Parties Must Ensure Ceasefire – Brumskine Stresses
Saturday, October 31, 2009 1:58January 4, 2003
Monrovia
Potential Presidential front-runner Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine has urged participants to the pending Bamako Conference to ensure that the Liberian Government and rebels agree to a cease?fire.
He said participants must also ensure that Government and the rebels commit themselves to an intervention force in Liberia with a mandate to enforce the ceasefire.
The Presidential aspirant emphasized that the presence of an intervention force in Liberia is sine qua non to the holding of free and fair elections in October.
Cllr. Brumskine made the statement at the installation program of officers of the AME Zion University College Alumni Association over the weekend.
On the topic, “The Road To Bamako,” Cllr. Brumskine said the war between the Government and LURD is bad and wrong, and must be stopped.
He observed that the current conflict does not only harm the political process upon which the people of Liberia have embarked, but it also “demeans our people, reducing them to beggars, leaving them in a state of destitute, and causing them to lose hope in our body politic.”
“The current state of affairs in our country cannot be acceptable to either the Government or LURD, and must not be tolerated by any Liberian. The Government and LURD must, therefore, commit themselves to the Bamako conference, in the interest of our people, as suggested by opposition political parties and civil society,” Cllr. Brumskine said.
He observed that there are some “opposition political parties” that support the views of the Government as to what should attain at Bamako, and there is another group of opposition political parties that recently issue a Press Statement expressing contrary view, adding, “we seek to build democracy in this country so we must understand that it is healthy for us to disagree, even if some “opposition politicians” sound more like the Government than true opposition.”
To achieve the desire objectives from Bamako, the Presidential aspirant said “the conference should be focused on ending the war through the negotiation of an immediate ceasefire between the combatants, and the deployment of an international security force to monitor the ceasefire, disarm combatants, and provide an enabling environment to facilitate the holding of free and fair elections.”
Liberian stakeholders are expected to attend peace conference In Bamako, Mali. The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) has designated President Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali as mediator.
This decision was endorsed by the International Contact Group on Liberia (ICGL) at its meeting in New York at the United Nations Headquarters on February 28, 2003.