Security of UN local staff

In conflict zones linked to the tragedy in Liberia - 2003

Seble Demeke, UNOG

I have written this article based on what has happened in Liberia during the last two weeks of July and the first week of August 2003 before the ECOWAS peacekeepers arrived.

While the world is debating, negotiating and discussing whether or not to send a peacekeeping force to Liberia, the courageous United Nations local staff along with their NGO partners are doing their best under the worst unimaginable circumstances of unfolding human tragedy that is taking place in their country. The fighting is intensifying every day and the country and the people are devastated. The damage and destruction to human lives and property is beyond comprehension by any human being.

Don’t we remember similar circum- stances not too long ago - the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, where an estimated 800,000 lives perished, the 11 year civil war in Sierra Leone which left a good number of its population (men, women children, old and young) without a leg or an arm, the ethnic strife and civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) still going on since 1997 and responsible for tens of thousands of innocent lives and, now, the devastation of Liberia and the suffering again of innocent civilians who just want to go on with their daily lives. Does this mean that the international community has not learned any lesson from these past tragedies or is it just a matter of being indifferent to the suffering of millions of people caught in the vicious circles of violence and brutality? For whatever reason, we are again witnessing that the international community is caught unprepared to face these challenges and has failed again to prevent or stop the Liberian tragedy. The Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for Liberia, Mr. Jacques Klein said to reporters recently, “that it was the responsibility of the international community to “make Liberia work.” A failed Liberia, he added, “will spell disaster for Sierra Leone and the sub-region.”

The outlaws and the insensitive people, who are causing these repeated tragedies throughout the African continent, could be controlled and stopped by those who are able and willing. About the continuous fight in Liberia, Mr. Klein said, “this will go on until sufficient UN troops are on the ground. When they know we have more guns than they do, they will stop.” This has been proved by the military intervention of Great Britain, Guinea and the United Nations in Sierra Leone, although late, but better late than never. It is only normal to hope that lessons have been learned from these past tragedies and that appropriate actions would be taken on time, to prevent similar situations from repeating themselves. Alas, it did not happen.

The repeating pattern of the tragedy of the African continent, which is taking place this time in Liberia, is that, as situations are going in the direction of human disaster, the international community leaves the country and the UN international staff are evacuated. The United Nations locally recruited staff members may be evacuated from the duty station in only the most exceptional case in which their security is endangered as a direct consequence of their employment by the organizations of the United Nations. “A decision in this regard can only be made by the Secretary-General, as recommended by UNSECOORD, based on a recommendation by the Designated Official”. The facts are that by that time things have gone out of control, bullets are flying all over the place, mortars are shelling indiscriminately, people are panicking, and the sky of Monrovia is covered with smoke from artillery fires and mortar shells. Who knows what other kind of ammunitions are being used? While the sky of Monrovia is filled with gunfire smoke, the ground is covered with dead corpses which one has to step over to escape from flying bullets. We watched children, women, old and young people running to safety in desperation and total fear and some did not make it. One wonders whether this is really happening on this planet earth in the 21st Century.

In the midst of all these tragedies taking place and being watched by the international community, the United Nations local staff with partners from NGOs were trying to cope, to manage and handle this horrendous situation – protect the population and the refugees in the country as much as they can. I really don’t know how much one can help someone else in that kind of situation, when everything has fallen apart. Not only that these staff members are sacrificing their lives, (just recently eleven aid workers who were D.R.C. nationals working for the British Christian agency Tearfund were murdered July 24 by their captors and on 17 August two Afghan national staff members working for Afghan Red Crescent Society were killed when the vehicle they were driving was attacked) but they are also, along with some journalists still operating in the country, the main sources of information for the United Nations as to what is happening inside the country. When law and order breaks down in a nation and the fate of the people is in the hands of outlaws who have guns and mortars, and have no respect nor value for human lives, the unarmed United Nations local staff and other NGO personnel are the only hope for the desperate people for survival on the spot. It is not easy to imagine for some of us to be in that kind of situation – it is a nightmare!

The irony of it all is that Liberia, a beautiful country, located by the Atlantic Ocean which could be turned into a resort area by any standard to benefit humankind, is now devastated and will take ages even to bring it back to what it was a couple of years ago. This waste of resources and human lives could have been avoided had actions been taken by the international community sooner than later. The country is one of the founding members of the United Nations, a member of the African Union and ECOWAS and most of all has a special historical relationship with the United States of America, the greatest power in the world. The capital city of Liberia, Monrovia was named after the United States President, James Monroe, about 150 years ago. The country’s main natural resources are timber & diamonds. (please see my article on the diamond trade in the UN Special No. 588 of September 2000). And yet none of these institutions and great powers gets there on time to save the Liberians from human tragedy. We are all watching it as a show as in a Theatre Hall.

Now, the point is again what did we learn from this situation? My answer to my own question is that, at the end of the day, the Liberian people have no other choice but to manage their crises, patch up their differences, pick up their pieces and forget this dark period in their history and look forward to a brighter future for their country, where everyone will live in peace and prosperity. As we have witnessed from past experiences in Rwanda and just recently in neighbouring Sierra Leone, this could be done, provided the Liberian people decide that enough is enough. Some might disagree with me on this point of view and say, that this is easier said than done - but must be done - as the alternative is a further disaster to the nation and yet one more tragedy in the African continent. I also sincerely hope that the events in Liberia will be recorded as part of history in the Encyclopaedia of African tragedy, if there is such an Encyclopaedia, if not, it is time to create one as the tragedies are mounting daily.

To sum up where I started, the concern for the security of United Nations local staff and other humanitarian aid workers, circumstances show that there is an urgent need to look at the existing sys- tem of security in place to make it correspond to the reality in the field in order to provide maximum protection possible for those staff members who are coping with the devastation of millions of lives while the rest of the world negotiates and discusses how to go about it. It is good to send sympathies to the families of the victims, but something more has to be done to protect our colleagues in the field. As a closing statement, I would like to repeat what one French Action Aid worker said out of desperation on one of the Television channels, of which the sincerity of it touched my heart - “Why the international community is not here? Are they going to come to Liberia, later to count dead bodies”? This is how one feels when faced with the reality on the ground.