New York - The last remaining United
Nations sanctions on Liberia were lifted on
Wednesday in a decision the United States
said was a tangible sign of how far the West
African country had come.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously
to lift an arms embargo on rebel groups that
was imposed 13 years ago to support a
peace deal that ended a devastating war.
It was the last punitive measure in force
from a sweeping series of sanctions that
had included travel bans, assets freezes and
a ban on lumber and diamond exports.
US Deputy Ambassador David Pressman said
the decision showed "how far Liberia has
come" in its transition to peace and marked
the first time since 1992 that the country
was not under UN sanctions.
Liberia's charge d'affaires George Patten
told the council that sanctions had helped
stabilize the country and that the
government was now ready to take steps to
beef up security.
"Targeted sanctions in the context of Liberia
have been very constructive," said Patten.
With the international measures now all
lifted, Liberia has adopted gun-control
legislation and is taking steps to strengthen
control of its borders, he said.
The United Nations is also drawing down its
peacekeeping mission in Liberia, UNMIL,
which now has around 3 700 troops and
police on the ground from its high point of
15 000.
The UNMIL mission helped Liberia during
the deadly Ebola outbreak that killed
thousands and brought the fragile health
care system to its knees.
Civil wars
The end of sanctions on Liberia came a few
weeks after the council lifted the last
remaining measures against Ivory Coast.
There is a sharp debate within the council
on whether sanctions are a useful tool, with
China, Russia and Venezuela arguing that
they often fail to encourage better
behaviour.
Pressman argued that the council "must be
creative and courageous in its sanction
design," and pointed to the timber and
diamond export bans in Liberia as a
pressure tactic that could be applied to other
conflicts.
Liberia has spent a decade recovering from
two ruinous back-to-back civil wars that ran
from 1989 to 2003, leaving a quarter of a
million people dead and the economy in
tatters.
Liberia's ex-president Charles Taylor is
serving a 50-year sentence in a British jail
for war crimes for his role in backing
militias that rampaged across Sierra Leone
during its civil war.
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