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Annan: Tightening Sanctions Against Liberia Would Hurt Population (5 Oct 01 - Report + UN News Centre Summary)



Source: Report of the Secretary-General in Pursuance of paragraph 13 (a) of
resolution 1343 (2001) concerning Liberia, S/2001/939, 5 October 2001
Url: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/reports/2001/939e.pdf

Excerpts:

47. The Liberian economy is highly dependent on the export of traditional
primary products and continues to be highly vulnerable to ongoing political
and economic instability. Any restrictions imposed on this already weakened
economy would probably have negative impacts on employment, social services
and government revenues. A tightening of the existing sanctions regime is
also expected to have further negative effects on the financial environment,
with worsening exchange rates, increasing prices for essential commodities,
decreased savings and more capital flight. These additional aggravating
factors and their implications would particularly affect the most vulnerable
of Liberia’s population given that their resilience and coping capacities
are next to exhausted.

48. Should the Council decide to establish additional sanctions, it may also
wish to consider establishing a mechanism to regularly review their impact
on the humanitarian and economic situation of Liberia. This would enable the
Council to avoid unintended negative effects on Liberia’s population and
help to counter public misrepresentations of the sanctions regime and its
objectives.

*************************

Source:UN News Centre, "Tightening sanctions against Liberia would hurt
population, Annan says", 11 October 2001,
http://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/page2.html#36

Tightening sanctions against Liberia would hurt population, Annan says

11 October – Tightening the sanctions against Liberia would further weaken
the economy and negatively affect the most vulnerable people there,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report to the Security Council,
issued today in New York.

"The Liberian economy is highly dependent on the export of traditional
primary products and continues to be highly vulnerable to ongoing political
and economic instability," the Secretary-General writes. "Any restrictions
imposed on this already weakened economy would probably have negative
impacts on employment, social services and government revenues."

The report estimates that, if a ban were imposed on Liberian timber exports,
it would probably cause the loss of up to 10,000 relatively well-paid jobs,
and hurt an industry that accounts for about 9 per cent of the national
budget. Any international sanctions on Liberian rubber would affect even
more people, potentially leading to the unemployment of the more than 20,000
people employed by that industry.

According to Mr. Annan, a tightening of the existing sanctions regime would
also have repercussions on the financial environment, with worsening
exchange rates, increasing prices for essential commodities, decreased
savings and more capital flight. These additional aggravating factors and
their implications, he says, would particularly affect Liberia's poorest
people, whose "resilience and coping capacities are next to exhausted," he
says.

The Secretary-General recommends that, if the Council decides to establish
additional sanctions, it might want to consider setting up a mechanism to
review their impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in Liberia.
This, he says, would enable the Council to avoid unintended negative effects
on Liberia's population and help counter public misrepresentations of the
sanctions regime and its objectives.

The Council had established sanctions against Liberia in March, in response
to evidence that Monrovia was actively supporting the rebel Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, and that diamonds leaving Sierra Leone
through Liberia were a major source of income for the RUF. In its sanctions,
the Council had prohibited the sale or supply of arms to the country, banned
the import of all rough diamonds from Liberia whether or not such diamonds
originated there, and prohibited travel abroad by senior members of the
Liberian Government, its armed forces and their spouses.



Nathaniel Hurd
Associate
Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR)
162 Montague Street, 2nd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201
USA
Tel.: 718-237-9145, x 21
Fax: 718-237-9147
Mobile: 917-407-3389
Personal E-Fax: 707-221-7449
E-mail: nhurd@cesr.org
Website: http://www.cesr.org/

*The contents of this message may contain personal views which are not the
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