Warlords’ Frankensteins


Liberia's child soldiers

18 May 04

Despite the Monday rioting by indicted war criminal Charles Taylor’s ex-fighters, which left one person dead, the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has made tremendous progress. It says 85% of the country is now “reasonably” secure for civil administration and humanitarian work, something impossible for over a decade. But serious problems remain, and they entail cutting off the tentacles of warlords to distance them from the child soldiers they deluded share their agenda of wealth accumulation via violence.

George Dweh, the interim Speaker of the rebel-dominated transitional legislative assembly, is now the lead actor is wooing child soldiers back into action to address his personal economic grievances. But his is not an easy undertaking. Just as he was issuing orders for former Governor of the National Bank, Elias Seleeby not to leave the country, and that he should to be investigated by his (Dweh’s) “security forces,” Dweh came face to face with the effects of his own creations.  Even before he could end issuing his orders, Dweh was running to the Police seeking protection from his rebel comrades who, he said, wanted to kill him. The Police detained the men, who explained that the real issue with Dweh is that they disobeyed his orders to stage an uprising and disrupt the disarmament process since Dweh and his comrades cannot get the Ministry of Finance.

Who is telling the truth is a tough question, knowing how some Liberians have made lies normal. But in either scenario, Dweh (and other warlords) is in big trouble and stands to loose. If the men wanted to kill him, then he must ensure that they remain detained forever, because once released, their kill Dweh project is in full swing. Moreover, there are thousands of his recruited rebels out there, abandoned, hungry as he rides high in plenty falling from their sweat. They await the day of reckoning for not sharing the investment in the rebel business. Secondly, if, on the other hand, they refused his orders to disrupt the peace process as they claimed, then again Dweh is a General with a hostile Army soon to come after him.

Who would have ever thought, so soon, that a warlord would seek police protection? Evolving developments are likely to solve Liberia’s problems, and Mr. Jacques Klein does not have to think too hard on how the warlords will fare. What is required is public education to tell the child soldiers who has their money—not the UNMIL, not anyone else, but their recruiters, either in Clabar Nigeria where Charles Taylor is or right there in Monrovia where men like George Dweh are pretending to be national leaders. For now, the warlords are enjoying themselves in their trophy political offices, while their Frankensteins linger in the darkness like angry ghosts soon to jump on their preys.

 Not everyone is a Charles Taylor and his successors, the greedy, self-cantered warlords, would do well to grab some pages from his book of self-preservation.  To ensure that he was solidly in command of his hoodlums, he created buffers, some manned by mercenaries. Then he paid the dangerous rebels well, and gave them a fancy name that represented their true nature—Anti-Terrorist Unit. He then created multiple layers of gangs with various names to spy on one another and report to him.  So he was well protected, to the point that even after he fled, troops of child soldiers kept camp at his house, believing the papeh would return for the good old days as their protector in their killing and looting orgies. But it was not only the child soldiers who missed their Robin Hood. His Press Secretary, Vanii Passawe, told CNN Taylor could leave Liberia because a number of old people depended on him for survival, and that men like him also got their bread from the chief thug.

But admittedly, Taylor’s fortunes were unlimited, and there is nothing but pity for the current warlords. That they are shouting and demanding changes in the government to address their financial interests is understandable. Time is running out. If you went to the scene of killing the cow and you did not get some of the meat, any promise of return to the village the meat will come becomes foolhardy.

Unfortunately, Dweh and other warlords are far from enjoying Taylor’s position as the sole owner and commander of the state treasury. This, more than all the harangues, explains how they now loathe Charles Gyude Bryant for taking it all and leaving them dry. That there is no honour amongst thieves is a fact they underestimated. While Taylor controlled the treasury and single-handedly the economy, they cannot. This explains their moves to get the Ministry of Finance in the belief that state money would be theirs. It is a sad situation as time runs out.  Being a Deputy Defence Minister without an Army is a miserable trick.  Bryant does not need a rebel Army commanded by greedy rebel appointees who, without doubt, could chop his head off and take his job. The UN soldiers are their form. He can therefore afford to make his own decisions without fear of a coup. And then being a Speaker who does not make laws but violates them, and without any means of continued flow of money makes anyone angry, particularly when the Lebanese can deal directly with the chief. Thus Dweh has some “legitimate” claims as time runs out.

Now that the Group of Five—Dweh, Edward Farley, Charles Bennie the revenue collector, and two others have decided they will not cooperate with the government, Bryant’s hands are freer. If they cannot cooperate with the government, then they must not enter their offices nor collect revenue, as in the case of Mr. Bennie the revenue collector. 

It will come to pass that the warlords will run from creations—the child soldiers abandoned—more than anything else. Those who are paying their mortgages and rents in Europe and America are after all thinking correctly: the time of escape is near, all the Frankensteins will descend, in which case there will be no police to arrest them. We are hearing the last cries of a dying beast, and as the wise man said, this, too, shall come to pass.
--Tom Kamara
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