Abstract
The conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as their DDR processes, are often paired together. Liberia borrowed from and inherited reintegration programs in Sierra Leone, and adopted many of the ideas and assumptions that underpinned programs there. But a closer look at the Liberian conflict reveals that similarities in terms of the nature, duration, and outcomes of political violence are few. And although the reintegration programs initially offered to ex-combatants in Liberia replicated some of the least successful elements of programs in Sierra Leone (namely, by emphasizing vocational training), in Liberia actors designed several innovative and labor-intensive programs that followed original efforts.
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Notes
H. J. Monger (2008) Impact Assessment Report on Infrastructure for Employment Projects (Monrovia: Ministry of Public Works, UNMIL, World Bank, and UNDP).
J. Munive and S. F. Jakobsen (2012) ‘Revisiting DDR in Liberia: Exploring the Power, Agency and Interests of Local and International Actors in the “Making” and “Unmaking” of Combatants’, Conflict, Security & Development, 12:4, 361.
Ibid., p.366.
Bøås and Hatløy (2008); Pugel (2007); and R. Hill, G. Taylor and J. Temin (2008) ‘Would You Fight Again? Understanding Liberian Ex-Combatant Reintegration’, United States Institute of Peace, Special Report No.211, September.
Republic of Liberia (2009) Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report (Monrovia: Republic of Liberia), Vol. I ‘Preliminary Findings and Determinations’, 2–3, pp.48–53; Bøås (2005); and Utas (2003).
Bøås (2005), p.74. For more background on the Liberian conflicts, see: Reno (1999); K. Omeje (ed.) (2009) War to Peace Transition: Conflict Intervention and Peacebuilding in Liberia (Lanham, MD: University Press of America); and G. K. Kieh, Jr. (2008) The First Liberian Civil War: The Crises of Underdevelopment (New York: Peter Lang).
For more background on DDR programming in Liberia, see S. Podder (2012) ‘From Recruitment to Reintegration: Communities and Ex-combatants in Post-Conflict Liberia’, International Peacekeeping, 19:2, 186–202; A. Tamagnini and T. Krafft (2010) ‘Strategic Approaches to Reintegration: Lessons Learned from Liberia’, Global Governance, 16:1, 13–20; Jennings (2008 and 2007); and W-C. Paes (2005) ‘Eyewitness: The Challenges of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration in Liberia’, International Peacekeeping, 12:2, 253–61.
M. Persson (2012) ‘Demobilized or Remobilized? Lingering Rebel Structures in Post-war Liberia’, in M. Utas (ed.) African Conflicts and Informal Power: Big Men and Networks (London: Zed Books), p.111–15.
E. Sirleaf (2009) This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President (New York: HarperCollins), pp.292–3.
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© 2013 Jaremey R. McMullin
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McMullin, J.R. (2013). Liberia: Reintegration 2.0?. In: Ex-Combatants and the Post-Conflict State. Rethinking Political Violence series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312938_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312938_7
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