The Challenges and Opportunities of Security Sector Reform in Post ...

2.2.4. The Youth Question
The role of the youth in the Liberian conflict has been widely discussed. Indeed, in the
view of some analysts the most pertinent problem is the challenge of unemployment that
faces the demobilised young men and women. 47 Given Liberia’s demographic structure
(with half the population being under 30 years of age) within a context of widespread
deprivation and lack of economic opportunities for the youth, the reality is that the youth
represent an available recruitment pool for spoilers. In this regard, Charles Taylor’s
reputed financial fortune of $150 million-$210 million would be difficult for Liberian
youth to resist in an economy with 85% unemployment. This has direct implications for
the state of security in general, and for the viability and sustainability of security sector
reform initiatives which may be put in place as part of post-conflict reconstruction. In
dealing therefore with freedom from fear, due attention would need to be given to the need
for freedom from want among such a critical section of the Liberian population.
3. Security Sector Reconstruction: ‘We Want America.
America Should Come Help Us’!
This section focuses on the governance of the security sector in Liberia and a preliminary
overview of post-conflict reconstruction of the security architecture. Thus, there is a
focus on the process, policies and administration of the security sector by various
Liberian governments. The aim in this section is to consider how the Liberian state has
related with security sector structures and processes, and the extent to which these reflect
the twin imperatives of effectiveness and oversight.
To be sure, a major source of the dysfunctionality of the security sector in Liberia is that
the armed and security forces have all through the country’s history functioned as
instruments for regime interests as opposed to the interests of the general populace. As
such, their role has essentially been repressive, given the wide gap between regime
interests and popular interests. The first elements of security forces were the created in
the ‘home guards’ which were set up to protect the settlers from the indigenous
communities and to secure the compliance of the indigenous population with the
authority and orders of the settler state. By 1908, the ‘home guards’ evolved into the
Liberian Frontier Force (LFF), which was later to transform into the Armed Forces of
Liberia (AFL). Apart from police and customs functions in the hinterland, the LFF
became necessary to ward off challenges over the indigenous populations from France
and Britain. With forced recruitment methods, the LFF was used as an instrument for
promoting the expansionist policies of the settler state. It was essentially a colonial
construct. As Jaye has noted:
14
The initial context for security thinking was driven by the need to secure settler
supremacy over the indigenous African populations, ward off colonial claims to
Liberian territories and inevitably, sustain the existing status quo. Thus, like colonial
47 See, for example, Kayode Fayemi, ‘Governing Insecurity in Post-Conflict States: The Case of Sierra Leone and
Liberia’ in Alan Bryden and Heiner Hänggi (eds.), Reform and Reconstruction of the Security Sector, DCAF,
Geneva, 2004.