President Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will formally close the Liberia Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration Program (DDRR) on Tuesday July 21, 2009. The closing ceremony which is scheduled to commence at 10 AM will be held at the centennial Memorial Pavilion on Ashmun Street, Monrovia.

An exhibition showcasing the handiwork of DDRR beneficiaries and the achievements of the program will take place at the same venue and will run until July 24, 2009. The DDRR program was crafted as an outcome of the 2003 Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Accra, Ghana, and implemented in conformity with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1509.

The program was implemented in two phases: (1) During the Disarmament and Demobilization (DD) component thousands of arms including heavy weapons and million of ammunitions were collected from former combatants of fighting forces.

The former fighters received a safety net allowance to facilitate their transition from disarmament t to Reintegration. (2) The Rehabilitation and Reintegration (RR) component provided education, vocational skills and agricultural training for almost one hundred thousand ex-combatants.

DDRR has been hailed as a success story because of the space it provided for the elections and the introduction of measures to sustain the peace and transition to recovery and development. Among the partners that collaborated with the National Commission on Disarmament and Demobilization (NCDDRR) are UNMIL, UNDP, EC and USAID. Others are: Sweden, Norway, United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Ireland and Denmark and Norway.

Tuesday's program will be attended by members of the cabinet, the judiciary, the legislature, the diplomatic corps, representatives of the International Community and NGOs.

Abuse of Power - PUL Describes Senate Rejection of Gongloe

The Press Union of Liberia has described as contradiction and abuse of power the reasons given by the Liberian Senate for the rejection of Labor Minister designate Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe.

The Union says while it does not wish to question the wisdom of the Senate, it is worried that the Senators would choose to punish the former Solicitor General on account of the performance of his constitutional duties as the Government's Chief Prosecutor for which he was confirmed by the very Senate.

PUL observed that if the former Solicitor General was wrong for prosecuting a member of the Senate who was in conflict with the law, then the Senators should as well begin to make laws that will immune them from prosecution because there is no guarantee that the next Solicitor General will not prosecute them if they were accused of violating the laws of the country.

The Union believes that the Senate should feel vindicated that it handed over one of its members to face justice and he was acquitted, but instead the Senate is getting even with the prosecutor. PUL also dismissed as weak and sheer vendetta the argument that Cllr. Gongole's brother serves at the Labor Ministry and therefore he could not be confirmed as Minister in the same ministry.

If this reason is legally and morally correct, PUL calls on the Senate to also begin a radical sweep to rid the government of this act of nepotism that is so visible in the government including the legislature. The PU urges democratic forces not to allow this act of the Senate to pass unnoticed because it has propensity to erode the representative democracy Liberians seek to nurture.

"We cannot afford to subvert the aspirations of the people for democratic governance of the state," the Union added.