I. SUMMARY

Liberian government forces fighting against rebels from the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) have committed war crimes and other serious human rights abuses, including summary executions of scores of civilians, widespread rape of girls and women, and looting and burning of villages. Hundreds of civilians have been forcefully conscripted and sent to the battlefront in an arbitrary manner, without advance notice or any set procedures, and often with little or no military training. The LURD forces have also carried out serious abuses, although to a lesser extent, including summary executions of alleged government collaborators, rape, and the forced recruitment of civilians, including child soldiers.

Only five years after Liberia began a shaky transition to peace, the country is once again immersed in war. Tens of thousands of Liberians have been forced to flee their homes as fierce fighting continues in the northwest, where a rebel incursion began in July 2000. This incursion sparked the fifth serious outbreak of violence since the national elections of 1997 that ended a seven-year civil war. Rebel attacks closer to the capital, Monrovia, in early 2002 caused new outflows of refugees and internal displacement. This prompted President Charles Taylor to declare a state of emergency on February 8, 2002, and precipitated the arrest of hundreds of suspected LURD supporters in Monrovia.

Scores of testimonies taken by Human Rights Watch from June 2001 through March 2002 in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, provide compelling evidence that both Liberian government forces and LURD forces have committed war crimes and other gross abuses of human rights against civilians. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than three hundred victims and witnesses of the abuses, as well as Liberian army and Ministry of Defense officials and LURD commanders.

The picture that emerges is one of government troops and pro-government militias summarily killing, torturing and abusing civilians, raping women and girls, and abducting civilians for forced labor and fighting in the northwest. They have systematically looted and burned towns, and in some cases government troops at checkpoints have blocked displaced civilians from moving to safety. Government soldiers systematically extort money and other goods from those seeking refuge. Citing the rebel threat, the Liberian government is remilitarizing society-remobilizing ex-combatants, and permitting the proliferation of militia groups. The government has forcibly recruited hundreds of young men in a manner not consistent with their rights. There are no publicly established and clear criteria and procedures governing conscription, while recruits are not given any advance warning of conscription, any indication of how long they will be forced to serve, nor any idea of where they will be taken for training or for combat. In many cases, they effectively receive no training before they are deployed. In the course of combat, they are often ordered to commit human rights violations.

LURD rebel forces have also committed gross abuses against civilians, including summary killings, abduction, rape, abuses in the context of forced recruitment of men and boys, and forced labor. Rebel abuses appear to be less widespread and systematic than those committed by government forces. A large proportion of LURD fighters were previously affiliated to the two factions of the rebel United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO) during the pre-1997 civil war.

After five years in office, President Charles Taylor's government continues to function without accountability, exacerbating the divisions and resentments fueled by the war. Taylor has steadily consolidated and centralized power by rewarding loyalists and intimidating critics. State power is regularly misused by high-ranking officials to further the political objectives of the executive branch, to avoid accountability, and for personal enrichment. State institutions that could provide an independent check on the Taylor administration, such as the judiciary, the legislature, the human rights commission, and the commission on reconciliation, remain weak and cowed. In particular, the National Human Rights Commission, created by the government in 1997, suffers from a lack of qualified personnel, inadequate funding and a flawed mandate. Independent voices in the media and the human rights community are steadily being silenced.

The renewal of war in Liberia threatens to further undermine prospects for sustainable peace in the wider region, known as the Mano River Union, encompassing Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Over the past decade, the governments of these three countries have frequently harbored each other's rebel groups and supported cross-border incursions, causing widespread instability. Charles Taylor, both as leader of the former rebel group known as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and as president of Liberia since 1997, bears primary responsibility for much of the long-standing aggression and violence in the sub-region, both in Liberia and in particular through his support for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. At this time, the government of Guinea is also playing a destabilizing role in providing considerable logistical and some military support to the LURD rebels that operate from Guinea. Guinea's support to the LURD intensified after the Liberian government, assisted by Sierra Leonean rebel fighters and Guinean dissidents, launched a series of cross-border attacks into Guinea in late 2000 and early 2001.

Additionally, as efforts continue to consolidate a fragile peace in Sierra Leone, hundreds of former fighters in Sierra Leone's civil war, both former rebel and government combatants, have been crossing into Liberia to fight as mercenaries either for the Liberian government or for LURD rebel forces. Many former fighters from the Sierra Leonean rebel RUF, which received direct support from Charles Taylor for years despite its grossly abusive record, are now integrated into the Liberian government forces and have been implicated in atrocities against Liberian civilians. Since at least January 2001, as the civil war in Sierra Leone has gradually come to an end, hundreds of former fighters from the Sierra Leonean government-affiliated civil defense militias (such as the ethnic Mende militia known as the Kamajors), from the former members of the Sierra Leonean army who rebelled to form the West Side Boys militia, and even from the RUF, have been recruited as mercenaries for the LURD. As a result, the border area between Liberia and Sierra Leone threatens to become increasingly unstable. There is an urgent need to ensure border security to prevent the movement of combatants between Sierra Leone and Liberia, while allowing refugees fleeing the Liberian conflict to cross and obtain effective protection in Sierra Leone.

The spreading conflict in Liberia presents an ominous prospect for the year ahead. The present situation raises concerns that there will be a further escalation in human rights abuses against civilians as the area of fighting widens, causing more death and displacement in Liberia. Moreover, the fragile peace in Sierra Leone could easily be destabilized as a result of a spillover of the Liberian war, as growing numbers of Liberian refugees and combatants cross into neighboring countries. This is a dire prospect indeed for the people of a region that has already suffered so much war, wanton abuse and human suffering over more than a decade.

Human Rights Watch is calling for urgent and sustained action by the international community to help resolve the current conflict, and to insist on respect for human rights, before Liberia's war spirals to consume new areas and destabilizes the wider region.

In particular, two significant developments could play an important role in determining how the next chapter of this sub-regional conflict unfolds: In May 2002, the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council will determine whether to renew an arms embargo and sanctions against the Liberian government imposed one year ago in response to Liberian government support for the RUF in Sierra Leone. Also in May 2002, the United States (U.S.) government will commence a military assistance program of U.S. $3 million to the government of Guinea.

Human Rights Watch did not investigate current links between President Charles Taylor's government and the RUF in Sierra Leone, which were the basis for the U.N. sanctions imposed against Liberia. However, we have documented in this report very serious abuses carried out against the civilian population of Liberia both by Liberian government security forces and by the LURD, as well as the detrimental impact of the Liberian conflict on sub-regional peace and security. For this reason we believe that, the arms embargo against the Liberian government should be maintained, and extended to cover the LURD. In addition, the U.N. Security Council should renew the mandate of the Panel of Experts established in 2000 to monitor violations of the arms embargo imposed on the RUF, and extend its brief to investigate all illicit arms flows into the sub-region.

Our report also raises serious concerns about Guinea's support of the LURD, and we urge the U.N. Security Council to mandate the Panel of Experts to investigate Guinea's role in destabilizing Liberia and to make recommendations as to measures to end their support for armed insurgents, including the possibility of an arms embargo. Human Rights Watch also believes that all military assistance to Guinea, such as that planned by the U.S. to commence in May 2002, should be conditioned on an end to support for the LURD.