LIBERIA: U.N. Cannot Arrange August Elections, Boutros-Ghali Says

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, May 24 1996 (IPS) - U.N. peacekeepers in Liberia will be unable to accomplish their long-promised goal of arranging multi-party elections by August, and may have to withdraw, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali says.

The secretary-general, in a report to the U.N. Security Council, warned that the latest spate of fighting between members of the fragile interim government has rendered the elections a moot question and damaged the entire peace process.

“Over the past six weeks, the faction leaders have clearly demonstrated their disregard for the aspirations of the Liberian people for peace,” Boutros-Ghali wrote.

“In the absence of functioning institutions to organise the electoral process, and given the continued instability,” Boutros- Ghali warned, “it is most unlikely that elections could be held in August 1996.”

He doubted that the U.N. Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) could perform its planned tasks of arranging the elections and disarming the more than 60,000 fighters still armed throughout the nation.

The U.N. peace-keeping force, which numbered 93 before the recent round of factional warfare, has been reduced to only five military observers in recent days.

The U.N. chief warned that the recent fighting, which forced most international observers and organisations to flee to other nations, has led the regional ECOMOG peace-keeping force to consider leaving Liberia.

If the regional peacekeepers go, he added, “UNOMIL would have no choice but to do the same.”

For now, however, the secretary-general believes that the UNOMIL mandate, which expires at the end of this month, should be extended, for at least a few dozen troops, until Aug 31. The U.N. forces at least could assist the seven major armed factions to settle some of their differences, Boutros-Ghali wrote.

The Liberia mission has been one of the most thorny for the United Nations in recent months.

Many powerful Security Council members — including the United States, which helped to set up the country in 1822 — have complained that numerous peace accords have not been respected, and thus U.N. peacekeeping cannot succeed.

For many African diplomats, however, the U.N. presence in Liberia is viewed as a test of whether the world body will respond to African crises.

Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador, said several months ago that the Abuja peace accords signed last year were the last chance for the factions to prove their desire for peace.

“We have been patient, but patience must have a purpose,” she said, arguing that U.N. troops should withdraw in the absence of progress towards peace.

That last chance may now be used up. New fighting began Apr 6, when main faction leaders Charles Taylor and Alhaji Kromah — who call themselves members of a Liberian “collective presidency” — tried to arrest a rival leader in the transitional government, Roosevelt Johnson, on murder charges.

Johnson and several allies from the Krahn ethnic group battled back, bringing the fighting to the capital, Monrovia, for the first time in years.

Hundreds of thousands of Liberians fled Monrovia, as did most international observers and foreign nationals. U.N. officials relocated to Sierra Leone or Senegal, while most UNOMIL troops left the country entirely or went on standby basis in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

U.N. and ECOWAS negotiators have secured a fragile cease-fire, and Johnson, who had left the country, says he will return to the interim government and resolve his differences peacefully with Taylor and Kromah.

But few diplomats here have much faith left in the peace plan. The August elections were to be the cornerstone of a final solution to the nation’s six-year civil war.

Now, there are no arrangements in place for elections, an unknown number of civilians have died or been displaced in the new fighting, and few people believe the faction leaders are willing to demobilise their troops.