Lessons from Liberia for the Central African Republic

abstract: This paper addresses the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement that formally ended the Liberian Civil War of the 1990s, stressing how it combined an inclusive peace program with military disarmament and government reform to appease both Liberian warlords and remove the incentives for ordinary Liberians to participate in armed conflict. This paper also describes the current crisis facing the Central African Republic, explaining how a similar peace deal could create enduring security in the CAR. This paper argues that without such a peace deal and an accompanying program of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) along with Security Systems Reform (SSR), the underlying grievances that motivate Central African fighters will go unresolved and lead to more violence in the future.