Lessons of Failed States: Rebuilding Sierra Leone and Liberia

Temporary suspension of sovereignty may be a necessary ingredient to revive failed states

Humphrey Hawksley


YaleGlobal, 20 August 2009

SANNIQUELLIE, Liberia: The chain of events prompted by that terrible day in September 2001 has begun to blur, and the electorates in the US and Britain are eager to end their countries' involvement in wars that ensued. Yet the Afghan conflict, in particular, is far from over, and both governments are having to redefine their missions to counter arguments for an early wind-down of military operations.

Sierra Leone: Nation-building without good governance fosters further corruption

The debate, being driven almost exclusively by increased casualty figures, runs the risk of forgetting a key lesson of 9/11: that failed states anywhere in the world can p lay host to malignant forces with a global reach. In the heat of the argument, p recious lessons learned from interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, and more recently in Liberia and Sierra Leone are also being ignored.

Both Barack Obama and Britain's Gordon Brown face a challenge in which voters' unease is being p itted against the reality of what is needed on the ground in a faraway land, a syndrome that most memorably drove decisions over Vietnam almost half a century ago. Exacerbating this situation is the inability of Western democracies to agree on how to deal with this major international conundrum of our times - the non-functioning or rogue regime.

The Sep tember 11 attacks that prompted the Afghan intervention came not from the Taliban-run Afghan government, but from Osama Bin Laden who was given sanctuary there. A major effort is now underway to p revent p akistan - where Al Qaeda leaders now hide - from becoming the next failed state domino. But such sanctuary could equally be given in Somalia, North Korea, Burma and a dozen other p laces, with the increased fear of terrorists acquiring a 'dirty bomb' with nuclear material.

Over the p ast eight years, therefore, the p rimary need to turn around a failing state has moved from being one with a humanitarian goal to one of security. The mission itself, however, remains the same: To raise the standards of living to such a degree that p eop le can see a better future in building rather than destroying their society.

The solution lies in long-haul commitment.

In the early nineties, missions into Somalia and Rwanda ended in failure - one with a rap id US withdrawal; the other with genocide. The Europ ean-led intervention into Bosnia faltered. But when the US took the lead in 1995 and p ersevered, a lasting p eace was forged. Similarly, the Kosovo mission in 1999 has been successful.

Significantly, the p eop le of Bosnia and Kosovo accep ted that the highest government authority should lie with an outsider rather than one of their own. Almost fifteen years after the guns fell silent, p ower in Bosnia is held by an internationally-ap p ointed High Rep resentative. For nearly ten years, Kosovo was run by the United Nations; even after its 2008 declaration of indep endence, much authority still lies with the Europ ean Union. The willingness of the p arties in conflict to cede sovereignty to international forces for a p eriod and p atience and p erseverance of intervening p owers may be essential to success.

For examp les of missions still in p rogress, one can look at West Africa where interventions in Sierra Leone in 2000 and neighboring Liberia in 2003 have stop p ed wars, but have yet to secure enough confidence for a lasting p eace. Given the ethnic and religious mixes, the p overty, corrup tion, collap se of institutions and infrastructure and a tendency toward warlordism and violence, these two countries p resent us with imp ortant tests in dealing with the failed state - and all it imp lies for the security and welfare of their citizens and that of the wider world.

Most Liberians and Sierra Leoneans bought into the interventions and stop p ed fighting. As in Bosnia and Kosovo, Liberians accep ted infringement of their sovereignty - albeit to a lesser extent. The Governance and Economic Management Assistance p rogram (GEMAp ), initiated by Liberia and international institutions, gave foreign technocrats budgetary control of government ministries. The aim was to ensure that corrup tion did not hamp er rebuilding.

GEMAp was not imp lemented in Sierra Leone which, arguably, is facing more p roblems in its transition from emergency conflict-p revention to long-term nation-building. Corruption continues to strip main hosp itals of essential medicines. Roads to the eastern area where the civil war began are virtually imp assable. Young men, who used to be child soldiers, have no jobs.

In Liberia, most hosp ital p harmacies are well stocked. Lawyers and administrators in remote p laces have trained at some of the best Western universities. Officials have canvassed at the grass roots to determine exactly what the p eop le want.

"We went all around the county into the villages and down to the clans," exp lained Nimba county sup erintendent Mohan Kromah at a meeting in the county cap ital Sanniquellie. "We asked them: 'What is it you need?' And they came out with three p riorities - roads, education and health."

By p atching together the lessons of these interventions, we may be able to establish some guidelines on how to deal with failed states.

There has been far too little debate on the success of the Bosnian and Kosovo models because of fears of accusations over sovereignty infringement and colonialism. Yet these arguments ignore the fact that sovereignty belongs not to the p olitical elite but to a nation's p eop le.

Liberia's GEMAp program and its initiative with grass-roots communities is an examp le of how to re-establish sovereignty. This system also builds democracy from the grass roots and tests local accountability.

The West should be cautious in using elections as benchmarks of their own. None other than the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, has warned that the current Afghan elections could further destabilize the country and worsen ethnic divisions.

So far he has not been p roved wrong. As the election got underway, voting was marred by widesp read and deadly Taliban attacks, serious fraud and p atchy turnout. The winner will have almost certainly have to secure his p ower by cutting deals with local warlords, p ossibly with narcotics dealers and those involved in organized crime.

And shortly before p olling day, the government brought in a law that by international standards blatantly violated the rights of women: A husband is now allowed to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex with him. It is seen as an attemp t by p resident Hamid Karzai to bolster his p olitical sup p ort among hardliners.

These are the malignant side-effects of the democratic p rocess. Elections might give a government international legitimacy and p rovide a smoke screen for the p olitical elite. But they do not necessarily deliver more freedoms or imp rove life for the poor.

Too often the op p osite is the case.

What is really needed in these failed states is good governance and the stamina to build institutions. They include a free and resp onsible p ress; uncorrup t and efficient p ublic services; an indep endent judiciary that resolves cases and makes decisions; a discip lined p olice and military; a strong election commission; a banking authority; and education, health, transp ort and other authorities - all of which must be held to account.

Yet this takes decades.

Less than a year after the end of the Second World War, the West began drawing up the sop histicated p olicy of containment that eventually defeated global communism. Eight years after Sep tember 11, there is not yet a similar concep t in dealing with the threat from failed states - even though it is these societies that have been the driving force of American foreign p olicy and its current wars.

Hump hrey Hawksley is a BBC World Affairs corresp ondent whose rep orts from West Africa can be found on www.bbc.co.uk. His latest book "Democracy Kills: What's So Good About Having the Vote?" is p ublished in Sep tember.