PRESS BRIEFING ON LIBERIA HUMANITARIAN APPEAL

Two senior United Nations officials today appealed to the international donor community to support the $69 million emergency funding appeal for Liberia to stop a civil war there they said had degenerated “into a human catastrophe of horrific proportions”.

Jacques Klein, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Liberia, and Carolyn McAskie, the Deputy to the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, told correspondents at a Headquarters briefing today that conditions in the Liberian capital Monrovia, one of the few places accessible to humanitarian workers, clearly demonstrated the enormity of the problem which they said “almost defied description”.

Some 450,000 internally displaced persons were now scattered among 90 impromptu settlements around the capital, Mr. Klein said.  Further, the number and real conditions of people in need in most of Liberia were not even known, because the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies had had no access to large portions of the country in a number of years now.

Both Mr. Klein and Ms. McAskie spoke to correspondents afterthe launch earlier today of an emerging appeal for humanitarian aid for the war-torn West African country, at which Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged world governments to seize the opportunity to help end the unnecessary suffering of nearly 1 million Liberians and “to let them know they are not alone in the quest for development and peace”.

Recounting Liberia’s past and strong ties not only to the United States, but to the West as whole, Mr. Klein said that country was Africa’s oldest democratic republic, was an ally of the West through some very difficult times in the past, and had in 1942 declared war on the Axis powers at the request of the West.  It had been the major supplier of rubber during the Second World War after the plantations of South-East Asia were lost.  Robertsfield International Airport in Liberia was built as a staging base for United States, British and Canadian aircraft.  The country was also a founding Member of the United Nations.

“So, this is not a country that one should leave in the lurch”, he said.  “They are a country that demands our assistance and we hope that this morning’s pledging conference will do the right thing.  We know a dire situation exists.  The Ambassador of Liberia himself made a very moving and profound appeal.”  He thanked those that had already given and urged all those that had not given to examine what possibilities they had and to give as much as they could.

He said as of this morning the United Nations had airlifted Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) units from Sierra Leone and approximately two companies were now on the ground at Robertsfield.  Also, the United Nations learned today that a small United States liaison party would also be at Robertsfield to liaise with the United States fleet, now off shore, and to help provide some of the logistical and security support.

He further praised the other humanitarian agencies outside of the United Nations family that had provided assistance under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions in Liberia, calling their efforts “heroic”.

Ms. McAskie, detailing the appeal, said it was based on the existing appeal for $42 million for 2003 launched last November, but which had only raised less than $10 million, or 22 per cent.  A lot of the projects in the new appeal were based on the existing appeal, but some were either upgraded or some new projects had been put in.  She said the appeal mirrored exactly what was predicted as a potential worst-case scenario.  That worst-case scenario was described as:  continuous conflict; civilian injuries and death; massive displacements to impromptu sites in and around Monrovia; total lack of, or serious shortage of, all basic requirements, such as food, water, health care, and so forth; and extreme insecurity with looting, attacks and rapes affecting both the civilian population and the humanitarian agencies.

Answering a correspondent’s question, Mr. Klein said the United Nations very much welcomed the United States participation and President Bush’s statement last week that there would be a “limited number of troops for a limited period of time”.  “That already is very positive, because I think it sends a signal that this is not simply just an ECOWAS operation and that the United States is a participant.  So, we welcome that.”

To another question about whether he was encouraged that the fighting seemed to have died down with the arrival of the Nigerian contingent, Mr. Klein said this was a positive sign that the Liberian people were “sick and tired of war, mayhem, rape and robbery”.

He said, as a founding Member State of the United Nations, the international community, at least the West, owed Liberia for the role it played in the Second World War and hoped there was an appetite to do the right thing, because the cost of regional instability far outweighed the cost of stabilizing the country and the region.  Without peace and stability in Liberia, all the good work that had already been accomplished in countries like Sierra Leone, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire could easily come unravelled again.

Even without taking into account humanitarian or moralistic terms, but purely from a financial sense, it was in the interest of the West to help, he said.

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