20 April 04

"All we are saying is that (Seku) Conneh (rebel LURD chief) and other officials fooled us to hold arms and promised that he would send all of us to school and vocational centres. Now, Taylor has left. We have won the war, he does not want to care for us..."

"They have forgotten about us…They are all enjoying good life in Monrovia. We hardly see them around, never mind visit us frequently".

"We do not want to see them around us no more, they fooled us before and we will not succumb to their orders…"

"I was not born crippled, but look at me today ", A.B. said as he boarded the UNMIL truck to be taken to the cantonment site

"Big brother, some of us do not have this to sleep on. We use our arms to sleep on them", one of the ex-combatants lamented as he displayed his mat and blankets to journalists..."

:"Our only hope and concern right now is for UNMIL to help us go back to school and be educated after we disarm. We are tired of holding guns, while our leaders are working in government in Monrovia and enjoying from our sweat…".

"With money for guns or not, all we want now is to acquired knowledge"

"Disarmament is our only hope for better lives. The war is over and we will not fire a single bullet," he told IRIN.

Seku Conneh, responding: "Under the disarmament arrangement, the UN is responsible for transporting fighters from all areas to the disarmament centre…We are not responsible for that… The leadership have done so well for the fighters, we sent delegations all of the time which distributed food and clothes to our fighters. I have been there once and my wife, Aisha was there few days ago…”

Here is a tragic drama not so strange unfolding. That these fighters would be abandoned on the table for dividing the spoils of war, as it happened in Ghana, was all too clear. Couldn’t they see their comrades who fought for Charles Taylor, Alhaji Kromah, and other warlords roaming the streets without hope? Perhaps not. The innocense of youth, its adventure. One loyal rebel youth killed his mother and urinated on the body because the woman urged him to leave the Taylor rebel gang and return to school “If Charles Taylor tells me to kill my I swear to God I will do it”, became the mantra of his fighters in showing loyalty. As they were killing, maiming and burning in Monrovia in 1996, Alhaji Kromah went on radio: "Da morale. Those are your children", he told fleeing civilians lucky to live.  After his election, Taylor told his fighters they fought for their country, not for him. But the difference is that at least Taylor was president. So he could enlist many in competing gangs called security forces through they terrorise the country and paid themselves. .

Now, it is crude awakening for these young men and women. Their leaders sold lucrative jobs for cash after Ghana. Since this is a government that requires no brains, with many of the officials hardly out of high school, it would have been prudent to appoint more fighters revenue chiefs, commerce officials, to expand the cycle of the current stealing gang.

The positive aspect of all this is that most young people will now learn from these to chase any fortune hunter singing democracy and liberation with stones if approached to be recruited. A future government should in cooperate the uselessness of rebel wars, using the Liberian example, into civic education. This may be the redemption desired

T. Kamara