By
Ilmari Kaihko (Mats Utas)
June 26, 2012
Recent
weeks in Grand Gedeh following the cross-border attack to Ivory Coast have been
interesting. After the arrival of the “Joint security” consisting of the Armed
Forces of Liberia, the armed Emergency Response Unit (ERU) of the Liberian
National Police and the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, the city was
transformed into an armed camp overnight. While not a new phenomenon, the white
United Nations choppers landing to and rising from the airport only enhanced
the mood that something was happening.
A police officer stationed in Zwedru spoke his mind about
the new forces sent from Monrovia: he was concerned about the possibility of
these forces harassing local citizens, which could lead to serious problems due
to reasons found in the recent history of the country. Everybody in Zwedru
remembers how the security forces of the now imprisoned former President
Charles Taylor harassed people in Southeastern Liberia.
On the second day following the arrival of the joint
security there was already the sound of wings of history to be heard: the new
security was referred to as Taylor’s Anti-Terrorism Unit by people calling the
local community radio to complain about harassments.
Despite the fact that the government gave an allowance of
$300 per month (with rumors as well as hopes that the amount will be raised to
$400 on July) to the new forces, they seem to have gone on to find new ways of
making money. The Immigration officers have probably never checked so many cars
and passenger documents and the police began to direct traffic by the market,
and while doing so fining bikers for rather random traffic violations. Even the
recent law that requires bikers to wear a helmet suddenly began to be enforced
with previously unseen enthusiasm.
A bigger problem, however, was not the newly rich and
seemingly always drunken officers on the streets of Zwedru, but the ERU: with
limited options to make money in the city reports began to trickle that they
have been engaged in harassment of both Ivorian refugees as well as local
citizens outside Zwedru. For instance, a band of Liberian and Ivorian hunters
armed with single barrel guns were arrested as they were selling bush meat by
the Monrovia highway. Local elders tried to negotiate by vouching for the
hunters, arguing that the gun permit was in order and providing a compensation
of LD 4,000. The official response was accepting the money but still carrying
the arrested hunters to jail. This is only one of several instances of the new
security business in Grand Gedeh.
While some of the accusations against ERU are likely
exaggerated (such as the one that claimed that it had robbed a commercial
vehicle on Monrovia highway), there is a real concern about the powers that the
security forces currently employ in Grand Gedeh. As the police officer,
previously mentioned, reminded: harassment by state security was the main
reason for the revolution against Taylor in Grand Gedeh. This means that in the
end it matters little whether the joint security actually commit all the
violations or not. More important is that what the people in Grand Gedeh feel
and believe to be true. While some violations have been officially admitted,
officials have been quick to note that “they are not systematic”. For the time
being this is the case.
There was also discussion about a curfew, but it seems that
this never became official. Shedding light on the relationship between official
and unofficial business in Liberia, at least some policemen began enforcing the
curfew, which some citizen took as a fact while others did not. Speaking about
the curfew the main response has been disbelief: does the government believe
Zwedru has become a frontline?
But yet the presence of the security forces and the few
checks and balances placed on their behavior are only some problems facing the
southeastern region, the county and its citizens. What has also taken place is
the use of insecurity as an economic opportunity for local politicians. These
opportunities ultimately arise from the government announcement to close the
gold camps situated close to the Ivorian border, and where a recent Human
Rights Watch report claims Liberians are financing and fighting the conflict in
Ivory Coast, where the situation may be erupting into a civil war.
The government announcement of closing the camps and the
government’s curious silence concerning its implementation has created
considerable insecurity that directly affects the lives and futures of several
thousands of people in Grand Gedeh. For anyone visiting the camps for a longer
time the terminology soon becomes misleading: not all the gold camps are simply
for miners, but they are more accurately towns as they are not only inhibited
by the young men working on the gold fields, but in many cases also their
families.
Some camp elders also bring out an important point, together
with a veiled threat: many of the miners are former combatants, who are
currently busy with mining in the camps. Forcing them to leave the camps would
materialize in thousands of homeless and jobless people loitering around in the
county capital – a prospect that worries many even in Zwedru. More importantly,
the lure of a mission in Ivory Coast might become too alluring for some of the
miners made unemployed by the implementation of the government decision.
The exploiting of this uncertainty is carried up on every
level, beginning from local leaders upwards. Considering that vast sums of
money are involved in gold business the amounts of money discussed are not
small. It also seems clear that these transactions are not done with any
(official) sanction from the government. Whether they will help to affect the
situation is equally uncertain. If the government does not act swiftly and
begin to provide real security both inside the camps and especially between
them and the border areas, local political entrepreneurs can continue to make
offers that are very, very difficult to refuse. The situation in Grand Gedeh at
the moment seems to be a good example of how conflict can cause problems for
the majority, while at the same time providing new opportunities for the
minority.
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