Ghana cracks down on refugees

BUDUBURAM REFUGEE CAMP, Ghana — The government in Accra has imposed martial law on this Liberian refugee camp, fearing reports that mercenaries are being recruited to upset elections scheduled for December.

Police patrol its paths and search any vehicle coming in or out of the sprawling camp. Anyone who cannot produce proof of citizenship or a United Nations identification number is taken in for questioning.

On a typical night, more than a hundred Ghanaian soldiers in fatigues armed with assault rifles stand in formation in the camp’s dusty main square.

“A lot of people are very much panicking,” said Francis Hinney, chairman of the Refugee Welfare Council, the camp’s Liberian leadership.

“These people are running from armed conflict,” he said. “If you’ve seen your whole family wiped out by people wearing that same type of uniform, that same color, carrying that same kind of gun, how would you feel seeing that at this camp today?”

Restrictions were imposed on the camp after the National Transitional Government of Liberia published an ad in a Liberian newspaper warning that armed Liberian rebels could cause instability in neighboring countries, including Ghana.

Liberian mercenaries have been blamed for attacks in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, and there is increasing international pressure to turn over former Liberian President Charles Taylor, now in exile in Nigeria, to a war-crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.

Mr. Hinney said there is no truth to these published accounts. Refugees are in no position to attack a country that has protected them for 14 years, he said.

“Why would Liberians want to do that? Why would we want to take over Ghana? Why?” he asked.

Jane Muigai, the U.N. protection officer for the camp, said that the Ghanaian government has been “civil” about the restrictions and that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has received no complaints from camp residents about harassment or intimidation.

“I think the government of Ghana has repeatedly said they’re taking these measures so that security is not taken for granted. No ill-intentioned person is going to take advantage of the camp,” she said.

About 1,200 of the camp’s 42,000 residents have registered with a camp-based group seeking to return to Liberia, but that country is hardly ready for the return of its 1 million refugees in neighboring countries, who represent nearly a third of its population.

The transitional government put in place by the United Nations is sliding into disarray, with appointees accusing each other of partisan politics.

The U.N.-led disarmament effort in Liberia is behind schedule, having only secured parts of Monrovia, the capital, in the year since Mr. Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria.

Despite repeated calls for warring factions to submit lists of their weaponry, it remains unclear how many guns, rocket launchers and heavy weapons are in Liberia. Interim President Charles Gyude Bryant hasn’t ventured outside Monrovia.

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