How should Security Sector Reform in Liberia take account of the role of non-state actors? This study finds that community-based actors and mechanisms have been filling the security gap as the state-centred reform of the security sector has been underway. However, non-state actors may become spoilers unless they are better integrated into the SSR process. The success of SSR in Liberia may thus depend on the effective management and inclusion of non-state actors and community-based approaches. In particular, ex-combatants, unemployed youth and women need to be permitted to contribute to local ownership of SSR.
The security situation in Liberia remains fragile. Despite international assistance, Liberia’s state police force (the LNP) does not have the capacity to serve all of the country or to control the escalation in crime. Continued frustration over lack of police responsiveness frequently emerges through extra-judicial measures being taken and escalates into mob violence. Further, the Sirleaf-Johnson administration has adopted the UN mission’s state-centered approach to policing, which is not consistent with existing community-based approaches and mechanisms.
- Despite a vetting process and training of the LNP, human rights abuses still occur. Accusations of police brutality and corruption are compromising public confidence.
- LNP personnel are confined mostly to urban centres and main roads, and police capacity is especially inadequate in rural areas.
- Community-based policing approaches include official and unofficial local patrols, vigilantes, work-based associations, and police. Community-based police only retain a tenuous link to the state police.
- Other non-state security and justice mechanisms include customary chiefs, market vendors’ committees, taxi drivers’ associations, justice NGOs, and town courts. The latter is governed by customary law and led by chiefs, governors, and other local officials, while punishment is delivered through fines. Dispute resolution through mediation, however, is preferred to punishment.
Reform of the security sector is taking place within a challenging context. High levels of unemployment contribute to the risk that young people will turn to arms to make a living through domestic and foreign militia. Women accounted for 30-40 percent of former armed combatants, and now many of these women face social stigmatisation and remain targets of sexual violence.
- Ex-combatants have not been genuinely disarmed, demobilised, or reintegrated into society, and militia groups continue to pose a threat to stability. The challenges of reintegrating former combatants have been compounded by the fact that the new army did not draw from the pool of ex-combatants and instead chose fresh recruits.
- A large population of unemployed youth are developing their own grievances against the political and economic systems of Liberia.
- A combination of factors increase the risk that vulnerable groups could have a destabilising influence on the SSR process. These include the global economic and food crisis, poverty, the spread of HIV/AIDS, subregional insecurity, small arms availability, and the prevalence of land disputes, criminal influences, and grievances deriving from ineffective rule of law.
A decentralised and ad hoc system for providing security has emerged in Liberia, and this threatens to undermine the authority and legitimacy of President Sirleaf-Johnson’s administration. While community-based measures and approaches may continue to be applied to reinforce the state security system and architecture, they should not be applied in isolation from it. Consideration and empowerment of youth, women and ex-combatants is essential in all aspects of the SSR process.
- Attempts to link communities to the official state security infrastructure through the Community Police Forum have largely failed. Ordered to disband following human rights abuses, community-based policing groups were given the option of joining the official Community Police Forums. These proved to be inclusive in theory only, however.
- Reform efforts in support of women have met with some success, such as the graduation of Liberia’s first all-female class of police officers from the Liberia Police Academy in early 2008. The representation of women in the Liberian National Police (LNP) has increased, yet it is still below 10 percent.
- The government needs to extend its reach and enhance its legitimacy in the eyes of its population by securing a monopoly on the use of force and being the principal provider of security.
