Kommentar /analyse af Abraham Fofana, gæsteforsker på Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
Liberia har været gennem to blodige borgerkrige frem til 2003, som kostede mellem en kvart og en halv million døde og enorme ødelæggelser, så der var stort behov for at træne hæren – det har amerikanerne taget sig af og overladt det til et privat sikkerhedsfirma med ondt i menneskeretten.
Soldiers recruited to the new national army in Liberia do not get any training in human rights. This means that the misbehaviour which was widespread during the civil war may continue.
At the end of the civil war in Liberia, the Armed Forces of Liberia was dismantled and around 103.000 rebel groups were disarmed. The US was given responsibility for training a new national army, and in turn contracted the task to the private security firm DynCorp.
But why is a national army trained by a private company that is only motivated by profit? The recruitment procedure of soldiers was more transparent than the recruitment of the police in the sense that candidates were made public for the citizens.
People could report candidates to the armed forces, who had a record of human rights violations, so to have them disqualified. There were also other criteria, such as educational and health background, and selections were made to ensure geographic and religious diversity among soldiers.
Et militær med dårligt rygte
However, as regards the actual training manual of soldiers I am more sceptical.
For some reasons, DynCorp omitted education in human rights. This is a particularly serious issue in Liberia, where the military before and during the war had a track record of violating human rights.
That record still exists in people’s minds and contributes to their deep distrust in the authority. Good grounds exist for this distrust as there are already reports of corruption involving army personnel.
One case was when Aisha Flowers, a female commissioner connected to the ruling elite, was “rescued” by military from the quarantine of West Point slump in Monrovia. People living there objected to that the rules of quarantine did not apply for her and in the protests that followed a 16-year old boy was shot and left bleeding to death.
Læs videre på
http://www.nai.uu.se/news/articles/2014/11/26/163458/index.xml
Begynd fra: “Moreover, several cases of theft involving people posing as….”
Læs meget mere om det fattige vestafrikanske land, der blev grundlagt af frigivne amerikanske slaver og opnåede uafhængighed i 1847, på http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Kilde: Seneste nyhedsbrev fra Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (NAI) i Uppsala i Sverige.
