On October 11, Liberians will have another opportunity, the second in eight years, to elect a government to steer their country back on the road of reconstruction after more than a decade of conflict. The key difference is that, for once, voters will not be directly hounded by the image nor haunted by the memory of a dominant strongman seeking their votes. Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Party (NPP) were responsible for some of the worst atrocities and sought power at all costs, vigorously opposing the 1990 ”humanitarian intervention” mounted by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). The popular election slogan in 1997 was: ”He killed my mother, killed my father, but I’ll vote for him.”
Then, as opposed to now, it was probably too hasty to rush into elections, taking into account the level of insecurity that existed across the country.
Notwithstanding a large multi-national peacekeeping presence, Liberia’s disarmament process was woefully inadequate. So, while voters were given an opportunity to elect a government, the electoral process played itself out under a cloud of fear. Little wonder then that Taylor’s NPP emerged ”victorious” and subsequently received international recognition, an opportunity he later seized upon to further destabilise the entire West African sub-region.
The security situation in Liberia has markedly improved. As polling day approaches, voters now feel more confident and secure about deciding on who their future leaders will be. Of the 22 presidential candidates, two have stood out distinctly. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and George Oppong Weah are both accomplished citizens whose contribution to their country’s development is not in doubt.
A distinguished economist with decades of international experience, Johnson-Sirleaf could become the first elected female president in Africa — potentially a watershed moment in African politics. As Africa’s most celebrated footballer and one-time goodwill ambassador for Unicef, an Oppong Weah victory would be the first — at least in West Africa — for an ”unconventional” politician with populist appeal. More importantly, it would also signal the electorate’s frustration with the current status quo and thus provide some valuable lessons for other African states emerging from conflict.
Given the favorable pre-election environment, the tough question is how Liberia will address the challenges of reconstructing its institutions of governance, bureaucratic machinery and infrastructure. What role should Liberians play; what can the international community do; and who should take the lead?
Analysts may disagree on the most desirable model for post-conflict Liberia, but what the country most certainly does not need is a new kind of colonialism, disguised in the form of ”international trusteeship” as suggested by British academic Stephen Ellis. In a recent article in the Washington-based journal Foreign Affairs, he contends that, to obviate the challenges of governance and underdevelopment, the international community must abandon ”the conventional approach for helping Africa’s failed and failing states”.
Liberians and, for that matter, nationals from the so-called ”dysfunctional” states are dismissed as incompetent and unable to manage their own affairs.
Even more worrisome is the disdain for any viable contribution from the African Union and other sub-regional bodies, such as Ecowas, which have been in the frontline of keeping the peace and stabilising these countries.
Instead, the broader international community, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, would take the lead in reconstruction, while Liberians essentially toe the line. In plain terms, Liberia and other post-conflict societies in Africa are viewed as unfit to govern.
It underlies a particular world view of the post-colonial (post-cold war) state in Africa, laden with overt corruption, ineffective bureaucracies and a weak human resource base, ostensibly precipitating collapse.
Without seriously bothering to interrogate what precipitates conflict, this school of thought simply characterises all African conflicts as deriving from ”mindless greed”. In so doing, they have failed to grasp what Ghanaian political scientists Eboe Hutchful and Emmanuel Kwesi Aning have identified as the ”grievance” factor in their analyses of the political economy of conflicts in West Africa. That is to identify ”the particular patterns and processes of politicisation of subaltern and oppositional groups that tend to differ from country to country”, rather than simply attribute them to ”greed” and the struggle for power by rogue elements in these societies.
The lack of understanding and appraisal of Africa’s theatres of conflict poses the danger that post-conflict peace-building would deny Liberians, Sierra Leoneans, Sudanese, Congolese, Burundians, Rwandans and Somalis any meaningful role in charting their own future and destiny. This approach is flawed and must be rejected. There is clearly a need for partnership between the international community and African states emerging from conflict, but such partnership must be one in which the latter plays the lead role.
Dr Abdul Lamin, a national of Sierra Leone, lectures in the department of international relations at Wits University