LIBERIA: National army to get back on its feet after years of civil war

MONROVIA, 6 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - Liberia's transitional government has begun paving the way for a new national army to emerge from the ashes of 14 years of civil war, backed by funding from the US government, a top military official said on Monday.

Most of the soldiers in the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) defected to rebel factions after civil war broke out in 1989, providing many of the groups' senior commanders.

The national army has been in disarray ever since and for the 16 months of peace Liberia has known, the world's biggest UN peacekeeping force -- made up of some 15,000 soldiers -- has been stationed in the country.

Now moves are afoot to rebuild the national army.

"From October to end of November, we started the restructuring program by re-documenting the present strength of the army," army spokesman Richard Barnah told IRIN. He said the process was designed to work out how many people had reached retiring age or had left the army.

The United States' role of training armed forces in Liberia, the country founded by freed American slaves in the early 19th century, would continue in the post-war era, Barnah said. Washington offered a helping hand with army training from the 1950s up to the outbreak of civil war.

"There are now negotiations between the transitional government and the US government for the latter to provide training for the army," Barnah said.

The US ambassador to Liberia, John Blaney, said last week that his government had already set aside US$ 35 million to carry out the army restructuring before general elections, scheduled for October 2005.

"Training the military is a long-term process," Blaney told reporters. "The intention of the US is to start this process in the first half of 2005. We have about 35 million earmarked for this task."

Disarmament has now been completed in the heavily-forested West African country, with more than 102,000 men, women and children disarmed and around 27,000 weapons handed in.

Rebels and militia groups formally disbanded last month in line
with a peace deal signed in August 2003 and now attention is turning to reviving a national force, which has been effectively redundant since 1989.

There were attempts to restructure the army during the years of civil war but none of them successful.

Under the Abuja peace accord that led to a break in the fighting in 1996 and general elections in 1997, the West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) was supposed to retrain a new national army based on fair ethnic and geographical representation.

But Charles Taylor, who won the 1997 elections, sidelined the issue, saying the restructuring was solely a matter for the elected government.

A year later his government established a commission which recommended a 6,000-strong army but the proposal was never implemented.

Then in 1999, civil conflict erupted again and plans for the army fell by the wayside as Taylor favoured his former rebel fighters, who formed militia groups that battled rebel insurgents until 2003 when a peace deal was finally imposed and Taylor fled into exile.

[ENDS]