04/21/2004

One of the first major challenges of most peacekeeping missions is to disarm and demobilize the combatants as a first step toward restoring peace and stability. In Liberia, the population has demanded that the United Nations Mission (UNMIL) and the National Transitional Government of Liberia begin the disarmament and demobilization program immediately. Despite the reservations of humanitarian organizations in Liberia about the lack of preparation, UNMIL began the program on April 15, 2004. This second attempt so far represents a significant improvement over the earlier effort in December 2003, which had to be halted as conditions in the country were not stable enough to go forward. Nonetheless, the program in Liberia to date has been a case study of how not to do demobilization.

The issue of immediate concern is the decision by UNMIL and the Liberian National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration, and Rehabilitation (DDRR) to make cash payments of US$300 to all youths being demobilized from the various armed forces. The payment of cash allowances to children and adolescents is against their best interests.

To its credit, UNMIL had agreed that priority processing be given to children and adolescents in the demobilization program. They will not spend longer than 72 hours in the demobilization camps and they will be separated from adult combatants. They will then transfer to Interim Care Centers and from there they will begin the road home to their families and communities. To ensure that child and adolescent ex-combatants can reintegrate into their communities, the DDRR process is supposed to provide access to interim care, family tracing services, education and skills training, as well as providing for a safe return without risk of further recruitment. These programs --- not cash --- are needed for youthful ex-combatants.

Cash allowances to combatants under the age of 18 will undermine this system. The cash is unlikely to be used for productive investments in education or economic opportunity. Many of these children are still in thrall to the commanders who abducted them or hooked them on drugs. There is no way to prevent the cash from being turned back over to commanders, in effect encouraging them to recruit more children. Further, providing cash, in essence, rewards children who took part in the conflict and the parents who allowed them to do so.

The cash allowances may also put these children at risk. One humanitarian organization that works with child combatants in Liberia told Refugees International that when these adolescents received the initial $75 payment in December at the first failed DDRR attempt, they used it for marijuana and other drugs that are plentiful in Liberia. In addition, representatives of a local organization that has been working since September to identify and “rescue” female child soldiers told RI of the difficulties they had breaking the bonds between these adolescent girls, many of whom were mothers but with the maturity of girls, and their commanders, who abused them and commanded their loyalties. Rather than cash, these former combatants need increased access to trauma counseling, educational services, and help reintegrating back into society.

RI, like operational agencies focused on child protection such as Christian Children’s Fund and Save the Children, is concerned about the precedent that paying child soldiers will establish in West Africa, where children are easily "recycled" from one conflict to another. Will DDRR in the Ivory Coast, for example, inevitably involve cash payments to children?

Beyond the problem of cash payments to adolescent ex-combatants, there is also concern that UNMIL has been focusing on the “DD” (disarmament and demobilization) part of the process at the expense of the “RR” (reintegration and rehabilitation). An NGO representative recently told RI, “[Special Representative of the Secretary General Jacques Klein] places a lot of emphasis on the DD but not much on the RR. What’s the plan? … They [ex-combatants] spend 2-3 weeks in the DD program and then where will the fighters go?  Where will they integrate to?” SRSG Klein denies this and maintains that there is a detailed plan for rehabilitation and reintegration.  However, when RI asked for a copy of the plan in early March, he said it was still in draft form and would be released to everyone when it is finalized. UNMIL has still not released the plan as of this writing.

The disarmament and demobilization part of the program is relatively easy because it’s largely a matter of planning and logistics.  The reintegration and rehabilitation component is vastly more difficult because it involves programs for protection and skills training for traumatized people who have basically been denied access to formal education. Implementing long- and short-term skills training, education for younger ex-combatants, and psychosocial assistance for traumatized ex-combatants and civilian populations, and meeting the special needs of traumatized women and children represent serious challenges even under more stable conditions than those prevailing in Liberia.

Effective reintegration programs also necessarily involve sensitizing civilian populations to accept the ex-combatants in their communities. This is particularly crucial for the reintegration of child soldiers. Home communities may shun child soldiers if they believe that they committed atrocities. In Sierra Leone, many humanitarian organizations had good results by encouraging communities to develop “purification” rituals to promote community acceptance. While there are some bridging projects possible to help ex-combatants immediately after they leave the cantonment camps, most of these projects are long-term in nature.  

RI is concerned because short of an initial payment to ex-combatants when they leave the camps, there are almost no programs set up to assist ex-combatants in finding jobs and reintegrating them into communities.  Since most are young men, who have lived by taking what they need by the point of a gun, they are likely to return to that life if other alternatives are not available.  They will likely return to overcrowded IDP camps or to Monrovia.

Therefore Refugees International recommends that:

• The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations immediately instruct SRSG Klein to cease payment of cash allowances to all child ex-combatants until he has met with UNICEF and other child protection agencies to better address the issue.
• Reintegration packages for children should support families and communities, and be based on a set of services, not cash. UNMIL should re-work these cash payments as educational vouchers or other non-cash items that will encourage the reintegration of children into Liberian communities rather than encouraging their exploitation.
• Donors and UNMIL immediately begin to identify short- and long-term reintegration and rehabilitation programs based on the needs of the ex-combatants to transition successfully from combat to productive and peaceful civilian lives. Projects that address the short term needs must be started immediately so that there are “RR” programs available for ex-combatants immediately upon release from the cantonment sites.