St. Paul, Minnesota, June 29, 2008 (TRC): The United States failed to intervene to end the Liberian civil conflict because it did not want the country to “become a ward of America,” former US under secretary of state for African Affairs Herman Cohen has said. 

Mr. Cohen who was initially assigned the responsibility by Washington to mediate in the Liberian conflict said former US National Security advisor William Scowcroft said America could not intervene because it did not want to be responsible for Liberia forever. 

“National Security advisor Scowcroft said that the US could not intervene in the Liberian crisis because doing so would have meant that Liberia would perpetually be a ward to America,” Cohen told the audience at the recent Diaspora public hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia held at Hamlin University’s Sunlin Music Hall in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, the United States of America. 

The hearings which were part of the TRC’s ongoing public hearings were organized in collaboration with the US based partners: The Advocates for Human Rights, to hear the role of key US actors in the Liberian civil conflict and Liberians living in America. The hearings in Minnesota marked the first time in history that any truth commission has ever systematically sought to include its Diaspora citizens into the process of national healing.

Illuminating on “The Role of the United States in the Liberian Civil Conflict,” Cohen described the decision by Washington at the time to not intervene in the crisis as “foolish,” saying that he was convinced that the US could do “far better” to end the conflict. 

“After Scowcroft made the assertion, I thought it was a lot foolish on the part of the administration to sit by and allow the conflict to rage leading to the death of thousands of people. I think this could have been avoided. But they said they did not want Liberia become a ward of the United States.” 

The veteran diplomat who was under secretary of state from 1989-1993 and earlier director of African Affairs from 1987-1989 said the perception of the administration was that if it intervened to end the conflict it would be fully responsible for the recovery Liberia forever, saying, Washington believed that such intervention would had made America a protectorate of the country forever. 

Mr. Cohen said during mediation efforts by him in 1990 to end the conflict he was asked by Washington to halt all such engagements which included a plan to evacuate President Samuel K. Doe and his loyalist forces and allowing then rebel leader Charles Taylor to seize power. 

Flashback: One of the TRC many hearings

Cohen retired from the U.S. Department of State in 1993. His last position was assistant secretary of state for African affairs under President George H.W. Bush (1989–1993). During his 38-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service, he served in five African countries and twice in France. He was the ambassador to Senegal, with dual accreditation to the Gambia, from 1977 to 1980. During assignments in Washington, he also served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan (1987–1989), principal deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and research, and principal deputy assistant secretary for personnel.
 
From 1994 to 1998, under contract to the World Bank, Cohen was a senior advisor to the Global Coalition for Africa, an intergovernmental policy forum that works to achieve consensus between donor and African governments on economic policy.
 
Cohen is a member of the boards of directors of the Council for a Community of Democracies and the Constituency for Africa. He has been a professorial lecturer in foreign policy studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies since 1998. He is a member of the panel on Transatlantic Relations of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He is the author of a book on conflict resolution in Africa entitled Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent (2000). This book won the award for distinguished writing on diplomatic practice for the year 2000 from the American Academy of Diplomacy.

The TRC was agreed upon in the August 2003 peace agreement and created by the TRC Act of 2005. The TRC was established to “promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation,” and at the same time make it possible to hold perpetrators accountable for gross human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law that occurred in Liberia between January 1979 and October 2003. 

Source: James Kpargoi
Media & Information Officer