Ahmad Tejan Kabbah

Transcription

Ahmad Tejan Kabbah: Mr. Chairperson, distinguished, faculty and students, of the Columbia University, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I thank this school of international and public affairs for the invitation at this forum and for your kind words of introduction. I understand that last year, Columbia University celebrated its 250th anniversary. Let me extend, albeit belatedly, sincere congratulations to the entire university community. It is fascinating that a 250 year old, at 250 years old, Columbia is still going strong and maintaining its exemplary standard of academic excellence.\ There are few countries whose leaders in public life, business, science, and humanities have not had some association with Columbia University. Indeed, there is hardly any country that has not benefited from Columbia's outstanding contribution to knowledge. Over they years, many (inaudible) have been fortunate enough to be a part of this fine institution, both as students and staff. Incidentally, my son obtained his degree in this university. It is an honor to be here at Columbia University and to speak at the World Leaders Forum this morning. I thank you for this singular honor. This form serves as a center for open dialogue with world leaders, but I believe it also provides a friendly environment for learning for learning. In other words, it provides some opportunity for the audience some lessons learned in such areas as war and peace, economic and social development, and international cooperation. We in Sierra Leone have learned many challenges, lessons over the past 14 years. I would like to share with you a few, mainly, conflict management, and post conflict development.\ It is our experience in resolving conflicts and literally building a bridge between post conflict recovery and sustainable development. While taking you through conflict, we'll reflect finally on development in this weapon free comfort zone of Columbia University. I look forward to learning through exchange of views on these matters. You may be aware that Sierra Leone has endured a decade long internal conflict in the 1990's that unleashed a campaign of unimaginable bloodshed and devastation. I will not recount here in full detail the extraordinary brutality and immense suffering visited upon the people of my country during the course of the conflict, which left hundreds of thousands dead and many more grotesquely maimed. The conflict also devastated our infrastructure. As a result, this senseless violence and wanton destruction, the conflict in Sierra Leone became internationally known for its horrific atrocities, particularly the widespread amputation of civilians and sexual violence perpetrated against innocent women and children. Prior to the outbreak of the armed conflict, Sierra Leone was not only a developing country, but also one of the least developed in the world. It still is. Here, the 11-year rebel conflict only exacerbated an already fragile economy. However, the killing and maiming were abated and the guns were silenced by our commit to end the conflict and the will of the people for a return to democratic governance. Today, one of our greatest achievements is our adherence to the tenants of democracy and the rule of law. Upon assuming the presidency in March 1996, my own personal experience in post conflict recovery, as a UNDP representative and resident coordinator of the United Nation system is East and South Africa was put to the test in my own country. I inherited a severely battered nation. I was conscious of my political, constitutional, and also moral obligation and strive hard and give every effort to bring an early end to the war. The population had already become war weary and in spirit of my knowledge of the state of our military and its inability to prosecute the war against the rebels, I made the enduring, the ending of the war, my campaign pledge. I made this pledge in the belief, by negotiations or sound reasoning, I would be able to talk the rebels out of their hostile activities against a population and persuade them to enter into negotiations with a few concluding peace agreements with them. In fact, the only option I saw available to me then was to embark on negotiations with the rebels. Accordingly, that is the approach that I pursued immediately after my inauguration, despite the existent problems concerning the capability of the military and the fact that I was elected president against a background of increasing confidence of the eventual ascendancy to power of the rebel group, known as the Revolutionary United Front, RUF. A cross section of my people, including the print media, was against negotiations with the rebels. But I knew that the then army, not the people, had lost the war. And since the people were not competent in the strict sense of the word, I convinced them into talking with the rebels. It was an uphill task. The areas manifests hostility toward my government had been further increased. Insistence on elections before peace. This caused the area a considerable sense of frustration. Both of these factors, though not fatal, will prove the weakening, the baddening position of my government when it entered the *Abidjan peace talks with the (inaudible) in late 1996. In Abidjan, a comprehensive peace agreement was included despite all the acrimony engendered by the rebels during negotiations. The agreement called for, among other things, the total and immediate cessation of hostilities, the disarmament demobilization, and reintegration of all combatants and the provision of amnesty for the (inaudible) members. The people (inaudible) welcomed the signing of this agreement, as they regarded the accord as the end of their woes and suffering and expected that it will restore lasting peace and stability to the country. It soon turned out, however, that the people and the government had in fact been deceived by the (inaudible). The message of the rebel leader, intercepted by the government, only days after the signing of the agreement, clearly showed that the *Ariyaf did not enter the peace negotiations in good faith and had no desire to abide by the term's resulting peace agreement. And that message, for the (inaudible), the rebel leader had communicated with his deputy, the field commander *Sam Bokari, alias Mosquito that he had agreed to participate in negotiation and to sign the peace agreement only as a pretext to relieve himself of the pressure of the international community. But he never intended to abide by its terms. In the same message, he ordered his commanders to resolve hostilities, even with greater ferocity. Indeed, the cease fire, which then prevailed, was then broken by the Ariyaf immediately after the signing on the agreement. A clear indication that the Abidjan agreement was doomed on fail. Attacks on civilians by the Ariyafs stepped up over time. In March 1997, military officers adopted the name Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, in collaboration with Ariyaf rebels, and stages a bloody coup in Fretown, the capital of Sierra Leone. My government went into exile in neighboring Guinea, from where we operated and mobilized international support for the immediate and unconditional restoration of democratic rule. The people of Sierra Leone overwhelming rejoiced and rejected the coup, some with their lives. In response to the Ariyaf in transience and its increasing brutality against civilians, Nigeria led a (inaudible) observer group. Troops launched an offensive in February 1998 to dislodge the *Jaunter. The joint (inaudible) were forced out of Fretown and my government was there after restored. During the intervention, my (inaudible), many of the Farseian area \f0 forces escaped to the remote hinterlands of the country and intensified their activities predominantly in the diamond mining areas. There, they were able to mine diamonds which they exchanged cheaply with weapons, which they armed themselves to the teeth. This enabled them to recoup, to regroup, and attack the capital in January 1999. Slaughtering thousands of civilians and virtually razing the city in a matter of days. This level of mayhem and destruction further awakens (inaudible) general international awareness of the plight of the civilian population. That incursion accelerated the dire need for the peace process. In collaboration with the economic committee of West African states, a course, an international committee was now willing to intervene, at least diplomatically. And they, together, with the government, were not determined to find a workable and lasting solution to the rebel (inaudible) in the country. This led to the commencement of the dialogue, which resulted in the Lomi peace agreement of 1999. The initial stage of the dialogue was set when I was invited to Lo Mien Togo to sign a cease-fire agreement for the rebel leader for the Sanko in March 1999. I did this, I missed a lot of misgivings from the people of Sierra Leone. From the bitter experience they had had regarding (inaudible) attitude to the Abidjan peace accord, they, on the one hand, preferred an all out war against the rebels, and an attainment of peace by their defeat in battle. I, on the other hand, was aware of the handicaps and limitations of the government to proceed that way. I was also aware of the pending restoration of a democratically elected government in Nigeria, as a result of which the continued stay of the Nigerian contingent in Sierra Leone, which was by far the largest, could not be guaranteed. Above all else, I could no longer stomach the killing of innocent Sierra Leonins. Thus, I chose the path of dialogue again. But this time, careful to avoid the pitfalls and weaknesses in the Abidjan peace accord. Along the lines of the Abidjan peace agreement, the Lomi peace accord included a blanket amnesty for competence and provided for disarmament and demobilization and the reintegration of human rights and truth and reconciliation commissions. The parties also agreed to the deployment of a neutral United Nations peacekeeping force. Most notably, it also included a power sharing arrangement among the elected government, the Ariyaf and rebels and the AFRC. The Ariyaf leader for the Sanko was accorded a status that was similar to that of the vice president and chairmanship of the important commission for the management of strategic mineral resources and natural, national reconstruction and development. The MPC, the AFRC leader, *Jonipul Koriman, was appointed chairman of the disarmament and reintegration committee. With these arrangements, expectations were high that Sierra Leone had turned a corner and was on its way to lasting peace and stability.\ On January 18, 2002, Sierra Leonins breathed a sigh of joyous relief. For that memorable day marks the formal end of the brutal conflict. We set ourselves specific goals in pursuit of sustainable peace and national development. We shared the view that a peaceful and sustainable environment, is a (inaudible) for national development and by extension, for achieving the millennium development goals. The starting point was disarmament and reintegration of competence by May 2004, a total of 72,490 competents were disarmed and 71,043 demobilized, including 6,845 child soldiers. By the same period, 55,122 ex competents had received support for their integration into active committee life. Also, most of the formerly, internally displaced persons and refugees where repatriated and resettled. Indeed, the war that's killed our people and ravaged our country had become a thing of the past. However, in order to ensure that the long peace is consolidated, government (inaudible) sustainable reforms in the security sector. The underlying strategy is to transform the security sector so that it is not only capable or responding adequately to threats, to the states, and citizenry, but also to provide the enabling environment to fight poverty and pursues the goals of national development. This is particularly significant as what was once a 17,000 person strong U.N. peacekeeping force. (inaudible) is scheduled to depart Sierra Leone within three months that is by the end of this year. As I pursued the peace process, I was also cognizant of the fact that Sierra Leonins were anxious. Not only to have peace, but also to realize sooner than the later, concrete dividends from this, from the restoration of a democracy, of a democratic government, which they had obtained after much toil and suffering. We were constantly reminding ourselves that lack of development breeds conflict and insecurity. How then, do you keep the peace and maintain security under those circumstances? While regarding peace and security as being paramount, we never abandoned our relief and development responsibilities. To this end, one of the most successful of our post conflict initiatives was the establishment of a national commitment for reconstruction, resettlement, and rehabilitation. The three R's. While it was evidently a response to the humanitarian development goals, in particular, for the rural areas, which bore the brunt of rebel aggression, the NCRRR was in effect a bridge between the demand for immediate humanitarian relief and the equally important need to prepare for a resumption of economic development activities that had been ruthlessly disrupted by rebel war. After all, people cannot remain or depend on humanitarian relief indefinitely. Moving from relief to development, the triple R commission was transformed into the National Commission for Social Action. NACSA. NACSA could be described as the motive force for our post conflict development. It is a showpiece in post conflict transition. While assuming responsibility for the previous reconstruction, resettlement, and rehabilitation programs, NACSA also coordinated funding for projects that promote economic growth and sustainable development. Working directly with local communities, it supports projects and programs in such areas as water and sanitation, shelter, public works, including agriculture, fisheries, education, and micro financing. With almost 1,100 projects implemented, the ultimate objective of NASCA is linked to our poverty reduction strategy. As stated above, even before the war, poverty in Sierra Leone had become endemic and pervasive. By 1990, statistics indicated that those, close to four-fifths of the population lived below the poverty line of $1 a day. In addition to income poverty, a large portion of the population lacked access to basic social services, including health care, education, potable water, and sanitation. The war merely exacerbated the death and severity of poverty, causing the living conditions of the majority to further deteriorate. Following the election in 1996, my government began efforts to combat widespread poverty. We begun by identifying five broad development priorities. One, security and world related issues such as disarmament, immobilization, reintegration, and resettlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Two, education. Three, good governance and justice. Four, agriculture and food security. And five, health, with an emphasis on primary health care. And in order to address these broad developmental priorities, we devised a poverty reduction strategy in the form of an interim poverty reduction strategy paper, which was completed in 2001. This strategy was designed to support the transition from peace keeping to peace building and from relief to an equitable and sustainable development. It calls for a two-phased implementation strategy. A transition period, 2001-02 and a medium term phase, 2003-2005. While the transition period focused on immediate postwar reconstruction, resettlement and security challenges, the medium term phase addressed long-term development strategy for property reduction within the context of the preparation of a full poverty reduction paper, PRSP. In addition, my government also provided for the implementation of a national recovery strategy and (inaudible), which was prepared and launched in October 2002. A full cost on, the consolidation of state authority and peace building, the promotion of reconciliation and the encroachment of human rights. Facilitating, resettlement and reintegration and rebuilding communities facilitating access to previously inaccessible areas and stimulating economic recovery. The NRS freeze represented the combined efforts of government and development partners and essentially served as a bridge between emergency humanitarian assistance and longer term development challenges. Both the IPRSP and the NRS were successfully implemented during 2001-2004 with my government allocating significant budget resources to form critical poverty reduction activities, particularly in the social sectors of health, education, water, and sanitation. This resulted in sustained recovery of the economy during the period 2001-2004. Real GDP grew by 5.4 percent in 2001, 6.3 in 2002, 6.5 in 2003, and 6.4 in 2004. To consolidate these gains, government adopted bold economic and structural reforms geared towards sustaining the recovery and improving overall financial management and service delivery. Other reform measures have included A: improving the strengthing, policy making, budget planning, and execution. B: improving the capacity for accounting and reporting. C: reforming the public procurement process. D: enhancing revenue collection and mechanisms through the creation of a national revenue authority and E: public sector reform generally. In order to achieve greater efficiency in the management of public finances, and to ensure that public enterprises better serve the public of Sierra Leone, we established a public enterprise privatization commission to oversee and monitor the oppression of state enterprises and recommend their privatization where appropriate.\ Beyond that, we have been preoccupied with institutional development as a means of not only expanding the institutional space, but also of modernizing our institutions so that they can provide efficient service. Currently, Sierra Leone is aggressively pursuing a new strategic direction to build towards the MDG targets. It has formulated a 2005-2007 PRSB, which provides bold secturial policies and institutional reforms to achieve economic growth, provide food security, job opportunities, basic social service, and efficient social security nets. It proposes actions to address A: short term living conditions and B: long term causes of conflict and poverty. The poverty reduction strategy paper constitutes Sierra Leone's first step towards achieving the Millennium development goals by 2015. It is (inaudible) toward long-term poverty reduction. It is multidimensional and achievable. As we all know, however, neither the ongoing efforts of my government to achieve a meaningful improvement in the welfare of our people, \f1 \uc0\u8232 \f0 nor our implementation of prudent fiscal and monetary problems can ever be \f1 \uc0\u8232 \f0 achieved if these efforts are not firmly rooted in a solid framework of democratic practices and good governance. That is why we are vigorously pursuing the goals of good governance through several reform measures in improving the performance and integrity of state institutions, fiscal public sector management, and equality of public and political leadership. On my assumption of office, my government immediately set up improving the quality of governance and later set up a governance steering committee under the chairmanship of a member of my cabinet. The committee has concentrated its efforts on rebuilding democratic governance through constitutional and institutional reforms. Decentralization and local government reforms, public sector, and civil service reforms, promotion of human rights, judicial and legal reforms, promotion of accountability and transparency. The reduction of the incidents of corruption and abuse of power. In particular, my government views corruption as an impediment to the promotion of good governance. Accordingly, combating endemic corruption is the cornerstone of our good governance program. We have, for the first time in the history of Sierra Leone, appointed an ombudsman, whose role is to investigate complaints of abuse and capricious action on the part of public officials. Also, for the first time in our history, and way ahead of other sub-Saharan African countries, we have promulgated an anti-corruption act to combat corruption and establish an anti- corruption commission with the mandate to investigate instances of alleged or suspected corruption and to take appropriate action, including recommendations for prosecution. In a bid to stimulate economic development, the rural areas and to extend democratic participation to the grassroots of the population, the government introduced legislation in early 2004 aimed at promoting the centralization of government services and a reestablishment of elected local government councils. This initiative led to the enactment of the Local Government Act in March 2004. Thereafter, local government elections were held nationwide in May \f0 of that year, in which municipal, town and district councils were elected to replace the (inaudible) political appointed management committees that had been in These elections took government closer to the local community and considerably empowered them to take control of the management of their own affairs. Another serious source of concern for my government is that of dealing with the dispensation of justice in Sierra Leone. Accordingly, under the guidance of the chief justice, the entire judicial and legal system is in the process of being completely overhauled. This activity, which is aimed at developing an effecting and efficiently held and judicial system in Sierra Leone is part of the British funded Law Development Reform Project. In line with our commitment, we now have a fully functioning law reform commission, whose mandate is to review all the laws of our country and to make recommendations regarding the need for the (inaudible) amendment or repeal of laws. Further measures have been taken to provide incentive and improve pay and other conditions of service for personnel in the legal service. The cumulative effect of all these, public sector reform initiatives, is that Sierra Leone is gradually becoming the peaceful and wholesome society that it had been known to be at one time in the past. We are trying to position Sierra Leone among the ranks of leading countries in Africa. Leaders in addressing corruption. We will be leaders in human rights. We will be leaders in electoral reform, we will be leaders in (inaudible) security. We must establish this reputation for leadership in order to begin to attract long term foreign investors. We need foreign investment first in the development of infrastructure. Without adequate energy, telecommunications, transport, and shipping services, we will not attract business investment. We are doing our best to provide a regulatory framework with particular, with predictable, consistent, and simple procedures for doing business. Foreign enclaves mark our economic history, especially in the mining and commercial sectors. The business of these sectors must be thoroughly integrated into our national economy. This is usually accomplished through the financial sector, including the banks. We must enable national and foreign investors to lend and borrow money in the local market. The financial links need to be developed between those who have money and those who want to invest money in new businesses. Our banking system is starting to vigorously respond in the services to every district. Now, it must expand the kind of services it provides and become a true hub for financial transactions between leaders, lenders, and borrowers. The micro finance sector is emerging, is emerging, financial services needs to expand to include medium sized loans, under commercial banks, and must finance agricultural and post harvest businesses to link agriculture to industry. Private sector growth does not just refer to foreign investment. We're witnessing a most encouraging response by farmers on the various initiatives of fields and schools and agricultural business units. Last year, the minister of agriculture, forestry and food security provided seed rice to enable farmers to restore losses during the war and rebuild the acreage necessary for food security. This year, the ministry is purchasing an additional 114,000 bushels of rice, making these two years the largest efforts ever for government support to expand, to the expansion of rice production. The agricultural business unit have pledged to save 20 percent of their output and make a community contribution of 20 percent to their local council. The successful harvest in 2005-2006 and the commitment of these farmers to their pledges will launch a new era of agricultural business by small farmers. This is an encouraging development in the private sector. We're hopeful that in 2006, this effort will culminate in Sierra Leone becoming once again a rice exporter. The task of achieving our own national development goals on the MDGs, is daunting, especially for one of the least developed countries of the world, a country emerging from 11 years of armed conflict. While acknowledging the need to strengthen our capacity for good governance, mobilizing domestic financial institutions, etc. we have to make considerable efforts to create more jobs, to integrate our youth into the economic and social mainstream of society. Here, I'm referring to the vast majority who never lifted an AK-47 rifle against anyone. We have learned from experience that unemployment and disadvantaged youths provided a pool or recruits for the rebels. We have therefore created a new ministry of youth and sports to enhance our ability, through well-designed projects. From meeting the needs of this important segment of the population. In this regard, we have revised our national youth policy. It emphasizes youth empowerment and the mainstreaming of youth activities and concerns as critical inputs in the development process. The major objective is the strengthening of partnership between the public and private sectors to facilitate employment of youth. In coming up with this new policy, we realized that hard won peace as well as our efforts for sustainable development, would be seriously jeopardized if we failed to address the youth problem speedily and effectively. We have to eliminate the rest of us sliding back into conflict. The key lies in prevention. We agree with the Secretary General of the United Nations that every step taken towards reducing poverty and achieving broad based economic growth is a step towards conflict prevention. We must create a culture of prevention; one based on renewed commitment to address in a coordinated and comprehensive manner the problems of economic and social development. I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the best means of insuring that Sierra Leone does not slide back into violent conflict. Ladies and gentlemen, let me summarize what I believe, based on the Sierra Leone experience and lessons learned, are the key elements for meeting the challenges of post conflict development. Least development countries emerging from armed conflict face special problems that require special attention as well as specialized country specific solutions. Two, sustained economic and social development is a key to the prevention of armed conflict. And perhaps the best means of preventing the reoccurrence of violence, violent armed conflict in developing countries like Sierra Leone. Three, useless war related emergency relief and peacekeeping programs buttressed by comprehensive development programs, the prospects for lasting peace will be dimmed. Four, development as an instrument of conflict prevention and durable peace must also be considered in the context of regional peace and security. For instance, a strong and viable (inaudible) union comprising New Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone would help significantly and could alleviate most of the problems associated with the conflicts in the sub-region. An equally strong and viable economy community of West African states. Focusing on its cooperation and integration would greatly enhance the capacity of its member states to prevent armed conflict. Five, the concept of reintegration after armed conflict should be redefined. It should be extended beyond the placement of ex competents in occupational and related activities to include the integration of youth in the mainstream of society. And finally, small developing countries have very limited means to defend themselves against serious threats to their security. Unless major powers and collective security arraignments are willing to provide the necessary assistance, when these states face serious internal disturbances and/or external aggression, they will be doomed to perpetual turmoil. In the next two years, now that we have secured the peace, we will constantly date the peace for future generations by developing Sierra Leone. We will be more strategic, we will be more thorough. We will be more intolerant of corruption. We will protect the rights of women and children. We will secure and improve the education of our boy/girl and our boy and girl children. We will continue to offer our youth the chance for literacy to recover the basic education they missed during the war. We will accelerate the transformation of subsistence farming into surplus farming. We will build ability of our farmers to save and invest in their agricultural businesses. Above all, we will adhere to the tenants of participatory democratic governance and the rule of law. We have come a long way, thanks to the invaluable contribution of every Sierra Leonin in various ways and to the support of the international community. Of course, we acknowledge the fact that there is still a long way ahead of us. With commitments and hard work on the part of every Sierra Leonin and the support of friendly countries and institutions, we will achieve the millennium development goals and targets. Finally, I hope you can appreciate that the path to peace and development can be rugged. However, with determination, patience, and people's will, proper focus, and the grace of the Almighty, one is bound to succeed. I thank you for your attention. }