Diary of a Patriot: Hot Boys: the search for Africa's lost children

Diary of a Patriot: Hot Boys: the search for Africa's lost children: Hot Boys : the search for Africa’s lost children Liberia’s two-part, 14 y...

A Road to Nowhere? The Dilemma of the Liberian Refugee in Ghana

A Road to Nowhere? The Dilemma of the Liberian Refugee in Ghana

After more than two decades of living as refugees in Ghana, many Liberians has blatantly refused to return back home. Their refusal to go home, even after two successive elections in the post war nation, comes in the wake of the ongoing UNHCR final two solutions to repatriate and integrate Liberian Refugees on the Buduram Refugee Camp, Goama District.

According to UNHCR special release, as of July 1^st, 2012, Liberians refugees residing outside of the country would no longer be considered as refugees. Known as the cessation clause this sudden move, according to UNHCR is in keeping with Article 1C of the 1951 Geneva Convention that a refugee’s status can be revoke after UNHCR have observed carefully that conditions that caused a refugee to seek international protection no longer exist at home; or that a refugee can decide to integrate in country of host.

From 1990 up until late 2000 more than two hundred thousand Liberians fled the country’s 14 years devastating civil war- one of Africa’s bloodiest. They traveled in search of refuge into the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and as far as Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria.

 And between 1991 and 2000 more than two thousand Liberian refugees were resettled from the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal to the United States and other countries under the UNHCR’s P3 program.  Also, it P1 program for political asylum seekers was affective as earlier as the 1990 when the government and the rebels extended punitive measures to family members of each respective enemy.

With an ominous cloud of atrocities and grave human right violations hanging over the nation then, many Liberian saw these programs as the easy means of getting into a land of greener pastures. In the early days, the P3 program that united refugees to family members oversea attracted thousands of Liberians who had family members in the United States, and led to a crisscross movement of Liberian refugees in search of resettlement programs. 

Because Ghana was one of the most common exit points then, many went in and settled on the already established Buduburam refugee camp in hope of being resettled to the United States.

The Buduburam camp was established by a hand full of Liberian refugees in the early 1990. But by 2000 more than fifty thousand Liberian refugees had occupied the camp; most fled from home in the Bob Challenge ship during the 1996 battle of the factions in Monrovia. The dusty refugees’ settlement in Gomoa, known as the land of snakes, was rapidly turned into a bustling refugee’s town, where they enjoyed the luxury of current and UN supplied water.  

But on August 29, 2006 the United States’ States Department issued a statement to end its large scale resettlement program, and to support UNHCR mandate to voluntarily repatriate Liberian refugees.  Then on October 29, 2008 US’ State Department release another statement to temporally close the P3 family reunion element of the resettlement program. According to the release the program was halted because it was discovered that 75% of the cases filed were unauthentic due to DNA testing that proved that many family members were not as related as indicated in their avadavat. Thus the mass exodus was seized, leaving most Liberian refugees, with the hope to travel abroad, in a state of limbo.

However, between 2006 -2010, UNHCR reported to have successfully repatriated more than one hundred thousand Liberian refugees from almost every country in Africa where they had fled for refuge. Though the troubling statistic out there shows that many Liberian have refused to go back home until they are sure of total peace. Among this number, more than 10,000 Liberian refugees in Ghana are refusing to go back home until they can be resettle. And as the time draws nearer for the expiration of their refugees’ status, UNHCR decision to invoke the cessation clause on June 30, 2012 remained fixed.

According to UNHCR they have incessantly notified Liberian refugees that continued to reside outside the country, even after the first successful election, about the approach of the cessation clause. Now with the successful conduct of the second election, and with international approvals of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s led government, they are left with no alternative but to implement their only two solutions for refugees- repatriate back home or integrate in the country of host- before the cassation clause runs out on June 30, 2012.

Yet many Liberian remained daring as they claimed of being dumped by their host to go back home only to give their resettlement benefits to Ghanians.

“I have been to verification four different times, and told UN that I can’t go back home, so for them to say there’s no resettlement program, it is a joke,” cried one annoyed refugee woman who had resided on the camp for more than 15 years with four children.

Another single male in his fifty complained, “The money given to us who want to go back home by UN is too small to help us rebuild our lives in Liberia.”

But the most senior one advice sternly, “There’s a resettlement package, my people, but UN wants most people to go home, so we the few who stay can go to the Place. So keep courage and let’s not be stupid to say we want to go back or stay here, your here?”

But earlier this year, in a press interview with journalists, UNHCR Public Information Officer, Mr. Sulaiman Momodu, explained that, “resettlement is no longer a solution.” In a very serious note of warning he’d added, “The resettlement programs for Liberian refugees are closed, and there will be no new ones. If you wait for resettlement, you will lose time and miss the opportunity to be assisted with repatriation or local integration”.

As the Last week for the deadline for the ongoing process of registering for repatriation and integration expired by March 30, and many Liberian refugees still not yet decided whether to go back home or stay for their resettlement, UNHCR has again  embarked upon a campaign to encourage Liberian to consider one of the two available solutions. On Monday, March 26, a UNHCR high power delegation visited the camp to assess the slow process of the registration. They again warned Liberians to take advantage of the programs as any decision otherwise could lead to a serious immigration problem for them. The new expiration date for registration has now been extended to give refugee the last chance to decide.

Yet most Liberian interviewed remained unmoved by the slow and tedious process in hope of being the last on the ground to get their resettlement benefit.

When asked why many don’t want to go back home now that peace had return, another pioneer of the settlement said sadly : “We can’t go back home, because there’s no current and water yet, and we have heard that the Liberian government have no programs to assist refugees to built their lives, so we want the UNHCR to resettle us.”

But as the date of the cessation clause draws nearer, and UNHCR increment of the repatriation benefits from $150.00 to $350.00 with an added $75.00 in Liberia, many Liberian refugees are still caught up in the state of dilemma, wondering whether to stay and get their resettlement or to go back home and start life all over. 

                                                                       

Beauty and the Beast: the disenchantment of the Billy goat illusion Pt. 1

Despite Liberia’s 23rd president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s declaration of war on corruption in her 2005 inaugural address, Africa’s first female president, being elected for the second term, has come under severe criticism from oppositions for being lenient on graft during her first six years tenure in a post war nation where corruption is a traditional friend.

However, as a young patriot and writer, I decided to study the evidence provided by her critics; because it is only rational that we examine carefully the facts before we can cast our own stones. But for justice to be rendered equitably in this case, we would have to take a retrospective look at Liberia’s past, and critically examine the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s led government’s performance.

So, taking upon myself the burden of a contemporary researcher of Liberia’s History, I decided to look critically at the origin of this vicious beast called corruption. Astoundingly, the beast had always co-existed with us since the very origin of our nation! And interestingly, there has been no public war declared against the beast in the past. Incidentally, it seemed President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first Liberian leader to openly declare a war against corruption.

 
The birth and rise of the beast

I was born in the revolutionary era of the 70’s when most people (especially the oppressed natives) felt that it was time for a change of government. However, the melodrama of the 1979 Rice Riot ushered in the 1980 bloody coup that led to the immediate execution of President William R. Tolbert. On the morning of April 12^th the government of the conservative Americo-Liberian’s True Wig Party (TWP) led government was overthrown by a group of 13 low ranking military men known as the People Redemption Council (PRC). The ugly picture of the coup has only been the direct effect of the political tension that had built up between the aggrieved natives and the conservative settlers for almost a century.

However, after coming to power in a popular revolution that gave the natives their first grip on power, the PRC government, led by Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, went on to abused power with an American backed budget of more than 500 million dollars. But, the government first major human right violation took place right after the coup when the new military government prejudicially ordered the execution of 17 men from the TWP government on charges of rampant corruption. 

Any hope that Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe would change the way the country was run by the Americo-Liberian so-called elites was dashed as he promptly fasten his grip on power by clamping down on all oppositions (mostly his natives comrades), fueled by his paranoia of a counter-coup attempt against him. His promise to return the country to civilian rule was broken when he ran in the 1985 election that saw a narrow victory for him. However, his ascendency to power was widely condemned as fraudulent by both national and international monitors.

His Machiavellian style of leadership led him to imprison every political arch rival he could lay hands on, including Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for her vocal criticism of the government bad governance practice. If that is not enough, whatever happened to the money collected by the Liberian People to pay the Americans’ 500 million plus debts that President Doe cajoled them of?

At the end of the Doe’s episode, millions of American’s aid money to the people of Liberia was ciphered by Doe and his hierarchies into numerous banks around the world just like the people his PRC had accused and executed after the coup. For a man who came to power without a bank account, he excelled as one of the riches African President in less than a decade. 

Thus, Liberia’s two parts devastating civil war that took the lives of more than six hundred thousand is inextricably woven in the country’s history of the culture of corruption- the wanton abuse and mismanagement of power, and the plundering of state’s resources with impunity.

In 1989 Charles Taylor led a popular revolution against the Samuel Doe’s regime with the backing of the disenfranchised Gio and Mano tribes from Nimba County. But the idea of the revolution- to unseat the dictatorial regime of Doe and lead the country to a free and fair multi-party election- was soon forsaken as the man cleverly tried to accomplish his selfish goal of becoming president. This selfish intention was made clear even after Doe’s death when he blatantly refused to seize the war. And eventually, this led to the inclusion of more than eight warring factions, and the onslaught of more than six hundred thousand people.

The American hardliner, Cohen, in his analysis of Liberian’s shady political characters, described the man as a megalomaniac. But paradoxically most young Liberians saw him as a godfather, while some illiterate older folks and tribal youths saw him as a savior.

However, in 1997 Charles Taylor was overwhelmingly elected president after winning more than 80% of the Liberian people’s vote. As a charismatic autocrat, he suavely won the admiration of the gullible Liberian people when he became president. But his squashing of the status of forces agreement that threw the peace keepers out of the country without helping to restructure and stabilize the security, made his rivals to feel insecure and flee to neighboring countries. Under his leadership, civil liberty was denied and the rule of law was ignored as his son led militia group controlled the security of the state. But his true identity was soon revealed to the world when he spread his poisonous tentacles into Sierra Leone, and tried to destabilize the sub region.

But the sad truth is, in 2003, after Charles Taylor and his associates had plundered states’ resources; he left for Nigeria with an international court’s indictment over his head and with more than 100 million dollars to his credit, as the country submerged under abject poverty. And by 2005 corruption was now a monstrous beast hovering ominously over the cadaverous nation, with its gargantuan height threatening to annihilate us as a people.

So today’s most fearsome beast-corruption-is not without a humble origin. In a literary way it was given birth to in the early era of the country’s political beginning, when a set of elite Americo-Liberians ruled. Their bigotry and failure to unify the settlers and natives of Liberia only set the stage for the nativity of the deadly beast. And their wanton practice of nepotism and sectionalism bred hatred in the hearts of the natives, and automatically led to the struggle of power, instead of a peaceful transition of it.

This wanton abuse of power by the so called elite Americo-Liberians’ was the first apparent sign of corruption in Africa’s oldest independent nation. But the beast was nurtured to full maturity for about a decade under the dictatorial regime of Samuel K. Doe, who adopted it as a favored foster son. And then in 1990, after the death of Doe, it was abducted and conscripted as the perfect guerrilla by West Africa’s most notorious war lord, Charles Taylor, and unleashed on the Liberian society.

As chronologically seen, by the mid 80, corrupt practices have become so embedded and ingrained in almost every aspect of life in Liberia that most Liberians accepted them as part of our national life so much so that the most popular phrase to justify the debacle act in the Liberian society became: “The Place you tie the Billy goat, that’s the place it would eat”- meaning, you have to take all you can take when you have a job, or position, or contract, or, whatever you can get your hands on in the Liberian society.

What an absurd ideology I called ‘The Billy goat illusion’ my dear young brothers and sisters. Caught up in this illusion, Liberians have developed a glutton appetite that has caused us to become parasites onto ourselves. And it’s all the machination of those who had invented the beast; only to destroy us as a people, why they enrich themselves.

But what remained unfathomable to me is the fact that many young and old Liberians, while continuing to enjoy safety in a system of inventive corruption, have the audacity to blame as scapegoat other reputable people who seek to change this corrupt system. Let’s unravel more of this my dear young brothers and sisters.

 
Fist of an Iron Lady

Heralded as “The iron Lady” from her bold and courageous stand in Liberian politic, even from the revolutionary era of the 70’s, Liberia’s 23^rdpresident, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf came to power in 2005 making history as Africa’s first female president. As such, she rose to the challenge of history to lead her war-torn nation in restoring peace and freedom while enacting economic, social and political change, which had been wrecked by the evil Billy goat illusion. 

A Harvard educated, World Bank economist, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had long been fighting for accountability in government, social justice, and peace and stability in Liberia for more than 30 years. She first gain prominence in the late 70’s after she rose up against her mentor, President William R. Tolbert, by resigning her post as finance minister after sharply disagreeing with the low sum of money announced from the Rally Time Fund Raising program, having served as chair on the fund raising committee herself. 

Refusing to work in the corrupt and dictatorial regime of the PRC after the 1980 coup, she vigorously opposed the government systematic actions of abuse and human right violation until she became unpopular with the regime and earned a place behind prison bars. As a declared winner of the 1985 election’s senior senatorial post, she blatantly refused the seat after international monitors had declared the presidential election, won by Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, to be widely fraudulent.

Her revolutionary stand against the dictatorial regime of Samuel K. Doe made her to radically oppose it by endorsing the overwhelmingly accepted 1989 Revolution. But the revolution was soon high jacked by the callous and ambitious war lord Charles Taylor, as discussed earlier, and turned into a 14 years brutal tribal/power struggle that saw more than 600,000 people killed and a million displaced and made refugees.

In 1997, after the seized of the first half of the war that orchestrated a special election into place, she lost in the closely contested election against the notorious warlord, Charles Taylor, who, during the campaign had carried on a massive propaganda campaign against the Iron Lady that subsequently dropped her popularity for that of a suave talker and master propagandist. His sadistic skills and talent to manipulate the ignorant and even the erudite was clearly demonstrated during the opening of the campaign, when more than a million Liberians, mostly youths turned out in the streets of Liberia with the most debased cry ever heard in the country’s history in favor of the warlord: ‘You’ve kill my Ma, you’ve kill my Pa, but I will vote for you!’ 

With his successful propaganda scheme even against this dynamic freedom fighter of a woman, Liberians were reduced to insanity, and seen as an unintelligent people. And this was demonstrated in George Bush’s donation of a million books to the Liberian people, instead of the traditional American dollars’ donations.

However, with endurance and determination, two of her lifelong qualities, in 2005, she finally got her chance to face her most formidable enemy- corruption-when she became victorious in the country’s first multi party, free and fair election. Bold and courageous on that eventful day, Africa’s first female president became the first Liberian leader to make such audacious declaration of war against the gargantuan beast called corruption, labeling it ‘Public enemy number one’. And then she promised to defeat her most formidable enemy, with national and international supports.

But six years later, coming under sharp criticism from oppositions, the question asked is: Have she gotten the necessary supports to fight the vicious beast called corruption? Many political pundits will give a twofold reply.

Internationally: Yes.

Nationally: No!

Why not nationally, which is the foremost important factor for victory?

Because, as seen from our brief bio as a people, bad habits die hard!

But it’s frightening the way in which some of her male counterpart in politic have extremely criticize their first formidable female opponent. But the question to ask yourself is: ‘How can this woman be accused of encouraging corruption, when it is in fact an institutionalized mental pandemic? For a woman whose track record shows her fighting the beast from her very humble beginning, you can definitely see why I strongly believe that this president is sincere, and has done tremendously well in her war against corruption.

 
Drawing the battle line

Having gone through the facts literarily, I have to strongly differ from most critics of the government. As a patriot, nationalist, and pro-revolutionary, I have to admit that the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s led government is very sincere in its fight against corruption. The Liberian leader has brought three basic essentials to the table that have made her to overwhelmingly surpass her male predecessors: transparency, accountability, and the respect for human rights. And with the introduction of these essentials, has taken major steps in initiating strategies to counter the virus that causes the tenacious beast to strike.

  In her address to the legislature after receiving her certificate as winner of the 2011  presidential election, the President reiterated her declaration of war against Corruption from her 2005 inaugural address.

“We will create the environment for Liberian businesses, maintain and open an accountable society and fight corruption more effectively,” the president said at the National Elections Commission when she received her certificate as winner of the 2011 presidential election.

To maintain and open an accountable society that will continue to fight corruption more vigorously the president has successfully created three separate independent institutions.

Ø  The Independence of the General Auditing Commission

     In recognition of the limitation and the legal ambiguities of the June 2005 amendment, the development partners through the GEMAP, and under the leadership of the European Union engaged a legal expert to draft a new law that will enable the GAC to fully comply with the 1977 LIMA standards and the 2007 Mexico reaffirmation. The implemented new draft calls for an independent Auditor General whose function would derive from Charter 53 of the 1972 Executive Law of Liberia. The Act stipulates that, “The Auditor-General shall be the officer of the government principally responsible for conducting comprehensive post audits, special financial investigations, reconciliation’s and analyses, and continuous audits on a routine basis.

In short the General Auditing Commission (GAC) is the independent Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) of Liberia and the Chief Watchdog for the country’s financial policy. It is the defender and promoter of the Liberian people's interest. The first line of integrity in Government and should be headed by an Auditor-General who is committed to delivering quality audits.

 Ø  The establishment of the Good Governance Commission

    This is another responsible independent auditing firm for the government’s policies. The Act of the legislature that established the Governance Commission (GC) was approved on October 9, 2007  with the general mandate to promote good governance by advising, designing, and formulating appropriate policies and institutional arrangements and frameworks require for achieving good governance, and, promoting integrity at all levels of society and within every public and private institution.

To strengthen the Independence of the Commission, the Act provides for the GC to report on a periodic basis to the Liberian people; thru hosting of periodic public forum, as establishing and administering a “Center” for the promotion and pursuit of good governance.

The purpose of the GC is to encourage a system of governance that is inclusive, participatory, just and accountable, which encompasses a merit-based and transparent system of public administration and management of public institutions and national resources. It includes the adoption/adaptation of internationally accepted best practices in corporate governance, the honorable discharge of public duties without any expectation of personal reward over and beyond that to which a public servant is lawfully entitled, and the meaningful involvement of every citizen, irrespective of backgrounds, in the formulation, implementation and/or monitoring of national policies.

Ø  The establishment of an Anti Corruption Bureau

   The ACB serve as another watchdog against the beast. This institution has the responsibility to monitor government’s policies and implementations on a daily basis for the sole intents of investigating and reporting corrupt practices in government.

Ø  The Passing into law of the Freedom of Information Act

   On 4th October 2010, Presidential Press Secretary Cyrus Badio told a news conference that the president has forwarded a signed Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Liberia to be printed on a hand bill as it becomes passed into law.

   The signing of the FOI law by President Sirleaf now makes Liberia the first West African country with an FOI law. The Act calls for the right of individual citizen to have access to all states information that is needed in the public domain. The Act also calls for an Information Commission to supervise and oversee the implementation of the law.

Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

The Clearer Picture

With the establishment of these watchdogs’ institutions to counter this gargantuan beast called corruption, the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led government has clearly demonstrated its seriousness in the declared war on corruption. And with the battle line obviously drawn, the effect of her audacious war is clearly outlined in the World Report 2011: Liberia.

According to the Jan 24, 2011 report, during 2010 the Liberian government made some gains in consolidating the rule of law, ensuring sound fiscal management, and improving access to key economic rights, including health care and primary education, and became the 2011 IMF number one country in Africa for doing business. And to cap it all the president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, became winner of the world Nobel Peace Prize along with fellow Liberian Lama Boiwe. Such prize can only be given based upon one’s contribution to the struggle for peace and human rights in one’s nation or the world at large.

Having entered into the age of Africa’s enlightenment and the age of information technology, it would be totally absurd to politicize the battle against such a pandemic as corruption, which is widely accepted as a normal practice in Africa. And it’s impossible for one not to see the trends of events within our time and join the president’s audacious war against our mutual enemy- corruption. Ironically, to win the war against the beast will require the gallantry of the Liberian people behind the Iron Lady.

On a continent where corruption is as common as the filth, and where her male counterparts bow obligingly to the beast, you can expect a strong antagonism for a female who claim to have the will to defeat such a powerful beast. But after the first six rounds of tough bout in the ring, my money is still on this iron fist of a lady who had not stoop low from the thunderous blows of the beast since the fight commenced. Simply because she has what it takes to win. The character and charisma. Two attributes that her male predecessors have not been able to perfectly combine. History has proven that these two attributes when perfectly combined produce a combo of leadership with vision. And this is why President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has successfully brought to the table of national development the three basic essentials for peace and economic stability.

Now it is left with us as a people to positively behold the threat of corruption against our beloved country.  The war on corruption is not an Ellen Johnson Sirleaf war, and should not be perceived as such, as no one individual can conquer easily an enchanting beast that exerts it’s power in the very minds of the people. But the effort the government had made is landmarked in our achievement as a people. So let’s pick up the helmet embroidered with education, knowledge and wisdom, our lustrous shield of nationalism, and the powerful weapon of unity with which we’ll meet the foe with valor unpretending.

If we stand up now against this ugly beast called corruption- our mutual enemy -we will succeed in building a vibrant nation for the future. A nation where our children and our children’s children will not be judged by their tribal, social, or political affiliations, but based upon meritocracy. So let’s disenchant ourselves from the Billy Goat illusion, for it’s a grandiose illusion only meant to annihilate us as a people.

Hot Boys: the search for Africa's lost children

Liberia’s two-part, 14 years civil conflict is a story of much tragedy and disaster. More than three hundred thousand lives were lost, and a million people were made displaced into refugee camps in neighboring countries. Yet the greater marker of the war’s damaging effect is the immense population of 60,000 children, according to a Human Watch International 2008 report, that were, either abducted and conscripted, or forced to become child soldiers due to some unforeseen circumstances.

Trained to be efficient killers, these Child soldiers committed wide spread atrocities; raping and murdering people of all ages as they were instructed by their commanders, even while under the influence of dangerous drugs administered to them. Because they were kids between the ages of six and fourteen they were easily influenced by their war lords captors who they saw as parents. But the sad story is, after fourteen years of being misused and abused by these malicious warlords, many of these child combatants were just as easily disposed of as they were recruited. Seen as embarrassment to their ex-commanders who are all now well respected politicians, they were totally silence by abandonment.

In fact when Charles Taylor, chief warlord and the father of anarchy, testified before the International Court on Sierra Leone in the Hague on charges of war crimes and human right violation committed in the Sierra Leone crisis by the RUF rebels which he’d supported, he denied ever recruiting any child soldiers, and that he had in no time used children as his soldiers. Of course it’s a statement of perjury that every patriotic Liberian knows wouldn’t have passed in a Liberian court. But even the very programs, designed to cater to these severely affected post traumatic child combatants, have denied them every opportunity for rehabilitation and reintegration leaving them languishing without specific programs to address their basic needs

Lost and weary from their destitute, these wandering child soldiers have now become the hottest commodity in West Africa’s wars. Most common of all was the Ivory Coast rebellion in which they were the most sought after hot boys!

The migration of War in West Africa

In 1996 the UN/ECOMOG backed disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program was implemented to set the stage for presidential and parliamentary elections in Liberia. Several ex- combatants were targeted for the process, which was intended to restore peace to the West African nation. But considering the severe post traumatic stress disorder suffered by many of these abandoned child combatants who had fought for over the period of five years, the programs were too short to address this severity.  

The UN Security Council resolution 1509(c) (2003) mandates UNMIL to: “develop an action plan for the overall implementation of a disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and repatriation (DDRR) program for all armed parties, with particular attention to the special needs of child combatants...in the DDRR process”.

Several human right activists had observed that despite the logistical challenges of disarmament and demobilization, reintegration—the acquisition of civilian status and sustainable employment and income—is considered the most difficult phase of any DDR process. An Institute for Security Studies (ISS) paper calls it “the Achilles heel of DDR.” Reintegrating into Civil Society is so difficult that it requires longer term programs while different criteria should be applied to special groups so that resources can be allotted for those who really need them.

However, by the time the NPFL rebel leader, Charles Taylor, became president in 1997, most of these children combatants were totally forgotten. Languishing without specific programs to help rehabilitate and reintegrate them, thousand of child soldiers crossed over into Guinea, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leon and Ghana where they were later re-recruited by mercenary Scotts because of their vulnerability. The inability of the DDR program to rehabilitate these children made them an easy prey once again for warlords. And two years later, a newly organized rebel group called Liberia United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD) attacked the Taylor led government using these very children as fighters.

This attack from Guinea by LURD rebels began the second phase of the Liberian civil war. Many local NGO’s blamed the outbreak on the DDR failure to meet the specific needs of child combatants. So wandering as ruthless thugs, many of these disaffected child soldiers became easily re-recruited, thus, have led to the migration of war in West Africa.

Six years later, after the failure of the first DDR program to address the problem of former child soldiers’ (FCS) rehabilitation and reintegration, another established program, known as the Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration (DDRR), created to address the new problem of ex-combatants after the second phase of the Liberian civil war, have been considered another fiasco. With more than 80 million US dollars spend during the entire process thousands of child-combatants ended unaccounted for.

A critical analysis of the Ivory Coast crisis is a clear example of the migration of war, as thousand of Liberian ex-combatants were re-recruited from refugees’ camps around Africa to destabilize another neighboring country (After Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea).  With thousand of these ex-child soldiers now full grown mercenary, it is difficult to track these lost children of Africa.  I’ve learned from former fighters seeking refuge in the Buduburam refugee settlement, that several hundred of their friends were re-recruited for the Ivory Coast rebellion, and that most have been reported missing in action even after the rebellion. One of the most notorious child soldier, the Special Security Service boss under Taylor, Betjeman Yeatan, who was recruited at the age of six years old and went on to be the most feared man after Taylor, was even re- recruited to fight in the Ivory Coast along with many of his men from the Taylor’s regime.

Ivory coast Bloody bath

Closing the flood gate

With several thousand of such people unaccounted for around West Africa, there yet remain a more serious impediment to sustainable peace and security in the region. West African government can no longer remain ignominious to this pressing issue of ex-child soldiers. As most of these disaffected people have already grown into young adults, they post a more serious risk to democratization and sustainability of peace in the region.

Today’s problem of spontaneous youth violence in our society is a clear demonstration to government that the risk ahead is threatening if nothing is done to address the problem. With thousand of venerable war affected young people out there left un-rehabilitated and finding it difficult to reintegrate, one way in which government can address this ominous future threat is, not by setting up a huge bureaucratic agency like the previous two DRR’s had done, which is platform for failure in such situation, but by working through several young people initiative programs that focus on Rehabilitation and reintegration.

One such group is the Initiative for the Development of Former Child Soldiers (IDEFOCS). Today, considering the challenges faced by thousand abandoned ex-child soldiers and the possible of the migration of war in West Africa, the group have plan to implement its designed Survey, De-traumatization, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration program designed in Ghana to help transform the lives of thousands of former child soldiers in Liberia.

IDEFOCS founder and executive director, Morris Madati’s parents were killed before his eyes at the beginning of the civil war, and he was later abducted and conscripted by a band of rebels in 1991. Later, in 1997, when Taylor became president he attained to the position of an operation man (third-in-command) on the president’s motorcade, and served in this position for 3 years.

“Finally, in 2000 when the LURD rebels begin to advance on the city I gathered some money and managed to escape to Ghana,” Morris tells me pensively in his office why working on programs for former child soldiers.

 According to Morris, it was the difficulty of reintegration in the midst of stigmatization and the challenge of re-recruitment that inspired him in 2003 to rally several former child soldiers and organized themselves into an imitative to vehemently protest against the re-recruitment exercise and advocate for program for the development of FCS from the UNHCR. 

According to the Program Coordinator of the organization, Brocks Pokai, “The SDRR was designed to buttress the UN/government DDRR short term programs intended for FCS. The Metric was subsequently designed to be more economical, and to have full impact through long term program that would address the specific needs of FCS as stipulated within the UN Resolution 1509”

IDEFOCS executive director was selected in 2010 as a fellow of the Unreasonable Institute in Boulder, Colorado, USA, based on the basic social services IDEFOCS have provided for FCS and women associated with fighting forces. Joining about 26 entrepreneurs from around the world, Morris Matadi had had the opportunity to be mentored by world class investors and mentors on how to develop the initiative and stood before a great crowd of investors to present the plight of thousand of his abandoned comrades.

And according to the program director, the organization has successfully rehabilitated more than thousands FCS and WAFF with close to $ 200,000 dollars since the organization was founded in 2003. And with further plan to rehabilitate more FCS and WAFF, IDEFOCS had proposed through a business model developed at the Unreasonable conference in Colorado, USA, a $ 300,000 dollars worth of investment on a Botanical Reintegration Village Agriculture program that will serve as the first FCS academic.

There are several other community-based, civil society organizations that the government can used to close the flood gate of the migration of war, with thousands of disaffected ex-child soldiers still languishing around the sub region awaiting impending spark of conflict.

‘A Man’s Irony About the Power of a Woman

A man once said to a friend, "If I die a hundred times, and come back that much times, I want to always be born a man."
His friend asked, "But why not once as a woman, do you have a kind of prejudice against them?"
"No," said the man with a broad smile. "Without prejudice to the feminine species, my reason lies within my great awe for them." 
"Oh, you baffled me. You claimed you don't want to be born a female, yet you admire them, how?" his friend asked, with a concern look.
With the smile still visible upon his drooled face, the man said: "Because as a man, I find it quite flabbergasting to see how they compass us in all of life's beautiful attributes." 
And then he went on to unravel his thought:

"·       I lack the courage of a young woman

·       I lack the patient and devotion of a wife

·       I lack the loving and tender care of a mother

·       I lack the referential awe of a daughter over her father

·       I lack the inspiration and creativity of a mature woman

·       I lack the audacity to take great risk and achieve an overwhelming result of an ambitious woman

·       And I lack the wisdom, and faith of an old woman

So as incomplete a man as I am, my desire to always be a man stems from the fact that these beautiful qualities are exhibited by a woman  to win the respect, and admiration of a man."