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

expressed disquiet, ranging from the most blunt, to the more tactful. According to one
observer ‘the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Liberia,
General Jacques Klein, behaves like the Viceroy in Liberia, eliciting mixed reactions from
stakeholders’. 102 According to the Report of the CSDG-DCAF Mission of July/August
2004,
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Although Liberians appreciate immensely the security and stability provided by UN
presence in Liberia, particularly Monrovia, there is a strong public perception that
the UNMIL senior leadership disregards their views on how the country’s problems
should be addressed. An issue of particular concern is the relationship between the
chairman of the NTGL and the UN SRSG which has been characterised as ‘too
cordial’, in effect making a system of checks-and-balances impossible. Overall, the
team sensed that there is a general lack of confidence between SRSG/UNMIL and
Liberians. 103
Given the enormous and multidimensional challenges of post-conflict reconstruction, a
person in the position of the SRSG could not have escaped some criticism. However, the
cynicism and frustration with which many Liberians spoke of Mr Klein gave the
impression that the former UNSG was fast becoming part of the problem for which he
was appointed to find the solution. Several Liberians referred to him as ‘Governor-
General’. Without prejudice to the validity of such criticisms, the essential point to note
is that such perceptions have negatively affected the impression which many Liberians
have of UNMIL, which the new UNMIL leadership would need to urgently address
following Mr Klein’s sudden departure in April 2005.
V. Conclusion and Recommendations
The character of the security sector in Liberia is a product of the historical domination of
the country by a settler population, and the concomitant contradictions which such
domination has generated. Thus even though Liberia was never formally colonised by
another state, it was effectively subjugated by freed slaves from the United States and
their descendants, who appropriated the state, created and sustained a personalised
security sector, and prevented popular participation. Even though it would amount to a
gross over-simplification to attribute all of Liberia’s complex array of challenges to this
singular factor, it must be recognised that the asymmetrical social relations which ensued
has created a wide cleavage between the state and the vast majority of Liberians. The
ensuing dichotomised existence has been at the core of Liberia’s socio-economic and
political frictions. The seeds of what grew to be the Liberian security sector were sown
by the elite to create a security structure for the preservation and protection of privileged
interests. Liberia has been in the throes of instability and conflict since Doe attempted in
the 1980s to supplant Americo-Liberian domination with Krahn ethnic domination.
Thus, de facto, the raison d’être of the Liberian security sector has been the security of the
state, often at the expense of the state of security.
This paper analysed the general post-conflict reconstruction process in Liberia from a
security governance perspective, and identified various factors which singularly and
102
Kayode Fayemi, op. cit., p. 192.
103
CSDG-DCAF Report, op. cit., p. 6. (See Annex 2)