French troops needed in Liberia
2003-11-03 14:43
Monrovia - Special UN envoy to Liberia Jacques Klein urged France to send peacekeepers to the west African nation as it struggles to emerge from two successive civil wars over the last 14 years.
"We need French-speaking troops" to address cross-border issues with Francophone neighbours Ivory Coast and Guinea, Klein told French-language reporters late on Sunday in the capital Monrovia ahead of a visit next week by Renaud Muselier, the French minister of state for foreign affairs.
Some 4 500 peacekeepers with the UN mission to Liberia known as UNMIL have already been deployed of a total 15 000 mandated in September by the UN Security Council.
Klein said it was unlikely that Liberia would be under full UN supervision before early 2004, noting that rebels still control zones in the north and southeast of the country.
Disarmament of the country's two major rebel groups - the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy operating in the north and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, whose stronghold is in the southeast - as well as government militias would begin December 1, he added.
The United Nations has also established a disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration programme for the country's estimated 15 000 child soldiers.
A transitional government has been in place in Liberia since mid-October to steer the country to elections in 2005, following the voluntary exile of the ex-warlord president Charles Taylor, who has been granted asylum in Nigeria.