A Report on the State of Affairs in Liberia

I want to note that it is fitting that participating in this forum alongside OIC is the constituency for Africa, the World Bank Group, the IMF-Africa Club and the UN.  Close cooperation among the international community and financial institutions, the private sector and the United States will be the key to the creation and solidification of Liberia as an African success story.

U.S. Government has three overarching priorities in Liberia:  number one, to stop the killing; number two, to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid; and number three, to achieve a comprehensive profound change in the way the country is governed.  We have worked long and hard in cooperation with like-minded Liberians and the international community in pursuit of these goals.

We are encouraged by the results.  We have actively supported the successful deployment of West African peacekeepers and played a key role in producing the Accra Accords.  Deputy Assistant Secretary Bridgewater led the delegation to the Accra peace talks.  We brokered the rebel withdrawal from Monrovia, opening the way for renewed humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of suffering people.

We did this with a small but crucial military footprint.  Largely through U.S. efforts, the killing of innocent civilians has been drastically reduced, and assistance is starting to reach those in need.  We worked closely with former president Moses Blah and his interim government, which supported the deployment of peacekeepers, the distribution of humanitarian assistance, and the observation of the Accra Accords, including the voluntary, unilateral turnover of large caches of weapons to the United Nations Mission in Liberia, UNMIL.  We strongly encourage the two rebel groups to do the same.  We also lobbied for the Blah government's passage of three important pieces of environmental legislation and its annulment of key timber concessions granted by Charles Taylor.

Now that the Blah government has stepped down on October 14 in favor of the two-year transitional government led by Mr. Gyude Bryant, I would like to highlight our next steps.

Secretary of State Powell has congratulated Mr. Bryant on his induction as Chairman of the National Transitional Government of Liberia.  My colleague, Deputy Assistant Secretary Donald Yamamoto, joined Ambassador Blaney as the official U.S. delegation to the induction ceremonies.  We applaud the seriousness with which Mr. Bryant approaches his new rule.  We also look forward to his eventual visit to Washington.  We are eager to work closely with him in lifting bilateral assistance restrictions, creating conditions whereby the UN Security Council can promptly lift sanctions, and in promoting Liberia's reconstruction and its participation in our African Growth and Opportunity Act challenges, AGOA.  As Secretary Powell has said, our cooperation can serve as a model for promoting democratic, free-market reforms and prosperity as well as U.S. influence in Africa.

Of particular concern now is the protection of 500,000 Internally Displaced Persons, 280,000 Liberian refugees in neighboring countries, and 50,000 Sierra Leonean and Ivoirian refugees within Liberia, many of whom have fled their homes more than once.

The United States has played a significant role in easing the humanitarian crisis in Liberia.  Through the end of fiscal year 2003, USAID's Office of Food for Peace, USAID/FFP, committed $16.7 million in P.L. 480 Title II Food Assistance, or more than 24,000 metric tons of food.  And already in FY 2004, USAID has provided an additional 19,000 metric tons valued at $11.7 million.  With our help, the UN World Food Program is feeding more than 400,000 people. 

Overall, the U.S. Government has provided $40 million to international and non-government organizations for water, sanitation, and shelter programs; for disease control and prevention; for medical services and work to combat sexual and gender-based violence; for logistical support and security and humanitarian workers; and for food stocks. 

By December, the UN's World Food Program plans to target a total of 150,000 children for school feeding.  Almost 6,000 wells have been chlorinated and disinfected.  UNMIL's capacity to support humanitarian operations as distant from Monrovia as Voinjama, Zwedru, Ganta, and Gbarnga is steadily increasing.

Measles, malaria, cholera and diarrhea are serious health issues, even though the number of cases is declining.  Isolated groups of fighters will continue to be a problem until UNMIL deploys throughout the country.  Until armed combatants are fed, disarmed, and able to find work, they will continue to harass civilians, halt and attack food convoys and threaten peace.  However, we will not allow this activity by Liberians against Liberians to pass without consequences.

A mission from USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives is in Monrovia now, consulting with the host government, NGOs, and the European Union and ECOWAS representatives to determine how we can best assist Chairman Gyude Bryant.

Over the past two weeks, Pamela Bridgewater has met colleagues from the European Union and from the International Contact Group on Liberia to discuss closer coordination on addressing Liberia's needs promptly.  DAS Bridgewater will meet with EU counterparts next week in Brussels for further discussions.

Security is key to resolving the humanitarian crisis and preparing the way for the political transition.  In this respect, the United States has provided critical support to the over 4,300 peacekeeping troops of the UN Mission to Liberia, which subsumed the troops of the ECOWAS Mission in Liberia.  When it is fully staffed in March 2004, UNMIL will have become the largest UN international peacekeeping mission in history.  We have committed up to $26 million to transport all the contingents and to fund contracted logistical support and equipment for ECOMIL, and to assist in the transition to UNMIL.

Although the U.S. Amphibious Ready Group established to support West African peacekeepers has now departed, the United States remains involved in supporting the peacekeepers.  To support Liberia's August 18 peace agreement, we drafted and endorsed the UN Security Council Resolution 1509, which establishes a peacekeeping operation of up to 15,00 peacekeepers, with 250 military observers and 160 staff officers, a robust police component of up to 1,115, and a significant civilian component and support staff.

We are planning to second at least 13 officers to UNMIL.  I am pleased to announce that we intend to provide $8.5 million in FY '03 monies to support international law enforcement programs, projects and activities in Liberia.  This effort will help to deploy up to 75 U.S. civilian police to UNMIL, and UNMIL has also named former Portland, Oregon Police Chief Mark Kroeker as its police commissioner.

While we await the full UN deployment in Liberia, we keep a close eye on Charles Taylor and seek to ensure that he creates no further mayhem.  We are working with Liberia and the international community to help ensure that Taylor no longer exercises any influence in Liberia.  Although Taylor's influence continues to wane, we are concerned about reports that Taylor continues to seek to undermine Liberia's fragile peace.  Consequently, along with ensuring that the humanitarian needs of Liberia's civilians are met, our top priority in the months ahead will be to support the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration into society of all combatants, thereby depriving Taylor and other warlords of the ability to renew the cycle of violence. 

We recognize that Nigeria granted Taylor exile for the sake of regional peace.  We are grateful for Nigeria's leadership in ECOWAS on Liberia, and the other contributing countries in ECOWAS, and we support strongly Nigeria's stern warning to Taylor not to have any contacts with Liberia.

The United States recognizes, too, and welcomes, Liberia's progress toward peace, especially as UNMIL expands its ability to create "weapons-free" zones from greater Monrovia, and to prepare for the formal disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants into society.  The peaceful transition of power and installation of the new leadership of the National Transitional Government of Liberia was another important step towards the fulfillment of the Accra Peace Accord objectives. 

The Accra Accord calls for government appointees to be "persons of integrity," and we call on all stakeholders in the "new Liberia" and all parties to be guided by this provision when considering appointments to government posts and election to the National Transitional Legislative Assembly.  Failure to do so will make it more difficult for Liberia's friends to garner much needed international support and to help the people of Liberia to rebuild their lives and to achieve permanent peace.

The UN will bring significant, but not enough, resources to the table.  It will take time for the UN effort to become fully operational.  The United States will continue to play an important role working with other international donors, but the international community will respond to Liberia adequately only if the United States continues to lead with our help for Liberia. 

In this regard, while we understand the need to prepare adequately for a successful international donors conference early in 2004, in the run-up to the formal donors conference, the United States is planning to host an Organizational Planning Conference on Liberian reconstruction in early December, in order to send a message of hope to ex-combatants and civil society.  We already have provided $200,000 towards the disarmament of Liberia's warring parties.  We intend to provide $3 million more for immediate emergency assistance towards the demobilization and reintegration of these former soldiers.

We are enthusiastic about the UN's proposed reconstruction budget for Liberia.  Although it needs further refinement and should be expanded to become a holistic approach, it is invaluable for mobilizing badly needed assistance for the new Liberia.  We will be proposing a "Civilian Conservation Corps"-style program to rehabilitate and reintegrate combatants by employing them to rebuild Liberia's infrastructure, which has been destroyed and long neglected. 

We also support and wish to see adopted UNICEF's new condensed three-year primary school curriculum to facilitate literacy among ex-combatants, a critical component lacking in other DDR programs.  We hope to target up to 10,000 children and women ex-combatants, as well as victims of rape and other war-affiliated problems.

We are pleased that the Bryant government agrees with us on the priority needed to audit properly all of Liberia's revenues, so that the monies are used for legitimate social, humanitarian and development purposes.  A technical assistance team from the Treasury Department is also in Monrovia today to determine how we can best strengthen auditing capacity, among other objectives.  For this purpose, we intend to allocate over $1 million. 

According to the OECD, the United States is the world's largest source of bilateral aid to Liberia, by a factor of five over the next largest donor, the Netherlands.  The situation, however, is still fluid and Liberians need to hear and see that the United States will stay the course.

Although the extent and speed of the U.S. contribution in this fiscal year will depend largely upon the actions of the U.S. Congress in relevant appropriations legislation, let me assure you that the U.S. is committed to the reconstruction of Liberia.  Liberia's stability is important, not only for our relations with our African partners, whom we depend on increasingly for security and energy assistance, but also for our relations with Europe.  Great Britain and France, which have invested significant amounts in stabilizing Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire, encouraged and welcomed U.S. efforts to lead in resolving the Liberia crisis.  Indeed, had the U.S. walked away from the country it helped to create, many in the world would have doubted the depth of our commitment to Africa. 

While humanitarian relief and avoiding further violence constitute more than sufficient reasons for us to remain engaged in Liberia, our strategic interests, also, are significant. 

In summary, the United States has demonstrated leadership and humanitarian compassion.  We intend to continue to do so.  Continued U.S. assistance and limited but visible U.S. support for the other elements outlined above, including security, will help send a clear message that we will remain involved in Liberia and will greatly boost prospects for the success of the Transition Government, ECOMIL and the UN.  It will also encourage all parties to the conflict to work toward rebuilding Liberia, ending the industry of war.  Such U.S. actions can prompt international support for creating a new Liberia, and we believe will represent a memorable foreign policy success story and we welcome all of your help in doing so.  Thank you.

# # #