LIBERIA: UN troops will take tough action to stop violence disrupting Liberia's first post-war elections in October, the start of a recovery process that will require years of outside help, a top UN official said.
Alan Doss, the new head of the UN's Liberia mission, said the peacekeeping force - one of the UN's biggest, with around 15,000 soldiers including a sizeable Irish contingent (see panel) - would "react robustly" to any effort to destabilise the polls and their aftermath.
Hopes are high in the crumbling capital Monrovia, a hotchpotch of shantytowns and burnt-out buildings, that new, democratically elected leaders will quickly rebuild a country shattered by 14 years of civil war.
But some fear hardcore members of Liberia's former warring factions are still sitting on sizeable stores of weapons, despite a UN disarmament process.
"We are doing and will continue to do cordon and search operations based on intelligence tip-offs, where we go and raid premises to recover any hidden caches," said Mr Doss, who took up his post last week.
More than 20 presidential hopefuls are set to run in the October 11th poll. They include international soccer star George Weah, former rebel leader Sekou Conneh, veteran opposition politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Roland Massaquoi, a former minister regarded as a protege of exiled former president Charles Taylor.
Founded by freed American slaves more than 150 years ago, Liberia is one of the world's poorest countries.
Helping the new government restore security and fight poverty will require international commitment extending well beyond the elections, Mr Doss said.
"Our experience in many other countries has shown that it would be a mistake to have an election, declare victory and leave. Time is needed to stabilise the situation, to give space to the incoming administration.
"Poverty is pervasive, the productive base of the economy has been destroyed. None of that can be fixed with the best will in the world in a few months," he added.
Liberia's war killed about 250,000 people and spawned a generation of trigger-happy soldiers, including many children barely able to handle a gun.
It left the country with no functioning schools or hospitals, and the capital is still without mains electricity two years after the end of the conflict.