Warriors in West Africa Need Jobs as Well as Peace Treaties

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

NY Times

BOUAKÉ, Ivory Coast — Here in Ivory Coast, the road between this rebel-held town in the north and the government-held Abidjan in the south is awash with economic opportunities for a wartime entrepreneur.

In rebel territory, skinny young men, toting Kalashnikov rifles and wearing lucky charms around their necks, lean into car windows, blow smoke and demand tolls. They do so from every car, every minivan crammed with commuters and every cargo truck ferrying goods from the interior to the port in Abidjan. Some are in fatigues; one is wearing a Che Guevara shirt. A bottle of water, a couple of cigarettes make them happy.

On the government-held side, Ivoirian soldiers inspect papers and luggage and demand tolls set entirely by whim - the equivalent of $3 at one checkpoint, nearly $30 at another. One soldier posted on the road in the midday sun simply tells a carload of foreign journalists, "Everyone's tired." In response, a few dirty bills are pressed into his palm and the checkpoint opens.

For at least a generation in this part of the world, an aging Kalashnikov has been a meal ticket. A gun has given tens of thousands of bored and hungry young men - and, increasingly, young women - license to pillage homes, extort money, rape, kill and sow havoc across West Africa. They have been the foot soldiers in the conflicts that have plagued the region for the last 15 years. Youth militias have also been the ones blamed for the latest Christian-Muslim carnage in Nigeria.

Today, with war officially over and nearly 24,000 United Nations peacekeepers assigned to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, the challenge facing these fragile states and the international agencies helping them is how to bring the fighters back into the civilian fold.

It is a crucial moment. The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Liberia is in the midst of disarming what it estimates could be up to 50,000 people, offering, as disarmament programs generally do, cash incentives to ex-gunmen and access to education and job training. Another United Nations mission, in Sierra Leone, has just wrapped up its aid programs for 55,000 former fighters. In Ivory Coast, a third mission is trying to coax government and rebel leaders to turn over their arms - so far, in vain.

The enterprise has been riddled with difficulties. According to the United Nations Development Program, donors to the Liberian effort have given barely a third of the $12 million to $20 million needed for the initial phase of the project.

Gunmen have rushed in for their cash handouts, but brought with them far fewer guns than were expected. (The United Nations permits them to collect cash either in exchange for a weapon or if they come in as part of a fighting unit with a collective weapon.) In the northern Liberian city of Gbranga, the disarmament effort produced one weapon for every three self-described ex-fighters. There is widespread speculation that the remaining guns are buried in the bush.

Moreover, what to do with young women who joined the combat has emerged as a new, thorny problem, since the disarmament programs were designed with men in mind. Also, the programs across this porous region are offering such widely varying cash handouts - from $300 in Liberia to three times that much in Ivory Coast - that there is potential for resentment and squabbling.

And what happens after the cash handouts run out, West Africa analysts ask? If young West Africans cannot make a decent living without their guns once the peacekeepers leave, disarmament will fail, predicted James Fennell, a regional conflict specialist with the British government's development arm.

"That there are a large number of young people who have no opportunities but high aspirations is a problem from Nigeria to Senegal," Mr. Fennell said. "That problem underscores conflict in the region as a whole."

In Sierra Leone, where a decade-long war ended two years ago, United Nations peacekeepers are expected to pull out by the end of the year. And yet, regional analysts say, some of the very grievances that led to war remain, chief among them a lack of jobs for young people and widespread frustration about alleged government corruption.

No one even knows how many of the 55,000 disarmed ex-gunmen have found other ways of making a living. Late last year, one child soldier from Sierra Leone recalled how he took the $150 in cash and was trained as a carpenter, only to find himself jobless and hungry a few months later. He wound up seduced by a warlord's cash, picking up a Kalashnikov and going to fight again, next door in Liberia.

That same choice will sooner or later confront the thousands of young people being demobilized in Liberia now. The challenge for the United Nations is to engender a stable and prosperous peace, and not just a breather between wars, aid workers and analysts say.

"Disarming the fighters must be done properly this time round if it's to stand any chance of changing the culture of violence that has devastated Liberia and her neighbors for decades," warned Liz Hughes, senior humanitarian manager in Liberia for Oxfam, the development group.

Until recently, peace was being contemplated in Ivory Coast. Its rebel faction had promised to demobilize its troops and to help reunify the country. But just as disarmament was to begin, the rebels changed their minds. They accused the government of stockpiling weapons and stalling on a peace accord. Then, in late March, came a bloody crackdown on an opposition demonstration in Abidjan.

To disarm now would be tantamount to "killing ourselves," the rebel leader, Guillaume Soro, declared. In a recent interview here in Bouaké, which serves as his group's headquarters, he said, "We are ready for any eventuality."

Bouaké is no longer in the grip of drugged-out teenage soldiers, as it was just a year ago. Only a few checkpoints remain: elaborate sculptures made of hollowed-out refrigerators, tire rims, stones, wood carvings. The bars are no longer bristling with guns, at least not visibly.

But the gunmen are still around, retired to a camp in the woods, a short drive from town. On a Sunday morning, when a rebel commander comes to visit, hundreds of them scramble out of the bush, a motley crew in T-shirts and soccer jerseys, black loafers and plastic flip-flops. They have no guns (they won't say where they've stashed them) and, apparently, nothing to do.

Konate Siratigui contributed to this article from Bouaké.