Posted on 10/08/2011 11:51:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
United Nations and regional security forces are on high alert ahead of Liberia's second post-war polls Tuesday, amid fears over weapons and mercenaries circulating after recent conflict in neighbouring Ivory Coast.
Liberia still relies heavily on a UN peacekeeping mission (UNMIL) to secure its fragile peace, eight years after it emerged from one of Africa's bloodiest wars in 2003, in which some 250,000 were killed.
The 8,000-strong UNMIL force has boosted border security as has the UN mission in Ivory Coast, and defence chiefs from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria have pledged to send at least 540 police and 280 gendarmes to assist in securing the polls.
"The fallout from the Ivorian crisis is primarily that combatants have crossed the border," Ellen Margrethe Loej, the special representative of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Liberia, told AFP in a telephone interview.
"Some have been arrested, some are in camps, probably some are also in the forest that we don't know about."
She said these mercenaries were not only Ivorians, but also Liberians who had been hired to fight in the neighbouring conflict and were returning to their own country.
Loej said another major concern was that these fighters had hidden weapons along the border or brought them into the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at vancouversun.com ...
President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleafs delivers a speech on March 29, 2007, at the University of Toronto. Liberians will vote Tuesday on election law changes in a referendum fiercely opposed by opposition parties as it comes just six weeks before key presidential elections and could change their date. [Photograph by: Glenn Lowson, National Post]
Zero’s next intervention?
I doubt zero will intervene as they are largely Christians, unless he is looking to import muslims and get another war going for their “inalienable” rights.
GWB did intervene , that’s why their old president is sitting in the Hague and why there is relative peace and stability.
Thanks himno hero!
She just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
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