PHOTO: Participants of the Early Warning & Mediation Training
By Moses M. Tokpah, mosesmtokpah@gmail.com
As Liberians gear up for the 2023 general elections, the issue of mitigating violence and maintaining the peace in the West African Nation of Liberia remains the paramount concern of every Liberian including international partners.
Liberians are mindful not to revert to the ugly past that took away the lives of more than 250,000 Liberians and destroyed properties with electoral violence greatly contributing to said destruction.
In preparedness to mitigating and managing anything of such, the Center for Justice and Peace Studies (CJPS) in collaboration with the Peace Building Office (PBO) is conducting series of mitigation and early warning trainings for 450 members of 30 Community Watch Teams in five counties (Montserrado, Bong, Nimba, Lofa and Margibi) with the latest being held in Kakata City, Margibi County.
The program is being sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) with funding from the Peace Building Fund.
As a part of the efforts, a day training was conducted on July 20, 2023 and it brought together ninety members of community watch teams from six communities in Kakata.
The Program Manager at the CJPS, Francis Senkpanie. Konyon in an interview with this writer in Kakata during the one-day event said that the training is part of his institution’s program which is directly linked to the Peacebuilding Fund Project.
It is titled: “Promoting Peaceful Electoral Environment and Community Security in Liberia”. The project seeks to reduce electoral violence through enhancing more inclusive, coordinated, and effective early warning dialogue at the community and political party levels.
Mr. Konyon said the Peace Building Office provided training for members of the CWTs in the areas of mediation, early warning, conflict management, and how to mitigate violence against women in elections among others. He disclosed that the training is intended to empower local community people and provide them the necessary skills to enable them to mitigate some of the conflicts that occur during electioneering period.
“You are aware that we are in electioneering period, and during these periods you know the issue of violence; disagreement that can lead to sometime mob-violence, so we want to empower our local community people so that they will have the skills to mitigate some of these conflicts and if it escalates they can also know the pathway through which they can be able to report either to the community leader or the police or to the Peace Building Office,” he recounted.
He continued: “As you may be aware the Peace Building Office has a platform, dashboard where they monitor crimes, violence and violations and other things in a way they have also been able to support the leadership both in the public and private sectors to be able to respond, to either mediate or to take action against some of these violence that occur in communities”.
Mr. Konyon the recent training in Kakata was intended to link community watch forum with the platform that is setup by the Peace Building Office through the early warning system in order for members of the forum to be able to report either mob or electoral violence that may trigger in their communities, and then Peace Building with support from the rest of the partners including CJPS can be able to support the effort of the local authority to respond to calm those situations.
He asserted that we are in electioneering periods and that there will always be disagreements and if those disagreements are not managed well, it might go out of hand, and might lead to violence indicating that once it is not also managed and it escalates it might derail the peace that Liberians are already enjoying.
“You know they are ordinary community people and they are not police, so what can they do in their preview and what they need to refer to either their heads or to the community leaders or so on,” he stated.
Mr. Konyon also revealed that PBO has provided training for members of the Community Watch Teams in six communities in Monrovia on July 19, 2023, a training he said was held in Jamaica Road, Bassa Town.
The CJPS program Manager further mentioned that his institution is working with the thirty communities in the five counties to coordinate the activities of the community watch Teams into the peace building early warning system so that they can track what’s happening in their respective communities pointing out that PBO is also supporting them to be able to reduce violations, crimes and conflicts within their communities particularly during these electioneering periods.
Mr. Konyon intimated that CJPS its partners are providing training for the CWTs members because they want to maintain the peace before, during and after elections.
He however said the training is their own way of strengthening the community structures through the support of the Peace Building Fund so that they can be able to map up some of the triggers of mob and electoral violence and be able to take action to have them mitigated. Speaking about materials support to the trainees, Mr. Konyon said during their first training, they provided caps, T-shirts, cellphones, torch lights, batteries, and megaphones for the various community watch teams.
For his part, the Early Warning Analyst and Coordinator at the Peace Building Office, Sheikh S.S. Kamara alarmed that there are so many triggers as well as signs and symptoms of electoral violence that are visible in the country.
He said it is from this backdrop his key focus as a facilitator was on providing the participants the knowledge on how to raise the red flag, give the alarm and make them to know what they can do to curb or mediate electoral violence just in case it arises.
“My key areas were how to raise the red flag, give the alarm, the alert when there are issues of potential violence especially elections are nearing.
There are so many triggers of violence that we can see, we can see signs and symptoms, we see the writings on the wall so what can we do to curb the violence just in case and if there is violence what do we do to mediate, what are the mediation processes that we need to follow in order to make sure we keep our community peaceful and civil and keep the entire electoral process stable” he asserted.
Mr. Kamara said he was excited with the responses he got from members of the CWTs something he said indicates that they are on the alert and are vigilant.
He called on the participants to make use of PBO’s web-based platform (LEARN) by reporting issues or potential violence that may be arising in their communities.
Meanwhile, some participants of the early warning and mediation training lauded CJPS and its partners including Peace Building Office and the UNDP for building their capacities through the training.
Three of the participants told X-RAY GLOBAL Newspaper at the end of the event that they were been taught on collecting early warning informing, who to report to and the reporting processes among others.
Ansu B. Dorley, Filicia K. McGill and Madina K. Gooding have assured CJPS and partners that they will adequately apply the knowledge they acquired during the one-day training.