Generation Weaned on War Is Obstacle to Liberia’s Peace

War came to Charles Ojuku at 18, as he was preparing to graduate from junior high. His dream was to become a pastor. But instead of clutching a Bible after finishing school, he found himself toting a gun.

Nicknamed Lt. Col. “Minus Plus,” because, as he tells it, “I can do things by myself, minus anybody else,” Ojuku joined the ranks of Liberian President Charles Taylor’s militia soldiers. They are informal fighters, widely believed to compose most of the West African leader’s military support.

Now, as Liberians anxiously await the possible arrival of U.S. peacekeepers in their nation, Ojuku says he is ready to fulfill his ambition to preach.

“The war is ending; everything is coming to an end,” said Ojuku, 22, whose job these days involves manning the so-called Iron Gate checkpoint along the road to Brewerville, about 15 miles north of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. “Why should we hold arms? When the war is over, I am ready to give up my gun.”

Residents here hope that combatants from all the warring factions will be as keen as Ojuku to lay down their arms.

Liberian government officials and foreign military observers agree that disarming this country’s fighters, many of whom were born into and raised with war, will probably present one of the biggest challenges to whoever attempts to enforce a lasting peace here.

The Bush administration is still deciding whether to deploy troops to Liberia. President Bush said he is waiting for reports from an American military assessment team on the ground in Liberia on how the U.S. might best help.

America’s intervention would also depend on Taylor’s exit from the country, Bush has said. The Liberian president has accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria, but has refused to leave until peacekeepers arrive. The country’s main rebels, meanwhile, have threatened to fight the peacekeepers if they enter Liberia before Taylor leaves.

Gen. Joe Wylie, a senior military advisor for the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy who is lobbying to become defense minister in Liberia’s new government, estimated that his country has about 80,000 combatants who will need to be disarmed. It is difficult to independently verify this figure.

Government detractors here are skeptical that Liberia’s fighters, and in particular Taylor’s militia -- largely a ragtag band of undisciplined youths -- will be eager to disarm. A number of them are minors, some barely in their teens. Many are illiterate country boys who have never known any other life and are frequently high on marijuana.

The fighters “are not ready to give up their guns,” said a disgruntled intelligence officer from one of Taylor’s numerous state security organs. He spoke on condition of anonymity. “That’s the only way they can get money. Without their guns, they cannot survive.”

Complaints abound among civilians over being robbed by militia soldiers in broad daylight. Residents say they hand over their belongings upon demand to avoid being shot dead. Taxis rarely pass through a checkpoint without having some cash extorted from them.

Protests against the capital’s police force, widely viewed as inefficient and corrupt, often fall on deaf ears. So, few here bother to report violations committed against them.

The militias, Taylor’s personal bodyguards and members of the country’s elite anti-terrorism unit are among the best paid and fed Liberians in the country, said the intelligence officer, noting that he and most of his colleagues had not been paid their monthly $15 salary for almost two years.

“These are the people toting arms,” he said, adding that the president takes care of them to ensure that they take care of him. “If Taylor leaves without us having peacekeepers [here], then these same groups will turn against the Liberian people” in order to get paid.

Foreign aid agencies with high-tech equipment and an abundance of food supplies might also be at risk from gun-wielding mobs. Lack of security has already curtailed the movement of such groups, which were eager to bring assistance to the country’s interior.

Navy Cmdr. Chris Clagett, a medical expert on the U.S. assessment team currently in Monrovia, said that one of the priorities of any presence of American troops in Liberia would be “to provide the security the NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] need in order to get back up and running again.”

Taylor has said that he could play an important role in ensuring effective disarmament because his fighters, at least, would be willing to hand over their weapons if the order came from someone they trust.

“I do not see how my participation in the orderly disarmament, demobilization, reintegration of combatants in this country would hurt,” Taylor said recently in an interview with foreign journalists in Monrovia. “I can’t see it.”

Some local security experts believe the best way to ensure total disarmament would be to institute a program of exchanging guns for money, jobs or some other kind of compensation. Strict punishment should be imposed for anyone caught with weapons, the experts said.

“We have always maintained that unless disarmament is done voluntarily, it isn’t done,” said John T. Richardson, Liberia’s national security advisor.

Once disarmed, ex-fighters should be given scholarships for free education or vocational training, local and foreign security observers said. Offers of free health care and food should also be used as an incentive to disarm.

“Once the kids have food on their table, they might not likely go back to the bush,” said Wylie, the rebel general.

Demobilization programs have largely failed here in the past because onetime fighters got restless when left with nothing to do. Many of them turned to a life of crime.

“Until we are able to change that situation, to reintegrate ex-combatants and give them an alternative livelihood, Liberia is just going to be one peace negotiation after another,” said Lewis Brown, head of the government’s delegation at peace talks underway in the Ghanaian capital of Accra.

Ojuku, who got sidetracked from a career at the pulpit in favor of one on the front line, said he hoped for a better future for his young son, even more than for himself.

“I want my child to go to school and have education,” he said.