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West Africa: Conflict in Mano River Region
West Africa: Conflict in Mano River Region
Date distributed (ymd): 020530
Document reposted by Africa Action
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: West Africa
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +security/peace+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains an interview on the situation in Sierra Leone
and the Mano River region, by allAfrica.com's Charles Cobb, Jr.,
with John Prendergast of the Interntional Crisis Group.
Prendergast's testimony before the House International Relations
Committee Africa Subcommittee, May 16, 2002, is available at:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200205160642.html
Of related interest:
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cycle of Conflict in Mano River Threatens S.Leone Peace - Analyst
http://allAfrica.com
INTERVIEW
May 24, 2002
By Charles Cobb Jr.
Washington, DC
[reposted with permission from allAfrica.com]
In the Mano River region of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea,
armed insurgency has moved from country to country for years, one
country's conflict feeding on another's. Most recently, due to
fighting between the Liberian government of Charles Taylor and
insurgents of the group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy (LURD), tens of thousands of Liberian refugees have
fled into Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire.
Ecowas has called for an immediate cease fire and several
Liberian opposition parties have echoed that call saying that
Liberians prefer "ballots not bullets" as a way of attaining
state power. But Taylor's government has rejected the call. A
cease fire "will only give the terrorists the opportunity to
regroup and attack Liberia," the BBC quoted Liberian Information
Minister Reginald Goodridge as saying. For its part, in a March
14 letter that effectively rejected an Ecowas invitation to
participate in a "peace dialogue" that would have included
Taylor, LURD's National Executive Council said "We want to move
beyond Taylor."
Thus the region seems mired in continuing conflict. Although the
elections just held in Sierra Leone have been hailed as a major
milestone on the road to regional as well as national peace, the
escalating fighting in Liberia is provoking fears that a
spillover effect might threaten not only Sierra Leone's hard won
and still fragile stability, but also contain seeds to
destabilize much of West Africa.
"We have a plan for peace which begins with mediation," President
Wade of Senegal told the Associated Press, "but (we) fear it may
be too late."
AllAfrica's Charles Cobb Jr. discussed the developing situation
with John Prendergast, formerly a special advisor on African
conflict to the Clinton Administration and now co-director of the
Africa program at the International Crisis Group. Excerpts:
CC: In Sierra Leone I suppose the recently held elections and the
process leading up to the election itself could be characterized
as successful, both for the United Nations which has its largest
peacekeeping force there, and in the sense of moving from a
condition of civil war to a politics in peacetime. However,
Sierra Leone sits in a larger regional context. In recent
testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on
Africa you made the point that the threat of Liberia's conflict
spilling back into Sierra Leone in the future is "real." Would
you elaborate on that?
JP: I think the dynamics for instability in West Africa emanating
from the very clear agenda of [Liberian President] Charles Taylor
and some of his military and political and commercial allies
means that Liberia itself and its neighbors will forever be
subject to the possibility of sustained destabilization.
The grand scheme that Taylor is operating under is one which sees
a "Greater Liberia" in effect - this simply means that the
influence that Liberia has in the region and the links it has in
the region are preponderant, that the pliable regimes and
bordering militias can ensure that policy objectives are met,
whatever they might be.
And secondly, deeply intertwined with that is the desire to
maintain control of as much of the natural resource base - the
asset base in the entire region - as possible.
Of course it is a very rich region in minerals and Taylor has
clearly utilized the links that he has with Sierra Leonean and
Guinean opposition groups to secure a wider access to these
natural resources - wider than just in Liberia.
So it is these intertwined objectives that end up leaving a
constant cycle of instability in the region. And of course the
response from the neighbors is to do the exact same thing, which
is to arm Liberian opposition elements, of which there are many -
both rank and file militia members as well as political
dissidents who believe they have no way to come back to Liberia
except through the barrel of a gun.
And that kind of cocktail of support and counter-support of
cross-border insurgencies has left countries in turmoil. It
bounces from country to country. For an extended period of time
Sierra Leone bore the main brunt of this regional effort.
Now Liberia looks like it's in for its own 15-minutes of infamy
in terms of the fight by the LURD (Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy) as it attempts to take Monrovia and
who know when Guinea will be next.
So, it's an ongoing cycle and I think unless the regional
ambitions emanating from Monrovia are dealt with, this kind of a
cycle of violence will continue.
CC: The idea that Taylor has ambitions to control the natural
resources of the region won't surprise many, but you also
specifically mentioned ambitions for a "greater" Liberia. Are we
talking about ambition for a Mano River nation that he - Taylor -
would head? Do you think that's what is at play here?
JP: This is where the ambitions of Taylor and [Libyan leader]
Al-Gadaffi really coincide. Taylor got his start and his early
training in the Libyan school of insurgency.It sounds like a
movie but it's actually the case that he went and was one of the
early graduates of that elite school in Tripoli.
From the 1980s they both have shared this concept of
confederation of states which would lead to wider African
integration. In Al-Gadaffi's case - I can't assess his motivation
- the one thing he seems to be genuine about is this desire to
have a United States of Africa or Africa Union. This [Mano River
region] is just one of many regions he's tried to do it in.
For Taylor this just seems to be a marriage of convenience and
his commercial ambitions can marry up to Al-Gadaffi's sort of
wider regional ambitions of confederation and he's able to milk
Al-Gadaffi for a substantial amount of assistance and just talk
the talk with him as many people do with the Libyans.
Taylor was able to do it effectively and sustain an assistance
stream when everybody else was attempting to sanction or isolate
Taylor in the madness of his policies.
CC: Is this conflict, which is currently confined to Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Guinea, likely to widen?
JP: In Cote d'Ivoire there are elements in the military that
support Taylor and there are elements, particularly in the
political system, that are supportive of the LURD and want to try
to take Taylor out. So any major activity on the military front
inside Liberia will have inevitable repercussions there in Cote
d'Ivoire.
There are also these kinds of dynamics in Burkina Faso and Guinea
Bissau. There are actors in both of those countries who are
sympathetic to one side or the other who at some point could be
drawn in further if the conflict intensifies inside Liberia.
A scenario which is not completely out of the realm of the
possible is that the LURD actually takes Monrovia at some point
and drives Taylor to the border regions where he started which
would lead him, along with his commercial backers, to intensify
and stir the pot in these other neighboring countries.
So, it is of great concern to the Ecowas states that this thing
which is already affecting quite deleteriously three countries,
could actually expand much further.
CC: Can we take Taylor's rejection the other day of calls for a
cease fire as a signal that he feels he is being successful in
getting on top this situation, in pushing back the LURD?
JP: I don't see why either side at this point - at this high
intensity, with no serious negotiations process in sight, with no
other way to secure their objectives aside from the military
card, and no side having a clear advantage at this point yet
still believing they can win - I don't see why either side would
agree to standing down the military option unless the stalemate
becomes more of a hurting one.
They are not there yet. I don't expect from any side, any kind of
interest in a cessation of hostilities at this point, although it
certainly should be pushed very, very hard by the regional
actors. But again, connected to a larger peace process.
This kind of highly unstable situation you've been describing
would seem to throw a huge question mark over Sierra Leone. You
have some RUF forces now kind of acting as part of Taylor's
militia - a praetorian guard, if you will. I noted that Sierra
Leone's President Kabbah, in addition to making himself Minister
of Defense, appointed some individuals from what some see as a
corrupt old guard into his new government. All of this would seem
to add up to a high degree of vulnerability for this "new" Sierra
Leone government.
If there isn't early consolidation of the democratic process, and
there isn't a fair process of ensuring that the RUF political
wing is as greatly accommodated as possible within the existing
parameters of the system; and if there aren't clear benefits on
the reconstruction side that go across regions rather than being
focused more on SLPP ruling party strongholds; these are going to
be early-warning indicators that will have an impact on RUF
calculations as to whether any of them can be drawn back into
military confrontation.
That's the internal (to Sierra Leone) dynamic. The external
dynamic is, at what point might Taylor decide that the only way
to take the pressure off this conflict inside Liberia is to
attack neighboring countries, to go after supply lines and areas
of support on border regions in both Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Then, once again, you'd see the blow-back from Liberia's conflict
in a more direct way.
So there are internal and external factors driving the potential
for conflict in Sierra Leone today that Kabbah has a great deal
of control over. If he governs magnanimously in this
post-election period, and he is very, very fastidious in ensuring
that there isn't any support for LURD going to Liberia from
Sierra Leone, then he can perhaps help consolidate his gains from
the election.
CC: And isn't there an external factor with regard to both Sierra
Leone and Guinea in the sense that the LURD gets a fair amount of
backing from the Guinea government and to a lesser extent from
the Sierra Leone government? Is there any inclination on the part
of those two governments to reduce or eliminate their support for
this rebel movement that is pressuring Liberia?
JP: The Guineans will claim, of course, that they responded to
the attacks on Guinea by Guinean dissidents supported by Taylor.
And they will continue to claim that they are not providing
assistance [to the rebels] although evidence appears quite
substantially to the contrary.
I think the LURD will press this to its logical conclusion and
make its run at Monrovia. And whatever elements in Guinea that
support that will continue to do so. The [international] pressure
hasn't been ramped up very much on Guinea.
It certainly could be ramped up for internal reasons - the
instability that will be wrought, over the long run, by the
rotting political system and non-democracy that exists in Guinea;
but also I think the external issue of the whole cross-border
activity into Liberia by the LURD.
I think both need be need to be subject of conditions for Western
assistance. This is one where you have a real policy quandary for
Western governments, the U.S. first and foremost.
They have established this relationship with the Guinean military
to support training - it's a very modest program compared to some
of the things we do in Europe and other parts of the world - but
for Africa it's a rather substantial one.
Although the objective is effectively border control and
self-defense, certainly it's not inconceivable that some of these
training elements can be utilized in offensive as well as
defensive capacities and passed on in direct or indirect ways to
LURD elements.
So it's not failsafe in the sense that it is just aimed at and
received by Guinean elements for defensive purposes only.
On the other hand, the policy objective, in the larger sense, is
to put pressure on Taylor to negotiate in good faith, mostly
through sanctions - to undercut his policy of destabilization in
the region. So you have competing policy objectives: on the one
hand, put pressure on Taylor, on the other hand the kind of human
rights human rights problems, the kind of support for
cross-border insurgencies that nobody wants to see. So it's a
tough call, but more war in West Africa is not going to resolve
the existing war.
Yes, we need more pressure on Taylor but there are unexhausted,
non-military means to achieve that and that is principally
targeted sanctions on timber and the maritime sanctions that
we've been calling for. That's where we really ought to ramp up
the pressure.
Having little bits of military assistance going to Guinea which
may or may not translate into some support for the LURD is not
going to really influence the military battlefield that much; it
just makes Western governments complicit with what may be very
extraordinary human rights violations in the coming months.
A much better option right now would be to move forward finally -
enforce the existing policies and expand the new ones, rather
than trying this Mickey Mouse military strategy which really
doesn't amount to much but makes it appear as if this is all a
Western-backed strategy of overthrowing Taylor which it is just
not substantial enough to be.
CC: Is there something beyond sanctions that the U.S. should be
doing in this region? As I recall, in your testimony you talked
of the need for the U.S. to form a "contact group".
JP: If you don't have increased pressure - whether it's military
or sanctions - connected to a serious diplomatic initiative then
it's not going to mean anything because there won't be any way to
channel whatever compromises Taylor might be willing to make
under pressure in to anything substantial or lasting.
So what needs to be attached to the effort of ramping up
sanctions, what needs to be attached to the effort at the
increasing isolation of Taylor, is beefing up diplomatic efforts
aimed directly at Liberia.
First and foremost to do that, the external nations have to get
their act together and unify their position on what they envision
as the way forward. And that means the United States and the UK
with its major investments in Sierra Leone and the French as a
sort of basic trio in that contact group.
And bring along the Nigerians and come up with a unified approach
of how to deal with the internal Liberian situation and,
concurrently, how to more aggressively to deal with the regional
insurgencies that each are supporting against the other in the
Mano River area.
This is not a massive, Middle East peace process we're calling
for. This is something a small contact group of a few nations
that have significant interests or potential leadership capacity
can do: get together on a fairly regular basis, plot strategy,
operationalize that strategy by choosing a diplomat or one or two
diplomats to take the lead in undertaking a negotiation process
and just taking some leadership on this thing.
It doesn't cost that much. It doesn't involve a high investment
up front to try to do that. If we're just pushing the pressure
element and not having somewhere for the solution to be crafted,
then it's only a half policy that can't succeed.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human
rights.
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