that should be little reassurance for any particular country that’s diving into extraction. Liberian policymakers would be wise to get the right institutions in place to protect their country and people from bad outcomes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVfeMUapr-A& The Stanley Foundation has produced an excellent ten minute background video in the run up to Liberia’s national elections in October of this year. The video includes clips of people emphasizing the importance of elections in helping Liberia’s transition from a post-conflict society. As we saw in Ivory Coast, Liberia’s neighbor, elections can also be divisive events. I think the Stanley Foundation has got it right with the title, “Upcoming Elections to Test Liberia’s Peace.” Among other things, the elections will test the sustainability of Liberia’s current democratic political process. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, sub-Saharan Africa’s first elected female chief of state, won the presidency in the elections of 2005 that most Liberians viewed as credible following years of civil war and profound social fragmentation. She is running for re-election in 2011.

This publication is now archived. Who are the candidates in Liberia’s presidential runoff?Liberia, the troubled West African nation founded by freed American slaves in 1820, holds a runoff election for its presidency November 8. The race features two candidates who "couldn’t be more different," says Princeton Lyman, the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. They are:Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 66. Johnson-Sirleaf, an economist with a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard, is a grandmother of six who represents the older, established Liberian elite. She has held major international posts at the United Nations and the World Bank and served as finance minister of Liberia and vice president of Citicorp. She was jailed twice for speaking out against former president Samuel Doe, who held power from 1980 until 1989, when opposition leader Charles Taylor invaded the country and sparked a fourteen-year civil war that killed more than 200,000 people. Johnson-Sirleaf originally supported Taylor against Doe, then opposed Taylor’s increasingly autocratic rule. She ran for president in 1997, losing to Taylor in elections international observers said had been tainted by an atmosphere of intimidation. Taylor was forced from power in 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria. Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party promises to use Liberia’s resources more efficiently, fight against corruption, attract international aid and investment, and restore agricultural and other industries damaged by nearly two decades of war. But opponents accuse her of being part of the group of politicians who led Liberia to ruin in the past and say that millions of Liberia’s young people, the majority of Liberia’s electorate, want a change. George Manneh Oppong Weah, 39. Weah grew up in the Monrovia slum of Klaratown and dropped out of high school before becoming an international soccer star, representing his country in international matches and playing for European clubs like Chelsea, Paris St.-Germain, and AC Milan. As he prospered in his career, Weah became a philanthropist, funding aid programs, becoming a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) goodwill ambassador, and supporting programs to rehabilitate thousands of Liberia’s child soldiers. He was named world, African, and European footballer of the year in 1995. He has been captain, coach, and president of the Liberian national team, where he used his own money to finance his teammates’ airfares and bonuses. After he publicly supported UN involvement in Liberia, Charles Taylor had Weah’s house destroyed and two of his cousins raped. Afraid for his life, Weah lived in exile in Florida until Taylor was driven from power in 2003. Weah’s Jamaican-American wife and three children have stayed at their home in the United States to await the campaign results.Weah owns radio and television stations in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, and is massively popular with the youth disaffected by two decades of chaos and corruption. Sixty percent of the population is under the age of thirty, and great numbers of them voted for Weah and his Congress for Democratic Change Party in the election’s first round. "George Weah has captured a lot of the public’s imagination," Lyman says. Opponents say he has neither the education nor the experience for the job, and worry he is surrounded by corrupt former politicians and elements still loyal to Charles Taylor. What are the challenges facing Liberia’s next president?They are massive. The country of three million has an unemployment rate of some 85 percent. Fewer than one in ten people can read. Most people live on less than $1 per day, and the average life expectancy is forty-seven years. Despite being rich in resources including diamonds, gold, and iron ore, Liberia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Previous governments looted hundreds of millions of dollars for their own benefit, leaving the country with no running water, electricity, public hospitals, decent roads, schools, or jobs. The new president will face three main challenges, experts say: providing basic health and education services, rebuilding infrastructure, and creating jobs. Experts say the people are clamoring for a change and are weary of war. Has the country received international aid?International donors have poured more than $1 billion into Liberia since 2003. But recent audits of the caretaker government of businessman Gyude Bryant, brought in after Taylor’s departure to run the country until elections this year, found the stealing of public funds had become endemic. In response, the European Union and United States—with support from the United Nations, African Union, and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)—established a Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP) in Liberia. Under GEMAP, every important figure in the country’s government will be shadowed by a foreign expert. The expert’s countersignature is required to authorize any significant spending. The three-year program began in September and will be in effect when the new president’s government takes office in January 2006. Who is in charge of security?The 15,000-member United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), an international stabilization force under UN command. The UNMIL force includes peacekeepers redeployed from the UN’s long-term mission in neighboring Sierra Leone, whose ten-year war was declared over in January 2002. UNMIL and U.S. trainers have focused on building up Liberia’s own army and police forces, and experts say some progress has been made. But there is a long way to go before Liberians can be responsible for their own security, they say. "Whoever comes in will need help from the United States and the UN to fashion a new national army and disarm the factions," Lyman says. What is happening to Liberia’s child soldiers?There are as many as 100,000 young fighters who served as Charles Taylor’s informal army, recruited to rape, pillage, and murder during the country’s 1989-96 civil war and afterwards. UNMIL has disarmed most of them, experts say, and there are some retraining programs available. However, those programs are limited, and there are few jobs to be found afterwards, and many of the fighters are now reportedly rejoining militias to fight in other places, like in the neighboring Ivory Coast. Was the first round of the election successful?Yes. The first round of the presidential vote, in which voters also chose candidates for the 30-member Senate and the 64-member House of Representatives, saw turnout of more than 70 percent of the country’s 1.3 million registered voters. International election monitors declared the poll free and fair, and appealed to the voters for a repeat experience Tuesday. Will the two candidates be received differently by the international community?Yes. Experts say Johnson-Sirleaf simply has more international credibility than Weah: "Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will have immediate access to international agencies and funds," Lyman says. "She’s a known entity. Weah will have to prove himself and show that he’s surrounded himself with good people." What happened to Charles Taylor?After being forced into exile in 2003, Taylor now lives in Nigeria, which granted him political asylum. The terms of the asylum that Taylor accepted from Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo bar Taylor from interfering in Liberian politics, though many say this prohibition has been unsuccessful. In March, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, a war crimes tribunal, indicted Taylor (Special Court for Sierra Leone indictment [PDF]) for his role in the conflict in Sierra Leone. In addition, he is accused of looting tens of millions of dollars from Liberia’s treasury. Nigerian observers and international observers alike have criticized Obasanjo for offering Taylor asylum, which they say offers him freedom from prosecution as long as he stays in Nigeria. Obasanjo has defended the offer, saying it was necessary to ensure Taylor’s resignation. International agencies and human rights groups have called for Taylor to be extradited to Sierra Leone to stand trial.

This publication is now archived. What can be done to help child soldiers?Most experts agree that without focused intervention aimed at reintegrating them into society, child soldiers--who have witnessed and participated in the worst atrocities of war in Liberia and elsewhere--have little chance of rejoining normal civilian life. "If sufficient attention isn’t paid to these kids, they’re prime targets for re-enrollment" into militias or mercenary armies, says Jo Becker, advocacy director of the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. Are there examples of the successful demobilization of child soldiers?Yes, experts say. "As a test case, the U.N. mission in Sierra Leone has been the most successful," says Roselyn Odera, program officer for the U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict. The goal of that mission, she says, run by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in conjunction with other aid agencies, is what experts call DDR: disarm, demobilize and reintegrate children to society. Children are given shelter, education and job training, and psychological counseling to help them process their often horrifying experiences. After Sierra Leone’s ten-year civil war ended in 2001, UNICEF and other agencies helped demobilize nearly 10,000 combatants under the age of 18. Is any progress being made to stop the use of child soldiers worldwide?Yes, although there could always be more, says Becker. A U.N. optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child from May 2000 requires signatory governments to refrain from conscripting soldiers under 18, demobilize child combatants, provide rehabilitation and reintegration programs, and report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child every five years about their progress. So far the protocol has over 110 signatories and has been ratified by 54 nations. Groups like the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers are working to have child soldiering defined as illegal child labor, and banned. How successful are the efforts?Encouraging. The Cote d’Ivoire rebel group Movement Patriotic de Cote d’Ivoire (MPCI) and the Liberian movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) both announced this year that they would stop recruiting child soldiers. Late last year, the Security Council published a "name and shame" list that exposed countries and groups that still use child soldiers. Odera says the United Nations is hopeful that the list will help end the practice of recruiting children to fight wars. But Becker says much more needs to be done. "There’s pressure building, but ultimately we’re going to need a lot more on the ground," she says. Why are child soldiers used?"They’re cheap, malleable, they obey orders and they don’t have the same fears as adults," says Catherine Wiesner, an emergency child protection specialist in Liberia’s capital Monrovia with the International Rescue Commission (IRC). Experts say that children, who are eager to please and may not have developed a sense of right and wrong yet, are relatively easy to condition into obedient killing machines. And as conflicts drag on for years, a shortage of manpower may compel unscrupulous leaders to look to children to fill the ranks. What is the role of child soldiers in Liberia?Quite sizable, say experts. Children have been an integral part of both government and rebel armies in Liberia since the country’s seven-year civil war in the 1990s. In the recent conflict, which began in 2000, all three main factions--the government and rebel groups Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL)--used child soldiers. Former president Charles Taylor, who stepped down from office on August 11, 2003, recruited children into his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) movement against the government of Samuel Doe in the late 1980s. He even formed a special brigade for them in his rebel army called the Small Boys Unit. Which organizations are working in Liberia to serve the population of child soldiers?UNICEF has launched an initiative in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia to recruit child soldiers off the streets and place them into safe havens, which will later be turned into educational or job training programs. Other charities, including Save the Children, International Rescue Mission, and the Catholic organization Don Bosco Homes, are also taking in and rehabilitating child soldiers. How many child soldiers are there?Estimates in Liberia range from five to fifteen thousand, with "a huge escalation in the last couple of years," says Becker, "but there’s no way to know for sure." Wiesner says child soldiers could make up 25 to 75% of the total fighting forces in Liberia. Worldwide, the United Nations estimates at least 300,000 children are used as combatants in war, with the greatest number in Burma, which has some 70,000 child soldiers. How old are the children?Most child soldiers range in age from eight to 15. In many countries the legal age for army conscription is 15, a limit the United Nations is trying to raise to 18. Are both girls and boys forced to be soldiers?Yes, although mostly the boys fight, often wearing wigs and dresses to confuse the enemy and ward off evil spirits. Girls are also forcibly recruited into armed groups to fight or act as cooks, porters, and domestics for the men and boys. They are often expected to offer sex on demand, and may be given as "wives" to commanders. Why do the children fight?Many are forced to, and comply out of fear for their own lives. Some are seeking revenge against groups that killed their families, or a way to escape poverty. Many are drugged, with everything from liquor and marijuana to gun powder mixed into milk or cocaine rubbed into cuts on their faces. Are child soldiers involved in serious fighting?Yes. Children in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone, where Taylor also supported armed rebel groups, have reported witnessing and participating in rapes, murders, executions, and the dismemberment and burning alive of victims. Many of them saw their loved ones killed in front of them, or were kidnapped and threatened with death if they didn’t join in on the violence. What kind of weapons are they using?Light, modern automatic weapons, including AK-47s and M-16s, that are simple to operate and easily accessible in war-torn regions. Technological advances have made these and other weapons easy to strip, reassemble and fire, sending a steady stream of bullets with one pull of the trigger. Becker says children also serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, and act as spies, messengers, or lookouts. She says that since children are considered less valuable than adult soldiers, they are often sent on very dangerous or suicidal missions. Can they be reunited with their families?Many can, says Becker. "In Liberia, family tracing will be very, very important" once the conflict ends, she says. The Red Cross has set up a family reunification program that seeks to restore the child to his or her parents or extended family. But Becker admits that taking back a child who’s been through hell isn’t easy. "There are lots of challenges," she says, "especially if the child was with an armed group and killed people or committed atrocities. That might be hard for a family to accept." Some groups perform traditional reconciliation or forgiveness ceremonies, or ritual purification rites, to help the child readjust to normal life. Becker thinks the widely-known fact that most children were taken against their will could help families accept them back. And Wiesner, who spent two years demobilizing child soldiers in Sierra Leone, says most families want their children back— once they’re disarmed.

This publication is now archived. What is the current situation in Liberia?Gyude Bryant was sworn in October 14 as chairman of the new transitional government. Bryant replaced interim president Moses Blah, the country’s former vice president. Blah had led the country since August 11, when former president Charles Taylor, amid the latest round of violence in two decades of Liberian upheaval, stepped down in response to international pressure and the demands of armed rebels who were threatening to overrun Monrovia, the capital city. Has the fighting stopped?The country’s three warring parties--the rebel groups Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), and members of Taylor’s government--signed a peace agreement on August 19. That pact stopped the worst of the organized fighting, but violence persists, especially in rural areas. More than 1,000 people were killed in two months of armed conflict before Taylor stepped down, and thousands more were displaced. Refugees are common in the countryside, and there are reports that rebels and Taylor loyalists continue to loot and mount attacks. Who is in charge of security?The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), an international stabilization force under U.N. command. On October 1, UNMIL assumed command of a regional peacekeeping force--the ECOWAS Interposition Force to Liberia, known as ECOMILI--that began operations in early August. ECOWAS stands for the Economic Community of West African States; ECOWAS members Nigeria, Benin, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, and Togo contributed personnel to the roughly 3,500-strong peacekeeping force. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1497, passed on August 1, authorized ECOMILI and its successor, UNMIL, to separate groups of Liberian fighters, guarantee the safety of humanitarian agencies, and secure conditions for the departure of then-president Taylor. How long will U.N. peacekeepers stay in the country?Indefinitely. The UNMIL force includes peacekeepers redeployed from the U.N.’s long-term mission in neighboring Sierra Leone, whose 10-year war was declared over in January 2002. At its eventual full strength of 15,000, it will draw soldiers from Bangladesh, Denmark, and other nations. Under the command of General Daniel Opande of Kenya, UNMIL aims to extend the peacekeeping efforts of the ECOMILI force, which was primarily based in and around Monrovia. Did the United States dispatch troops?As the humanitarian crisis worsened and rebels took control of much of Monrovia, the United Nations and the international community came under increasing pressure to intervene. President Bush ordered three U.S. warships to the coast of Liberia in early August, though he resisted international calls to send in U.S. troops to quell the fighting. On August 14, a group of 225 Marines and Navy forces deployed in Monrovia. Welcomed by cheering crowds, the troops quickly secured Monrovia’s port and Roberts International Airport to open the way for shipments of humanitarian aid. However, nearly a quarter of the soldiers came down with symptoms of malaria, and most of the U.S. contingent was withdrawn to the warships after 11 days. About 100 Marines are still deployed in the capital as liaisons and guards, mostly around the U.S. embassy. The U.S. warships sailed away in late September ahead of the arrival of UNMIL forces. What are Liberia’s biggest challenges?Ending the sporadic violence and clashes between armed groups, disarming combatants, rehabilitating child soldiers, and rebuilding a devastated economy. Who is Bryant?He is a 54-year-old businessman from Monrovia and the chairman of the Liberian Action Party, which led the effort to unite Liberians behind a civilian leader in the country’s first free elections in 1997. That effort failed and Taylor won the presidency, opening the door to six more years of conflict. How was he chosen?Bryant was selected by representatives of LURD, MODEL, and members of Taylor’s government to lead the transitional government. The August peace accord called for an election on October 14, but weeks of instability led to the establishment of a two-year caretaker government that will seek to stabilize the country before democratic elections are held. What are Bryant’s goals for the country?In his inauguration speech, Bryant vowed to fight looting, corruption, greed, and mismanagement; disarm and rehabilitate combatants; build friendship and peace with neighboring countries; and strive for national reconciliation and reconstruction after 23 years of civil war. He also pledged self-reliance, saying, "Liberians must be encouraged to assume the responsibility for building Liberia. No one else can do it better than ourselves." What were his first actions?Bryant pledged that, starting November 1, his government would lower the prices of rice, gasoline, diesel fuel, and kerosene. He also vowed to make education, health care, and food security top priorities of his government. Can Liberia expect help from other countries?Liberia’s neighbors, including Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire, all have a stake in ensuring the nation’s success. African regional leaders like Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South African president Thabo Mbeki helped mediate the deal that led to Taylor’s ouster and will likely continue to give guidance and support to Bryant. In his inauguration speech, Bryant thanked Mbeki and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, as well as President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and others for their "personal contributions to peace and stability in Liberia." What is the United States doing to help Liberia?Liberia was founded by freed American slaves in 1820 and became independent on July 26, 1847. In his inaugural speech Bryant spoke of Liberia’s "special historical ties" with the United States and invited the U.S. government to join Liberia in a "renewed and strengthened friendship." Since Taylor’s departure, the United States has provided $40 million in humanitarian assistance to Liberia and $26 million in logistical support to ECOMIL. The $87 billion Iraq spending request currently before Congress includes a proposed $200 million in reconstruction assistance for Liberia. Who will replace Bryant?A new president who will serve a six-year term. The new chief executive and 64 members of the House of Representatives will be chosen in a general election scheduled for October 2005. Where is ex-President Taylor?He is living in Nigeria, which granted him political asylum. The terms of the asylum, which Taylor accepted from Nigerian President Obasanjo on July 6, bar Taylor from interfering in Liberian politics; he reportedly has ignored that prohibition. In March, a U.N. war crimes tribunal indicted Taylor for his role in the conflict in Sierra Leone, and he is suspected of looting tens of millions of dollars from Liberia’s treasury. Observers in Nigeria and worldwide have criticized Obasanjo for offering Taylor asylum and what appears to be freedom from prosecution as long as he stays in Nigeria. Obasanjo has defended the offer, saying it was necessary to ensure Taylor’s resignation. International agencies and human rights groups have called for Taylor to stand trial in the Sierra Leone tribunal. In late September, Obasanjo said that Nigeria would not try Taylor but that Liberians could possibly put him on trial sometime in the future.

Chester A. Crocker, a pre-eminent U.S. expert on Africa and a professor of strategic studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, says that the “debate raging within the administration on what to do” in Liberia is occurring against the background of recent U.S. history in Africa. Since the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers in Somalia in 1993, he says, “the United States has turned away from African crises. We have used some of our diplomacy, but we haven’t been willing to use any of our muscle; even, in some cases, we have been unwilling to authorize others to use their muscle. It explains the catastrophe that occurred in Rwanda in 1994 and the debacle in the Congo since 1996.” U.S. allies, and most Africans, he says, are now looking to the United States for leadership on the Liberia crisis. Crocker, the Reagan administration’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor at cfr.org, on August 12-14, 2003. Other Interviews Is the situation in Liberia being resolved, with the entry of a contingent of Nigerian soldiers into Monrovia and a three-ship U.S. Marine force offshore? A start has been made, but Liberia remains quite delicate and fragile. A nominal force of West Africans has landed and given a signal of outside interest and concern from the West Africans, and there is a symbolic U.S. presence. Symbolic, because people know those ships are there and can see the helicopters. They have a sense that Uncle Sam is watching and monitoring. But at the same time, they must also have sensed, at least until August 14, when a 200-man marine combat team went ashore to backstop the Nigerians, that Uncle Sam is a little worried about actually becoming engaged on the ground to help balance the West African presence. That’s one of the arguments for having some Americans on the ground. Until the United Nations [peacekeepers] can get there [in November], the only real outside presence is from Liberia’s African neighbors. And they have an unfortunate history, as a number of West Africans themselves have acknowledged. What is that history? It’s a history of [peacekeepers from Nigeria, Ghana, and other countries] getting involved in the economy and sometimes going into business with factions [in the nations to which they were deployed]. It’s an unfortunate history, and I don’t think it would happen again. There is more of a spotlight on Liberia, more foreigners are there to observe and witness. And, frankly, the Nigerian leadership of today is very different from the Nigerian leadership of the past, as is Ghana’s. That said, people still look to the United States as the ultimate arbiter and referee. The second reason for my saying the situation is fragile is that you have the remnants of the government forces, and you have the LURD rebels [Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy] and the MODEL [Movement for Democracy in Liberia] rebel movement from the direction of Cote d’Ivoire. Everyone is watching everyone else to see if the peace is going to stick. Who is going to cheat? People are wondering if in fact the port is going to be opened up so humanitarian aid can flow. But it is not just the port of Monrovia. The whole country needs to be put in a position of greater stability. Ultimately, a U.N. troop deployment will do this, but the United Nations is not expected until November. What we don’t want to see is a situation in the interim in which people start testing the outsiders and the outsiders are found wanting. That’s one reason why it is so important for the United States to be visibly involved— with choppers supporting Nigerian movements, aerial surveillance, and a small but highly capable rapid reaction element in tangible support of the West African ECOMIL contingent [the military force under the auspices of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States]. Why is the administration reluctant to commit a sizeable presence to Liberia? Is it because it is overstretched in Iraq and elsewhere? Overstretched is sometimes an argument used. But, in fact, 4,500 [U.S. sailors and marines] are sitting offshore. They are already there. Secondly, if we claim we are overstretched, we will have a major credibility problem worldwide. I’d be much more worried about [nuclear tensions on the] Korean peninsula if people say we are too overstretched to do this little bit of what you might call post-imperial policing in Liberia. [The mission is] to assure stabilization of the country during the transition to a United Nations-led peace operation [that would] help the country’s reconstruction, humanitarian response, and planned political process. Is the reluctance because the United States doesn’t regard Liberia and Africa as important? There’s no question that there has been a debate raging within the administration on what to do here. There is also a history we have to acknowledge— the fiasco in 1993 in Mogadishu [in which 18 U.S. servicemen died], where an unwieldy command structure and an inexperienced administration fouled up the intervention in Somalia. Ever since then, the United States has turned away from African crises. We have used some of our diplomacy, but we haven’t been willing to use any of our muscle; even, in some cases, we have been unwilling to authorize others to use their muscle. It explains the catastrophe that occurred in Rwanda in 1994 and the debacle in the Congo since 1996. Is it fair to compare Somalia and Liberia? I don’t think so. Liberia considers itself the 51st state of the union. Liberians have in many ways looked to the United States as their primary external partner and friend over many, many years. They are very close to us in cultural terms. There are many Liberian-Americans in the United States. This is a place that really wants us there. And there is no tradition of an armed nation, at least there isn’t one yet in Liberia. Somalis have been living by the gun for a long, long time. In Somalia, there was a polarized, factional fight that was somewhat affected by religious extremism, which is not a factor in Liberia. So I don’t think the comparison holds. What we are talking about is a two-to-three month transition before a handoff to a quite substantial U.N. force, modeled on the one in Sierra Leone, for which the British helped create a stable environment. What do you think of the Bush administration’s policy toward Africa as a whole? Is the Liberian situation an aberration? The picture I am painting for you is one of Americans averting their gaze from African conflicts for much of the post-Cold War period. Before I would offer a judgment on this administration, I would want to look at what preceded it. The Liberian crisis, for example, began under Bush I [the presidency of George H.W. Bush]. The beginning of the warlordization of the countryside, with Charles Taylor coming across from Cote d’Ivoire with help from Burkina Faso and Libya, began under Bush I. We had a marine task force offshore then, which watched from its ships. I would call them “humanitarian voyeurs.” It was a shameful record back then, but we have done nothing since. I am not talking just about Liberia now. The whole post-Cold War experience has seen us in some respects take our hands off the wheel in certain African crises. I look at what happened in the fall of 1992 in Angola, which was a fiasco of a U.N.-administered but U.S.-brokered peace agreement. I look at Rwanda and the Congo and Zimbabwe. Are you saying if the Cold War were still on, the United States would have been much more involved in order to keep the Russians out of Africa? No. What I am saying is that, when this Bush administration came into office, it inherited a legacy of, generally, non-U.S. involvement in African conflict management. The Clinton period witnessed much talk about African conflicts, but very little readiness to back talk with action; it seems the United States frightened itself in Somalia. A notable exception to that was a behind-the-scenes U.S. role [aimed at] trying to get the Congo agreement to work [and end the war in that country]. [Clinton administration U.N. Ambassador Richard] Holbrooke played the lead role in that. He tried to make something out of it. It didn’t really work, but he got it started. And the United States played a role in the Ethiopian-Eritrean war, which the OAU [Organization of African Unity] and the United States negotiated an end to; [that peace agreement] is now being implemented by U.N. forces. Those are some exceptions. So, Bush II and the military look at the Liberian crisis against the backdrop of a whole series of decisions not to get involved, not to put boots on the ground, not to take the risks, or try to explain to the American people what’s at stake. There are some in the administration who have argued publicly that this is a failed state that produced a regional cancer and instability and had some links to people associated with international terrorism and so we should damn well do something about it for humanitarian and strategic reasons. And there are others who say that Africa simply doesn’t matter, that the United States doesn’t have any interests in Africa. That debate has gone on, which is why we have what looked like hyped expectations before [George W.] Bush’s trip to Africa, which began on July 7. Can you expound on the “Africa does matter” position? It matters because everybody except us understands that Liberia is an American responsibility. We cannot control the expectations of other people. We have to shape those and influence them over time. But the reality is that our principal allies— and we do still have allies and they do still matter— look to the United States for leadership on Liberia, just as we look to the French for leadership on Cote d’Ivoire or to the British for leadership on Sierra Leone. In addition, we are always asking people to help us in places like Afghanistan or Iraq. Part of the price of admission, if you want to be a credible leader, is that you sometimes have to respond to what other people want. I do think that all the Africans look to the United States on Liberia. The president just went [to Africa]. They must scratch their heads and say, “Look, if the United States won’t deal with Liberia, what will it deal with?” It also matters for the reason, stated above, that failed states can become dangerous places, wrecking whole regions and developing links with criminal mafias and terrorists. Has this administration done anything worthy of note in Africa? The president has taken some interesting initiatives on issues like development assistance, the so-called Millennium Challenge Account [that requires governments receiving aid to fight corruption, fund education and health care, and liberalize the economy]. He has taken some important initiatives in funding in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He and his people have worked to promote private sector reform, market sector reform, and financial liberalization. These are a lot of important issues, but if you don’t get involved in the war and peace equation, all those things go by the boards. Security comes first, especially in a zone of failed and failing states. This is as true in Central Asia and the Middle East as it is in Africa. We have to understand the priorities. We have to fix the basic structure of the system as it operates in some of the regions, and help the local leaders and institutions fix it. If we don’t, none of our other objectives get accomplished. We don’t get women’s empowerment, we don’t get environmental conservation, we don’t get economic development, or transparency. We have to get the sequence right and understand the importance of the basics, and the basics depend on stability.

Princeton N. Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and to South Africa, says President Bush’s July 8-12 trip to Africa was overshadowed by the issue of Liberia and whether Washington would comply with requests from U.N. and African leaders to order American peacekeeping troops to that war-torn nation. “Everywhere he went, people wanted to know if he was going to back up his rhetoric about helping Africa in a concrete way with a commitment to put troops into Liberia,” Lyman says.Lyman, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies, says that even though the decision to commit troops is a difficult one, he favors dispatching from 1,500 to 2,000 forces to head a U.N. peacekeeping mission. If Bush decides against sending troops, “It would look like his trip was more rhetoric than reality,” Lyman says.He was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on July 14, 2003.In a previous interview, you gave a hopeful analysis of what to expect from the Bush trip to Africa. Were your expectations borne out?The impact of the president’s trip was a little bit like [the reaction to] his African initiatives here. It was more than people expected from this administration. People were willing to look and listen to him on this trip and wonder if he was going to be able to come through on all his initiatives. He was able to highlight a great deal of his HIV/AIDS initiative. He talked a good deal about terrorism. But the issue that dogged him throughout the trip— because he had not made the decision yet on what to do— was the Liberian one. Everywhere he went, people wanted to know if he was going to back up his rhetoric about helping Africa in a concrete way with a commitment to put troops into Liberia.Many observers say a Liberian mission would not be as much peacekeeping as peacemaking. Where do you stand?I think we should do it. If Bush does not do it now, it would take a great deal of credibility away from his visit to Africa. It would look like his trip was more rhetoric than reality. Obviously, it is a serious decision, and is not an easy situation. But in the context of Africa policy, in terms of sharing burdens and responsibilities with Africans and Europeans, Liberia is a logical place to make this kind of commitment. If we go in with the right kind of force structure and with the understanding on what our job is and what the United Nations’ and the West Africans’ jobs are, I think it can be a successful intervention.Former President Jimmy Carter, in an op-ed piece in The New York Times on July 13, suggested about 2,000 U.S. troops were needed. You said in our previous interview that a substantial U.N. force was needed. What is your best guess at this time?I am worried now that the pressure will be on the administration to do it on the cheap, and that will only result in a worse situation. I think Jimmy Carter’s estimate is about right. My own is about 1,500 to 2,000 U.S. troops, with an initial West African force of 2,000 to 3,000, so you have somewhere around 4,000 to 5,000 total. That’s the first phase. That group should go in and stabilize the situation around Monrovia, the capital, allow for major humanitarian activities— because more than one-third of the population is in Monrovia— and should work out a complete ceasefire between the different factions so the political process can get underway. That needs to be followed by a U.N. peacekeeping force. That ought to be substantial— in the neighborhood of the total number that went into Sierra Leone, which reached at one point 17,000. It may not have to be quite that large, but it has to be substantial, because it has to move upcountry, help disarm the various groups, facilitate humanitarian activities throughout Liberia, and keep the country peaceful while the political process goes on over the next year.Where would the 17,000 troops come from?The United Nations put 17,000 into Sierra Leone. Those are being drawn down now. They come from all over the world. As they are being drawn down in Sierra Leone, one should be able to recruit for Liberia. The point is, if you [send too few troops], you end up in the situation like we have in the Congo. We have an inadequate force. You have massacres. You then have to follow up with a bigger force. If we do it right in Liberia, where we will be very well received, we can stabilize the situation, and, within a year, be drawing down our troops substantially.Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, has suggested the United States should lead this peacekeeping force. Do you agree?Yes. Although the West Africans deserve a lot of credit for putting in peacekeeping forces in both Liberia and Sierra Leone earlier in the 1990s to help stabilize the situation, they would not create the same confidence among the Liberians that [U.S. troops] would. And there were some human-rights violations, looting, and corruption among those forces in the past. The United States should lead the peacekeepers and set the pattern and standards for this force with the West Africans and do a lot of training in the process. Otherwise, there will be suspicion among the Liberians and a temptation to play politics with the peacekeeping force.What are the arguments against sending military forces into Liberia?One, it is not going to be an easy situation, particularly because of the child soldiers. Nobody wants to shoot down children but, on the other hand, they are drugged and armed combatants.On the government or guerrilla side?On both sides, and so you have children as young as 10, up to 14 to 15, armed and separated from their families. This is very tricky to handle. [A second argument against sending troops is that] it is not clear what [President Charles] Taylor’s followers would do in this situation, and so you could end up with some challenging of the peacekeeping force and some violence. That would become messy. Third, the political process is very complicated. We might end up being there longer than we want. And finally, of course, a question a lot of other people raise is how much we are overstretched in terms of our military engagements, although 2,000 against the approximately 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq doesn’t represent too much of a commitment.During much of Bush’s trip, the press focused on whether the administration deliberately deceived the public about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions. Did that diminish the political impact of the trip back in the United States?I think it did. At the beginning of the trip, the coverage was very much on the African issues, but by the time Bush got to South Africa [on July 9], and from there on, questions on Iraq dominated— if not the press conferences, certainly the press coverage. It was unfortunate, because Bush’s visit to Uganda was very significant, not only in terms of aid but also in terms of what he did or did not say to the Ugandans about the Congo situation.Was the Congo situation and Uganda discussed?The issue must have come up in private, but none of the public declarations or discussions suggest that the president had much influence on Uganda’s involvement in the Congo. Similarly, in Nigeria, which is such a major country in Africa and has so many interesting issues and possibilities and which would be involved in [peacekeeping in] Liberia, there was very little coverage of African issues. It was a brief stop, but, still, it was a significant one— and again Iraq took over the coverage.Should Taylor face the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone?My own gut feeling is that he definitely deserves to face that tribunal. But I think the initial requirement is to get him out of Liberia. If the Nigerians will take him and put him under some very close watch, almost house arrest, that might be the next step we have to accept. The only other option would be to go into [Liberia] and capture him, and that would lead to a fair amount of violence. I don’t think we or anyone else is quite up to that.How did the South Africa leg of the trip play out? You had predicted this would be a “tricky” visit for Bush, given the differences he and Thabo Mbeki had over HIV/AIDS policies, Iraq, and Zimbabwe.It came out as well as it could for both presidents. President Mbeki was happy to be with the president and be seen with him. They did not have any public spats over HIV/AIDS or Zimbabwe [whose president, Robert Mugabe, has been condemned by Washington for suppressing dissent and violating human rights]. In fact, if there was some criticism, it was that it looked like President Bush did not push Mbeki to be tougher on Zimbabwe. But both presidents came out of this very well, because the relationship is too important not to be a strong one. They managed to put the Iraq war differences behind them and come together on a lot of common issues. What this will result in with regard to Zimbabwe is not very clear. I don’t think President Bush changed Mbeki’s soft approach toward President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, but on the other hand, Bush indicated Washington would remain free to criticize Mugabe. So it may end up with a “good cop, bad cop” situation.