PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR LIBERIA

Briefing correspondents today on the situation in Liberia, Jacques Klein, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Liberia, said that the country had “stepped back in time”.

Liberia, he said, was a nation in which 85 per cent of the population lived at the base poverty line; where 70 per cent of the militias were children under the age of 18; where the unemployment rate was at 90 per cent; and where the capital city did not have running water or electricity, and had not for the past 10 years.

The Secretary-General had asked Mr. Klein to lead an assessment team to Liberia to survey the situation and what needed to be done, he said.  That survey had been completed, and the Secretary-General’s report would hopefully be presented to the Security Council next week.  The report asked for a fairly large force, as the assessment team did not want to repeat the mistake made in Sierra Leone of going in with too light a force.  A good number of countries had come forward to volunteer and had promised both troop contributions and civilian police contributions.

The hardest part, he continued, would be to rebuild Liberia in terms of long-range reconstruction and funding, because the Charles Taylor regime had effectively destroyed the State.  All the ministries had been gutted; all the archives had been destroyed; the medical infrastructure was gone; and the educational infrastructure had ceased to exist.

For the first time, he said, here was a nation where the young people were less educated than their parents.  Even if these psychologically intimidated young people were demobilized and demilitarized, where would they go?  And how could they be re-educated and taught basic skills in a society where the unemployment rate was so high?

In order to help in the reconstruction of the country, the assessment team had brought forward a long-range plan of how to rebuild the health-care system, the educational system, the port, and the economy as a whole.  A new Government would be taking over on 14 October, he said, and the new Government would have to pay its civil servants.  No one in Liberia -– firemen, policemen, legislators, schoolteachers -– had been paid in over three years.

He would ask the Security Council not to be indifferent to the people of Liberia, he said.  Liberia was a founding Member of the United Nations and had fallen on hard times because of poor leadership, dictatorship and exploitation.  However, there was an understanding that Liberia was the key to West Africa, and the excellent work that the British had done in Sierra Leone, and that the French had done in Côte d’Ivoire, could all very rapidly become undone if Liberia imploded.

Turning to the situation in Monrovia, he said that the capital was stable.  The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had pushed for the peace treaty in Accra, and the ECOWAS mission in Liberia (ECOMIL) forces had stabilized Monrovia itself.  There was not a sufficient force structure, however, to push out into the countryside.  This meant that gangs on all sides would continue to rape, rob, steal and murder, until such time as they were disarmed.

There had been some talk in the media of late, he said, of turning Liberia into a trusteeship.  This was not realistic.  There were intelligent and very able Liberians, both in the country and outside who could help to rebuild the State.

Asked about the theft of millions of dollars in reconstruction aid by former President Charles Taylor, he said that the situation was such that the President was his own treasury.  That meant that whatever resources Liberia had went to him, and when he left, the money also left with him.  The new Government had been left with an empty treasury.

What Liberia needed was an audit of the past three years’ activities by a quality auditing firm to find out what the revenue sources were; what was collected; and where it went, he said.

Responding to a question about the length and the cost of the proposed long-range plan, he said that he did not yet know, as experts had not yet been brought in to estimate the cost of rebuilding the port of Monrovia, the hydroelectric grid, and the road infrastructure, among others.  It would take a programme of at least five to 10 years to rebuild the failed State, he said.

Asked about the status of United States military involvement in Liberia, he said there was no United Nations mandate as yet; there was just a multinational force construct, which consisted basically of ECOMIL troops and an offshore American force to assist in any crisis that might ensue.  It was his hope, however, that even as ECOMIL forces were blue helmeted, there would be a residual American presence, perhaps to re-train the military.

A correspondent asked about the reports of Charles Taylor exerting influence over government members that were still in Monrovia.  He replied that there was good evidence that over the past three weeks or so at least one or two government officials and certainly several businessmen, had made visits to Nigeria to see Mr. Taylor.

Asked about the troops currently in Liberia, he said that they were, on the whole, well behaved.  They had been largely re-trained, either by the Europeans or the Americans, and so far the level of discipline had been good.  Furthermore, the United Nations had fairly strict guidelines, which, as of 1 October, would be enforced.  He had no qualms about firing anyone who violated United Nations precepts, he said.

Questioned about criticisms the United Nations had faced regarding child soldiers, he said that a body of experience had been built up due to experiences in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, and there was a sufficient number of experts within the United Nations system to be brought in.

To a question about the indictment of Charles Taylor by the Sierra Leone Tribunal, he said that he hoped the former President would face justice there.  Until the guilty were punished, the innocent would not be absolved, he said, and reconciliation could not be achieved in any meaningful way.  Unfortunately the tribunal was concerned with crimes related to Sierra Leone, not specifically Liberia.

Replying to a question about the dominant faith in Liberia, he said the country was 40 per cent Christian, 40 per cent Animist and 20 per cent Muslim.  The churches were very powerful and very useful, he said, and one of the clear voices of Liberia in terms of honour and integrity had been Archbishop Michael, who was one of the few people Taylor was afraid to kill.

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