PRESS BRIEFINGONLIBERIA’S HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION

Although security had improved greatly since the deployment of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), very serious remaining concerns must be addressed if the Accra Peace Agreement was to be successfully implemented, Charlotte Abaka, Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Liberia, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

Briefing correspondents on her recent mission to Liberia, she said that the successful implementation of the Agreement did not entail the mere holding of the elections scheduled for October 2005, but also the establishment of strong protection systems that could sustain the peace even after UNMIL had left.  Sustainable peace and the protection of civilians against human rights violations depended on the existence of a strong national police force and strong independent human rights institutions.

The Accra Peace Agreement also called for a restructured police force, but the force was seriously constrained by a lack of financial resources, she said.  The restructuring was to have been funded through contributions from donors, but despite the euphoria with which the international community had pledged more than $500 million for Liberia’s reconstruction at the February donors’ conference in Washington, D.C., the disbursement of those pledges was so insufficient that many programmes were either stalled or were going at a very slow pace.

“My concern here”, she said, “is that since the peace process is to be implemented within a specific timeframe -– that is October 2005 when there should be national elections -- if accelerated programmes are not put in place to establish sustainable protective institutions, it will be extremely difficult to conduct free and fair elections.”

Besides a strong police force and independent human rights institutions, an effective judiciary was also extremely important, she stressed.  At the end of her mission, only one court was functioning in Liberia.  A lot of criminals had to be released two days after being arrested because there were no courts in which to prosecute them.  That created a serious insecurity situation and subsequent human rights violations.

Another important aspect of the implementation of the Accra Agreement was disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, she said.  After more than 10 years of conflict, there were strong men, women and children who had known only violence.  It was very important, therefore, that there be no gap between the rehabilitation and reintegration of former combatants.  As the situation stood now, there was a wide gap between their disarmament and demobilization and their rehabilitation and reintegration.  Having been disarmed and demobilized, the former combatants had nothing to do.  The latest statistics placed the unemployment rate in Liberia at 85 per cent.

In addition, most schools in Liberia were down.  Only a few had been rehabilitated, most of them private ones, she said.  The illiteracy rate stood at 64 per cent, children lacked the chance to attend school, and health services were simply not available.  At the end of the mission, only five hospitals were functioning, of which three were in Monrovia, the capital.  They were all private hospitals whose services were not affordable to most Liberians.

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