UN Security Council to tour post-war Liberia

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The UN Security Council is expected to travel to a part of Liberia being guarded by peacekeepers to assess the nation's recovery six years after a devastating civil war. The Security Council arrived Tuesday in Liberia where 14 years of civil war devastated Africa's oldest independent republic. But a 2005 election saw the victory of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist who has become a darling of foreign donors and who has led a sweeping crackdown on corruption. The Security Council is expected to travel early Wednesday to Grand Bassa County, an area that like most of the country is still under the guard of a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. The force - once 17,000-strong - was scaled back three years ago as security improved and the delegates are expected to assess the need for the continuing presence of such a large peacekeeping force, one of the biggest in the world. Liberians are nervous that the UN body may scale back too far.