[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 51 (Friday, April 19, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3735-S3736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENT ON LIBERIA
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, as the United States military
winds up its spectacularly successful evacuation of over 1,795 people
from Liberia, I rise today to pay tribute both to our 214 soldiers who
conducted this very difficult mission, and to the United States
personnel, led by Charge D'Affaires Bill Mylam, who are working under
dire circumstances to try to bring some stability to Liberia. These
people have undertaken magnificent and courageous endeavors, endeavors
of which the American people should be very proud.
Today I also want to focus on the challenge that must be faced in
dealing with this unfortunate turn of events in West Africa.
After a few months of guarded optimism that there might be peace in
Liberia, it appears that this woeful country is once again on the brink
of collapse. Looting and fighting have overtaken the capital, halting
implementation of the Abuja Accords, suspending humanitarian operations
and limiting food and water supplies. In addition to the 1 million-odd
refugees around Liberia, 60,000 people have been newly displaced in
Monrovia, and 15 to 20,000 Liberians are crowded into the Barclay's
Training Center [BTC], seeking protection from tribal warfare. After
United States evacuation efforts, only 19 Americans remain in Liberia
in an official capacity, and humanitarian efforts are endangered. The
prospects look bleak, but our resolve to contain the fighting and
disintegration must remain steadfast. We have so few alternatives.
Since September 1995 when the Abuja Accords were signed by all the
warring factions, the United States, along with other interested
members of the international community, has tried to help implement
them. The primary tasks were deploying West African peacekeeping forces
through ECOMOG throughout the country, militarily disengaging and
disarming the factions, and quickly investing in an economy that had
virtually nothing to offer the citizens of Liberia.
Mr. President, this has not been overly successful. While thee have
been many false hopes in Liberia, Abuja represented a reasonable plan,
but only if each phase of that plan was fully met. It has not been--not
by the Liberian factions, not by the international community, and not
by the United States.
ECOMOG has never been strong enough to help create an atmosphere of
stability needed for peace to survive. Nigerian elements have remained
dominant in ECOMOG, while new forces--such as a Ghanaian battalion that
had previously succeeded at peacekeeping missions--have not been
funded. This is a failing of the international community, including the
United States, that had pledged to support the Abuja Accords. At the
pledging conference, the United States committed $10 million for
ECOMOG--a small sum for peace in any case. We have only delivered $5.5
million of that.
Mr. President, strengthening ECOMOG to help it carry out its mission
is a commitment the United States made, correctly, to help prevent an
explosion like the current one in Monrovia from occurring. But the fact
that we barely delivered on our commitment has been damaging to the
peace process. Two months ago, Senator Kassebaum and I made a proposal
to transfer $20 million from democracy programs at AID to help fund a
new battalion for ECOMOG. An unusual source of funding, perhaps, but
indicative of the high priority we placed on the funding of ECOMOG, and
a statement that ECOMOG is part of our development efforts in West
Africa. The administration opposed this particular transfer, but
promised to work to come up with other sources of funding for ECOMOG.
Not only did the administration not find the money, but it also did
little in this time frame to solicit contributions from others. Crises
like these demand creative responses, so I would propose we take a hard
look at other programs for this purpose. Strong cases can be made that
Liberia is relevant to both these accounts. I will work with the
administration to continue to look for resources which we can redirect
to this cause.
In theory I support the proposals I have heard about on the table
today to extend communications and other logistical support and
training to new battalions for ECOMOG, but I can't resist asking why
the administration didn't focus on this earlier? Why did it take
massive looting and displacement in Monrovia to solicit this response?
And if the fighting lulls, will the interest in Liberia be sustained
long enough to actually realize a support package for the Abuja
Accords? I will be anxious to see what plan the European Command
submits to the United States at the end of this week, and, if
appropriate, will do what I can to assist the administration in making
these plans operational.
While I understand and sympathize with the tight budgets under which
the administration must live, this is symptomatic of a larger trend to
resistance to reinvent U.S. activities in the realm of peacemaking that
I see. For example, at the time of the Abuja Accords, the United States
pledged $75 million to help implement the peace process; $10 million of
that was for ECOMOG, and $65 million for humanitarian assistance. I
fully support emergency aid, Mr. President, but I think it is short-
sighted--and perhaps even becomes as self-fulfilling prophecy--when we
under-finance peace and development efforts, because we are invested in
humanitarian funding. In Liberia, it is to some degree a chicken-and-
egg scenario, given the destruction and desperation in the country.
However, this should not deter us from investing in creation of an
infrastructure for peace and development. As we ignore development
needs, we only increase the potential for violent outbreaks, which, in
turn, as we saw in Bosnia and Rwanda, could lead to the use of United
States troops. While I understand that the use of United States
military in Liberia is quite unlikely, if we do not invest in the peace
process and in Liberia's development, we could very well face calls for
United States military engagement, which in my view would be tragic and
unwise.
Regional peacekeeping is a peace and development idea worth investing
in, Mr. President. In a post-cold-war era, as we restructure U.S. and
U.N. doctrines for the use of force, it will become inevitable that
regional forces, in most cases, will be the best deterrent early on to
contain the spread of violence and instability. If the international
community ignores, or does not work to strengthen, these organizations
then it will all too often lead to pressure for the deployment of
foreign--and in some cases American--troops. Bosnia is a prime example:
for several years we tried to work with the Europeans to address
effectively the Balkan war. But when it was clear the Europeans had
completely failed, for a variety of reasons, it was U.S. troops that
stepped in to fill the vacuum and lead the way to a peace
implementation force. I still disagree with the decision to deploy
United States troops in Bosnia, and I see the potential for calls for a
similar path in Liberia if we do not support ECOMOG at this important
juncture.
Another serious failure of Abuja has been the process of disarmament.
Under Abuja, all parties were to disengage and disarm completely by
February of this year. Of course, without any economic alternative
other than soldiering, or any hope of protecting themselves without
their weapons, most Liberians did not disarm. The lack of logistical
support also made it difficult for ECOMOG to deploy to supervise the
disarmament. Then, factions such as Charles Taylor's NPFL placed
conditions on disarmament--in effect, reopening the delicate Abuja
Accord. Another problem in the disarmament effort has been the last of
effort by Liberia's neighbors--namely Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, and
Guinea--in halting the arms--on both the black and gray markets--that
cross their borders into Liberia.
Mr. President, this is an issue we should take quite seriously. I
have
[[Page S3736]]
raised the issue directly with parties involved in public and private,
and am aware that high-ranking administration officials have done the
same. Yet even as Abuja had its most reasonable chance to succeed, arms
have flowed to the parties each country it favors. I will work to
finally activate the U.N. Commission that was created after the U.N.
arms embargo was imposed against Liberia, and establish sanctions for
those flaunting the international embargo. I will also submit that if
this practice continues, the United States consider sanctions of its
own against those working to undermine the Abuja Accords. At a minimum,
we should revive the sanctions against individuals working against
democratization efforts that were lifted when Abuja was concluded.
At this point, I request that an op-ed in yesterdays' New York Times
by Jeffery Goldburg be printed in the Record. I do not agree with all
the conclusions it draws, particularly the proposal that the preferable
course of action is to have U.S. marines occupy Monrovia. However, I do
recommend the article as a cogent analysis of what went wrong, and what
the United States can try to do the repair the Abuja process.
The article follows:
[From the New York Times, Apr. 15, 1996]
Lifting Liberia Out of Chaos
(By Jeffrey Goldberg)
George Boley stood in a clearing deep in a Liberian rain
forest and said that he was misunderstood. ``I am not a
warlord,'' he told me in late 1994. ``I don't know why they
use this term to describe me.''
Behind the self-styled chairman of the wildly misnamed
Liberian Peace Council stood 80 soldiers. Most were teen-
agers, some were as young as 9. All were armed, many were
drunk. ``These are professional fighting men,'' he said,
without irony.
Mr. Boley, who holds a Ph.D. in educational administration
from the University of Akron, is most assuredly a warlord, as
are the other Liberian faction leaders who last week drove
their country back into chaos.
Fighting in the capital, Monrovia, has killed untold
numbers. United States troops have evacuated more than 1,600
Americans and other foreigners. But the United States must
take stronger action to restore peace--and it can do so
without endangering American troops.
The civil war began in 1989 when Charles Taylor, the
warlord of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, invaded
from neighboring Ivory Coast. The next year, Liberia's
dictator, Master Sgt. Samuel Doe, was killed, setting off six
years of gang warfare among several factions.
A peace accord struck in Abuja, Nigeria, last August was
supposed to end the war. It handed Monrovia over to the
warlords, who agreed to share power peacefully. But they
never came through on their pledge to disarm their
supporters.
So it was inevitable that violence would erupt this month
after Mr. Taylor sent his men to arrest a rival, Roosevelt
Johnson, on murder charges. Mr. Johnson's faction has indeed
murdered civilians. But Mr. Taylor's fighters have also
indiscriminately killed civilians, including five American
nuns in 1992.
The fault for this new spasm of violence rests mostly with
the warlords, of course. But the United States is also to
blame. Last year, it missed a chance to adequately finance a
disarmament effort by the United Nations and West African
Peacekeeping Force, which has been in Liberia since 1990.
The peacekeeping force--with soldiers from nine countries--
successfully defended Monrovia from a 1992 attack by Charles
Taylor's faction. But it is now demoralized, cashstrapped and
undermanned. Its ground forces, once at 12,000, are down to
5,000 or so poorly equipped men. Their commanders are for the
most part Nigerian Army generals and are widely considered
corrupt.
For Liberia, the best scenario would have United States
Marines occupying Monrovia. But with Somalia still fresh on
Americans' minds, this is probably not politically feasible.
Still, a strong West African force of about 15,000 men could
disarm the ragtag factions and weaken the warlords. This
would take American cash and equipment--from ammunition and
food to armored vehicles and helicopters. The United States
would also have to send military trainers and communications
equipment to Ghana and other willing and capable West African
nations.
All this would cost more than $20 million. But over the
past six years, Washington has poured almost half a billion
dollars of humanitarian aid into the country, not including
the cost of the current evacuation--the third such operation
since 1989.
America has a special responsibility to Liberia, founded in
1847 by freed American slaves. Liberia was also an American
ally in the cold war, and $500 million in American aid
propped up the brutal Doe regime.
The only way to end the terror of the warlords is to take
their guns away. If Washington helps West African troops do
so, not a single American soldier would be endangered. And it
would ultimately cost less than airlifting Americans out of
Monrovia every time the city explodes.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Situations like Liberia--and indeed other conflicts
that have not been resolved by post-cold-war politics--demand creative
responses by the international community. Liberia poses challenges that
do not fall under the traditional definitions of United States national
security, but they do include threats to our well-being and national
interests. For instance, as Liberian refugees spill over into Guinea,
the stresses on some of the last remaining tropical rainforest in West
Africa become untenable, and the rainforest shrinks, causing shortages
of resources, food, and medicine. Large concentrations on refugees and
displaced persons also heighten potential for outbreaks of disease. One
case of Ebola or typhoid in a refugee camp, and we have a humanitarian
disaster that can spread anywhere in just a plane ride.
Unfortunately, our option is not to pull out of Liberia and wash our
hands of the problem: because of regional ramifications and threats of
disease and environmental degradation, the issue is whether we meet the
challenge of Liberia, or invest more after more destruction in the
tragedies that would unravel in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Cote D'Ivoire,
Burkina Faso, Ghana, and perhaps elsewhere in West Africa. So,
Mr. President, we don't really have a choice: the problem is
maintaining stability in West Africa, whether we call it Liberia or
Burkina.
For these reasons, yesterday I introduced a resolution, Senate
Resolution 248 with Senators Kassebaum, Simon, Leahy, Jeffords, and
Pell, declaring the breakdown of the Abuja process would have serious
ramifications for United States interests in Liberia and throughout
West Africa, and urging the administration to consider a number of
steps. These include scrutinizing the budget to find funding for
ECOMOG; this is key. We also suggest considering the provision of
excess defense articles for communications and logistical support for
troops willing to participate in ECOMOG. The resolution also urges the
administration to use its influence with other governments to solicit
interest in ECOMOG, and finally, it calls on the administration to lead
U.N. efforts to establish finally a committee to enforce the U.N. arms
embargo against Liberia. These are all suggestions that the
administration should consider, and it is not an exhaustive list. The
point is, we need decisive and creative action in Liberia--and part of
that must be real support for the west African peacekeeping force.
So, once again I applaud the work of our diplomatic and military
forces in Liberia today, and compliment the administration on its
efforts to help calm the situation. At the same time, I urge them to
focus fully on Liberia--not just to quell the current tensions, but
invest in trying to prevent them from erupting again.
I also want to express our gratitude to Ghana's President Jerry
Rawlings and his senior diplomatic team which has worked tirelessly and
somewhat successfully to negotiate a ceasefire. Other ECOWAS states,
particularly Cote D'Ivoire, have been very helpful in trying to reach
the same goal. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Sierra Leone for
making Freetown available as a transit point for those evacuated. While
multilateral efforts may have failed to this point in Liberia, with
each step--as painful as it is--the United States, ECOWAS, and the rest
of the international community seem to be strengthening their
abilities. We must learn from the past and look creatively to the
future: we have no choice, unless we are willing to confront what could
be even bigger disasters in the near future.
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