Washington, DC — Charles Brumskine wants to be president of Liberia, but for the moment the country is governed by an interim authority that was constituted according to last year's peace accord, which brought an end to the country's civil war and the reign of Charles Taylor as president. In this exchange with AllAfrica's Reed Kramer, Brumskine, 52, reflects on this week's international donor conference for Liberia in New York. The meeting at the United Nations on February 5 and 6 will bring together senior representatives of Liberia's transitional government, including the chairman, Gyude Bryant, along with officials from donor governments and international institutions, including the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
What do you hope will come out of the donor conference?
We expect the conference to set the stage for raising funds for the reconstruction of our country, and this would be in addition to funds ($445 million) already appropriated by the United States Congress for UN and related activities in Liberia.
Jehovah God has been good to us; indeed we are a blessed people! I am grateful that Liberia remains the focus of international attention - but in a positive way, unmatched by any other period in our history. Our darkest period has just ended, the largest United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the world today is assigned to Liberia, and we are about to be the beneficiary of a donors conference co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
Our challenge, as a people, is to harness the goodwill of the international community to build a strong civil foundation for demilitarizing Liberian politics, rehabilitating our society, and setting the stage for a new economic order in Liberia. We must design systematic programs for good governance to establish justice, ensure domestic peace and regional stability, and promote the general welfare of all our people. This must be our shared vision for our country.
Of course, no effort should be spared to avoid the error of equating Taylor's departure with Liberia's successful embarkation on the flight to reconnect with its vision. There is a delicate balance between stifling the growth of democracy and once again breeding autocracy. As we pursue the desirable objective of maintaining domestic peace, we have to avoid derailing our peace process.
Already, there have been calls for the ouster of the interim chairman, Gyude Bryant. What is your reaction to that?
Politicians, factional leaders, and members of civil society who constitute our transitional governing authority, or are otherwise associated with it, must not squander the goodwill of the international community and once again dash the hopes of the Liberian people.
Whoever alleges a violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has an obligation to refer the issue to the international community - they are the final arbiters of such matters, as provided in Article XXXVI of the CPA. That is what we agreed to in Accra, and, as a starter for the new Liberia, we must learn to live by the rule of law, even when we perceive others as being in breach of it.
It is wrong for Lurd and Model [two warring factions that fought to oust Taylor] to call for the removal of Chairman Bryant. He is chairman until January 2006, when an elected president will be sworn into office. Instead of seeking to remove Chairman Bryant from office, parties to the CPA should concentrate on strengthening the institutions of government to ensure that no official transgresses the CPA or any other law of Liberia with impunity.
Support for the transitional government does not mean that one should not disagree with them or even criticize any of its officials, but this is one of those times when Liberians should come together, close ranks, and work to make the donors conference a success.
What should international donors like the United States do for Liberia?
With a foreign debt portfolio of about $2.8 billion outstanding and in arrears, Liberia's economic future is challenging. Therefore, in addition to all the pledges of grants and aid that Liberia may receive at the Conference, I hope the transitional government makes a serious effort to secure commitments from donor nations for debt forgiveness.
The Liberian economy has performed at less than fifty percent of its pre-war capacity for more than a decade and currently has limited income-generating capacity. But after fourteen years of war and mismanagement, the country has a heavy burden for social spending and economic re-engineering to undertake.
Even if unrealistic growth rates and economic performance are assumed, Liberia has, at most, a limited capacity to repay current debt. Along with debt forgiveness, I hope donors realize that any assistance that includes more loans would simply add to the current debt burden and stifle growth.
Should debt forgiveness be tied to social spending, as it has in other situations?
Yes, it should be tied to funding for education and health services, which donors can monitor . With a small population willing to work and many of our people still trying to return to their homes, economic development is the best opportunity that exists for creating a stable country. People busy trading with each other are too busy to kill each other!
The transitional government should adopt a comprehensive approach to socio-economic development [that includes] adequate funding for schools and health services, especially for those Liberians who can least afford them at this difficult time in our history. These funds can be replenished from the savings of debt forgiveness rather than additional donor funding in perpetuity.
To break with the past, when extractive industries were the major contributor to GDP, a new paradigm that decentralizes economic investments from highly volatile commodity sectors is required. In this respect, donors can be very useful by establishing domestic pools of funds to deliver credit. Micro-finance programs should be established utilizing the aid infrastructure that NGOs now have in place. Banks that are healthy should be re-capitalized to provide commercial loans to encourage Liberians, especially those returning home, who have ideas, enthusiasm, but need capital to acquire a stake in their country.
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Our history bears witness of the need for building democratic institutions, if we are to advance the spread of liberal democratic values and practices in our civic life. This aspiration is universal among Liberians today. We are war-wearied and optimistic about our future. However, we have not governed ourselves in a systematic and civil way for longer than we would like to remember. This is why it is important that some of the funding given to Liberia be allocated to building the capacity of civil society and overhauling the institutions of government - training Liberians in the rudiments of good governance, regardless of whether they represent political parties, civil society, or warring factions.
Liberia needs a new start. I hope we can make the best of the donors conference by ensuring that resources realized there from be well-utilized. Otherwise, the resources we receive will fail to deliver the results we are all seeking.
