U.N. suspends disarmament in Liberia to upgrade camp
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MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- The United Nations said Monday it was suspending a disarmament campaign in war-battered Liberia for a month to allow time to upgrade a camp for ex-combatants and make preparations to disarm rebel forces.
Disarmament will stop Dec. 17 and resume Jan. 20, the United Nations said in a statement.
The process got off to a rocky start last week, with ex-fighters demanding instant cash rioting in the streets of Monrovia, the capital, and battling with peacekeepers struggling to keep the city calm. Nine people, eight of them former combatants, were killed.
Despite the violence, about 8,000 fighters have been disarmed so far, the United Nations said.
All were soldiers loyal to former President Charles Taylor, who went into exile in Nigeria in August as part of a peace deal to end a civil war that began in 1999.
The United Nations said it wanted to upgrade living conditions and increase capacity at Camp Schieffelen, where Taylor loyalists have been lodged temporarily while they under go medical exams and receive food, counseling and advice on possible new jobs. Former fighters at the camp, 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Monrovia, will be allowed to stay during the renovation.
"Preparations will also be undertaken to begin the disarmament of LURD and MODEL former combatants," the statement said, referring to the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy rebel group, and the smaller Movement for Democracy in Liberia.
Separate disarmament camps for will be set up for LURD in the northwest city of Tubmanburg and MODEL in the coastal city of Buchanan.
Disarmed fighters are paid US$150 after completing a three-week demobilization course, and US$150 more after completing U.N.-sponsored vocational training classes to help them resettle and get civilian jobs in the private sector.
Meanwhile, U.N. peacekeepers in neighboring Sierra Leone beefed up security along the Liberian border with helicopters and ground troops to prevent "any illegal cross-border movement of personnel and materials into Sierra Leone."
In a statement issued in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, it was "important to interdict attempts to smuggle, relocate and hide weapons and military equipment into Sierra Leone at a time when the U.N. Mission in Liberia forces are poised to expand their presence and control in Liberia especially toward the border areas."
The U.N. peacekeeping commander in Freetown, Maj. Gen. Sajjad Akram said "there are indications that the LURD fighters want to bring in their heavy weapons to hide in Sierra Leone in order to avoid the disarmament process in Liberia." He gave no other details.
U.N. peacekeepers in Sierra Leone helped oversee a successful disarmament campaign in 2001-2002, after a decade-long war.
Taylor launched Liberia into conflict in 1989, leading an insurgency bent on taking control of the government. Warring factions battled to a stalement in 1996, and Taylor won presidential elections a year later.
Rebels took up arms against Taylor in 1999, however, battling their way to the capital in June and forcing the cornered president into exile two months later.
On October 14, Bryant, a Monrovia businessman, became head of the new transitional government that's expected to hold elections in 2005.
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
