Liberia: IDP return and reintegration not yet sustainable Liberian Online

Since UNHCR and partners began the official IDP return programme in November 2004, more than 90,000 Liberian IDPs out of a total of 260,000 living in formal camps have so far been assisted to return to their places of origin. Indeed, considerable progress has been made since the signing of the August 2003 peace agreement between Liberia’s three main armed factions, and the subsequent flight into exile of former president Charles Taylor.

The world's largest UN peacekeeping operation, UNMIL, has deployed some 15,000 troops across Liberia; 100,000 former combatants have been disarmed; and almost the entire country has now been officially declared safe for return. Preparations for the October 2005 elections – "the key to peace in Liberia" according to senior UN officials – remain on course.

Yet current prospects for sustainable peace in Liberia are tenuous. The IDP return process is fraught with problems, not least poor management and confusing if not contradictory coordination. NGOs, many of whom are highly critical of the integrated UN mission in Liberia, have repeatedly warned that in many cases IDP return is neither safe nor sustainable, and that the entire process is being politically driven ahead of the October elections. Protection is a major concern since UNMIL has little or no presence in some of the remote rural areas to where IDPs are returning, and security remains extremely fragile.

This is partly as a result of disgruntled ex-combatants who lack rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities and have on several occasions held violent protests, and the fact that Liberia and its neighbours remain awash with weapons. Areas of return have a desperate lack of shelter, food and health services, resulting in some IDPs returning to the camps. An acute shortage of funding and lack of long-term commitment by the international community threatens not only return and reintegration programmes but ultimately the entire peace process. Liberia has previously demonstrated the disastrous consequences of engineering elections without addressing the causes of the conflict.

There can be no quick-fix solution to a complex crisis which has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people and destabilised an entire region. Without long-term engagement to find durable political and economic solutions, further displacement will be the inevitable outcome.

Background and causes of displacement

Internal displacement in Liberia has been caused by the civil war that started in 1989. Charles Taylor, leading the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), launched an armed rebellion in the north of the country against the Samuel Doe regime. Fighting quickly reached the capital.

In 1990 the Economic Community of West African States deployed a Nigerian-led peacekeeping mission (ECOMOG) to Liberia to restore order. ECOMOG's control did not extend beyond Monrovia, however, and the rest of the country was ruled by Taylor and other self-styled freedom fighters battling over the country's rich natural resources.

Four months after intense factional fighting and looting devastated Monrovia for a second time in April 1996, the four main Liberian warlords signed yet another peace agreement, providing for disarmament of the warring factions, followed by presidential and parliamentary elections in 1997. Charles Taylor won a landslide victory in the presidential contest, winning the legitimacy he craved through the ballot box.

However, peace in Liberia was short-lived. In 1999 armed dissidents, believed to have crossed the border from Guinea, attacked the town of Voinjama in northern Lofa County.

Intermittent fighting – largely between Liberian security forces and the newly formed rebel movement known as Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) – spread and intensified, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. The situation was complicated by reports of in-fighting between various pro-government militias in the region, and military claims on all sides were often unverifiable. The conflict was centred in the gold and diamond rich area close to where the borders of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea meet.

In December 2001, government forces launched a fresh offensive when the rebels got within 60km of the capital. Fighting forced populations to flee from one temporary location to another.

The government restricted aid agencies to the greater Monrovia area, while blocking IDPs from entering the capital, where many people who had been previously displaced remained in war-damaged buildings. Sporadic but intense fighting continued throughout 2002, causing almost continuous displacement. Villages and IDP camps in Lofa and Bong counties were emptied and reportedly looted by both government and dissident forces, forcing many civilians to seek refuge in camps around Monrovia (OCHA IDP Unit, 21 May 2002).

In 2003, thousands of families were newly displaced. Heavy fighting between Liberian government troops and the LURD rebel group spread from western and northern regions to the south-western Atlantic port of Robertsport (IRIN, 13 February 2003). In February 2003, a new rebel group emerged – the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) – that launched attacks on border areas with neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire (ACT, 12 March 2003). It subsequently captured large parts of south-eastern Grand Gedeh county, as well as the strategic southern port town of Harper, forcing thousands of dispossessed civilians to flee (AFP, 20 May 2003).

The indictment of Charles Taylor in June 2003 by the Sierra Leone war crimes court seemed to further intensify the fighting. LURD subsequently launched violent attacks in the centre of Monrovia and its suburbs. These attacks caused mass movements of IDPs from camps outside the capital into the centre of Monrovia, while pushing some residents out of the capital (UNHCR, 10 June 2003; CRS, 1 August 2003). The arrival of West African troops in August 2003, followed by the deployment of UN peacekeepers (UNMIL), helped restore calm to Monrovia, although there were some reports of continuing insecurity and targeting of civilians, including rape and looting (DEC, 11 August 2003; UNHCR, 4 September 2003). Under huge international pressure, and surrounded by rebel forces, President Taylor went into exile in Nigeria in mid-August, handing over power temporarily to his vice-president, Moses Blah.

In October 2003, Gyude Bryant was sworn in as new president to head a transitional government. A businessman, Bryant was seen as politically neutral, with no political links. His government includes former Charles Taylor loyalists, rebels and civilian politicians.

Despite these political changes, more fighting between Liberia's three armed factions – namely forces loyal to Charles Taylor, as well as LURD and MODEL – displaced thousands more civilians in central and northern Liberia towards the end of 2003 (UNHCR, 24 September 2003; UN OCHA, 2 October 2003; IRIN, 10 November 2003).

In 2004, the ceasefire appeared largely to be holding, although leadership disputes within the LURD rebel movement resulted in open violence on several occasions (UN SC, 26 May 2004; IRIN, 4 August 2004).

Despite the deployment of more than 15,000 UN peacekeepers, vast areas of the country remained beyond their control – with rebel fighters continuing to control key border crossings (IRIN, 17 August 2004). Disgruntled ex-combatants were believed to be at least partly responsible for the riots that erupted in Monrovia in October 2004, killing 19 people and seriously injuring more than 200 (UN OCHA, 7 November 2004). Indeed, in 2005 ex-combatants awaiting rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities have become increasingly volatile, rioting on several occasions in Monrovia and provincial towns (UN SC, 17 March 2005).

Protection of IDPs remains a major challenge

Displaced or returning women and girls are one of the groups most vulnerable to ongoing human rights abuses by armed gangs and former militia members – particularly to rape and other forms of sexual violence. Killings, abductions, forced labour and destruction of property have continued to be perpetrated in parts of Liberia. A "badly planned disarmament and demobilisation process" as well as a "poorly designed reintegration assistance package" may pose future protection risks for returning IDPs (Martin, 13 October 2004).

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been so pervasive throughout the Liberian conflict that they could be termed as a weapon of war (HRW, 21 January 2004). Rights organisations have documented rape by combatants from all warring factions even after the signing of the August 2003 peace agreement (AI, 14 December 2004). Victims ranged from girls less than eight years old to women in their seventies. Rape and sexual violence have also been reported in overcrowded IDP centres in Monrovia. In the Samuel Doe stadium, where as many as 50,000 IDPs took refuge in August 2003, Amnesty International said that within one week 40 women and 20 girls had reported being raped. Concerned Christian Community, a local relief agency that offers psychological and social counselling to displaced civilians, said that out of 1,500 women and girls it had counselled since the beginning of June 2003, 626 were victims of rape (IRIN, 27 August 2003).

A Watchlist report of June 2004 further highlighted the vulnerability of displaced Liberian girls in camps to rape, sexual abuse and prostitution. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, young women and widows living in IDP camps have often turned to prostitution as a survival mechanism, sometimes exchanging sexual services for food (NRC, 8 September 2004). And in October 2004, the UN's Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division reported that in the IDP camps, rape of young girls and other forms of gender-based violence and abuse remained "rampant", while the response was "inadequate" (IDD, 10 October 2004).

Critical humanitarian needs

The repeated cycle of violence and displacement in Liberia over the past 15 years has held the country in the grip of permanent humanitarian and human rights crisis that has been largely hidden from the outside world. Humanitarian access to the interior of the country has been extremely limited, and the numbers and needs of displaced people has often been guesswork. It is only relatively recently that access has begun to improve with the deployment of UN troops, but there are still vast areas of the country with endemic insecurity and little or no humanitarian presence.

There is a dire lack of shelter and basic services in key areas of return – such as Lofa county which was once home for many of Liberia's IDPs and which was almost entirely devastated in the war (IRIN, 25 March 2005). Food supplies, as well as health and education facilities are all lacking.

The overall health situation for IDPs and other vulnerable populations is "very alarming" according to Liberia's transitional government, with infant and under-five mortality currently among the worst in the world. Malaria continues to be the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, and malnutrition remains on the increase. The lack of water and sanitation facilities is a matter for serious concern: less than 20 per cent of the population is estimated to have access to safe drinking water (NTGL, 10 December 2004).

The absence of seeds and farm tools in return packages further exacerbates the enormous problem of food insecurity brought about by the massive displacement of farming communities, damage to infrastructure, physical insecurity and continuing lack of farming opportunities. Liberia is among the most food insecure countries in the world: less than 10 per cent of arable land is being cultivated, more than one third of the population is undernourished and two in five children under the age of five are stunted (NTGL, 10 December 2004).

The humanitarian needs of IDPs remaining in camps also remain acute. Although a food security assessment carried out by the NGO Action Contre la Faim in various IDP camps towards the end of 2004 found the situation to be generally "favourable" (ACF, 17 February 2005), the overall picture painted by NGOs such as the Norwegian Refugee Council has been grim. Disease – particularly malaria, diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections – has been rife. Poor water and sanitation facilities have been a constant problem.

Funding constraints have greatly hampered humanitarian programmes for both IDPs in camps and those returning to their areas of origin: in March 2005 WFP once again warned that it was running out of food to help nearly one million people stay alive in Liberia, most of whom are already getting a sharply reduced ration. WFP did however pledge to prioritise the distribution of rations to returning IDPs and refugees (IRIN, 4 March 2005).

Constrained humanitarian response

As a result of the former government's pariah status, donor support to humanitarian assistance in Liberia has been extremely low.

Following the departure of Charles Taylor hopes were raised that donors would be more generous towards Liberia. Indeed, at a Liberia Donors' Conference held in New York in February 2004, some $540 million was pledged towards the reconstruction of the country, with the United States alone promising $200 million. However, donors have been slow to fulfil their pledges – largely as a result of continuing reports of corruption within the transitional government (IRIN, 21 February 2005, 14 March 2005). There has been a serious lack of funds both for the rehabilitation and reintegration of disarmed ex-combatants, and for humanitarian programmes. The Liberian transitional government and the UN have repeatedly warned that lack of funds for education or skills training for former fighters poses a threat to national security, as seen in the bloody riots in Monrovia at the end of October 2004 (BBC, 2 November 2004).

Chairman Gyude Bryant subsequently reiterated a call for the international community to provide an extra $44 million for the rehabilitation and reintegration of ex-combatants, since the government's entire budget for this had already been spent on the disarmament and demobilisation of (then) some 83,000 fighters – more than twice the anticipated number (IRIN, 7 October 2004). At the same time WFP has repeatedly complained that its programmes are threatened by lack of funding, while about one third of Liberia's population is expected to be dependant on food aid for at least part of 2005 (IRIN, 4 March 2005).

The humanitarian response to IDPs has been further hampered by confusing and sometimes contradictory coordination mechanisms. In a highly divisive move – one that was opposed by numerous NGOs in Liberia – the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) was formally integrated into UNMIL in July 2004, becoming the Humanitarian Coordination Section. Even before this, there was lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of various agencies with respect to IDPs, particularly of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator (who is also one of two deputies to the Special Representative of the Secretary General, SRSG, under UNMIL), UN OCHA and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

There were frequent reports of tension and competition between agencies, and even of deliberate undermining of each other's authority. But a key concern is the fact that the SRSG effectively manages not only the Humanitarian Coordinator but also all the UNMIL military contingents – raising fears that humanitarian mandates take second place to political and military ones, and that it becomes very difficult for NGOs in particular to be seen as impartial.

A new coordination framework – the Results Focussed Transitional Framework (RFTF) – developed by the Liberian government and UN officials at the highest political level – effectively took the place of a Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for 2005. At the end of 2004 both humanitarian and targeted transitional needs were integrated into the RFTF Humanitarian Appeal – requesting a total of $246 million (not including food requirements which are reflected in the West Africa Regional Appeal 2005).

Furthermore, at the recommendation and with the assistance of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division, an Action Plan for the Return and Reintegration of IDPs in Liberia was formulated in November 2004, based on the Liberian government's National Community Resettlement and Reintegration Strategy (June 2004).

The Action Plan, which is meant to be continuously revised and updated by the Joint Planning Team in Liberia, emphasises the need for both protection and community recovery activities in order to ensure confidence in the return process and its sustainability.

Although the Action Plan does identify some key gaps – including the need for further resources in areas of return and an urgent need for agricultural assistance to enable returnees to resume farming activities - many NGOs have continued to voice concerns that humanitarian coordination particularly of the return process is being politically driven by UNMIL.

The UN's desire for a "success story" ahead of October 2005 elections in Liberia, they argue, is the main reason for what they see as a rushed and poorly planned return and reintegration process. They have argued that the necessary safeguards of voluntariness, the availability of full and objective information, and the declaration of return areas as safe based on an objective assessment, may all be jeopardised. A dire lack of services as well as continuing protection concerns in areas of return has reportedly resulted in IDPs returning to the camps – evidence, say NGOs, of the failure of the process. Controversy over resettlement packages – particularly the issues of cash payments for IDPs to arrange their own transport (often inadequate and also raising protection concerns) as well as the lack of seeds and tools – has fuelled criticisms of the return process.

The UN has been at pains to counter accusations that the October 2005 elections are effectively the cut-off point for assistance to IDPs in camps. But while IDPs will be allowed to register for a voting card in the camps where they are currently living, they will have to return to their home counties to cast their ballot in October (IRIN, 31 March 2005).

Perhaps the most serious threat, however, to both humanitarian response in Liberia and ultimately the peace process as a whole, is not only the acute shortage of funding but the lack of long-term commitment by the international community. Without long-term engagement to find durable political and economic solutions to a complex crisis that has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people and destabilised an entire region, further displacement will be the inevitable outcome.

Source :idpproject.org