LIBERIA: Generation of war-scarred youths yearn to turn the page with polls

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MONROVIA, 10 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - Mohamed Dukuly was grabbed on his way home from school, and flown to the frontline to fight, still wearing his uniform.

Now, as Liberia prepares for its first polls since the end of a 14-year civil war, the ex-combatant is hoping for change, the chance of an education, and a normal life.

“Our time has been wasted,” he told IRIN on Monday, the eve of the landmark elections.

“I’m 22. I should be working, earning my own money and enjoying myself,” he said. “And look at me! I don’t know how I’m going to eat tonight and I can’t even spell my own name.”

Dukuly says he lives at Number 54, but there is no house to be seen, just a patch of waste ground in the rundown capital, Monrovia, where a collection of ramshackle huts has been cobbled together, and raw sewage dumped.

“We hope that change begins tomorrow,” said Dukuly, who used to fight for former president Charles Taylor. “We don’t need child’s play, we need someone who can deliver.”

None of the candidates vying to be Liberia’s next president can afford to ignore the youth vote.

More than 40 percent of the electorate is 27 or under, a generation that has lived half its life with civil war raging.

Nearly everyone lost a loved one or a friend. Many youths joined up or were forcibly conscripted into fighting for Taylor’s army or the two rebel groups.

All are now trying to rebuild their lives in a country where unemployment is estimated at 85 percent, there are only a handful of paved roads and even the capital does not have mains electricity or running water more than two years after the war ended.

Diplomats say that whichever of the 22 presidential candidates wins Tuesday’s election, young people should be a top priority.

Picking up the pieces

“That’s the great challenge – giving young people something to hope and strive for,” Alan Doss, head of the UN Mission in Liberia, told IRIN ahead of the ballot.

“In three words, it’s about jobs, jobs, and jobs. If this country cannot produce over time gainful employment for hundreds of thousands of young people… then the difficulties will return,” he said.

A job is certainly at the top of 20-year-old Richie Kwiete’s wish list.

“I am not supposed to be selling on the street, I should be in an office with a proper job. But I haven’t even graduated and I have to sell stuff just to pay for my schooling,” he said, trying to tempt a passer-by with a pirate DVD.

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