Liberia has not yet signed the Mine Ban Treaty.
During the Ottawa Process, it attended the Brussels conference and Oslo
negotiations as an observer. Liberia also co-sponsored the 1997 UN General
Assembly resolution in support of the ban treaty. Liberia is not known to have
produced or exported antipersonnel mines, but various armed forces have used
mines extensively in the past.
The Republic of Liberia was the first independent republic in Africa and
together with Ethiopia, it is one of only two African states which have never
been directly colonized. This West African state has experienced political
instability since the 1970s and a military coup in 1980 which eventually led to
civil war, in which landmines were used. After a dozen prior peace agreements,
a new accord was signed in August 1995 in Abuja and a transitional government
was sworn in on 1 September. Following multiparty presidential elections in
1997, Charles Taylor, a former rebel leader, became president.
Landmines were used in the nine-year-long civil war in Liberia. Rebel forces
mined roads and ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) forces planted
minefields around their installations. The U.S. Department of State estimated
that approximately 1,000 antitank mines had been used and these killed twenty
people in 1993, more than half of them
civilians.[1] By July 1993 ECOMOG
had uncovered 150 mines laid by rebel forces and had removed mines from the
Pipeline road near White Plains, the Barnersville area, the Ria-Scheifflin road
and the Caresburg area.[2]
In October 1994, two ECOMOG vehicles were destroyed and three troops killed
by antitank mines planted on the Kakata-Bong Mines Road and the Harbal to
Buchanan Road by National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)
fighters.[3] On 11 October 1995,
one civilian was injured in a mine explosion in Buchanan near ECOMOG's Seventh
Brigade garrison. The soldiers had laid mines around the base for defensive
purposes. Two Senegalese members of ECOMOG were killed in Liberia while laying
landmines in 1993.[4] In February
1995, the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) attempted to
survey the extent of the landmine problem in Liberia but due to continued
fighting in the south-east and north-west found these areas inaccessible.
ECOMOG engaged in mine clearance operations during the conflict along the
roads it used. In June 1995 two rival militia agreed to start clearing mines
from the Kakata to Bong Mines road. The United Liberation Movement (ULIMO)
faction controlled Bong Mines but the NPFL had laid siege to the town for ten
months.[5]
There appear to have been no records made by the warring factions of where
they laid their mines. UNOMIL conducted a mine survey in March 1995 and located
seven minefields with an estimated total 18,250 antitank and antipersonnel mines
in them at:
1) Grand Bassa County: LAC road and rubber plantation;
The United Nations has identified two types of mines in Liberia, both
Romanian antitank mines: the MAT 62B and the MAT
76.[7]
Responding to criticism about the stalled peace process in December 1995,
warlord Charles Taylor said that, "We have demined and opened up the roads to
allow food convoys."[8] In March
1997, the commander of West African peace-keepers in Liberia, General Victor
Malu announced that all mines had been cleared and that refugees should come
home to vote in the presidential elections in May. He said, "Anybody can now
travel in the country without fear of
landmines."[9] Malu also said that
the last mines were cleared at the Firestone rubber plantation north of the
capital.
The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, an NGO concerned with human rights
and humanitarian issues, has expressed its concern as to whether there is a
remaining landmine problem but has been unable to verify whether Liberia is now
landmine free.[10] The U.S.
Department of State in 1998 revised its assessment and declared Liberia
mine-free.[11]
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