PRESS CONFERENCE BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE ON LIBERIA

 

Liberia was facing a myriad of problems, from replacing a lost generation of professionals to averting the growing insecurity along its shared borders with Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for that country, Alan Doss, told correspondents today in at a Headquarters briefing on the Liberia Partner’s Forum, which had taken place in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

Mr. Doss said: “There are bumps on the road, and there will be more bumps on the road, but that doesn’t mean to say the wheels are coming off.”  The international community now had to ensure that, by the time the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) left, the Government was fully in control and had the resources to do it.

The meeting this week had been the first time since the election of Liberia’s new Government just over a year ago that the new officials had met with their international partners in a major setting, he said.  It had been a big event for the country and for the United Nations Mission.  It had also been an important step in bringing the country back into the mainstream and restoring its hope for the future.  Held at the headquarters of the World Bank, the two-day conference had been very well attended at the highest levels.

Moreover, the meeting had produced some important outcomes, he reported.  For example, there had been the very positive response to the Government’s poverty reduction strategy, and several countries had announced additional assistance in support of the strategy.  Progress had also been made on the issue of debt reduction and debt relief.  Liberia had $3.7 billion in debt, which had accumulated because of many years of non-payment.  That amount was clearly unsustainable and “unpayable”, and Liberia needed a complete reduction.

The United States had taken the lead in announcing that it was in the process of forgiving all of Liberia’s debt, which was $391 million to the United States alone, he said.  Germany, the United Kingdom and several others had also announced that they would be on the same track.  Progress had also been reached on an agreement to deal with multilateral debt, principally with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the African Development Bank, which accounted for approximately one third of the $3.7 billion.  There was another $1 billion that would have to be negotiated with commercial debtors.  The United States had pledged additional money to help resolve arrears with multilateral institutions, which was also very positive, he added.

Several other areas of continuing concern, chiefly peace and security matters, had also been taken up, he said.  The need to accelerate the security sector reform programme, including as part of UNMIL’s eventual drawdown strategy, was discussed, as was the need to extend the rule of law and justice throughout the country, particularly in remote areas.  Job creation was also high on the agenda, as Liberia was a young country with a lot of ex-combatants needing jobs.  Work had started on that, but it, too, must be accelerated.  Another concern was how to short-circuit the loss of a whole generation of education and skills, at a time when the country needed it the most, and various innovative ways had been discussed to rebuild capacity. 

A final point had centred on regional developments, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, and along the lengthy shared border with Guinea, whose situation was rapidly deteriorating, he said.  Overall, the enthusiasm expressed at the meeting had been “amazing”, with everyone recognizing that, while the country’s need for aid was great now while it was at “rock bottom”, its future lay in getting the private sector working.  Thus, the participation of leading figures from the United States business world had also been particularly gratifying.

Replying to questions about the diamond sanctions, particularly whether they had achieved their aims, Mr. Doss, noting that the diamond sanctions would be reviewed at the end of April, said that the Government was now working with the United Nations to help it become “ Kimberley compliant”.  He was “reasonably optimistic” that, if not by the end of April, then “certainly by a few months later, that they will be Kimberley compliant, they’ll enter the Kimberley Process, and the sanctions will be lifted”.

He added that diamonds in Sierra Leone, as well as Liberia, were a source of illicit gain: the stones got into the hands of people who used the resources to buy arms and other things.  In terms of diamonds’ impact on the Liberian economy, at least for the foreseeable future, they would not have a vast impact, because the deposits were much smaller than in Sierra Leone.  Larger, alluvial diamonds were found through a sifting process and a lot of luck.  Frankly, diamonds in Liberia had had a “nuisance value”, meaning they were captured by a group inherently opposed to the State and used for “mischief making”.

That was worrying, of course, because any natural resource of a relatively high value that got into the hands of the wrong people could become a threat, he said.  That was why, right now, UNMIL was working closely to bring the rubber market under control.  A couple of rubber plantations were getting into the wrong hands.  Rubber was not diamonds, but still, a lot of money could be made, and the criminalization of rubber plantations was a concern.  He hoped that the diamond ban would be lifted in the next few months.  “We’re well on the way,” he reiterated.

Asked about the security situation, he said it had been pretty stable since the inauguration of the new President last year, adding, however, that “there are still ups and downs”.  Just a week ago, there had been demonstrations by some ex-security personnel.  About 17,000 security personnel had been demobilized as part of the security sector reform.  All received severance benefits, but not everyone had been happy about that, so they had demonstrated about arrears and pension benefits and so forth.  Other former combatants had demonstrated.  People who lost out in reform processes were not going to be happy; reform carried risks and, thus, that had to be managed.  Plus, in terms of security, there were concerns at the shared borders with Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. 

Replying to another question about the impact of the situation unfolding in Guinea and the security situation in Liberia, he said he had been watching the situation in Guinea very closely, particularly in the counties on that border, Nimba and Lofa counties.  As of the latest report, there was no evidence of any influx of people coming across from Guinea, although there were recurring rumours that elements might be trying to recruit former Liberian rebels, “but we’re checking on all of that”, he added.  It was impossible to say whether a couple of individuals had gone across or not, but, so far, there had been no evidence of “wholesale recruitment”.  If things imploded in Guinea, then “yes, that could suck in people from neighbouring countries”, he said, adding “our job is to insulate Liberia from the troubles in Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire”.

As for whether former Liberian President Charles Taylor’s “shadow has begun to recede”, he said that someone had recently put up a big billboard that read “freecharlestaylor.com”.  It had created a stir when it went up, but now nobody worried too much about it.  Taylor’s lawyers were coming to Liberia to prepare his defence, and time would tell, when the trial opened in a few months, whether it would cause a stir or not.  Publicly, there was no evidence that his supporters were fomenting violence.  He still had “his people” in the legislature, but his former party had not done well in the elections; the party’s standard bearer had not really made a dent in the popular vote, and a lot of people who had been with Taylor seemed to have moved on to other parties, other ambitions, other things.  In short, he said of Taylor: “He was the product of a particular time in Liberia. I hope we’ve moved on from that time.” 

Of the new President, he said: “She’s done a terrific job by anybody’s standards.”  She held her own, at the highest levels of IMF and down in the market talking to the market women.  She had the ability to both understand the big issues and to deal with what concerned the people in the street.  She had also appointed some very good people, good ministers, including the Finance Minister, who was also a woman.  She was also willing to take on some pretty tough cases.  For example, she had agreed to the transfer of Mr. Taylor and had taken on high-profile corruption cases.  She had also been unafraid to fire people when she had caught them doing things they should not have been doing.  There was a sense that she was in charge, but she had been in office for just one year out of a five-year term, so it was still early.  The conference this week, however, had been a vote of confidence in the progress made so far, he added.

To a series of further questions about Liberia’s debt, he explained that roughly one third was commercial debt, of which the London Club debt was a big chunk.  The second largest tranche was the Paris Club, which was the official debt owed to bilateral partners, and the third chunk was the $1 billion or so multilateral debt.  All three moved in lockstep, with the multilateral debt the hardest to resolve, because those institutions were “sovereign borrowers”, meaning they did not have a write-off debt mechanism per se; essentially, they had to find a device by which they could “re-provision” the debt and write it off that way.

What the United States had announced in terms of the $35 million, which did not seem like a lot in the face of $3.7 billion, had been extremely important, because that would partly deal with the problem of arrears owed to the African Development Bank and IMF.  The problem of all three needed to be solved in order for the problem to move forward.  The process was complex, but everybody agreed that it had been significant that the United States had come up with $35 million to start the arrears clearance process moving.

Concerning China’s presence in Liberia, he said that presence was strong and growing.  China also had a very strong presence in the peacekeeping Mission, with 600 Chinese peacekeepers serving as engineers, medical and transportation staff.

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For information media • not an official record