BY: Cllr. Joseph K. Jallah, Senator of Lofa County
Cont’d from Part -1
9. 1997 — UNDCP AND THE ECOWAS SYSTEM
Later UNODC documentation confirms the importance of the system established in this period.
The UN evaluation of the ECOWAS regional plan describes the development of inter-ministerial committees in Member States, the adoption of the Praia Regional Plan of Action on May 9, 1997, and an UNDCP assistance program for West Africa under Project AD/RAF/94/893.
This gives us a much stronger international framework for the NIDC story:
NIDC was not merely a Liberian committee with some UN assistance; it operated within a wider ECOWAS–UNDCP regional drug-control architecture.
That is a much more historically meaningful finding.
10. 1998 — ECOWAS CREATES A REGIONAL DRUG-CONTROL FUND
The ECOWAS system was strengthened again in 1998.
On October 30–31, 1998, ECOWAS adopted Decision A/DEC.9/10/98 establishing a regional fund for financing drug-control activities in West Africa.
The decision expressly recognized:
- rapid expansion of the drug problem;
- increasing drug-related crime;
- the need for coordinated prevention, repression, treatment and rehabilitation; and
- inadequate financial resources available to the inter-ministerial Drug Control Committees.
It therefore established the ECODRUG Fund to finance regional drug-control activities.
This is perhaps the clearest regional evidence that the NIDC-type institution was regarded by ECOWAS as a legitimate part of the national implementation structure.
11. WHERE DOES THE UNITED STATES FIT?
This requires careful treatment.
What we can document now
The United States was deeply involved in the broader Liberian security environment during the NIDC years.
For example, a 1997 contemporary report states that Liberian police were receiving security training through the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) together with ECOMOG personnel.
The U.S. also regarded narcotics trafficking as an important transnational security concern in Africa. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s administration described narcotics flows and international organized crime as threats to U.S. interests, and U.S. policy emphasized working with African law-enforcement authorities.
But we should NOT yet say:
“The United States funded or directly operated the NIDC.”
We have not yet found sufficiently strong contemporary evidence to make that claim.
What we can responsibly say is:
The United States was an important security and law-enforcement partner in Liberia and West Africa during the NIDC period, while the documentary evidence presently located directly identifies UNDCP as the principal external supporter of the NIDC itself.
12. A VERY IMPORTANT DISCOVERY: THE 1998 LIBERIAN ACT
We now have the actual legal instrument.
The Act’s preamble states that Liberia was already a party to the 1961, 1971 and 1988 UN drug conventions. It says the Government was concerned about rising narcotics demand and trafficking and recognized that trafficking threatened the economy and national security.
Then the operative provisions provide:
Section 22.1000
Creates the Drug Enforcement Agency as an autonomous agency within the Ministry of Justice.
Section 22.102
Makes it the Director’s duty to formulate anti-drug policy and coordinate enforcement of domestic laws and the relevant UN conventions.
Section 22.103
Authorizes the Agency to seek international financial and technical assistance.
Section 22.104
Dissolves the NIDC.
Section 22.105
Transfers all functions and specialized personnel of the narcotics divisions of:
- the Liberia National Police Force; and
- the National Security Agency
to the new Drug Enforcement Agency.
Section 22.106
Provides that the Act takes effect immediately upon publication in handbills.
And the Act is expressly marked:
Approved December 23, 1998.
13. THIS RESOLVES THE 1998/1999 CONFUSION
The actual Liberian legislative text reproduces the Act and says:
Approved December 23, 1998.
Therefore, for the definitive history, we would use:
December 23, 1998 as the legally documented establishment/dissolution event.
This is exactly why our instruction to verify the chronology through actual legal instruments was correct.
14. NIDC — INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIP MAP, 1995–1998
The evidence now allows us to visualize the NIDC years this way:
GOVERNMENT OF LIBERIA
│
▼
NATIONAL INTER-MINISTERIAL DRUG
COMMITTEE (NIDC)
Created June 2, 1995
│
┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
UNDCP ECOWAS LIBERIAN
Technical & Regional Drug Ministries/
material Control Policy Security
assistance & coordination agencies
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Praia Plan 1997 │
│ ECODRUG Fund 1998 │
│ │ │
└────────────────┼────────────────┘
│
▼
REGIONAL / INTERNATIONAL
DRUG-CONTROL NETWORK
│
┌────────────────┼─────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
Nigeria UN System U.S.
NDLEA UNDCP/UNODC broader
security/
law-enforcement
cooperation
│
▼
DECEMBER 23, 1998
│
▼
DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY
(DEA)
│
▼
NIDC DISSOLVED
15. WHAT THE NIDC ACTUALLY REPRESENTED
This new evidence allows us to characterize the NIDC much more precisely.
The NIDC was:
A national coordinating institution
It was established to deal with all drug-control matters on behalf of the Government.
A regional implementation point
It operated within the ECOWAS system of interministerial drug-control committees.
A UN-supported institution
UNDCP supported training, equipment and operational capacity, according to contemporary 1996 reporting.
A security institution operating amid civil conflict
Its work took place while Liberia’s state institutions, borders and security structures were severely compromised.
A predecessor to specialized enforcement
The 1998 Act deliberately replaced/dissolved the NIDC and created a specialized DEA with transferred narcotics personnel from LNP and NSA.
16. THE NIDC WAS NOT THE LDEA
This is now legally clear.
The distinction should read:
NIDC means national inter ministerial coordination and policy mechanism.
DEA/LDEA is a specialized statutory drug-enforcement agency.
The transformation was therefore not merely a name change.
It involved:
- a new statutory institution;
- new organizational structure;
- specialized leadership;
- transfer of narcotics personnel;
- transfer of investigative functions; and
- dissolution of the NIDC.
That is a genuine institutional transformation.
17. THE ROLE OF ECOWAS
The ECOWAS relationship should be given its own section in the final report because the regional body was doing several things simultaneously:
1996
Recognized the growing drug-trafficking problem and called for a ministerial response.
1997
Adopted the Praia Political Declaration and Regional Plan of Action and called for strengthened UNDCP support.
1997
Provided funding support and required Member States to strengthen their interministerial committees.
1998
Established the ECODRUG regional fund because national interministerial committees lacked sufficient resources.
So ECOWAS was not a peripheral actor.
It was part of the institutional architecture within which the NIDC operated.
18. THE ROLE OF UNDCP
The UNDCP role is even more direct.
The 1996 contemporary record gives us concrete assistance:
- training of 10 officers;
- computers;
- material assistance;
- vehicle.
The later UNODC evaluation also identifies an UNDCP regional assistance program under AD/RAF/94/893.
Thus, for the final study I would characterize UNDCP as:
the principal documented international technical-support partner of the NIDC during the period for which we currently have direct evidence.
