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Taylor's Ghost

Accra Mail (Accra)
ANALYSIS
August 13, 2003
Posted to the web August 13, 2003

By Prof. B. N. Ayittey

"If peace talks in Ghana fail and Liberians cannot solve their own problems,
the country should be placed under ECOWAS trusteeship and administered for an
interim period, say 5 to 10 years - just as a bankrupt company is placed under
receivership."
As demanded by President George Bush, President Charles Taylor - a warlord
turned president - stepped down from office on August 11, 2003, handed over
power to his vice-president, Moses Blah, and left Liberia.
Rather than advance the cause for peace, his contrived departure adds more
confusion and could potentially derail efforts to bring peace to Liberia.
The excessive focus on the departure of Charles Taylor elevated him to a status
and conferred upon him a legitimacy he did not deserve.
An indicted war criminal, he committed acts of grotesque atrocities, and
sponsored the savage RUF in Sierra Leone, whose trademark was hacking off the
limbs of those that stood in their way.
His control of Liberia did not extend beyond the perimeters of Monrovia,
leading the rebels to dismiss him as the "President of the Federal Republic of
Central Monrovia."
Preoccupation with the departure of Taylor diverted attention from on-going
peace talks in Accra, Ghana.
Now, the pacification of Liberia appears to be on two tracks. Which track to
follow: The exit of Taylor and the handover to Blah or peace talks in Ghana?
More ominously, those talks, involving the government, two rebel factions (LURD
and MODEL), 18 political parties and 5 civil society organizations, are
faltering.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a runner-up in the presidential election of 1997,
complained that, "After six frustrating weeks in Accra, the peace talks are
flawed and unstructured" (The New York Times,, Aug 11, 2003; p.A17).
If the peace talks collapse, Moses Blah would continue to serve as president
but would be rejected by the rebel movements as a clone of Taylor and not to be
trusted.
Recall that, under a cease-fire signed with rebels in Accra on June 17, 2003,
Taylor pledged to step down and allow a transitional government formed in which
he would play no part. But Taylor reneged, within hours of signing the accord.
More generally, peace accords have had such a dismal track record in Africa in
recent times. Essentially, they are a formula for joint plunder of the state.
They attempt to establish "interim governments" "unity government" or a
"government of national unity" (GNU) to "bring rebels and opposition leaders
into government." A number of ministerial or government positions are reserved
for rebel or opposition leaders.
But nobody is satisfied with what they get and, inevitably, bitter squabbles
erupt, which often lead to the resumption of the conflict.
More than 30 such peace accords have been brokered in Africa since the 1970s
with abysmal success records. Many are shredded like confetti even before the
ink on them is dry.
Only Mozambique's 1991 peace accord has endured, while shaky pacts hold in
Chad, Niger, and Ivory Coast.
The most spectacular failures were: Angola (1991 Bicesse Accord, and 1994
Lusaka Accord), Burundi (1993 Arusha Accord), DR Congo (July 1999 Lusaka
Accord), Rwanda (1993 Arusha Accord), Sierra Leone (1999 Lome Accord) and
Liberia (2003 Accra Accord).
At the 1999 Lome Peace Accord to end the civil war in Sierra Leone, RUF leader
Foday Sankoh was not satisfied with the Ministry of Lands and Mines he got.
The peace accord for the Ivory Coast was signed in Ghana in January 2003, to
establish a government of national unity, involving the ruling party of
President Laurent Gbagbo, the main rebel group (the Côte d'Ivoire Patriotic
Movement), other political parties and rebel forces.
Immediately, disagreements erupted over the distribution of cabinet posts.
Government supporters bitterly opposed the allocation of two key ministerial
positions (interior and defense) to the rebel groups.
Eventually, a "unity government" was established and led by a veteran
politician, Seydou Diarra.
But President Laurent Gbagbo was reluctant to spell out the powers he would
hand over to Mr. Diarra until France exerted massive pressure.
Peace accords in Africa collapse for two reasons. First, all parties want
power: Power to enrich themselves and allocate resources to cronies and
tribesmen. As such, nobody is willing to compromise. Second, the conflict
creates its own "profitable" dynamic. Vested interests emerge to prolong the
conflict because of the power, economic privileges and assets they acquire from
the situation. For government leaders under siege from rebels, the conflict
allows them to suspend civil liberties, the constitution and rule
autocratically.
Under the pretext of "national security," the government may suspend
development projects, provision of social services and keep its defense budget
secret, thereby shielding padded contracts to cronies from scrutiny.
To rebel leaders, the war creates profitable opportunities to rape women,
pillage villages and plunder natural resources, such as gold and diamonds.
Neither side is interested in peace. In Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation
Army diverted international relief supplies for military operations.
In Somalia, various militia groups engage in wide-scale looting, due to the
collapse of the Somali state and formal economy.
The 14 attempts at peace accords all collapsed.
On October 15, 2002, they made another effort Eldoret, western Kenya and signed
a cease-fire on October 27.
But the move to establish a 450-member parliament quickly degenerated into
squabbles over representation, amid chaos, confusion and fisticuffs. Nine
months later, they are still talking.
In Liberia, valuable natural resources such as diamonds, gold, iron ore and
timber have been plundered by both government and rebel forces to finance the
war.
In Sierra Leone, both the government and rebels enriched themselves from
illicit diamond mining, logging and looting.
In Congo's war, soldiers from Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, as well as
the rebel movements they supported, have grown rich by plundering Congo's
mineral resources, according to the UN Report released in April 2001 by a Panel
of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of
Wealth of Congo.
Thus, Africa's vast natural riches - the diamonds, gold and copper of Sierra
Leone, the Central African Republic and Congo; the costly hardwoods of Gabon
and Cameroon; or the oil of Nigeria - bring little benefit to those who live
beside them and more often bring wars and environmental degradation.
Even when peace accords are successfully concluded and a "government of
national unity" (GNU) is established, it is short-lived.
In South Africa, former president de Klerk pulled out of the GNU after barely
one year when apartheid was dismantled in 1994.
Angola's GNU did not last for more than six months in 1992. Congo's GNU has 4
vice-presidents but has not been able to bring peace to eastern Congo,
especially the Bunia region.
Burundi's civil war has flared up again, despite the establishment of a GNU,
brokered by former president Nelson Mandela and Ivory Coast's GNU proceeds in
fits and starts.
A New Approach A more aggressive and "get-tough" approach is needed to deal
with such failed states as Angola, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and
Sudan. Liberia is a failed state.
"Government" has long ceased to exist - its institutions and agencies hijacked
by a phalanx of elite gangsters for their own enrichment.
Turned into a criminal enterprise, government no longer serves the people. But
it demands a different approach: a regional solution.
Charles Taylor destabilized, not just his country but the entire West African
region, sponsoring rebel movements in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Coast.
There are refugees in many West African countries, from Ghana to Nigeria. The
peace talks in Ghana cannot go on forever.
A deadline must be set. Second, impunity should no longer be tolerated. Just as
Charles Taylor was indicted by the U.N. war tribunal, factional leaders must be
held responsible for rape, pillage and other crimes against humanity committed
by their soldiers.
Rebel leaders fighting Taylor are no better. In the past, rebel leaders paid no
price for the destruction they wreaked. Rather, they are "rewarded" with
government posts.
Back in 1993, the late Somali warlord, Mohammed Farar Aideed, was transported
in U.S. military aircraft to Addis Ababa to take part in peace negotiations.
[Aideed forces were subsequently responsible for the deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers
in Mogadishu.]
The most outrageous appeasement, however, was that of Foday Sankoh, whose
barbarous RUF was rewarded with four cabinet positions and Sankoh himself with
the Ministry of Land and Mines by the 1999 Lome peace accord.
Third, civil society groups, church and traditional leaders, as well as
identifiable groups victimized by a war situation should be allowed
representation at peace talks.
Fourth, an enforcement mechanism, including sanctions, agreed to by all
parties, must be established to police decisions taken at peace talks.
Fifth, most of Africa's civil wars emanate from struggles for political power.
As such, peace talks should be broadened into sovereign national conferences,
as any new political dispensation that is crafted will affect all in the
country.
The sovereign national conference was the modernization of the indigenous
African "village meeting" institution and used as a vehicle to chart a new
political future in Benin (1990), Cape Verde Islands (1991), Congo-Brazzaville
(1991), Malawi (1992), Niger (1991), Mali (1992), South Africa (1992), and
Zambia (1991).
If peace talks in Ghana fail and Liberians cannot solve their own problems, the
country should be placed under ECOWAS trusteeship and administered for an
interim period, say 5 to 10 years - just as a bankrupt company is placed under
receivership.
A governing board, made of up technocrats from other West African countries,
should run the country with its performance subject to periodic reviews.
During this interim period, basic essential services (water, electricity,
health care, schools, etc.), as well as state institutions, such as the
judiciary, the military, customs and excise and the banking system, would to be
fumigated, reformed and rebuilt.
These are far more important to the people of Liberia than who should be the
interim president, the primary obsession with warring factions.
Mineral wealth must be harnessed for the benefit of the Liberian, not to fill
the pockets of warlords.
Revenue from say diamond sales may be used to underwrite the cost of the
trusteeship. Such a trusteeship, with logistical support and backing from the
African Union, United Nations, the U.S. and other Western governments, will
send a powerful message to the other African warlords who are not interested in
peace: That their country would be next.
The writer, a native of Ghana, is a Distinguished Economist at American
University and President of The Free Africa Foundation, both in Washington.
His new book, Africa Unchained: the Blueprint for Development, will be
published by St. Martin's Press this Fall.

   

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