BUCHANAN (Liberia): Sam accepted the offer of a cigarette, let his AK-47 rifle fall to his side and admitted that a life spent as a Liberian rebel had largely been a waste.

“Brother’s been killing brother,” said the 29-year-old, speaking in Buchanan, a once thriving Atlantic port now ruled by teenage gunmen in flip-flop sandals. “We’re tired of war.”

On December 1, UN peacekeepers launch a scheme to give an estimated 40,000 fighters the chance to turn their backs on a life of drug-fuelled rape and murder by handing in their guns and learning a trade.

The plan sounds simple: end 14 years of war in Liberia by removing weapons that have spread to fuel conflicts in neighbouring Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.

Liberians used to living at the mercy of teenagers with machine guns agree it is an excellent idea, saying disarmament is the only way to enforce a peace deal signed by the government and rebels in August.

The United Nations has enlisted gospel artists, the hip-grinding performance of a woman singer called Ladylove, and a clown named George to help convince fighters to lay down their arms, but it may not be easy.

Sam’s “Delta Force” comrade Emmanuel summed up the problem — finding the combatants a way to make a living other than by taking what they want at gunpoint.

“That thing give him food to eat,” he said, giving Sam’s battered rifle a tap on its barrel.

Add to that mistrust among factions, a lack of UN troops and a flow of weapons from abroad, and the task of disarmament takes on monumental proportions.—Reuters