Ex-Liberian enemies to join U.S.-trained army

Liberian leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says she expects U.N. peacekeepers to stay for two or three more years.
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- Liberians who once fought as rebels and soldiers in this West African nation's wars are fighting again: for the chance to serve side by side in a new U.S.-trained army charged with keeping the peace after U.N. troops go home.

Scuffles among eager ex-combatants standing in surging lines outside the army's recruitment center in Monrovia have broken out daily over the past month. Peacekeepers swung clubs to restore order.

"When I joined the rebels, I did it for my country," said 20-year-old Tanu Soui, who slept on a gritty sidewalk outside the recruiting center one night to keep his place in line. "Now I want to serve the new Liberia."

A spot in the army also means a job in a country whose 3 million people are beset by 80 percent unemployment. Rumors have swirled about salaries beginning at $90 per month, though no pay scale has officially been announced.

Reconstituting the army and building a professional police force are crucial first steps if Liberia is to escape the cycle of coups and civil war.

"All too often in Liberia's recent past, the police and army served the country's ruling cliques, not its people. This all but guaranteed civil war," said Doug Coffman, a U.N. spokesman in Liberia.

The new army will number just 2,000 soldiers, while around 100,000 rebels and former government troops were demobilized under a U.N.-backed disarmament campaign after the war's end in 2003.

Initially planned at 4,000-strong, the new army's size was reduced due to what the United Nations called the government's "acute budgetary constraints." Diamond-rich Liberia's economy was devastated by back-to-back wars that began in 1989, leaving the nation founded in the mid-1800s by freed American slaves dependent on aid.

Top U.N. officials also have said the army should be small because its main purpose should be protecting the country's borders from outside aggressors. But in a country awash with tens of thousands of unemployed ex-fighters and a history of civil war, the main threat may come from within.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, sworn in this month as Liberia's first postwar president, told The Associated Press in a recent interview she expects the 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers now helping maintain order to stay for only two or three more years.

In neighboring war-battered Sierra Leone, peacekeepers wrapped up a five-year mission last month, leaving behind an army 13,000 strong.

To train Liberia's troops, the U.S. State Department hired DynCorp International, a Texas-based U.S. defense contractor that has worked with armies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One day after Sirleaf took office January 16, DynCorp began screening recruits between the ages of 18 to 45.

With retired American drill instructors barking commands, DynCorp plans to put the recruits through 15 weeks of basic training they hope will make the troops forget that they once fought each other.

"In all militaries, people come from different backgrounds and Liberia is no different," said Renee Hubka, a DynCorp spokeswoman. "The training is meant to break you down and build you up into a cohesive group."

In addition, the United Nations is training a 3,500-strong police force at a cost of $8.5 million. So far, 1,800 new police are on the streets, though they aren't allowed to carry guns yet.

After passing an aptitude test and then a fitness course, potential army recruits undergo drug and HIV screening. If they pass, they'll have their names and pictures published throughout the country, giving Liberians one year to pick out any that have committed grave rights abuses.

The old army had a weak command structure, with soldiers as young as 10 taking orders from boys just a few years older. Many officers had inflated titles -- some declared themselves generals -- a potential source of conflict in the new force.

Potential recruits say they are eager to put their differences aside and help cement peace.

Magotshall N. Davis joined Liberia's army in 1997 at the age of 14 under then-President Charles Taylor, who like other faction leaders employed child soldiers in his ranks.

Davis fought rebels who swept to the edge of Monrovia in 2003, shelling the city and forcing Taylor to step down under a peace deal that paved the way for elections Sirleaf won in November.

Davis said he saw no problem serving in an army with men he once fought. "We are all brothers now," he said.

In a country now headed by Africa's first democratically elected female head of state, women, too, are trying to join army ranks. Some Liberian women took up arms and became formidable fighters during the country's wars.

When Daniel Dorloa, 48, told his wife he would re-enlist, "she said I want to join too. ... We all need to rebuild our country," he recounted.

As 31-year-old Victoria Dorloa made it inside the recruitment center for tests, her husband was left outside, pleading with his fellow Liberians not to cut into the chaotic line.