Police spokesman Moses Carter has dismissed reports of the Liberian National Police secretly training about 200 new recruits to serve as a special election squad targeting opposition politicians and critical voices during the December 8, 2020 Senatorial elections.
Instead, Mr. Carter said those in training are police aides who are being vetted to replace about 200 plus officers who are about to be retired.
He says currently those police aides are undergoing a vetting process at the Police Academy located in Paynesville, outside Monrovia.
Carter says, the next stage would be public recruitment, something he notes will be advertised for interested persons to apply.
The police spokesman further explains that the Police is also encouraging graduates from the AME Zion University that have degrees in Criminal Justice to be part of an addition to the police recruitment exercise.
He denied speculations that most of those he described as police aides, were former rebel fighters who did not undergo proper Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration (DDRR) Program in 2004 after the Liberian civil war ended.
Fighter of the country’s warring factions on15 April 2004 were placed under the DDRR program.
The DDRR program was completed on October 31, 2004, with 101,496 combatants and their “associates” dis- armed and demobilized. Serious attempts were made to involve women in the process, including criteria for entry that allowed for group disarmament. The UN Mission which spearheaded the program here reports that 22,370 women were disarmed and demobilized.
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