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Thanks, But Please Check Statistics Against Reality

The Analyst (Monrovia)
EDITORIAL
August 21, 2004
Posted to the web August 23, 2004

THE HEAD OF United Nations Military Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and Special
Representative of the UN Secretary General, Jacques Paul Klein, told members of
the National Transitional Legislative Assembly (NTLA) that the DDRR process was
not only progressing smoothly but was also nearing completion. The occasion was
the first anniversary of the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement or the CPA held August 18, 2004 at the Capitol Building, the seat of
the Liberian transitional parliament, in Monrovia.
THE UN SPECIAL envoy gave impressive statistics to press home the point that
UNMIL was on schedule notwithstanding the citizens' anxiety to see violence go
and the delay by troops pledging nations to beef up UNMIL to the 15, 000-strong
mark. He disclosed that UNMIL has so far disarmed and demobilized at least
65,000 ex-combatants associated with all the belligerent groups, recovered more
than 20,000 weapons, 20,000 pieces of bombs and other explosives, and 5,000,000
rounds of ammunition. Statistics shows, according to Mr. Klein, that these
collections are two times more than what was collected in neighboring Sierra
Leone. He also spoke highly of UNMIL's civil and social works that include the
reconditioning of bridges and the launch of measles campaigns during which some
128,000 children were immunized.
MR. KLEIN'S RECOUNTING of UNMIL's coups at the time when Liberians were taking
stock of one year of transitional experiment and reaffirming the CPA is not
only welcoming, insightful, and instructive, but it also highlighted the
disparity between statistics and reality - between those said to be disarmed
and demobilized and those who feigned to have disarmed and demobilized but who
still remain well armed and are therefore capable of subjecting the nation to
further horror and mayhem. Besides, it draws attention to the ratio of disarmed
ex-coms to land area covered, given that a surplus of 20,000 ex-coms have
already been disarmed with only about one half of the country covered thus far.
MORE THAN THAT, it draws attention to the agility and speed with which those
said to be demobilized and rehabilitated and therefore ready for reintegration
into peaceful civilian life, almost without warning, remobilize and upset
socio-economic and security tranquility with lightning speed and striking
successes. All of this, of course, is at the despair of the unsuspecting war-
weary population that takes UNMIL statistics at face value.
THIS IS WHY while we do not question the authenticity of the statistics as
presented by SRSG Klein, we think there is the need to put into place
mechanisms that will seek to match the statistics with the reality on the
ground. If the disarmament and demobilization of 65,000 ex-coms (45,000 were
originally targeted) cannot mean communities free of arms and explosives, for
reasons well understood, then it should at least mean that civil rule has
significantly taken over the communities in question and that civilian police,
sufficiently empowered, are in place to protect the rule of law and contain
violent crimes or "mobocracy." OF COURSE, AS the bravado with which ex-coms
engaged police and UNMIL soldiers in recent street battles in Monrovia,
Buchanan, and Gbarrnga indicates, there is no denying that Monrovia and other
cities such as Buchanan, Tubmanburg, Gbarnga, Zwedru, and Voinjama remain
densely infested with arms in spite of Mr. Klein's prized statistics.
STATISTICS ARE IMPORTANT milestones of what has been achieved and what remains
to be done, but they can breed complacency and therefore lead to the betrayal
of mission when they become the binoculars through which reality is gauged. It
is our hope therefore that we shall not come to this, if indeed as SRSG Klein
expects, Liberians must go to the polls in October 2005 "in an environment free
of harassment and intimidation" at the behest of UNSC Resolution 1549.

   

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