At Camp Clara, Irish UN troops provide a secure presence amid the constant threat of attack, writes Conor Lally in Monrovia.
At a lookout post where Liberia's St Paul River meets the Atlantic Ocean, Private Paddy Egan slings his Styer assault rifle over his shoulder and wipes the sweat from his eyes. It's not yet noon and the temperature is just over 40 degrees and rising. The humidity is close to 80 per cent. The young Offaly man is suffering. But he says he loves the military life and the travel opportunities it presents.
"I've no ties back home. It's great to be seeing parts of the world that very few people would ever havethe chance to get to."
The 26-year-old from Athlone's 6th Battalion is one of 12,000 international troops working under the UN now stationed in Liberia. The UN plans to use the deployment to steer the troubled nation out of one of the bloodiest and most savage periods in modern African history and onto a solid post-conflict footing.
Today Egan is on guard duty at the mouth of the St Paul, a picturesque beach where the waves crash onto the dunes. The spot marks the back of Camp Clara, the Irish army's headquarters approximately 12 km outside the centre of Monrovia, Liberia's capital.
"When we got here first we had nothing. No way of cooking, no tents to stay in. Even the grass at the camp was six feet high. We were fairly flat to the boards for the first three or four weeks," he says.
Camp Clara is situated within the grounds of the former 600-room Hotel Africa. It is here that the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, spent some of his final days clinging to power. Taylor regularly stayed at one the most luxurious private villas at Hotel Africa. He entertained his lady friends at the villa and cooked up his multi-million-dollar illegal diamond and logging deals with the hotel's Dutch owner Gus van Kouwenhoven.
But Taylor's day has gone. He fled Liberia last August as the country descended into anarchy. He is suspected of lining his pockets from fuelling Sierra Leone's civil war, supplying arms to warring factions in exchange for diamonds. And it is widely believed in Liberia that government funds regularly found their way into Taylor's private bank accounts. He is currently in exile in Nigeria.
Taylor's villa is now used as a bar three nights a week by the Irish troops in Camp Clara. They have filled with concrete the space his Jacuzzi used to occupy in the lavish toilet before it was ripped from the floor by looters.
Taylor's legacy won't be so easy to shift from the traumatised collective Liberian psyche. But the Irish troops you speak to insist their presence here and that of the rest of the UN troops is already making a difference.
The first Irish delegation left Ireland for the war-torn west African nation last November. The deployment now numbers around 430. They provide a 24-hour, on-call, rapid reaction force, which will go to the assistance of any other UN troops who run into difficulty in Liberia. Their other goal is a simple one: to maintain a visible presence on patrol in Monrovia and the regions in order to undermine, and eventually destroy, the grip exerted by rebel factions on society. In doing so they, and the rest of the UN force, have effectively replaced the rebels at the top of the food chain.
The Irish soldiers rise from their tents at Camp Clara at 6 a.m. every day. Breakfast finishes at 7 a.m., when the day's work begins. Some of the party go on patrol in their UN vehicles in Monrovia and around the country. Some patrols venture deep into the jungle and last for up to six days, often covering territory where UN patrols have never gone before. Others are assigned tasks at the camp.
Sunday is a rest day when all non-essential duties are suspended. Premiership soccer is beamed in live most nights. The Army will spend at least one year here, and has an option to stay for a further 12 months. But few of the Irish troops expect our involvement to end next year.
Sgt Christy Rice, a father of three from Dublin, but based in Mullingar, has been in Liberia since early December. He says while the Irish contingent has been fired on just once, last December, the constant threat of coming under attack is very real. He served with the UN monitoring agency, UNIMOG, in Baghdad during the first Gulf War and he also spent time in Lebanon. Both tours of duty have taught him that danger is never far away in conflict zones.
"You get a period of lull followed by a period of activity so it's a case of wait and see. I would be surprised if we stay here for two years and nothing happens. This country has been at war for 14 years; a lot of people just want an end to it. But for the rebel factions, every time we go out on a patrol up country their power is undermined in the eyes of the villagers we meet. They are losing their power and any ways of making money through the conflict. The big question is whether they just accept that or whether something else happens."
His family, he says, is worried about him. "My wife, Bridget, seems to get more anxious the more I go away. I can speak to her by phone from the camp any day I want, so that makes a big difference."
Another soldier, who prefers not to be named, says Liberia's boy soldiers are probably the most difficult issue encountered by Irish troops on patrol. "We've seen them a good few times, they'll have been smoking marijuana. They don't seem to have much fear and certainly wouldn't be intimidated by us, so it's something you have to watch."
Sgt Jackie Wykes is from Athlone where she is stationed at the town's barracks. Her husband, Sgt Jimmy Kelly, is based in Longford. Both are serving in Liberia and in doing so are the first married couple to serve together on an Irish overseas military mission.
"I got married last June but I wouldn't exactly call this a honeymoon," she laughs. "Because the two of us are here it makes a big difference. I live in the female quarters and he lives in the male quarters in different parts of the base. But we get to spend plenty of time together. When I first arrived I would have been nervous enough simply because you don't know what to expect. At first when we moved into the camp it was like walking onto a football pitch, there was absolutely nothing here. So the first few weeks spent setting up and doing the patrol duties at the same time were probably the hardest."
Army chaplain Fr Brendan Madden has swapped his usual day job at Baldonnel Aerodrome for a tour of duty in Liberia.
"I was one of the first out here and it was extremely tough. But the camaraderie got me through those early days. Conditions have improved a little bit every day and it's reasonably comfortable now, although it is very hot and you don't get used to that." As a priest he is one of just two men who do not carry weapons, Camp Clara's doctor being the other. He acts as an intermediary between local groups and the troops.
Much of his time is spent at the Missionaries of Charity hospice and clinic, run by the Sisters of Mother Teresa in Claratown in downtown Monrovia. The centre takes in malnourished children and treats them until they are well enough to leave. It is also home for some of Liberia's estimated 300,000 HIV sufferers.
"Some of the Irish soldiers that I have brought here have found it very difficult to take," says Father Madden. "They've said they'll do anything to help the place, but that they don't want to visit it again, and you'd have to respect that. Some of the soldiers have brought books and radios for those dying from HIV and even a Gameboy for one patient. The Army will have a role in extending the building by putting another floor on it in the next few months.
"We had a case of a young girl who was just a few weeks old being left at the gate because she was suffering from spina bifida," he adds. "One of the soldiers was going to try to foster the baby, Mary. She would have needed around eight to 10 operations back in Ireland and he and his wife were going to become the child's parents for that period. She never made it, she died. But I think his approach was typical of the way some of the guys have become involved here."