Armed Forces of Liberia

The entire standing army of the Armed Forces of Liberia is 102 soldiers (including a few women). The first and only eight officers of this group were commissioned last month. That is currently the entire army available to maintain peace when the 15,000 UN peacekeepers pull out. Hopefully the UN is slow in their planned retreat.

The effort to rebuild the Armed Forces of Liberia is being led by the US through contractors, and it is a thankless and complicated task. While I am not a big fan of military might, the need for a strong army that is respected enough to keep the peace is clear in Liberia. Beyond the issue of training and outfitting a new army, is the fact that the head of the army has not yet been identified. It is unlikely that this responsibility will fall on anyone in the army given how green the eight new officers are, but other options are equally scary. It could fall to the Ministry of Defense, which would politicize the army (and as recent US history demonstrates, this is generally not a good idea). Then there are the former rebel leaders that would love to head the new army. This sounds like a funny idea, but some of them are currently active in domestic politics in elected positions including Prince Johnson who assassinated Doe (the former Dictator), and even Charles Taylor’s wife, although there has bee no mention of any desire on her part to lead the army. In addition, the government has made a decision not to feed the soldiers in their barracks, but to make them pay for their own meals out of their measly salaries. If they bought every meal that was offered to them in the canteen, they would be in debt by the end of the month. This does not make for happy soldiers. On top of that, peace here is so tenuous and if conflict were to break out again, it is highly probable that the soldiers being trained today could lead factions in the next conflict.

Peace does reign in Liberia right now and I do not worry about a sudden flare up, but a few scenarios I believe would push tensions over the edge here:
· Regional conflict – Both Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast peace agreements seem to be holding for the moment, but Guinea still has the potential to disintegrate into conflict. A few months ago when Guinea was experiencing riots violently suppressed by the government, Liberians were being offered US$100 salary to go and fight in Guinea. Life is cheap.
· Rapid UNMIL withrdawl. All guns were banned in Liberia when UNMIL came in (except of course for the peacekeepers who still drive around the capital and rural areas with machine gun mounted vehicles and tanks). The police only recently were given back their guns. Local capacity for keeping peace is clearly not yet established but there are rumors that UN forces are to be reduced over the next 6 months.
· I hate to even write this because it would be tragic if it were to happen, but Ellen’s assassination would also certainly lead to chaos. There is a personality cult supporting her. The people love her, and so have patience with the slow pace of progress in rebuilding the infrastructure and the economy. But she is tackling corruption without mincing words, and surely is making enemies in the process.

These are some of the complexities of keeping peace without becoming a foreign occupier, which I can now understand sometimes seems like the safest option (but would still be unsuccessful in the long run as we see in Iraq).