Editorial: Hats-off to Our Border Troops

Relative peace in Western Cote d’Ivoire seemed to have once again been interrupted when gun battle resumed between the Ivorian military and dissident forces. News of such hostilities was released recently by the Government of Liberia. The Ministry of National Defense, on Tuesday, confirmed to the people of Liberia an exchange of gunfire on Monday, August 13, 2012 between dissidents and Ivorian Government forces about a hundred miles away from Liberia’s southeastern border.

The confirmation followed Liberian media reports on Tuesday, of renewed attacks involving dissident fighters and the Ivorian military on an Ivorian Western border post near Liberia. Monday’s attack was the latest of a series of attacks executed by dissident forces reportedly based in the forests of Cote d’Ivoire’s western frontier. According to the Ministry of Defense, the dissidents launched the attack as early as 10:35 Monday morning on the Pehkan Military barracks from the forest of Blokequim.

The Minister of national Defense quotes reports of gun fire heading west toward the Liberian border at about 11:45, but subsided at  14:01 in the mooring and continued at 3:55 am in the towns Crobleh and Trobleh. He, however, noted that the Pehkan Military barracks and other towns were re-taken by the re-enforced Ivorian military from Toulepleh

He further disclosed that six dissidents were arrested by the Joint Task force while attempting to flee across the Liberian border at the Cavalla River and are being detained in Grand Gedeh County in southeastern Liberia. While many may want to commend the Minister of national defense for the information to the people of Liberia even though he and others had thrashed initial media reports of the situation, efforts must continue to be exerted to avoid a spill-over of the attacks.

Such efforts must also ensure the re-enforcement of Liberian armed troops at the border with the needed logistics so as to motivate them in exhibiting violence and exactitude at our border points. With the little they have at their current mission area, our troops have been able to curtail unusual movements and other threats to the nation’s security. We do admonish them to also foster maximum cordiality with citizens of their mission area to ensure total cooperation and security.

It is our the heads of our Liberian security apparatus will continue to be in constant communication contacts with their Ivorian counterparts as a way of allaying whatever perceptions they may have been harboring with regards to the unfortunate situation in Western Cote d’Ivoire. Such contacts would also assist efforts by the Ivorian Government and Liberian counterpart to decisively deal with the incursion at the Liberian-Ivorian border. Again, hats-off to our troops at the border.