Musa Bility Implicated in LPRC Corruption -Says UN Panel of Experts

The UN Panel of Expert report on the operation of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company says the Chairman of the Board of the National Port Authority, Musa Bility is hugely indebted to the LPRC.

The report said Mr. Bility is the owner of Srimex Enterprise and Gulf Trading, two Petroleum importing companies operating in the country.

The UN Panel Report said during the first nine months of 2006, Mr. Bility paid only 125-thousand dollars out of three million dollars he owes the LPRC.

This was confirmed when a local radio station contacted Mr. Bility, he said he only owes the LPRC 130-thousand United States Dollars.

He describes the 130-thousand dollars owed the LPRC as negligible. Mr. Bility also said owing a company such as the LPRC was a normal thing in the business transaction.

He told Star Radio allegation that he owns two petroleum importing companies was incorrect.

Mr. Bility said he owns and operates one company, Srimex but collaborates with the Gulf Trading.

Cote d'Ivoire: UN's Cote d'Ivoire Mission Extended With New Mandate to Cooperate Liberian Border

New York:

The Security Council today extended through June the mandate of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) and French forces supporting it while authorizing them to cooperate with blue helmets in Liberia in preventing arms from crossing the border.

By a unanimously adopted resolution, the Council adjusted the tasks carried out by the mission, which has been deployed in Côte d'Ivoire since April 2004 helping the parties to implement a peace agreement signed in January 2003 ending their north-south civil war.

The country has been divided between the rebel-held north and government-controlled south since 2002. Under today's resolution, UNOCI will coordinate closely with the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in carrying out a voluntary repatriation and resettlement programme for foreign ex-combatants.

This is part of UNOCI's efforts to bolster the Ivorian Government in its bid to disarm former fighters, which the Council said should be carried out "with special attention to the specific needs of women and children."

UNOCI will be responsible for destroying any weapons, ammunition or other military materiel surrendered by the former combatants, according to the resolution.

Implementing an arms ban including "by inspecting, as they deem it necessary and without notice, the cargo of aircraft and of any transport vehicle using the ports, airports, airfields, military bases and border crossings."

UNOCI must "carry out its mandate in close liaison with UNMIL, including especially in the prevention of movements of arms and combatants across shared borders and the implementation of disarmament and demobilization programmes," the Council said.

In helping the relief effort for the beleaguered people of Côte d'Ivoire, UNOCI will "facilitate the free flow of people, goods and humanitarian assistance," including by helping to establish the necessary security conditions and taking into account the special needs of vulnerable groups, especially women, children and the elderly.

The mission is also tasked with supporting the organization of "open, free, fair and transparent elections, presidential and legislative, by 31 October 2007 at the latest."

The most recent report of the Secretary-General to the Council, issued last month, contained a strong call to the parties to restart their stalled peace process and resolve their disputes.

The report emphasized that the mandate of both Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny and President Laurent Gbagbo was renewed for a "final transition period not exceeding 12 months" and called on the two leaders to "eschew confrontation and maintain a constructive working relationship."

As of late last year, UNOCI had nearly 9,000 uniformed personnel supported by some 360 international civilian personnel, 500 local staff and 220 UN Volunteers.

UNMIL Jamaican Police Officers Gets "Peacekeeping Medals"

The Officer-in Charge of UNMIL, Jordan Ryan, yesterday awarded United Nations peacekeeping medals to eight Jamaican police officers for their contributions to the peace process in Liberia.

According to UNMIL Press Release quoting the UNMIL Officer-In-Charge, who expressed his appreciation to the Jamaican officers for their commitment and dedication, said, "The training and mentoring you provide to the Liberia National Police officers will go a long way in building

Mr. Ryan awarding medals to the Jamaican police officers, stressed the importance of continuing UNMIL's support to the Liberian government, asdding, "Your work is contributing towards ending the culture of impunity in Liberia and re-establishing the Rule of Law in a country devastated by long years of conflict.

Each and every one of you is playing an important role in achieving UNMIL's principal objective of maintaining law and order and public safety."

The UNMIL Officer-in-Charge also urged the Jamaican officers to strictly abide by the Secretary-General's policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse.
The Jamaican police contingent in Liberia comprises of five women and three men who perform a range of functions in Monrovia and in Foya, Lofa County.

The medal award ceremony was attended by senior UNMIL officials including the UN Police Commissioner Mohammad Alhassan, according to UNMIL press release.

FIND WANTS IVORIAN REFUGEES RELEASED

The Foundation for International Dignity (FIND) has expressed serious concern over the reported arrest, flogging and detention of several Ivorian Refugees by the Liberia National Police (LNP) backed by the Nepalese Contingent of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).

The Ivorian Refugees, according to report, on Monday, December 4, 2006 staged a peaceful protest at the premises of the UNHCR in demand of their benefits when the LNP officers with the backing of the Nepalese Contingent of UNMIL moved on them in a bid to quell their action.

But UNMIL authorities have termed the protesters’ action as illegal, saying the protesters are not bonifide Ivorian Refugees. During the incident, the report indicated that several of the protesters were arrested, flogged and detained by the police.

Twenty of the protesters sustained serious injuries and were seeking treatment at the M S F Hospital in Mamba Point. In a press statement issued in Monrovia Tuesday, FIND described the reported action by the police and the UNMIL officers against the refugees some of whom included pregnant women and children as “inhumane, barbaric and heartless”.

FIND in the press release further described the reported action as a violation of the UN Convention and Protocols on the status of displace person which accords all rights to refugees as an inalienable entitlement of all human beings.

“Refugees are classified as vulnerable and it requires under international legal instrument that the states accord them appropriate protection rather then subjecting them to conditions that degrade them and demean their human dignity”, the rights group pointed out in the press release.

“We want to call on all well meaning Liberians including human rights, pro- democracy institutions and civil society organizations to condemn the reported action by the police and UNMIL officers against the protesters”, FIND pointed out.

Meanwhile, FIND has called on the government via the Ministry of Justice to unconditionally release the Ivorian Refugees who are in detention aimed at restoring their fundamental liberties.“We hope that the government will see wisdom in our call and release the detained Ivorian Refugees.

Anything to contrary, we will be constrained to seek legal redress to secure the release of the refugees”, FIND among other things added.

IDLE FIGHTERS CAUSE CONCERN: AN IRIN REPORT

MONROVIA, 9 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - Two years after the conclusion of a nationwide disarmament exercise, about 39,000 former fighters have yet to be placed in skills training programmes, raising fears that they could be open to manipulation by other armed groups in the region.

At the end of the disarmament programme in November 2004, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which supervised the exercise, reported that 101,495 fighters had been disarmed and demobilised.

Some 60,000 former fighters have been placed in skills training programs such as plumbing, carpentry and masonry, or enrolled in school. Charles Achodo, the UN Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reintegration and Rehabilitation policy advisor, told IRIN that by the middle of this year all ex-combatants will have benefited from donor-supported reintegration packages."

Funding to cover all of those ex-combatants has not gone dry and we have funding to cater to them, but it is a process. That process is ongoing and by the middle of 2007 all of them will be fully covered," Achodo said.

A UN commissioned nationwide survey of former fighters conducted between February and March last year recommended a continuation of skills training programmes."There is major risk of leaving behind a very vulnerable grouping of ex-combatants: those who have disarmed and demobilised, but have yet to receive training.

This category of former fighters is the least educated, most agriculturally oriented and the poorest ... they have been the least reintegrated," the survey said.It said that international donor funding should ensure the continuation of the programme.

Delays in providing training to the former fighters has triggered concern that they could easily be recruited as freelance fighters in other troubled countries. In addition to Liberia's 14-year civil war, there have been conflicts in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire, as well as unrest in adjacent Guinea.

"If you allow those fighters to be left alone and without keeping them busy learning how to make shoes, beds, tables, or sewing and sitting in classes, their minds would always be preoccupied with going back to war where they can easily get what they want through guns," said Mariam Walker, a Liberian psycho-social counselor.

William Bayue, a former fighter of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), agrees. "The UN must really speed up their programmes to give our friends opportunities to go to schools and learning other useful vocations where they could earn money or else you will find them leaving across the borders into [Cote d'Ivoire] where they may be paid as foreign fighters there," Bayue, 23, told IRIN.

He said he was transformed after entering secondary school in the capital, Monrovia, as part of reintegration after he relinquished his weapon. Achodo said some ex-fighters who had not yet been reintegrated are scattered around Liberian towns bordering Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

He said additional educational and skills training projects would be focused on those areas.Press reports have circulated in Monrovia recently saying Ivorian rebels and government forces were trying to recruit former Liberian combatants. Cote d’Ivoire has been split in half since a brief civil war in 2002 and there are persistent fears that the conflict could reignite. Lieutenant General Isaac Obiakor, force commander of the UN Mission in Liberia, said the press reports could not be confirmed but that peacekeepers had increased border patrols between Cote D'Ivoire and Liberia.

Despite disarmament and the dissolution of armed groups in Liberia, weapons are still discovered in rural areas. This is part of a larger, regional problem, officials say. An estimated eight million light arms are circulating in West Africa, according to Jeanine Jackson, the US ambassador to Burkina Faso.

"The disarmament and demobilisation programmes always do not take all of the guns and we have been carrying out community arms collections since January, sensitising community dwellers to bring out hidden weapons and this programme is really yielding results," said Napoleon Abdulai, head of the UN Development Programme-Liberia Small Arms Project.He said civilians as well as former fighters had identified areas where arms had been hidden.

"We have retrieved thousands of [rounds of] ammunition, unexploded ordinance and other light weapons. Those are harmful to the community and our objective is to make the country gun-free," Abdulai said.The small arms project says that last year more than 19,000 rounds of ammunition and hundreds of guns and rifles, as well as unexploded ordinance, had been collected.

MOD Launches Year-In-Review Magazine, Features New AFL Soldiers

The Ministry of National Defense is to shortly launch its maiden edition of "The AFL News Magazine".

According to the Assistant Minister for Public Affairs at the Ministry of Defense Kpor Gbain, the magazine is expected to appear on the Liberian news stand at the end of January this year.

Minister Gbain said the magazine will feature men and women of the new Liberian Army. Minister Gbain also disclosed that the magazine is been edited by a veteran Liberian journalist Mr.J. Cholo Brooks who is also CEO of the Global News Network, publisher of this blog.

Minister Gbain also a journalist worked for the state owned radio station, the Liberian Broadcasting System prior to the Liberian civil war. He came home four years ago, and was appointed last year by the Liberian leader, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Assistant Minister of Public Affairs at the Defense Ministry.

WERE YOU NOT AWARE OF EDWIB SNOWE? AN OPEN LETTER TO MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE

Posted January 10, 2007/ Culled from Running Africa

I want to wish you and you constituents a Happy and Fruitful new year. The reason for my letter is to speak about the issue surrounding the discontent of some members of the House on the performance of the Speaker Edwin Snowe.

What did you expect when you elected him to this position? Did you think that he would amazingly change into an honorable gentleman who would be up to the task?

What were the credentials and qualifications that you had seen to convince you that he would be able to perform the duties and obligations inherent in the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives?

Were you not aware that he was blacklisted by the United Nations?

Were you blinded to the fact that he had amassed great wealth during the short period of time that he served as Managing Director of LPRC?

Were you not aware of the audit report that showed misuse of funds at LPRC during his tenure? Were you interested in choosing someone who could ably represent your august body or was it the promise of cash and other benefits that were allegedly offered to anyone who would elect him as Speaker?

Why at this time are you trying to impeach him? Haven’t you heard that you reap what you sow? Did you expect to drive a new limousine when you purchased a second hand jalopy?

By electing Hon Snowe as Speaker showed the Liberian people where your interests lie. It may be harder to impeach him than it was for you to elect him. I don’t think the people really care what you do anymore because they know that you only serve one interest: YOUR OWN.

May God continue to help Liberia as she crawls back into the civilized world.
Clarence Avery A Liberian in the Diaspora