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Drastic Measures Await Fire Arms Carriers

The Analyst (Monrovia)
NEWS
November 5, 2004
Posted to the web November 5, 2004

Those "bad boys" who don't want to disarm as others have done and cooperate
with the UN peacekeepers must do so now before it is too late, UN special
representative Jacques Klein warned yesterday.
"You still have the chance. Give those weapons now before it's too late", Klein
cautioned at the symbolic disarmament of over 40 pseudo generals of the
country's militia groups that fought the 14-year war.
"Anyone with weapons out there is doing so at his/her own risk", Klein warned.
The power sharing transitional government is poised to apply rigid law against
people illegally possessing weapons and other warlike materials after the
disarmament deadline which expired last Sunday.
Sharing some jokes with former "general" of disbanded armed militias, Klein
said he spent 35 years, two months and 28 days as a military officer. The
disarmed "generals" burst into laughter when Klein said it took him a longer
time to become an army general than it did them.
Of the 35 years, he said he was a general for 12. Then he retired and he laid
down his arms.
He told the former militia that they deserve a future Liberia so they should
strive for it. "Our battle here has been to lead and get you out of the way. I
think we led and we've done the right thing." UN was able to disarm over 95,000
combatants. "Now you and I know that there were no 95,000 combatants obviously.
The former fighters need to engage themselves in productive life and do away
with their usual intimidating tactics that they applied to exploit civilians,
Rebecca K. Gono, a female activist who also attended the occasion.
Their future is what matters now. UN has to find work, vocation training, and
education for them.
Klein appealed to the international community to fulfill pledges to Liberia.
"Give us some money we need to do the rebuilding, to do the reintegration." He
said UN has another task at hand. 500,000 internally displaced Liberians have
to be resettled and 350,000 refugees have to be repatriated from Guinea, Sierra
Leone, Ghana and Nigeria.
"Those people want to come home. They're tired of 14 years of mayhem and
chaos". But he said the combatants have to take the lead in demonstrating that
all that they did is over now.

   

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