With its numbers approaching half the projected total of 15.000, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Liberia will deploy troops to three rebel strongholds in the next few days and should have most of the country covered by the end of January, the Force Commander said Friday.
– We do not underestimate the severe challenges that will be put on us by the warring factions, but we will do what we need to do, General Daniel Opande told the UN News Service after the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) Thursday prevented the deployment of an advance party 30 kilometres northwest of Monrovia, the capital.
LURD held up Pakistani peacekeepers of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to press for political appointments but the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG), Abou Moussa, told them at a hastily summoned high-level meeting that “UNMIL deployment was not up for negotiation and also should not be linked to appointments to posts in government.”
Mr. Moussa said the deployment must proceed to Tubmanburg, one of the three strongholds, and warned that failure to cooperate would decisively lead to both political and economic consequences.
General Opande voiced hope that UNMIL would be able to establish permanent garrisons by the end of this month in the LURD stronghold of Gbarnga, 140 kilometres northeast of Monrovia and Buchanan, a port city controlled by the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) 120 kilometres to the southeast, as well as in Tubmanburg, 50 kilometres northwest of Monrovia.
The Pakistani troops were halted in Tubmanburg county, 30 kilometres from the capital, and remain in the area pending further orders.
Within a month UNMIL should have forces stationed in every main town in Liberia where there had recently been tension or fighting, the Force Commander said.
– We have the resolve, energy and determination to begin stretching out and this is why we are beginning to deploy in LURD, MODEL and former government-controlled areas, he said of the mission launched on 1 October to bring stability and democracy to the West African country.
Liberia has been torn asunder by nearly 15 years of civil war, brutality, rape, looting and corruption.
Some 2.000 additional UN troops have arrived in Liberia over the past two weeks, bringing the Force strength up to more than 7.080 out of an authorized level of 15.000.
More are on their way from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, according to the Force Commander. Until now the mission has lacked sufficient numbers to deploy much beyond Monrovia and its immediate surroundings.
On 7 December, UNMIL began a programme to disarm and demobilize all three armed factions but suspended it 10 days later in order to organize.
The exercise is due to resume on 20 January, by which time many more peacekeepers should have arrived and two new demobilization camps will have been established specifically for LURD and MODEL fighters.
LURD presently controls Liberias western frontier with Sierra Leone while MODEL controls the eastern frontier with Cote dIvoire (Elfenbenskysten, red.).
Kilde: FNs Nyhedstjeneste
